{"id":7326,"date":"2009-09-07T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-07T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/we-gave-our-today-burma-1941-1945-by-william-fowler-2\/"},"modified":"2009-09-07T12:11:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-07T12:11:00","slug":"we-gave-our-today-burma-1941-1945-by-william-fowler-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2009\/09\/we-gave-our-today-burma-1941-1945-by-william-fowler-2\/","title":{"rendered":"‘WE GAVE OUR TODAY: BURMA 1941-1945\u2019 by William Fowler"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Stu Lloyd<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Fowler has created a highly readable account of one of the most pivotal theatres of World War Two. For Burma was the Allies\u2019 overland route into China, and the Japanese\u2019 overland route into India. <\/p>\n

While often considered the \u2018Forgotten War\u2019 after the rapid domino collapse of Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore, and the subsequent focus on Europe, Burma was riddled with epic surprise: the battle front stretched nearly 700 miles, secondly in length only to the Russian front, and the Allied assault crossing of the Irrawaddy in February 1945 was the widest ever in history encompassing 200 miles of bridgeheads. <\/p>\n

Burma was where the myth of Japanese invincibility was finally turned around, resulting in the War\u2019s longest campaign, starting in 1941 with the Japanese driving the British back up towards India before the amazing turnaround of General Slim\u2019s 14th Army to completely rout the Japanese just before the atom bomb dropped. The Japanese left 13,500 dead around Kohima and Imphal alone in their largest defeats. <\/p>\n

Fowler makes good use of secondary sources to flesh out episodes from all combatants\u2019 perspectives, none more hyperbolic than Slim describing the plains of Burma as \u2018some of the world\u2019s worst country, breeding the world\u2019s worst disease, and for half the year at least the world\u2019s worst climate.\u2019 <\/p>\n

While Fowler writes with the strategic and tactical insight of a former soldier (he served in the 1990-91 Gulf War), the narrative sometimes bogs down like a jeep on the Burma Road during the \u2018mango rain\u2019 monsoons. But he admirably distils a complicated and protracted campaign involving the British, Americans, Indians, Chinese \u2018and others\u2019, plus the Japanese, down to its essence. <\/p>\n

With colonial touchstones such as Rangoon, Mandalay, and the Irrawaddy River, We Gave Our Today is subconsciously imbued with the spirit of Kipling and his ilk, and one can\u2019t help feeling maudlin for Burma\u2019s dive-bombing trajectory ever since. <\/p>\n

We Gave Our Today: Burma 1941-1945, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $55, hardcover. <\/p>\n

Stu Lloyd<\/a> is a travel writer and author of The Missing Years<\/a>. He also conducts military history tours<\/a> of South-East Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Stu Lloyd. Fowler has created a highly readable account of one of the most pivotal theatres of World War Two. For Burma was the Allies\u2019 overland route into China, and the Japanese\u2019 overland route into India. While often considered the \u2018Forgotten War\u2019 after the rapid domino collapse of Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}