Customer Reviews

Burma

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Although the country itself is larger than France, the Burma campaign of World War Two has remained poorly documented. Like the Russian front for Germany in Europe, Burma proved to be a step too far for the invading Japanese force, but not before inflicting terrible casualties and destruction on the country.

Written as a narrative, Latimer outlines the basics of the war in Burma, from Imperial British roots, through to Japan's eventual surrender, but lets the men who actually fought there fill in the details. Using diary entries and interviews, Latimer paints a picture of the incredible horror, boredom and occasional humour of war, and the awful conditions endured by soldiers. For example, a soldier in the town of Phek described the natives carrying a headless Japanese body "...like a trussed pig, jolting and swaying." The victim had raided the village, but then fallen sick with dysentery. Such was the nature of war, the British would pay the natives in salt for any enemy equipment or heads. Another British quote describes how the heat caused severe sweat rashes, which became infected and bled.

The conflict is often thought of as a war between the Japanese and British, but huge numbers of natives and immigrants, speaking over 120 languages, fought on both sides of the conflict, for any number of reasons. Natives were often forced into labour for both sides. The Japanese struggled to build a railway link from Thailand to northern Burma, as preparation for an invasion of India. The British had suffered heavy defeats, but the rugged and unforgiving Burmese landscape aided their struggle to slow the Japanese advance, which eventually slowed to a bogged down stalemate. The Japanese were never defeated in Burma, but neither were they fully victorious.

Latimer presents a human side in this book, which is shocking and real, even sixty years after the war. His style is easy to read, unlike many academic texts. The detail of the various battles and personalities of the war in Burma is backed up with highly detailed maps, a number of photos, and almost 200 pages of footnotes and bibliography.