Download or read book Chindit Affair written by Frank Baines and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2011-07-12 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 1944, some 2,200 battle trained men of 111 Brigade flew from India into northern Burma to land on improvised airstrips cleared from the jungle, They were part of General Orde Wingates Chindit force sent to fight the Japanese deep behind their lines. Five months later, 111 Brigade was down to 118 fit men eight British officers, a score of British soldiers and 90 Gurkhas. One of those eight officers was Frank Baines, and in Chindit Affair he tells, in vivid language and with shrewd insight, what happened.Frank commanded two platoons of young Gurkhas and was attached to 111 Brigade Headquarters, serving under John Masters, where he had a close-up view for most of the time. His account throws new light on the leadership of the Chindit campaign, but above all it is a soldiers story.All the horrors of jungle warfare are here bodies blood-sucked by leeches and corpses impaled by bamboo; Japanese soldiers reduced to eating human flesh; a court martial and execution; soldiers falling sick and dropping by the wayside, and being killed and wounded in action. He also captures the atmosphere of the jungle; its watercourses, trees, birds and the Kachin villagers simple way of life. No other account of the Chindit operations touches the same raw nerves, and none recreates so immediately the sensations of being there in the jungle and hills which devoured nearly all of them.ABOUT THE AUTHORBorn in 1915, the son of a prominent architect, Frank Baines ran away from school and went to sea on a Finnish four-masted grain sailing ship. He enlisted at the outbreak of the Second World War, trained as an artillery officer in India, saw action on the Northwest frontier before being seconded to 111 Brigade. After the war, he spent three years as a Hindu monk in a Himalayan monastery and he then moved to Calcutta where he set up a business repairing tea chests and started writing. Frank returned to England in 1956 and published four books, including Look Towards the Sea, a widely acclaimed account of his Cornish childhood. At the age of 62, still seeking adventure, he cycled back to India from his home in Coggershall, Essex. He died in 1987 leaving behind this unpublished memoir.

Download or read book Browned Off and Bloody Minded written by Alan Allport and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than three-and-a-half million men served in the British Army during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians who had never expected to become soldiers and had little idea what military life, with all its strange rituals, discomforts, and dangers, was going to be like. Alan Allport’s rich and luminous social history examines the experience of the greatest and most terrible war in history from the perspective of these ordinary, extraordinary men, who were plucked from their peacetime families and workplaces and sent to fight for King and Country. Allport chronicles the huge diversity of their wartime trajectories, tracing how soldiers responded to and were shaped by their years with the British Army, and how that army, however reluctantly, had to accommodate itself to them. Touching on issues of class, sex, crime, trauma, and national identity, through a colorful multitude of fresh individual perspectives, the book provides an enlightening, deeply moving perspective on how a generation of very modern-minded young men responded to the challenges of a brutal and disorienting conflict.

Download or read book Behind the Forgotten Front written by Barbara Hawkins and published by Bublish, Inc.. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 75 years after WWII headlines of Pearl Harbor, Normandy and Hiroshima hit the press, the China-Burma-India Theater is brought to light in Behind the Forgotten Front. It's 1942, and Harry Flynn leaves behind the love of his life to journey into East Asia, a world of tigers, elephants and Himalayan Mountains. He enlists to fight, expecting to find the thrill of danger and honor of military service. Instead, Harry is ordered to the Forgotten Front in the Indian subcontinent as an ordinary supply officer. There, General Joseph 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell is constructing a 'road to nowhere' through Japanese-occupied Burma—and he’s willing to complete it at any cost. In an exotic world with Naga headhunters, opium-smoking Kachin tribesmen, and marauders who scorn both life and death, Harry must entrust his life to others if he is to survive the war. During a time when boys are forced to come of age on the battlefield, and where death and insanity seem to be the only ways out, Harry must find what makes his life worth living. The lessons learned in WWII apply to all wars where men walk away carrying unspeakable memories about the lives that could have been. Behind the Forgotten Front takes you to the overlooked battles in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II and shows you that history is about facts driven by the passions and sometimes the mistakes of real people.

