Burma

Burma PDF Author: Jon Latimer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780719565755
Category : Burma
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
Through festering jungle and across burning plains to high mountains and lazy rivers, the Burma campaign of the Second World War involved the longest retreat in British history, and the longest advance; long-range penetration miles behind enemy lines, vicious hand-to-hand fighting, and the horrors of forced labour. Yet this strange war remains utterly fascinating with singular characters like Slim, Mountbatten, Stilwell and Wingate, while dominated by ordinary soldiers that it 'gathered to itself like a whirlpool, men from the ends of the earth': from Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, West, East and South Africa, but overwhelmingly, from India. Dogras, Sikhs, Punjabis, Kumaonis, Madrassis and Nepalese, representing every race and caste on the subcontinent, were all far from home, all fighting for survival against a ruthless enemy prepared to die for his emperor, while the Burmese fought for their independence. Jon Latimer draws these disparate strands together in a gripping narrative, to describe the operations and the politics that shaped them, while illustrating the experiences of thousands of ordinary people whose lives were caught up and transformed by this south-east Asian maelstrom, many of whom feel that like Fourteenth Army they were forgotten. This book ensures that none of them are.

Burma

Burma PDF Author: Jon Latimer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780719565755
Category : Burma
Languages : en
Pages : 610

Get Book Here

Book Description
Through festering jungle and across burning plains to high mountains and lazy rivers, the Burma campaign of the Second World War involved the longest retreat in British history, and the longest advance; long-range penetration miles behind enemy lines, vicious hand-to-hand fighting, and the horrors of forced labour. Yet this strange war remains utterly fascinating with singular characters like Slim, Mountbatten, Stilwell and Wingate, while dominated by ordinary soldiers that it 'gathered to itself like a whirlpool, men from the ends of the earth': from Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, West, East and South Africa, but overwhelmingly, from India. Dogras, Sikhs, Punjabis, Kumaonis, Madrassis and Nepalese, representing every race and caste on the subcontinent, were all far from home, all fighting for survival against a ruthless enemy prepared to die for his emperor, while the Burmese fought for their independence. Jon Latimer draws these disparate strands together in a gripping narrative, to describe the operations and the politics that shaped them, while illustrating the experiences of thousands of ordinary people whose lives were caught up and transformed by this south-east Asian maelstrom, many of whom feel that like Fourteenth Army they were forgotten. This book ensures that none of them are.

The Burma Campaign

The Burma Campaign PDF Author: Frank McLynn
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300178360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
This history reveals the failures and fortunes of leadership during the WWII campaign into Japanese-occupied Burma: “a thoroughly satisfying experience” (Kirkus). Acclaimed historian Frank McLynn tells the story of four larger-than-life Allied commanders whose lives collided in the Burma campaign, one of the most punishing and protracted military adventures of World War II. This vivid account ranges from Britain’s defeat in 1942 through the crucial battles of Imphal and Kohima—known as "the Stalingrad of the East"—and on to ultimate victory in 1945. Frank McLynn narrative focuses on the interactions and antagonisms of its principal players: William Slim, the brilliant general; Orde Wingate, the idiosyncratic commander of a British force of irregulars; Louis Mountbatten, one of Churchill's favorites, overpromoted to the position of Supreme Commander, S.E. Asia; and Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, a hard-line—and openly anlgophobic—U.S. general. With lively portraits of each of these men, McLynn shows how the plans and strategies of generals and politicians were translated into a hideous reality for soldiers on the ground.

Air Battle for Burma

Air Battle for Burma PDF Author: Bryn Evans
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473858941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
After a long series of crushing defeats by the apparently unstoppable Japanese air and ground forces, the eventual fight back and victory in Burma was achieved as a result of the exercise of unprecedented combined services cooperation and operations. Crucial to this was the Allies supremacy in the air coupled with their ground/air support strategy.Using veterans firsthand accounts, Air Battle For Burma reveals the decisive nature of Allied air power in inflicting the first major defeat on the Japanese Army in the Second World War. Newly equipped Spitfire fighter squadrons made the crucial difference at the turning point battles of the Admin Box, Imphal and Kohima in 1944. Air superiority allowed Allied air forces to deploy and supply Allied ground troops on the front line and raids deep into enemy territory with relative impunity; revolutionary tactics never before attempted on such a scale.By covering both the strategic and tactical angles, through these previously unpublished personal accounts, this fine book is a fitting and overdue tribute to Allied air forces contribution to victory in Burma.

