ISBN 0-7195-6575-8
xiii + 610

Acknowledgements; Introduction; photos; maps; Notes; Bibliography; Index

   As if our words could cause anyone to lose sleep, Jon Latimer must now withstand another insomnia-inducing review by Stone & Stone. Both our reviews of his books begin with snippety explanations of where he went wrong and how his writing could have been improved. Fortunately, our critiques of Alamein in 2002 and now Burma: The Forgotten War have happy endings which should restore the author's peaceful slumber.
   So, before the upbeat finish, here are some quibbles. To begin, the maps are entirely inadequate, simply too few and too vague to support the descriptions of operations. Next, while Latimer follows the flow of battle from start to finish, he seldom stands back from the day-to-day action to assess the overall strategic situation or review the larger line-up and balance of forces. Furthermore, the author rarely analyzes what he describes, seldom offers his own opinions about controversial topics, and doesn't really reach any fresh or important conclusions. On occasion he points out where one account differs from another, or quotes a recent author who disagrees with someone else's judgment, but those passages are seldom in his own words. As a consequence, Latimer sometimes writes as though he's proudly reciting a vast store of information meticulously memorized, but without adding much wisdom of his own.
   The book often touches on how the men—both Allies and Japanese—lived while campaigning, and Latimer doesn't completely ignore the decision-making at higher headquarters, but page after page explains how divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions maneuvered and fought, sometimes with insufficient context. In some ways this book resembles the Canadians in Italy trilogy by Mark Zuehlke, although in this case the stories of individual soldiers generally stand as separate nuggets at specific points in time rather than arcing across the entire book as in the Canadian work.
   Here's an excerpt, fairly typical of how Latimer structures his narrative:

   On 8 September 26th KAR became the first troops across the Chindwin. An attack was made on Leik Ridge on 10 October, then patrolling and small-scale actions continued, although finally clearing Leik Hill on 22 October proved the East Africans' fiercest engagement of the war, costing 4th KAR 19 dead and 102 wounded. Four days after Leik Hill 22nd KAR attacked at Kantha. 'I couldn't see them', Lieutenant-Colonel K. H. Collen wrote to his wife afterwards. 'But I could hear them whooping and yelling "Sokolai, sokolai, Yao-oo-oo", the Nyasa war cry.' John Nunneley's young orderly Tomasi wanted to accompany him on patrols, but Nunneley always refused since he was very inexperienced, having received only rudimentary training in Ceylon. Finally he relented, but they were separated during a firefight across a chaung. Wounded, Nunneley managed to get back and went to the main track. 'Tomasi saw me, joy and relief written all over his face. Leaping to his feet he started to cross the track towards me. He had taken just five paces when the Japanese machine-gunner covering the approach to the chaung fired a long, long burst.'
   South-west of the Kabaw valley 5th Indian Division led the pursuit along the Tiddim Road, greatly assisted by the Lushai Brigade harassing the flanks of the retreating Japanese. Staff Sergeant Nishiji Yasumasa recalled: 'We called the road "Human Remains Highway". What happened was beyond the bounds of acceptable human behaviour. It was a vision of hell.' Japanese delaying tactics were always the same, and the means of dealing with them was also always the same. A crater would be found beyond which the lead infantry would come under fire and would have to be filled or covered using a Valentine bridgelayer, while air strikes would break up the blocking position to allow tanks from 3rd Carabiniers forward to support them. Some losses were keenly felt. On 19 September Major Ghulam Qadir of 1st/17th Dogras was killed, an officer so gallant and efficient that the battalion history was moved to recall he was a Pathan in a Hindu battalion, and 'the Dogras would have followed him anywhere.... he was thought of very highly by all ranks. His was an amiable, and attractive personality with a natural sense of humour, essentially a soldier and an absolutely first-class one at that.'
   That same month 1st/1st Punjabis found an elephant standing sadly on a hilltop near MS 116, swathed in cloud and with a little bell fastened round its neck. It was escorted to Brigade Headquarters, where Brigadier Warren's orderly, who had experience as a mahout was entrusted with its care. A large '68' was painted on its back for recognition purposes just like a vehicle's tailboard, and it was employed taking the brigade's laundry down to the river with its hide as a scrubbing board. For a slit trench the elephant was provided with a shelter previously dug into a bank for a 3-ton lorry and to this it wisely retired at the first sound of gunfire. 'For all its docility and wisdom, the elephant possessed a terrible voice, that was likened to someone tearing up strips of corrugated iron.' When the battalion advanced once more, the elephant went back to Imphal with three soldiers on its back, scaring the wits out a mule-train belonging to 2nd West Yorks in the process. It was last heard of in the stables of the Maharajah of Cooch Behar.
   'Tiddim Road Ted' was a Japanese corpse on one knee leaning with one arm against a pile of cut wood, left as a marker so that people would define a spot as so many hundred yards before or beyond him. On the road Anthony Brett-James found postcards showing domestic scenes, humorous cartoons or bird paintings. 'It seemed so incongruous that these fantastical, boasting and often barbaric enemies should scrawl home to their families on such peaceful and civilized postcards, a contrast of ugliness and beauty, of mass brutality and tender thoughts.' At the front Naik Sher Khan of 4th/14th Punjabis led a night recce to see if the Japanese still occupied Point 689. Some time after midnight grenades were heard, but it was not until near dawn that Khan's three companions returned to battalion lines, saying Khan was ahead of them when the firing started. The three withdrew and waited for him. 'Poor Sher Khan', they told their company commander, Major Peter Gadsdon. 'He did not come, and we are afraid he has been killed.' At dawn when everyone stood-to they saw Sher Khan trudge up the valley. 'Well, sahib,' he explained,

