The Final Curtain: Burma 1941-45 Veteran’s Stories

The Final Curtain: Burma 1941-45 Veteran’s Stories written by Jeremy Archer and

published by Pen & Sword Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 312

The Final Curtain: Burma 1941-1945 comprises interviews with some of the very few

surviving veterans of this most arduous of campaigns. In their own words, soldiers, sailors

and airmen now aged between 95 and 101 vividly recount the experiences that they

endured more than seventy-five years ago. This is oral history at its best, from officers and

men of 14th Army, which comprised some 100,000 British and other Commonwealth

personnel, 340,000 from the Sub-Continent and 90,000 East and West Africans. The

interviewees include individuals from all these groups. Their accounts cover the retreat

from Burma, the Chindit operations behind Japanese lines, the hard-fought struggle in the

Arakan, the crucial battles at Kohima and Imphal, and the final advance to Rangoon,

culminating in a decisive victory.

The veterans featured in this fascinating collection include a Primus (Archbishop) of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a former Chairman of Manchester City Football Club, and the Principal of the Accra Polytechnic in Ghana as well as two career Army officers. Regardless of their post-war achievements, all the contributors share the distinction of having served in a hugely demanding and ultimately victorious campaign against a merciless enemy. Their accounts make for inspiring and unforgettable reading.

Burma, one of the hardest types of battlefield to fight in due to the heat, terrain and jungle conditions. This book The Final Curtain: Burma is a fantastic book where the reader hears from a good number of allied servicemen who fought in connection with Burma, these stories come from men who served in all branches of the armed forces. I call this book fantastic because it is a book containing stories from the men involved, their experiences, thoughts and the events that happened to them. This is so important because it is first-hand experiences, such a valuable resource in history. The author Jeremy Archer has done a great job in getting these stories and putting them together in such an easy-to-read manner, the maps in the book are good and there is a good number of photos throughout. I would certainly recommend this book highlighting such an important part of WWII.

Captured at Singapore

Captured at Singapore written by Jill Robertson & Jan Slimming and

published by Pen & Sword Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 296

What would it be like to leave your loved ones behind knowing you may never see

them again? Then depart on a ship in the dead of night heading for an unknown

destination and find yourself in the heat of a battle which concludes in enemy

conditions so terrible that your survival in captivity is still under threat?

Cultivated from a small, faded, address book secretly written by a young soldier in the Royal Army Service Corps, Captured at Singapore, is a POW story of adventure, courage resilience and luck.

In 1940, Londoner Stanley Moore became Driver T/170638 and trained for desert warfare along with many others in the British Army’s 18th Division. Their mission, they thought, was to fight against Hitler and fascism in the Middle East. But in a change of plan and destination, he and his fellow servicemen became sacrificial lambs on a continent much further from home.

Using extensive research and personal documents, the authors’ account - via their father’s small, faded, diary and his 1990 tape recording - tells of Stan’s journey and arrival in Keppel Harbour under shellfire; the horrific 17 day battle to defend the island, the Japanese Admonition and the harrowing forced labour conditions after capitulation.

Only a small percentage of the 85,000 British troops returned after the war. Captivity and years of trauma ultimately stole years of the young soldiers’ lives, which they were later ordered to forget by the British Government. The aim of this work is to provide information for future generations to understand how ordinary men died under horrific conditions of war, and how the lucky survived.

From the basic of sources of information evidence, the authors Robertson and Slimming have discovered the small diary and an interview from their late father Stanley Moore. Stanley, a driver in the 18th Division served out in the Far East fighting the Japanese, although it should be said the 18th were rather under-prepared in many aspects. 

Robertson and Slimming present a book and a story of their father showing the worry, hardship and harsh conditions their father was forced to endure under an oppressive regime. All this from the rarest of information, their father's diary and an interview. But they have presented an excellent story which really does show the suffering of the fellow soldiers and others around them. A really well-written book and works very well to make an excellent account of having to be a Japanese prisoner of war.

Naval Battles of the Second World War II

Naval Battles of the Second World War written by Leo Marriott and published by

Pen & Sword Books - £20.00 - Hardback - Pages 240

The Second World War was a truly global conflict and maritime power played a major role in every theatre of operations. Land campaigns depended on supplies transported by sea, and victory or defeat depended on the outcome of naval battles. So Leo Marriott’s highly illustrated two-volume account of the struggle sets naval actions in the wider strategic context as well as giving graphic accounts of what happened in each engagement.

This second volume concentrates on the epic struggle between the Americans and the Japanese in the vast expanses of the Pacific where for almost four years a great maritime campaign ebbed and flowed and some of the most famous naval battles of the conflict took place. The first part of the book covers the period from Pearl Harbor to Midway while the second covers the long and bloody campaign in the south-west Pacific where the US Navy honed its skills and turned a bloody defeat into a hard-won victory. The final section focuses on naval operations during the American advance across the central Pacific up to the Battle of Leyte Gulf – the greatest naval battle ever fought. Included are other actions involving the Royal Navy which, after early setbacks, would go on to play a major supporting role alongside the US Navy in the Pacific

This concise but wide-ranging introduction to the naval war emphasizes the sheer scale of the conflict in every sea and shows the direct impact of each naval battle on the course of the war.

This book is the second book of two called, Naval Battles of the Second World War in the second of two books looking at the Pacific & Far East of World War II the book gives you a view of the strategic naval process and battles including the role of the American Navy and the Japanese Navy. The book highlights a number of key naval battles throughout the war including Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway and the battle in the Leyte Gulf, I personally found this a fascinating book as I am trying to improve my knowledge of naval warfare. Both in the west and the Far East I found the book very informative and detailed but then I am probably counted as a beginner in this subject so whilst I found the book very helpful and informative others might prefer to read a more detailed assessment as they are classed as more knowledgeable. With the author Leo Marriott a specialist in this subject, his highly detailed knowledge is evident in this book and makes for a very good read. I enjoyed all the facts and details along with many good photographs and I especially enjoyed the appendix at the back of the book listing all the warships involved I would recommend this book and enjoyed it slightly more than the first but only because I knew less about the Pacific war.