Let us know what you think when it arrives. It has a British point of view,
but I think that, for example, what he says about the Chinese contribution is
not what everyone else says and is worth saying. His evaluation of the
Chindits is fair, and I didn’t know that Wingate, their leader, was related to
Lawrence of Arabia and a nudist. When I read that this fellow who recently has
raised money for the NHS by walking up and down his garden had served in that
campaign I wondered how. Rough place to be, but as in all warfare, it’s about
the luck of the draw. He’ll re-adjust your sense of what happened with
P.O.W.’s when you see the percentage of British who survived under the Japanese
and those from other countries. There’s no “Bridge Over the River Kwai” about
the Dutch, but I got an inkling when I was a kid and some Dutch adults I was
with crossed over the road rather than share the pavement with someone Japanese.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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