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. Unlike many other published wartime letters or diaries Kate Venables’ book has a strong, researched contextualising social and military history which is not only authoritative but also written in fluent everyday English which simplifies an often complex war situation. At the same time, it is a personal document by Harry’s daughter and is generously illustrated with images from the family collection as well as from public archives. Harry’s letters are written in tents, bunkers, and abandoned buildings. As well as Allied soldiers, he treats Japanese prisoners, escaped Allied prisoners-of-war, and Japanese civilians. In the quiet times between surges of casualties, he writes letters about the government’s conduct of the war and what the world might be like afterwards, about books, the vagaries of the mail, and the quality of cigarettes. Annie and Flo, his correspondents and old family friends, respond to his descriptions and his grouses. The letters create a grounded and familiar world away from the mud and blood, a world of Middlesbrough and the moors, family and friends, books and talk, where he is a boy again.