News / Education
Book Tells of War and Life in Internment Camp Seen Through Eyes of a Child
What happens to a boy when, at age 7, he is thrown into a wartime prison camp for 1125 days, suffers deprivation, confinement, daily hazards and is then threatened with execution?
Angus Lorenzen will tell you in A Lovely Little War and He will tell you through his eyes as a child. He recounts his wartime experience and internment in the notorious Santo Tomas internment camp in Manila. Viewed through a prism that distorted the harsh light of wartime reality into a colorful spectrum of childish fantasy, Lorenzen mixes dark moments of adult cruelty with light moments and humor that are a big part of a child's life.
"I was at an age when I hadn't yet developed the life experience to know the harsh reality of war. Only towards the end of my internment did I come to develop the life experience that would eventually lead me to hate and fear war," said Lorenzen.
And it was with irony that the hate and fear not only came but was magnified soon after his liberation. Scheduled for execution by the Japanese as American armed forces closed in, he and his fellow prisoners were liberated by Filipino Scouts and a U.S. Army tank battalion sent by Gen. MacArthur. As the fighting raged, liberation plunged him into the furnace that was the Battle of Manila, the most severe urban battle fought by U.S. troops in World War II. In this great conflict, young Angus Lorenzen’s view of life, previously seen through his colorful spectrum of childhood fantasy, broke through its prism and absorbed the deadly events of the horrors of war.
Born a British subject, he became an American citizen and completed high school in Burlingame, California and graduated from the University of California in Berkeley with a BS in Engineering. He received a Masters of Business Management from California State College. In late 2007, he retired as a Vice President of C.F. Braun & Co. a California based international construction engineering firm.
A Lovely Little War 9781933909134 History Publishing Company, Oct. 25, 2008 is available in at Borders, Barnes and Noble and fine bookstores elsewhere.
###
Contact: Don Bracken
845-398-8161
