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  p. 45 ‘As a result, the battalion’ Captain H. L. T. Radice, The 28th in Assam, 1942–43, Back Badge Magazine, 1950.

  p. 45 ‘It [was] a lovely place’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 18283, interview with Dennis Dawson.

  p. 46 ‘Everywhere these patrols went’ Radice, The 28th in Assam, 1942–43.

  p. 46 ‘living with two wives’ NA, WO 203/4637, Miscellaneous papers relating to the battle of Kohima.

  p. 46 ‘from a Naga who’ Ibid.

  p. 46 ‘To our great relief’ IWM, file no. 12438 03/23/1, diary of Lieutenant B. K. ‘Barry’ Bowman.

  p. 48 ‘The Pahok headman was’ Ibid.

  p. 48 ‘I decided not to hang’ Ibid.

  p. 49 ‘Experienced officers were wounded’ IWM, file no. 97/36/1, R. A. W. Binny, The Story of V Force.

  p. 49 ‘A heavily loaded man’ NA, WO 172/4585, Appendix A, Lieutenant Colonel W. A. Ord.

  p. 49 ‘When somebody died’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 49 ‘very fond of biting’ The Story of ‘V’ Force – The Phantom Army of Burma, NAM 9412-188-27.

  p. 49 ‘Later, along the whole front’ Field Marshal Lord Slim, Defeat into Victory (Cassell, 1956), p. 148.

  p. 50 ‘Good. Remember I back you’ The Story of ‘V’ Force – The Phantom Army of Burma, NAM 9412-188-27.

  p. 50 ‘There was a great deal’ Ursula Graham Bower, interview with Professor Alan MacFarlane, Cambridge University.

  p. 50 ‘If you come home’ Ibid.

  p. 51 ‘knitting interminable jumpers’ Ibid.

  p. 51 ‘gone completely off’ Ibid.

  p. 51 ‘I hadn’t realised that’ Ursula Graham Bower, Naga Path (John Murray, 1952), p. 37.

  p. 51 ‘It was a giddy path’ Ibid., p. 38.

  p. 51 ‘She [Gaidiliu] was tall’ Ursula Graham Bower interview with Professor Alan MacFarlane, Cambridge University.

  p. 52 ‘if they must have a goddess’ Ibid.

  p. 53 ‘So sorry but I’ve’ Graham Bower, Naga Path, p. 164.

  p. 53 ‘He was superb’ Ibid., p. 167.

  p. 53 ‘We waved back’ Ibid., p. 168.

  p. 53 ‘not always of the’ Ibid., p. 139.

  p. 54 ‘He had an intense’ Graham Bower, Naga Path, p. 58.

  p. 54 ‘He was very protective’ Interviewed by Mark Tully, ‘Stand at East’, BBC Radio 4, 11 June 2005.

  p. 54 A Hangrum man [stood] up’ Graham Bower, Naga Path, p. 173.

  p. 55 ‘the lame, the halt and blind’ Ibid.

  p. 55 ‘When she spoke’ Ebenezer Jones, interviewed by Mark Tully, ‘Stand at East’, BBC Radio 4, 11 June 2005.

  p. 55 ‘Japanese in great numbers’ RMAA, Pawsey Papers, Part 2: The Year 1942.

  p. 56 ‘In the Naga Hills’ NA, WO 208/799, Assam-internal situation, official communications and reports, 1942–44.

  p. 56 ‘making him the laughing stock’ NA, WO 172/4585, V Force intelligence summaries and diaries.

  p. 56 ‘We had not been so bitter’ Graham Bower, Naga Path, p. 187.

