Book Review: “The Burma Campaign: Disaster Into Triumph”

The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942-45 by Frank McLynn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Burma, 1942-1945: A part of World War Two that is often referred to as the Forgotten Theater. The notion of these brutal campaigns being forgotten is reinforced by the dearth of histories written about them. Frank McLynn’s “The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph 1942-45” is one of the few comprehensive histories of this theater of World War Two.

I read the book on a recent trip to Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. I was traveling the same terrain as the soldiers that suffered through the miseries of that horrific war. Being on the same land lent a vividness to the horrible struggles I was reading about. Yes, but what about the book itself?

This is not a traditional history of a military campaign. It is essentially a biography of the four most important Allied commanders. The Author moves back and forth between the British commanders William Slim, Orde Wingate, Louis Mountbatten, and the lone American, Joe Stilwell. McLynn tells the stories of these commanders, their conflicts with each other, and their individual battles to fight back against the seemingly invincible Japanese wave. The stories of these individuals become the portraits on a larger canvas. As their stories play out, so to do the stories of the war in Burma.

The Author begins the book with the disastrous Allied retreat in 1942. Japanese forces overrun Burma and set themselves up as the rulers of the region. The British and Americans are forced back into India. What follows is the story of rebuilding a functional army, teaching that army that the Japanese are not invincible, and then finally putting that lesson to the test.

As the Allies try to regain the offensive, there are the first incursion into Japanese territories by the British Chindits and the American Merrill’s Marauders. These jungle fighters suffered as much from disease as Japanese bullets, and the author does an excellent job of detailing the struggles of jungle combat.

The history continues through the eyes of the commanders as the tide turns with the crucial battles of Imphal and Kohima. These crucial Allied victories mark the end of Japanese advances towards India. The Allied forces are finally able to field well-trained and well-supplied armies. The campaign to regain Burma is protracted, hard-fought, and brutal, yet by 1945 the ultimate victory is achieved.

I found McLynn’s work to be engaging and insightful. There are a few caveats. This is not an unbiased history. The Author has his opinions and he is not shy about writing those opinions down. Readers who are expecting a strictly chronological history may be disappointed by the Author’s approach. The idea of using four biographies to tell a greater story worked for me as a reader, but may not work for others. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn more about one of the most brutal, and little known chapters of World War Two history.

Marco Etheridge — Vienna, 2020

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