we did as you said and set off to climb Point 689. Getting near the top we walked into an enemy position. They started firing but it was not very straight. I crawled under a bush and hid. They threw some grenades and then came out and ran about shouting 'yah yah'. I stayed and they gave up after a time and went back to their trenches. An hour before dawn I heard them move off, talking at the tops of their voices.

   He had followed them and was able to report the hill clear of enemy except for this standing patrol part-way down the slope at night.
   Under constant pressure the Japanese evacuated Tiddim on the night of 6 October, allowing the capture of Fort White and Kennedy Peak, where the Lee tank No. 25711 of 4 Troop, C Squadron, 3rd Carabiniers, commanded by Lieutenant C. W. Bell and driven by Trooper M. L. Connolly, created a tank altitude record by reaching the top.
   An attack on 25 October saw Subedar Ram Sarup Singh of 2nd/1st Punjabis earn a posthumous VC. His citation describes how, despite already being wounded in both legs, when the Japanese put in a strong counter-attack with three waves of twenty men approaching from a flank, he 'led a charge against the advancing enemy, bayoneting four himself and checking them. He abused the enemy and encouraged his own men throughout. He was badly wounded in the thigh and fell down, but got up and ignoring his wound again went for the Japanese, shouting encouragement to his men. He bayoneted another Japanese and shot another, but was mortally wounded by a burst of medium machine gun fire in the chest and neck. With his last breath he shouted to his platoon havildar. "I am dying, but you carry on and finish the devils."' At the end of October the way to Tiddim took Charles Evans and 7th IMFTU over 'the Chocolate Staircase', an astonishing piece of engineering climbing 3,000 feet in 7 zigzagging miles. 'There were fourteen hairpin bends in the first two miles and the whole track up to just under 5,000 feet was carved out of a clayey soil the colour of milk chocolate.' On reaching Tiddim, a village of some fifty houses a few miles further on, he saw white crosses and Japanese skulls perched on sticks, which were

as much a part of the scene as the roadmenders and the statuesque Nagas and Chins; they were as familiar as the dropping zones with their discarded buckets and parachutes, as the burst sacks of flour and the supply planes droning overhead. There were cooking fires, piles of chapattis and the smells of curry; there was everywhere a feeling of pressing on, of being 'in it'.