  Five: Kentish Men

  p. 59 ‘The stubborn alertness’ H. D. Chaplin, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 1920–1950 (Michael Joseph, 1954).

  p. 59 ‘the Drill Hall proved’ Wally Jenner, ‘Wally’s War’, private memoir.

  p. 59 ‘I was getting one shilling’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 60 ‘and I was happy because’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 60 ‘Lack of literacy may’ James Estlin, What Impact Did the Great War Have on the Community of Tonbridge School, Remembrance Day Essay, Tonbridge School, 2008, citing ‘The Tonbridgian’ school magazine, 1917.

  p. 60 ‘There was a place’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 61 ‘Our whole bloody battalion’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 61 ‘We were like sheep’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 20461, interview with Ivan Daunt.

  p. 62 ‘like a soldier’ Wally Jenner, ‘Wally’s War, private memoir.

  p. 62 ‘And when I said no’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 63 ‘We were all bloody miserable’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 63 ‘toughening up marches’ NA, WO 169/5027.

  p. 63 ‘I got down’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 64 ‘I was thinking I was’ IWM, 17537, Oral History Project, interview with Donald Easten.

  p. 64 ‘However I didn’t blow’ Ibid.

  p. 64 ‘wonderful moonlight night’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 64 ‘became considerably disorganised’ Ronald Walker, The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945: Alam Halfa and Alamein (Historical Publications Branch, 1967), p. 130.

  p. 64 ‘The silence was shattered’ Chaplin, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 1920–1950.

  p. 65 ‘The intelligence wasn’t thorough’ IWM 20461, interview with Ivan Daunt.

  p. 65 ‘thrown away in a’ Chaplin, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 1920–1950, p. 217.

  p. 65 ‘a complete cock-up’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 66 ‘ten good milk cows’ Thomas Dinsdale Hogg, My Life Story (privately published, 1998).

  p. 66 ‘suffered terribly from’ Ibid.

  p. 66 ‘A lot of them had’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 20461, Ivan Daunt.

  p. 66 ‘This particular trick’ Hogg, My Life Story.

  p. 67 ‘I was supplied with a jeep’ Hogg, My Life Story.

  p. 67 ‘We had to stop’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 67 ‘Congratulations to Mr. H. Crispin Smith’ Ballards School magazine, 1939, cited in memorial address for Harry Crispin Smith (1913–2007), by Peter Harrison, 30 April, 2007.

  p. 68 ‘who wouldn’t think twice’ Harry Smith, Memories of a Hostile Place (privately published).

  p. 68 ‘When he heard we were’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 69 ‘Playboy of India’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 69 ‘there was a faint hint’ E. B. Stanley Clark and A. T. Tillot, From Kent to Kohima (Gale and Polden, 1951), p. 30.

  p. 70 ‘The whole operation’ Robert Kay, Bob’s Stories (privately published).

  p. 71 ‘all mangled and his legs’ IWM Oral History Project, file no. 20461, Ivan Daunt.

  p. 71 ‘staggered to see Indian bodies’ Michael Lowry, Fighting Through to Kohima (Pen and Sword, 2003), p. 21.

  p. 72 ‘Every station brought’ IWM, Swinson Papers, NRA 28568, diary of Captain Arthur Swinson.

  p. 72 ‘without exposing one square inch’ Ibid.

  p. 72 ‘there would be tables’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 72 ‘swept towards the train’ Robert Street, A Brummie in Burma (Barny Books, 1997), p. 13.

  p. 73 ‘It was so strange’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 73 ‘for me always the smell’ Smith, Memories of a Hostile Place.

  Six: Fighting Back

  p. 75 ‘He fought and marched’ Field Marshal Lord Slim, Defeat into Victory (Cassell, 1956), p. 538.

  p. 75 “the sort of jungle’ Michael Lowry, Fighting Through to Kohima (Pen and Sword, 2003), p. 71.

  p. 76 ‘very formidable obstacles’ Dispatch by General Sir George J. Giffard, Commander-in-Chief 11 Army Group, South-East Asia Command, 19 June 1945, published in the London Gazette, 13 March 1951.

