Tom Trumble

Podcaster, author, historian.

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

New podcast: In Extremis — Stories from the Edge of History

Survival. Courage. Decisions made when everything is on the line.

Trailer out now.

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

https://t.co/X4OcmENyI0

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

In the depths of the Scottish winter, 1949, a lone woman walks to the banks of Loch Lomond.

Her name is Elizabeth Choy. Five years earlier she had spent 193 days being tortured by the Kempeitai.

She forgave them.

Final episode of the Heroine of Singapore arc — out now.

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

https://t.co/dphMrLbsva

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

I'm often asked: whatever happened to USS Searaven, the submarine that rescued my grandfather and 33 Australians from Timor in 1942?
She survived the war. She survived a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll. She was towed to California and sunk as target practice
It's a chilling story..

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

https://t.co/eRvLXFRuoL

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

This is Elizabeth Choy, the Heroine of Singapore, and Choy Khun Heng on their wedding day.

Years later, a Kempeitai interrogator tortured her in front of her husband until she falsely confessed.

She never did...

Part 4 of the Heroine of Singapore arc is out now.

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

https://t.co/czNmsdV86s

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

The Japanese regarded him as the most dangerous man in occupied Singapore.

Master spy. Fifth column ringleader. Responsible for every act of anti-Japanese resistance in the city.

And yet nobody has heard of him.

Part 3 of the Heroine of Singapore arc is out now.

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

https://t.co/cyuSMV5Eqv

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

In a Japanese detention cell, speaking was forbidden.
So a British internee named John Dunlop taught Elizabeth Choy a secret finger alphabet.
Within weeks she was fluent. Then she taught everyone else who came into the cell.

Part 2 The Heroine of Singapore out on In Extremis.

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

Did Lord Louis know what he had done?

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

https://t.co/S0w5HKzvwT

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

This is Elizabeth Choy. Schoolteacher. Smuggler. 192 days in a Kempeitai cell. Never broke. Forgave them afterward.
The new arc of In Extremis is live now on Spotify and Apple.
#ElizabethChoy #InExtremis

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

My Substack launched today.
Weekly essays on the people and moments where character is tested and the stakes are real.
First essay: a US Navy ensign who swam through shark-infested water ten times to rescue 33 strangers. One of them was my grandfather.
https://t.co/BGP5vEop96

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

This is Elizabeth Choy. She smuggled food, medicine and money into Changi Prison in WW2. The money enabled a black market to thrive that saved thousands. She was incarcerated by the Kempeitai for 192 days and tortured. She never broke. See In Extremis, my podcast. #WW2 #Singapore

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

She was tortured for 192 days. She never confessed. After the war, she forgave the people who did it to her.
This is Elizabeth Choy. Her story is the next arc of In Extremis — out Thursday.
#ElizabethChoy #WWII #Singapore #InExtremis

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

https://t.co/ZoId4zFg8e

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

26 September 1943. Two Australians in a folboat, attaching limpet mines to a 10,000-tonne Japanese tanker in Singapore Harbour. A sailor leans out of an open porthole, ten feet above them.
What happens next? The final episode of Britain's Greatest Soldier. In Extremis

[Tom Trumble @TrumbleTom]

Before Operation Jaywick… there was the training.

Small teams. Silent movement. Endurance under pressure.

What these men built in 1943 became the blueprint for units like the Special Air Service.

A handful of men. Strategic impact.

This is where it began.

🎧 In Extremis