Dian-Burma Road - A Magnificent Epic of World War II (China-Burma-India Theater)

Author: Donovan Webster
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: This is an extraordinary historical story about the "China-Burma-India Theater" during World War II. When the Japanese army swept across China and Southeast Asian countries in the early stages of the war and blocked China's coastal ports, over 200,000 Chinese laborers began undertaking a seemingly impossible mission. On the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, between the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming and the Burmese railway hub of Lashio, they constructed a 700-mile-long land transportation line, which later came to be known as the "Burma Road." They completed this project in less than two years. However, as Burma fell into enemy hands in early 1942, the Burma Road was swiftly cut off by the Japanese. The newly appointed American general, Joseph Stilwell, was ordered to reopen the Burma Road, while simultaneously supplying China with materials via air transport from India and driving the Japanese out of Burma, as part of the Allied strategy to attack Japan. In this book, Donovan Webster vividly recreates the military plans and daring actions that took place on the Burma-India battlefield. He follows the harrowing journey of the "Cyclone" pilots with hair-raising excitement; he tells the real story behind the famous film The Bridge on the River Kwai, depicting the heroic deeds of the Chinese army, Merrill's Marauders, and the British Chindits who carried out missions in the terrifying jungle; he also recounts the bloody battle history of the elite fighter pilots of the "Flying Tigers." Interwoven are vivid portrayals of the unconventional American general "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell and the eccentric British general Orde Wingate. This book tells the epic story of a critical yet chaotic, frenzied, sometimes exhilarating, but more often tragic and still largely unknown war on one of the most important battlefields of World War II.