  p. 76 ‘our troops were either’ IWM, Irwin Papers, 10516 P 139, Report on a Visit to the Maungdaw Front from 4/5/43–9/5/43.

  p. 76 At one point recruits Ashley Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (Hambledon Continuum, 2006), p. 363.

  p. 77 ‘To lunch they go’ Hornbeck Papers, box 180, cited in Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind (Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 133.

  p. 78 ‘the danger of raising’ NA, CAB 120/29, cited in David Bercuson and Holger G. Herwig, One Christmas in Washington – Churchill and Roosevelt Forge the Grand Alliance (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2005), p. 220.

  p. 79 ‘triumph of having got’ President Roosevelt to Lord M
ountbatten, 8/11/43. PSF/Box 36/A330NN01. Franklin D.Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

  p. 79 ‘completely to desperation’ Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries, 1939–1945, ed. by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2001), p. 357.

  p. 80 ‘for the first time in two years’ President Roosevelt to Lord Mountbatten, 8/11/43. PSF/Box 36/A330NN01. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

  p. 81 ‘staple meal …’ IWM, file no. 4370 82/15/1, private papers of Sir Philip Christison, Bt.

  p. 81 ‘useless to hope for supplies’ Slim, Defeat into Victory, p. 225.

  p. 81 Slim picked Colonel Slim, Defeat into Victory, p. 224.

  p. 82 ‘incidence of malaria’ Lieutenant Colonel R. Wigglesworth, ‘The Burma Campaigns, 1942–1945: A History of Casualty Evacuation’, RAMC Journal, vol. 91 (1948), pp. 1010–24.

  p. 82 ‘The Havildar clerks’ David Atkins, The Reluctant Major (The Toat Press, 1986), pp. 62–63.

  p. 82 ‘The Japanese missiles’ NA, WO 222/187, Medical History of the 14th Army, November 1944–May 1945.

  p. 82 ‘You learned to bury’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 83 ‘As a result of this’ NA, WO 222/158, Divisional Psychiatry, A Report by Captain Paul Davis, Attached to 2 British Division.

  p. 83 ‘Why should I send’ Ibid.

  p. 83 ‘like going into the water’ Winston Churchill to Chiefs of Staff, 8 May 1943, cited in Ronald Lewin, Slim – The Standardbearer, p. 123.

  p. 83 ‘command must be decentralised’ Jungle Book, Military Training Pamphlet no. 9 (India), September 1943, cited in Daniel Marston, Phoenix from the Ashes: The Indian Army in the Burma Campaign (Greenwood Publishing, 2003).

  p. 84 ‘Proud as a Royal Rajput’ Talbot Mundy, For the Salt He Had Eaten (reprint, Kessinger publishing, 2004).

  p. 85 ‘and he accused me’ Field Marshal Lord Wavell, Wavell: The Viceroy’s Journal (Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 3, cited in Ronald Lewin, Slim – The Standard Bearer (Wordsworth Military Library, 1976), p. 137.

  p. 85 ‘This was a great occasion’ IWM, file no. 4370 82/15/1, The Life and Times of General Sir Philip Christison, Bt., p. 120.

  p. 85 ‘He told me had two sons’ Ibid.

  p. 86 ‘the standard of his’ NA, WO 303/6320, Essays and Interrogations of Lieutenant Colonel Iwaichi Fujiwara.

  p. 86 ‘We are indignant’ Sisi Kumar Bose, Alexander Werth, Narayan Gopal Jog, Subbier Appadurai Ayer, Beacon Across Asia – A Biography of Subhas Chandra Bose (Orient Blackswan, 1996), p. 144.

  p. 87 ‘counter propaganda purposes’ NA, DMI/4746.

  p. 87 ‘inculcate the doctrine’ NA, WO 203/4756.

  p. 87 ‘He promised to liberate’ Gian Singh, Memories of Friends and Foes (Cwmnedd Press, 1995).

  p. 87 ‘We did what our officers’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 87 ‘even those who were’ Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour (Jonathan Cape, 1974), p. 519.

