SURVIVING CHANGI, E.E. Colman: A Chess Biography
Author: Olimpiu Urcan
Singapore Heritage Society (2007)
349 pages
$29.00

Reviewed by Jeremy Silman

When holding a biography of E.E. Colman in one's hands, or while reading a review of this biography, one can be forgiven for asking a couple simple questions: "Who in the hell was E.E. Colman? And what in the world is Changi?"

An "unknown" chess player? Changi? The book, produced by the Singapore Heritage Society, was written by a Romanian with an advanced studies diploma in Medieval History from Babes-Bolyai University in (you guessed it!) Transylvania! We still don't know who Mr. Colman was, but it's already very clear that this won't be the usual chess bio; without a doubt, we're in for a bit of a wild ride.

This impression is reinforced by the first few sentences of the Author's Preface: "In the late 1990s, during my high school days in Transylvania, a friend loaned me a copy of James Clavell's King Rat. After reading this best-selling novel I developed a fervent interest in the Changi Prisoner-of-War Camp (Singapore). At that time I knew little about it besides the information gathered from Clavell's fascinating narrative, a couple of other well-known war diaries, and the famous movie The Bridge on the River Kwai."

King Rat? The Bridge on the River Kwai? A prisoner-of-war camp? We've hardly read anything at all and now we know that it won't only be a wild ride, but also an intense one.

In a nutshell, SURVIVING CHANGI is about the life of a man who lived in dangerous times (though our present history makes one realize that ALL times are dangerous times!). He was a Judge, a civil servant, the chess champion of Singapore, and he crossed swords on the chessboard with all of Great Britain's (and Singapore's) best players during the first several decades of the 20th Century. However, SURVIVING CHANGI is also more than this. We see how chess was his lifelong passion, and how, during his incarceration at Changi, it kept him and other prisoners sane.

An external look at the life of any man can tell us if he made money or garnered success in one field or another. But a deeper look is needed for us to see if he drank deep of life's pleasures, if he reacted well to the unavoidable pain that comes with breath, and if he shared strength and wisdom with those around him. In other words, was it a life well lived? That's up to the reader to decide. In my view any man that faced the likes of Bogolubow, Alekhine, Reti, Grunfeld, Muffang, Sultan Khan, Frank Marshall, and dozens of other legendary names, was blessed. When you add to this the thrill of world travel and a career where he served the masses and made a huge (very positive!) impression on the lives of countless people, I have to admit that Colman's life was rich indeed.

Tournament crosstables, many annotated games, photos, and stories about titans like Akekhine, Marshall, Lasker, Pillsbury, etc., fill out the book and leave us with a much better understanding of the times. But what really sets SURVIVING CHANGI apart and brings the horror of war into vivid focus is the author's remarkable coverage of the inmates in Changi Concentration Camp.

Let's start in 1933, where details of a Ronggeng, or dance show, that Colman attended in British Malaya during his retirement party in 1933, create an atmosphere of joy and whimsy:

"It was the peak of Colman's blissful years in Singapore. Wearing his garland, toasting his Singapore friends and delivering his speech, Colman was surrounded and complimented by most of the personalities of the island for his work in the benefit of the locals."

One might have guessed that Colman's final years would be idyllic ones. Indeed, this was the case until 1942, when the Japanese had taken over Singapore and were going from home to home looking for those who had served in the military or civil service. The following took place when Colman was 63 years old:

"With characteristic calm Colman was playing chess as the thunder of the Japanese gunfire died down and the British Commander surrendered after a last stand. The Jap officer who entered Colman's house with an armed aide was an old Oxford University man. They sat and smoked cheroots until the Jap departed with polite bows. Then the soldiers with fixed bayonets came and hustled off Colman to the concentration camp at Changi."

The horrific march to this camp, tales of those that didn't make it, and details of the ever-increasing deaths by starvation fill 40 pages.

"Everyone at Changi suffered acute feelings of impotence: soldiers were robbed of their weapons and ability to fight, nurses prevented from practicing their professional skills, and journalists deprived of their ability to gather and transmit news. This sense of disempowerment and worthlessness and failure defined the morale of POWs and civilian internees. Finding themselves in a space bound by barbed wire, they redefined their own values, missions and self-worth."

After three years in hell and nearly blind due to the effects of malnutrition, Colman and the others that shared his fate were unexpectedly saved:

"Then the Atom Bomb fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. American planes flew over the camp dropping leaflets and American transports arrived to liberate the prisoners. As they were carried out their former captors bowed. A few days later the Jap Commander committed hari-kiri, leaving a message in honorific Japanese, 'I lose at chess. No flowers bloom in the garden.'"

This last line was a real gift from the gods to me, since I collect Japanese death poems and find this one to be very fine. I would suppose that Colman failed to see its beauty.

I highly recommend this book to all those that love reading tales about long dead chess legends, those that are fascinated about the history of the British Empire, and those that have a thing for WWII.