Letters From the Burma Front

The Burma campaign against the Japanese in the Second World War involved rebuilding a defeated multi-ethnic, multi-lingual Allied force, trench warfare like that of the First World War, hand-to-hand fighting of ancient ferocity, combined operations with air and naval forces, artillery barrages, opposed crossings of great rivers, tank warfare in the Burmese central plain, and a final rapid advance ahead of the monsoon to Rangoon. It was followed by the Japanese surrender in Singapore and by violent peace-keeping operations in former European colonies in South-East Asia. Harry Walker was a young doctor in a mobile surgical unit which worked close behind the fighting front. He was a witness to these great events and his letters to Annie and Flo illuminate the bald facts of the campaign.

The Burma campaign against the Japanese in the Second World War involved rebuilding a defeated multi-ethnic, multi-lingual Allied force, trench warfare like that of the First World War, hand-to-hand fighting of ancient ferocity, combined operations with air and naval forces, artillery barrages, opposed crossings of great rivers, tank warfare in the Burmese central plain, and a final rapid advance ahead of the monsoon to Rangoon. It was followed by the Japanese surrender in Singapore and by violent peace-keeping operations in former European colonies in South-East Asia. Harry Walker was a young doctor in a mobile surgical unit which worked close behind the fighting front. He was a witness to these great events and his letters to Annie and Flo illuminate the bald facts of the campaign.