Customer Reviews

Air War for Burma: The Allied Air Forces Fight Back in South-East Asia 1942-1945 (The Bloody Shambles Series, Vol. 3)

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Christopher Shores' monumental history of the air war in Southeast Asia from 1942 to 1945 wraps up with this Grubb Street volume covering "the long road back" following the British defeat in Burma. Marked by impeccable research, this volume and the others in the BLOODY SHAMBLES set constitute the definitive story of that little-known air campaign.

Picking up immediately after the British retreat from Burma, Shores charts the Allies regrouping, resurgence and ultimate triumph over the Japanese. The Southeast Asia theater was considered a backwater by the Allied High Command, British Southeast Asia air units making do, for example, with Mohawks, Blenheims and Hurricanes for far too long. Eventually re-equipped with modern aircraft like Spits, Mosquitoes and Beaufighters, RAF units were joined by USAAF units flying P-51s, B-25s, B-24s, etc. in supporting Allied ops such as the Arakan campaigns, support of the Chindits and Merrill's Marauders and the push into Burma.

Shores crams a lot of information into 381 pages of text but AIR WAR FOR BURMA is eminently readable. (Appendices take up another 46 pages). The volume features over 220 photographs, many previously unpublished, along with area maps.

Though other books have dealt with this subject over the years, Shores' trilogy will stand the test of time as being the definitive account. His research into and use of official British, Japanese and American records along with personal reminiscences combine to produce a fresh, comprehensive and factual account of a geographically wide-ranging air campaign.

This is military aviation history at its finest.

*****

An aside: In reading AIR WAR FOR BURMA, it was eye-opening to read of the over-claiming that resulted from the air combats fought. By utilizing Allied records and surviving Japanese records, Shores was able to uncover and present the first accurate account of those long-ago combats.

What can be said about a account of a forgotten area of WW II. This book covers the Allied Air Operations from 1942 thru 1945 in a part of the
world that rarely gets any coverage in ANY World War II publication.
And it is a quite detailed account of the day to day operations of the men
and aircraft involved. The author excels in this with spades, as does his other publications. Well worth the price.

I enjoyed Bloody Shambles Volume 1 and Volume 2. It was just as well this book was not labeled Volume 3, because it is nothing like the first two books, as it lacks all the variety of interviews and stories included in the first two volumes, which made them great. All-in-all a big disappointment.

This is last in this brilliant series on the air war over Asia. It should be noted that main flaw with this book is that war got larger very quickly and the sheer number of operations increased to a degree that it is not possible to chronicle them in the same way air battles were described in the first two volumes: more squadrons, more pilots, more ops and less and less Japanese pilots with less infrastructure and desire to write about the downfall of the Japan in SE Asia.

Beyond that there is the usual brilliant writing and combat detail. The regular multi-national nature of the Imperial combat services are a stark reminder of the relative "equality" of what Britain and the commonwealth were fighting for, especially when compared with the strictly Japanese pilots -- Japan never succeeded allowing, much less incorporating other nations and races into her fighting forces. It is something often lost and underappreciated in this politically correct, cartoonesque interpretations of history.

A wonderful book and certainly necessary for those who have read the previous two.