  p. 88 ‘I remember saying that’ Interviewed by Mark Tully, ‘Stand at East’, BBC Radio 4, 11 June 2005.

  p. 88 Discrimination in pay between Cited in Pradeep Barua, Gentlemen of the Raj: The Indian Army Officer Corps, 1817–1949 (Praeger, 2003), p. 130.

  p. 88 ‘The fair deal meant’ Slim, Defeat into Victory, p. 195.

  p. 88 ‘bush to lie under’ Ibid.

  p. 89 ‘What the hell are you’ Gian Singh, Memories of Friends and Foes.

  p. 89 ‘Servants were plentiful’ John Shipster, Mist on the Rice Fields (Pen and Sword, 2000), p. 15.

  p. 89 ‘I wanted to see how’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 90 ‘It was nothing short’ Shipster, Mist on the Rice Fields, p. 33.

  p. 90 ‘Monkeys, gibbons, hornbills’ IWM, file no. 4370 82/15/1, The Life and Times of General Sir Philip Christison, Bt., p. 124.

  p. 90 ‘they were raring to’ Ibid., p. 122.

  p. 91 ‘A false alert the’ S. Woodburn Kirby, The War Against Japan, vol. 3: The Decisive Battles (HMSO, 1961), p. 121.

  p. 91 ‘Stroking their “Poona” moustaches’ J. B. Knowles, ‘Medium Artillery in Burma’, Field Artillery Journal (1945).

  Seven: Jungle Wallahs

  p. 92 Daunt recovered after a few IWM, Oral History Archive, file no. 20461, Reminiscences of Ivan Daunt.

  p. 92 ‘the tin-can of mechanical’ Field Marshal Lord Slim, Defeat into Victory (Cassell, 1956), p. 33.

  p. 92 ‘The mules, of course’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 93 In one instance 650 mules .

  p. 93 ‘Many became so attached’ Thomas Dinsdale Hogg, My Life Story (privately published, 1998).

  p. 93 ‘Oh dear, oh dear’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 20461, interview with Ivan Daunt.

  p. 93 ‘Round came the doctor’ Private L. [Len] A. C. Reynolds, memoir published on Burma Star website, 2005.

  p. 94 ‘the answer to noise’ Michael Lowry, Fighting Through to Kohima (Pen and Sword, 2003), p. 66.

  p. 94 ‘It was often proved’ Ibid.

  p. 94 ‘bang bang bang’ IWM, Oral History Project, file no. 20461, interview with Ivan Daunt.

  p. 95 ‘We went to see him’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 95 ‘He gave me absolute stick’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 96 ‘By those who understood’ Hogg, My Life Story.

  p. 96 ‘I got on extremely well’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 96 ‘made the mortar for half’ Interview with unnamed employee by Niamh Strudwick, granddaughter of John Laverty.

  p. 97 ‘Pure and simple he was’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 97 where his index card referred Undated correspondence between Ian Hook, Essex Regiment Museum, and Niamh Strudwick, granddaughter of John Laverty: ‘I hesitate to add that his index card refers to him as “Mad Jack.”’

  p. 97 ‘There was a big parting’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 98 ‘I thought to myself’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 99 ‘They looked at us’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 99 ‘Although he seemed to’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 99 ‘unwelcome captivity and restraint’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 99 ‘a great opportunity’ J. H. Badley, Education after the War (George Allen and Unwin, 1917), p. 3.

  p. 100 ‘concentration in things’ Diana Keast, private papers.

  p. 100 ‘he seldom wanted to finish’ Ibid.

  p. 100 ‘seemed to feel that’ Felix Gade, My Life on Lundy (Myrtle Langham, 1978).

  p. 100 ‘all oddities, people’ Diana Keast, private papers.

  p. 100 ‘The ferret killed the rat’ John Pennington Harman, Lundy Diary. February 1932.