Download or read book Myanmar Burma since the 1988 Uprising written by Andrew Selth and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2022-01-24 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated by popular demand, this is the fourth edition of this important bibliography. It lists a wide selection of works on or about Myanmar published in English and in hard copy since the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, which marked the beginning of a new era in Myanmar’s modern history. There are now 2,727 titles listed. They have been written, edited, translated or compiled by over 2,000 people, from many different backgrounds. These works have been organized into thirty-five subject chapters containing ninety-five discrete sections. There are also four appendices, including a comprehensive reading guide for those unfamiliar with Myanmar or who may be seeking guidance on particular topics. This book is an invaluable aid to officials, scholars, journalists, armchair travellers and others with an interest in this fascinating but deeply troubled country.

Download or read book Captured Behind Japanese Lines written by Daniel Berke and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This WWII biography vividly recounts one man’s experience as a Special Ops soldier and POW in Japanese occupied Burma. In his postwar life, Frank Berkovitch was a quiet, reserved tailor. But during World War II, he served with the legendary Chindits in Burma and endured years of Japanese captivity. He fought as a Bren-gunner on Operation LONGCLOTH, the first mission to take them deep behind enemy lines. He was even General Orde Wingate’s batman. The Chindits were Wingate’s inspired idea. Under his dauntless leadership, they dispelled the myth that the Imperial Japanese Army was invincible. Outnumbered, outgunned, and reliant on RAF air drops for supplies, the 3,000 men of the Chindit columns overcame harsh jungle terrain to take the fight to the enemy. They wreaked havoc with enemy communications and caused heavy enemy casualties while gathering vital intelligence. During the desperate race to escape from Burma, Frank was captured crossing the Irrawaddy river. He spent two years imprisoned by notoriously cruel captors. Superbly researched, this inspiring book vividly describes the Chindits’ first operation and the heroism of Frank and his comrades, many of whom never returned.

Download or read book A Chindit s Chronicle written by Bill Towill and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2000 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At sunset on Sunday 5th March 1944 an airborne force set out from Lalaghat airstrip in Assam aboard gliders piloted by Americans of the 1st Air Commando USAAF. They were men of Special Force, otherwise known as "The Chindits" led by their famous commander Major General Orde Wingate. In the brilliant moonlight they flew eastwards over the steep mountain range separating India from Burma, crossed the mighty Chindwin River, which lay like a glittering silver ribbon far below them, to land in a small clearing, codenamed "Broadway" in the jungle 130 miles behind the Japanese front lines. Despite heavy casualties sustained in the glider landings, the survivors by dint of prodigious effort managed in a few hours to construct a rough airstrip, which on the following nights received Dakota transport aircraft ferrying men, mules and equipment. They achieved complete surprise over the enemy and within a period of six days, in a total of 78 glider and 660 Dakota sorties, some of which alighted at a nearby airstrip codenamed "Chowringhee", 9,052 men 1,360 pack animals and 250 tons of supplies were landed in a brilliantly successful operation for the loss of a total of only 121 men killed or wounded. It was the biggest operation of its kind so far launched during the War, though only three months later it was to be followed by "Overlord", the gigantic Allied invasion of Normandy. Fighting with grim determination against their fanatical opponents, in what became a conflict of primeval ferocity, with no quarter asked or given, the Chindits exerted a stranglehold over the enemy supply routes and so impeded the Japanese divisions to the north which were attempting to force their way into India via Imphal and Kohima. When the monsoon came, the fighting continued in a sea of mud, with the Chindits often starving and short of ammunition since the low lying cloud prevented supply drops being made to them by the RAF and USAAF. Inflicting enormous casualties on the enemy, they also took heavy casualties from battle and sickness until, at the last, broken in body but not in spirit, less than 5% of those who still survived were judged on medical examination to be physically fit enough to continue the fight.