   Of XXXIII Corps's average weekly strength of 88,500 between July and November about half were maintained forward of Imphal in pursuit of the Japanese. Total casualties amounted to 50,300, but only 47 of these were killed in action. More than half of the 47,000 sick had to be evacuated to India, and even with mepacrine there were 20,000 malaria cases. Sickness was a problem throughout the Japanese Army in Burma, with never enough medicines for suppressive treatment of malaria. In September 1944 53rd Division was down from 16,000 to 2,600.

   That sample should make it clear that Latimer utilizes quite a few bits and pieces from earlier works in an effort to bring some immediacy to the proceedings while illustrating, no matter how broad the campaign, that it was a soldier's war. Throughout Burma, Latimer peppers his text with stories from individuals who were there and quotes from authors who have previously written about the campaign.
   In our opinion, Alamein, written in much the same style, began poorly with too many generalities, too many lifeless quotes, and too many weak sources, not to mention a few errors and oversights. Burma mostly avoids those pitfalls, but it becomes apparent that—unlike the relatively brief campaign and battle of Alamein, covered in 400 pages—Latimer must be comparatively selective and concise with what he includes within 434 pages of text for a war that extended for well over three years. Although he makes best use of his pages, there's simply no way he can paint the entire canvas of Burma in minute detail, and there are plenty of other books that provide better coverage of any specific topic. Slim's 14th might have been the "forgotten army" during the war, but—based on the quantity and quality of books available today—Burma is certainly no longer the "forgotten war."

• For more detail about the operational and tactical conduct of battles, see Kirby's War against Japan series and the Indian official history Campaigns in the Eastern Theatre series
• For the best volume covering the Japanese invasion, check Burma 1942
• For more in English about the Japanese perspective, Louis Allen remains the principal source (and one referenced repeatedly by Latimer)
• For one of the very best memoirs by a senior Allied commander, read Slim
• For the best analysis of the Chindits, take a look at Shelford Bidwell
• For more on air operations, see Probert and Chris Shores

   In sum, Latimer's volume seems not to be the best book about any one part of the campaign. Its strength comes mostly from the author's synthesis of the mass of sources—especially memoirs and regimental histories—available to fuel his project. That, by the way, was also a strength of his Alamein book. Especially in the early portions of Alamein, Latimer tended to allow others to provide much of his narrative by quoting chunks from other books and relying on the opinions and conclusions of other authors, even when they didn't take part in the events. While it's still possible to detect that tendency in his new book, for the most part this one feels like Latimer has done more writing as opposed to assembling. Where he quotes others, it's mostly to add the kind of flavor and color best imparted by those who were actually on the spot. Latimer also provides copious endnotes to cite his sources as well as offer further details and suggest additional reading. He has truly mastered the sources to the extent that, despite the author's thoroughly accessible prose, careful readers will find Burma relatively slow going because of the need to constantly flip between the text and the equally relevant and interesting endnotes at the back of the book.
   This approach produces at least one notable phenomenon. Latimer has righty chosen to use many, many evocative vignettes culled from memoirs, regimental histories, and elsewhere. Almost without fail they add a great deal to the whole, but on numerous occasions Latimer quotes tales certain to leave some readers scratching heads, because some episodes are a bit fanciful and difficult to believe. For the most part Latimer relates these with a straight face, but in a couple of cases consulting the endnotes reveals remarks such as "probably apocryphal." Eventually, an endnote admits "Since, as with so many such stories, these accounts are at least second- or even third-hand, one must assume they are apocryphal."
   Apocryphal or not, the cumulative impact of the tales means that ultimately Burma earns its own superlative. That is, by the end of the book Latimer has succeeded in conveying the taste and feel of the war more strongly and convincingly than any of his separate sources. Although it wouldn't be unfair to characterize the book as rather derivative, the author nevertheless fills his pages with so much information, so many memorable episodes, and such powerful forward momentum that Burma: The Forgotten War deserves a respected place on bookshelves alongside Kirby, Prasad, Allen, Slim, and all the other important accounts of the unforgettable war in Burma.
   Highly recommended.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from John Murray Publishers Ltd.
   Thanks to John Murray for providing this review copy.