  p. 101 ‘Thurs. 31st …’ Ibid.

  p. 101 Martin Coles Harman had made Daily Telegraph, 7 December 1954.

  p. 101’pre-war City’s wonder’ Daily Sketch, 7 December 1954.

  p. 101 In 1933 Harman senior Time, 18 April 1937.

  p. 101 ‘He so looked up to his father’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 102 ‘Life is just bloody hell’ Letters of John Pennington Harman to Martin Coles Harman, November – December 1941/January 1942.

  p. 102 ‘to a life of solitude’ Letter of John Pennington Harman to Martin Coles Harman, 5 and 7 April 1942.

  p. 102 ‘I have given the matter’ Letter of John Pennington Harman to Martin Coles Harman, 8 April 1942.

  p. 103 ‘I am still a private’ Letter of John Pennington Harman to Livie Noble, 22 October 1942.

  p. 103 ‘empty beer bottles’ Wally Evans, ‘John Harman, VC’, 20th – Newsletter of the 20th Bn, Royal Fusiliers, May 1997.

  p. 103 ‘The biggest blunder’ Ibid.

  p. 103 ‘Four years in NZ’ Letter of John Pennington Harman to Martin Coles Harman, 14 August 1943.

  p. 104 ‘He was a great countryman’ Interviewed for this book.

  Eight: The Master of the Mountains

  p. 105 ‘the spacious hou
ses’ E. C. V. Foucar, I Lived in Burma (Dennis Dobson, 1956), p. 141.

  p. 105 ‘several yellow-robed corpses’ Ibid., p. 139.

  p. 105 The geisha house Cited in Louis Allen, Burma: The Longest War (J. M. Dent, 1984), p. 599.

  p. 107 ‘almost like orphans’ Arthur Swinson, Four Samurai (Hutchinson, 1968), p. 116.

  p. 107 ‘Where his father had drifted’ Ibid.

  p. 107 ‘There is a law of the nations’ John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (Penguin, 1999), p. 21.

  p. 107 ‘Loyalty [is] their essential duty’ Imperial Rescript, 4 January 1882.

  p. 108 ‘I was surprised by that!’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 108 ‘We called them “Chankoro”’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 108 ‘The teacher beat you’ Interviewed for this book.

  p. 110 There had also been an Emperor Hirohito to 83rd Special Session of the National Diet, October, 1943.

  p. 112 ‘to attack and secure’ Imperial General Headquarters Army Directive no. 1237, 22 August 1942, cited in Arthur James Barker, The March on Delhi (Faber, 1963).

  p. 112 ‘when the general’ Directive to Commander Burma Area Army from Imperial Headquarters, 17 January 1944.

  p. 112 ‘these operations were …’ NA, WO 303/6320, Essays and Interrogations of Lieutenant Colonel Iwaichi Fujiwara.

  p. 113 When he went to see Mutaguchi Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Iwaichi Fujiwara, cited in Allen, Burma: The Longest War, p. 152.

  p. 115 ‘skin the racoon’ Major General Masazumi Inada, cited in Ibid., p. 160.

  p. 115 ‘I love that man’s enthusiasm’ Cited in Ibid., p. 159.

  p. 116 ‘The motivation for starting’ NDL: transcript of interview with Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, 1965.

  p. 116 ‘Here was the one place’ Field Marshal Sir William Slim, Defeat into Victory (Cassell, 1956), p 285.

  p. 117 Certainly Mutaguchi indulged Arthur Swinson. Four Samurai (Hutchinson, 1968), p. 128.

  p. 118 ‘Tojo: What’s the matter?’ Swinson, Four Samurai, pp, 125–6.

  p. 119 ‘In order to defend’ Directive to Commander Burma Area Army from Imperial Headquarters, 17 January 1944.

  p. 119 ‘It would no doubt satisfy’ Cited in Allen, Burma: The Longest War, p. 158.