Download or read book Spidermen Nigerian Chindits and Wingate s Operation Thursday Burma 1943 1944 written by John Igbino and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2018-10-06 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1944 twenty thousand Allied Airborne Special Force troops in five Brigades commanded by Major General Orde Wingate landed behind the Japanese lines in Northern Burma. The Operation was Codenamed Operation Thursday. The Special Force troops were nicknamed ‘Chindits’. Four thousand Nigerian troops fought in the Special Force Brigades as Chindits during Operation Thursday. This book is an account of their operations behind Japanese lines between February and August 1944. The Brigade’s Insignia was the Black African Spider advancing on its prey. Thus, the Brigade called itself the ‘Spider Brigade’; its Battalions, namely the 6th, 7th and 12th Nigeria Regiments, ‘Spider Regiments’, and its troops ‘Spidermen’. The book is a well-written account of the Spider Brigade’s battles against the 18th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. It should force Chindit Historians to confront the anomalies in Contemporary History’s treatment of Nigerian Chindits. The book is a scholarly and dispassionate excursion into the 14th Army’s Campaigns, putting under the microscope the preconceived assumptions of British and Indian Armies’ Officer Corps about the fighting quality of Nigerian Chindits. Thus, the book is an important and long overdue account of Operation Thursday that will become the standard work on Nigeria’s contributions to Allied Airborne Invasion of Burma.

Download or read book Chindit Indiscretion written by John Howard Denny and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book International Politics and Inner Worlds written by Kurt Jacobsen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-28 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes radical aim at the conventional conduct of international relations analysis. It reexamines the role of ideas, the usefulness of psychoanalysis, the rage for and at rational choice, the influence of the public on foreign policy, counterinsurgency evangelism, and development orthodoxies at the national and genetic levels. Drawing a bead on conceptual blind spots prevalent both inside and outside the academy, the book urges scholars to reflect on how inner worlds shape the actions of their subjects—and their own research analyses, as well.

Download or read book Burma Victory written by David Rooney and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the final years of World War II, the campaign against Japan stepped up in a series of bloody battles with each side having much to lose. While much of the history of the period focuses on the Pacific Campaign and the American island hopping, this book studies the 'forgotten war' and the Allied fight to push the Japanese out of Burma. The Allies (British, American, Indian and Chinese soldiers) saw the battles of Imphal and Kohima as a way to avenge the crushing defeats of 1942, while the Japanese viewed the battles as the precursor to a victorious drive into India and domination of Asia. David Rooney examines the aims of both sides alongside the battles themselves, which secured victory in Burma, and the roles of Wingate, Stilwell and the Chindits. Following the defeats of 1942 the Allies re-emerged to fight the Japanese; their troops had seen a revival of morale with the new Fourteenth Army under General Slim and the development of new tactics and and Allied air and firepower superiority.

Download or read book Conquer We Must written by Robin Prior and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 839 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new account of Britain's military strategy between 1914-1945, including the two world wars and everything between The First and Second World Wars were separated by a mere two decades, making the period 1914-1945 an unprecedentedly intense and violent era of history. But how did Britain develop its complex military strategy during these wars, and how were decisions made by those at the top? Robin Prior examines the influence politicians had on military operations, in the first history to assess both world wars together. Drawing uniquely on both military and political archives and previously unexamined sources Prior explores the fraught relationships between civilian and military leaders: from Lloyd George's remarkably interventionist stance on military tactics during the First World War to Churchill's near-constant arguments with American leaders during the Second. Conquer We Must tells the complex story of this military decision-making, revealing how politicians attempted to control strategy--but had little influence on how the army, navy, and air force actually fought.

