Burma Road: A magnificent epic of the China-Burma-India theater of war during World War II

Author: Webster (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: In southwestern China, since modern times, what is the tragic event? — It is the construction of the Burma Road. Then, what is the grand event? — It is the construction of the Burma Road. What is the brutal sacrifice? — It is the construction of the Burma Road. What is the great contribution? — It is the construction of the Burma Road. It is all for this bloodline of the Anti-Japanese War. "No Hollywood producer would dare to make a film to depict the mad, frustrating, and bizarre scenes of the China-Burma-India battlefield. It has it all — princelings of tribal states, dance girls, warlords, headhunting barbarians, jungles, deserts, swindlers, secret police." This book tells the chaotic, frenzied, sometimes exhilarating, but more often tragic and still largely unknown epic of war on the "China-Burma-India" battlefield during World War II. Based on field research and extensive interviews with participants obtained through a large number of firsthand materials, Donovan Webster vividly recreates military plans and adventurous actions that took place on the China-Burma-India battlefield. He follows the terrifyingly perilous journey of the Hump flyers; tells the real story that was adapted into the famous film "The Bridge on the River Kwai." Describes the fierce against Japanese forces in the terrifying jungle. This is an extraordinary historical story about the "China-Burma-India" battlefield during World War II. When Japanese forces swept across China and Southeast Asia in the early stages of the war and blocked China's ports, over two million Chinese laborers began to undertake what seemed like an impossible mission: to build a 700-mile land transportation line between the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming and the Burmese rail hub of Lashio on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. This road 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 quickly cut off by Japanese forces. 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 Japanese forces out of Burma, as part of the Allied strategy to attack Japan. In this book, Donovan Webster vividly recreates the military plans and adventurous actions that took place on the Burma-India battlefield. He follows the terrifyingly perilous journey of the Hump flyers; he tells the real story that was adapted into the famous film "The Bridge on the River Kwai," describing the heroic deeds of the Chinese forces, Merrill's Marauders, and the British Chindits who carried out missions in the terrifying jungle; he also tells 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 chaotic, frenzied, sometimes exhilarating, but more often tragic and still largely unknown epic of war on a critical battlefield during World War II. Whenever I met with old comrades at reunions or in quiet homes, the veterans would always warn me not to even think about going back. Each of them firmly believed that the road that had once guided them across the steep Himalayan passes of India, deep into the sweltering jungles of Burma, and into China, had long been erased by time. They claimed that the road itself existed only as a relic of a bygone dream, and that the two delicate tracks of the road—now over sixty years old—had long been swallowed by landslides, rain, and the sprawling tropical jungle. But now, step by step—on a cool morning in mid-January—my feet are on the same gravel road that the veterans had repeatedly warned me to avoid. Between the gaps in the jungle walls on either side of the road, I seem to be walking through a green curtain over a hundred feet high, searching for the battlefields where the comrades of the old veterans fell, the places where they had personally poured blood and sweat—perhaps the most important places—those so deeply etched in their lives that even when they are shaken awake from midnight nightmares, they can still taste the bitter fumes of gunfire and feel the jungle leeches squirming under their damp cotton uniforms. In the morning light, the road winds right, twisting and turning until it disappears behind another jungle-covered mountain. Before me, the beginning of this journey—the earliest paved gravel and asphalt roads are already potholed and broken. The shoulders of the road are eroded and scattered at the edge of the forest, and in some sections, patchy holes stretch across the entire road, leaving broken scars on its broken body. Contrary to what the veterans believed, the road still exists. Thirty feet wide, it winds through the ancient forest canopy with vines hanging down, then rises to face the lush green mountains. It glides silently past the border posts of the Indian border forces and the jungle huts of indigenous tribes; the tracks it leaves behind are not just from motorcycles and buses carrying coal workers, but also from trucks loaded with illegally logged. This remote frontier of the civilized world seems so far away that no one seems to care what happens here. Friday morning, around ten o'clock. Above me, the sky is cloudless, and the sun casts golden patches onto the road through the treetops. The air is humid, with a temperature of about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Morning mist drifts from the forest, softening the sunlight around me. Gray long-tailed parrots are flitting and jumping among the treetops on either side of the road. A creaky ox cart passes me by, tightly bundled with several logs of. An Indian sacred cow is wandering not far ahead on the road: white fur, one horn polished green, the other yellow—seems completely indifferent to the winding turns trying to avoid