Imperial War Museum Book
of the War in Burma, 1942-45
A Vital Contribution to Victory in the Far East

By Julian Thompson
September 2002
Sidgwick & Jackson
ISBN: 0-283-07280-6
479 pages, Illustrated, 6 1/4 x 9 1/2"
$57.50 Hardcover

OUT OF PRINT

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What was it like to participate in some of the bitterest fighting experienced by the Allies in the Second World War, against the toughest enemy they encountered? Using quite extraordinary and mainly unpublished material from the great archives of the Imperial War Museum and with the aid of his masterly accompanying text, Major General Julian Thompson reveals the reality of combat in the biggest ground war fought by the British, Americans and Australians against the Japanese. The Japanese were formidable opponents at all levels. The truth about the Japanese war machine had been there for all to see since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, but the lessons were soon forgotten. In the Burma Campaign, the Allied forces rapidly learned the terrible truth that man for man the Japanese were even better soldiers than the Germans. On the Allied side, the campaign was one of the most multiracial in the history of warfare: British, Indians, Gurkhas, Africans, Rhodesians, South Africans, Americans, Chinese all fought. This book is a tribute to these soldiers, many fighting someone else's war in a strange land against a formidable enemy, a very long way from home. The Burma Campaign is not as well known as it should be, in spite of the great British victories at Kohima and Imphal, and the emergence of one of the really brilliant British commanders, General Slim and his incomparable 14th Army. This book is a long overdue acknowledgement of the part this campaign played in turning the tide of the Second World War in the Far East.

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