The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph 1942-45

About this book

This book in essence a quadruple biography tells the story of the 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. Ranging from 1942 when the British suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the Empire through the crucial battles of Imphal and Kohima ("the Stalingrad of the East") and on to ultimate victory in 1945 this account is vivid brutal and enthralling. Frank McLynn opens a new window on the Burma Campaign focusing on the interactions and antagonisms of its principal players: William Slim the brilliant general commanding the British 14th Army; Orde Wingate the ambitious and idiosyncratic commander of the Chindits a British force of irregulars; Louis Mountbatten one of Churchills favorites overpromoted to the position of Supreme Commander S.E. Asia; and Joseph Stilwell ("Vinegar Joe") a hard-line U.S. general also a martinet and Anglophobe. McLynn draws careful portraits of each of these men neglecting neither strengths nor flaws and shows with new clarity how the plans designs and strategies of generals and politicians were translated into a hideous reality for soldiers on the ground.