The Battle for Burma

The Battle for Burma PDF Author: Roy Conyers Nesbit
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1844159558
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The struggle of British, Commonwealth and American-Chinese troops against the Japanese in Burma was one of the decisive campaigns of the Second World War. British India was threatened by the Japanese advance, the fate of the British Empire in the East hung in the balance. The tropical climate – dense malarial jungle infested with vermin and swept by monsoon rains – made the fighting, for both sides, a remarkable feat of arms. Yet the war in Burma rarely receives the attention it deserves. Roy C. Nesbit, in this highly illustrated account, traces the entire course of the campaign. In vivid detail he describes the British retreat and humiliation at the hands of the Japanese invaders in 1942. The Japanese were fanatical and trained in jungle warfare, well-equipped and backed with an overwhelming air power. The Allied response was to build up their forces on a massive scale – eventually over 1,300,000 personnel were involved – and to train them to fight in the jungle conditions. Their counter-offensive, launched in 1944, culminated in the battles at Imphal and Kohima which turned the course of the conflict, and the reconquest of Burma was achieved just before the atom bomb was dropped.

Burma '44

Burma '44 PDF Author: James Holland
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473526523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
'A first-rate popular history of a fascinating and neglected battle... James Holland is a master of spinning narrative military history from accounts of men and women who were there and BURMA ’44 is a veritable page-turner' - BBC History In February 1944, a rag-tag collection of clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers, and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews managed to hold out against some of the finest infantry in the Japanese Army, and then defeat them in what was one of the most astonishing battles of the Second World War. What became know as The Defence of the Admin Box, fought amongst the paddy fields and jungle of Northern Arakan over a fifteen-day period, turned the battle for Burma. Not only was it the first decisive victory for British troops against the Japanese, more significantly, it demonstrated how the Japanese could be defeated. The lessons learned in this tiny and otherwise insignificant corner of the Far East, set up the campaign in Burma that would follow, as General Slim’s Fourteenth Army finally turned defeat into victory. Burma '44 is a tale of incredible drama. As gripping as the story of Rorke's drift, as momentous as the battle for the Ardennes, the Admin Box was a triumph of human grit and heroism and remains one of the most significant yet undervalued conflicts of World War Two.

The Burma Road

The Burma Road PDF Author: Donovan Webster
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN:
Category : Burma
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Chronicles the effort by 200,000 Chinese laborers to build a seven-hundred-mile road through the jungle to Rangoon, Burma, in order to keep the Chinese supplied throughout the war with Japan.

The Battle for Burma, 1942–1945

The Battle for Burma, 1942–1945 PDF Author: Philip Jowett
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 152677528X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
The battle for Burma during the Second World War was of vital importance to the Allies and the Japanese. The Allies fought to protect British India and force the Japanese out of Burma; the Japanese fought to defend the north-west flank of their newly conquered empire and aimed to strike at India where anti-British feeling was growing stronger. Yet the massive military efforts mounted by both sides during four years of war are often overshadowed by the campaigns in Europe, North Africa, the Pacific and China. Philip Jowett, using over 200 wartime photographs, many of them not published before, retells the story of the war in Burma in vivid detail, illustrating each phase of the fighting and showing all the forces involved – British, American, Chinese, Indian, Burmese as well as Japanese. His book is a fascinating introduction to one of the most extreme, but least reported, struggles of the entire war. The narrative and the striking photographs carry the reader through each of the major phases of the conflict, from the humiliation of the initial British defeat in 1942 and retreat into India and their faltering attempts to recover the initiative from 1943, to the famous Chindit raids behind Japanese lines, the Japanese offensive of 1944 and their disastrous retreat and ultimate defeat.

Burma Victory

Burma Victory PDF Author: David Rooney
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782006109
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
In the final years of World War II, the campaign against Japan stepped up in a series of bloody battles with each side having much to lose. While much of the history of the period focuses on the Pacific Campaign and the American island hopping, this book studies the 'forgotten war' and the Allied fight to push the Japanese out of Burma. The Allies (British, American, Indian and Chinese soldiers) saw the battles of Imphal and Kohima as a way to avenge the crushing defeats of 1942, while the Japanese viewed the battles as the precursor to a victorious drive into India and domination of Asia. David Rooney examines the aims of both sides alongside the battles themselves, which secured victory in Burma, and the roles of Wingate, Stilwell and the Chindits. Following the defeats of 1942 the Allies re-emerged to fight the Japanese; their troops had seen a revival of morale with the new Fourteenth Army under General Slim and the development of new tactics and and Allied air and firepower superiority.

The OSS in Burma

The OSS in Burma PDF Author: Troy J. Sacquety
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700620184
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"One could not choose a worse place for fighting the Japanese," said Winston Churchill of North Burma, deeming it "the most forbidding fighting country imaginable." But it was here that the fledgling Office of Strategic Services conducted its most successful combat operations of World War II. Troy Sacquety takes readers into Burma's steaming jungles in the first book to fully cover the exploits and contributions of the OSS's Detachment 101 against the Japanese Imperial Army. Functioning independently of both the U.S. Army and OSS headquarters-and with no operational or organizational model to follow-Detachment 101 was given enormous latitude in terms of developing its mission and methods. It grew from an inexperienced and poorly supported group of 21 agents training on the job in a lethal environment to a powerful force encompassing 10,000 guerrillas (spread across as many as 8 battalions), 60 long-range agents, and 400 short-range agents. By April 1945, it remained the only American ground force in North Burma while simultaneously conducting daring amphibious operations that contributed to the liberation of Rangoon. With unrivaled access to OSS archives, Sacquety vividly recounts the 101's story with a depth of detail that makes the disease-plagued and monsoon-drenched Burmese theater come unnervingly alive. He describes the organizational evolution of Detachment 101 and shows how the unit's flexibility allowed it to evolve to meet the changing battlefield environment. He depicts the Detachment's two sharply contrasting field commanders: headstrong Colonel Carl Eifler, who pushed the unit beyond its capabilities, and the more measured Colonel William Peers, who molded it into a model special operations force. He also highlights the heroic Kachin tribesmen, fierce fighters defending their tribal homeland and instrumental in acclimating the Americans to terrain, weather, and cultures in ways that were vital to the success of the Detachment's operations. While veterans' memoirs have discussed OSS activities in Burma, this is the first book to describe in detail how it achieved its success—portraying an operational unit that can be seen as a prototype for today's Special Forces. Featuring dozens of illustrations, The OSS in Burma rescues from oblivion the daring exploits of a key intelligence and military unit in Japan's defeat in World War II and tells a gripping story that will satisfy scholars and buffs alike.

First Burma Campaign

First Burma Campaign PDF Author: Colonel E. C. V. Foucar MC
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 9781526783219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Shortly after the British and Indian forces had withdrawn from Burma in the face of the Japanese onslaught in 1942, Colonel E.C.V. Foucar MC was instructed to undertake a 'special duty', namely seek out documentary material and information from the various officers involved in the First Burma Campaign. The final element of Foucar's task was to write an account of the fighting, based on these many eyewitness accounts, for the Director of Military Training.This fascinating narrative sets out the challenging geographical, climatic and political conditions the British were faced with in Burma as war became an increasing possibility throughout 1940 and 1941, before turning its attention to the dramatic events when the Japanese launched their ground assault on the country in January 1942.There followed the 'Disaster' at Sittang Bridge, the fateful evacuation of Rangoon, and the march to the River Irrawaddy in an attempt to try and secure the north of Burma and its oilfields. But the loss of Rangoon meant the army was cut off from its supply base and the troops faced starving to death. With the Japanese closing in on the beleaguered British force, the decision was taken to abandon Burma and try to reach India. 'The odds were we might escape either the Japanese, the failure of our supplies, or the monsoon, but our chances of avoiding all three were slender,' declared General Alexander. His commander, General Wavell, wrote that, 'operations were now a race with the weather as with the Japanese and as much a fight against nature as against the enemy'.Along nothing more than rough country tracks up rugged hills and across rickety bridges constructed only of brushwood or bamboo the ragged, disease-ridden troops battled to reach India just as the monsoons broke. This, one of the most dramatic tales of the Second World War, was first described in detail by Colonel Foucar just after the events described and is now available for all to read.