Download or read book War in the Wilderness written by Tony Redding and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War in the Wilderness is the most comprehensive account ever published of the human aspects of the Chindit war in Burma. The word ‘Chindit’ will always have a special resonance in military circles. Every Chindit endured what is widely regarded as the toughest sustained Allied combat experience of the Second World War. The Chindit expeditions behind Japanese lines in occupied Burma 1943–1944 transformed the morale of British forces after the crushing defeats of 1942. The Chindits provided the springboard for the Allies’ later offensives. The two expeditions extended the boundaries of human endurance. The Chindits suffered slow starvation and exposure to dysentery, malaria, typhus and a catalogue of other diseases. They endured the intense mental strain of living and fighting under the jungle canopy, with the ever-present threat of ambush or simply ‘bumping’ the enemy. Every Chindit carried his kit and weapons (equivalent to two heavy suitcases) in the tropical heat and humidity. A disabling wound or sickness frequently meant a lonely death. Those who could no longer march were often left behind with virtually no hope of survival. Some severely wounded were shot or given a lethal dose of morphia to ensure they would not be captured alive by the Japanese. Fifty veterans of the Chindit expeditions kindly gave interviews for this book. Many remarked on the self-reliance that sprang from living and fighting as a Chindit. Whatever happened to them after their experiences in Burma, they knew that nothing else would ever be as bad. There are first-hand accounts of the bitter and costly battles and the final, wasteful weeks, when men were forced to continue fighting long after their health and strength had collapsed. War in the Wilderness continues the story as the survivors returned to civilian life. They remained Chindits for the rest of their days, members of a brotherhood forged in extreme adversity.

Download or read book Bolt Action Empires in Flames written by Warlord Games and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Far from the battlefields of Europe and North Africa, Allied forces fought a very different war against another foe, from the jungles of Burma to the islands of the Pacific and the shores of Australia. This new Theatre Book for Bolt Action allows players to command the spearhead of the lightning Japanese conquests in the East or to fight tooth and nail as Chindits, US Marines and other Allied troops to halt the advance and drive them back. Scenarios, special rules and new units give players everything they need to recreate the ferocious battles and campaigns of the Far East, from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, Singapore, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and beyond.

Download or read book Before The Show written by F Gillard and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ray Cooper was just one of the many thousands of men involved in the Burma campaigns during World War Two in 1942 - 1945. Like many others he rarely spoke of his experiences in the Army. However he kept a diary during 1943 while in India as a member of a Light Artillery regiment, and in early 1944 as a Chindit fighting in Mike Calvert's 77th Brigade with the Lancashire Fusiliers. Although the diary does not cover the period after the end of March 1944, it was possible to document what happened to him and his unit until the end of 1944 and his subsequent role in psychological operations under the Special Operations Executive in 1945. Ray's diary gives an extraordinary account of life as a junior officer in a non fighting regiment and at the beginning of a costly campaign behind enemy lines.

Download or read book Triumph at Imphal Kohima written by Raymond A. Callahan and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1944, on the eastern front of India near the Burmese border, the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Japanese Army suffered the worst defeat in its history at the hands of Lieutenant General William Slim's British XIV Army, most of whose units were drawn from the little-esteemed Indian Army. Triumph at Imphal-Kohima tells the largely unknown story of how an army that Winston Churchill had once dismissed as “a welter of lassitude and inefficiency” came to achieve such an unlikely, unprecedented, and critical victory for the Allied forces in World War II. Long the British Empire's strategic reserve, the Indian Army had been comprehensively defeated in Malaya and Burma in 1941–1943. Military historian Raymond Callahan chronicles the remarkable exercise in institutional transformation that remade the British Indian forces to reverse those losses. With the invaluable help of the American DC-3 on the Burma front, Slim overhauled the British XIV Army with the Imperial Japanese Army's strategic weaknesses in mind; namely, an utter disregard for logistics and an unrelenting addiction to the attack. Callahan shows how, on an enormous battlefield—over five hundred miles from north to south—the XIV Army surmounted the challenges of terrain, disease, wretched communication, and climate to draw the Imperial forces under Lieutenant General Mutaguchi Renya ever deeper into ever stronger British defensive arrays until the Japanese Army's vaunted offensive aggression finally exhausted itself. Following this epic battle from build-up to aftermath, this book brings overdue detailed attention to Lieutenant General William Slim's handling of perhaps the most complex battle any Allied commander fought during World War II—and to the long-belittled British Indian Army that became the magnificent fighting force that triumphed at Imphal-Kohima and went on to reconquer Burma.

Download or read book Civil Affairs Handbook written by United States. Army Service Forces and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Civil Affairs Handbook Japan written by United States. Army Service Forces and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: