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BOOK REVIEW ON
THE WAR IN BURMA
2. This book has total ten chapters. All the chapters of this book are well
arranged and give a continuous picture of many events as they took place. The
strategical, tactical and administrative problems were tackled and solved, have
also been well brought out. Chapter one describes the strategic concept while
chapter two explains the administrative problems faced during Burma
Campaign. The other chapters chronologically very describe the Southern
Front- Arakan Operations, the Central Front, the Northern Front, Chindit
Operations, the Significance Of Air Power, Naval Operations,. Problems Of
Command And Control as well as Intelligence And Security respectively. At the
beginning of the chapters some relevant questions is given which are important
for the staff college entrance examinees. In each chapter the author has also
very clearly discussed the answer of those questions which would be very
helpful for the readers.
3. This book reviews the operations launched by South East Asia Command
under the leadership of its Supreme Commander Lord Louis MountBatten for
the reconquest of Burma. In the Last edition of the book only essential maps
has been incorporated as certain accounts such as Kohima and Imphal battles
or the assault on Meiktila will always remain incomplete without maps.
4. Aim. The aim of this paper is to review the book, `The war in Burma`.
6. This Chapter has also covered Indian Command, European and Pacific
Theatres, China Theatre operations. First impression of F.M Viscount Slim in
'Defeat into Victory' is also given at the end of this chapter.
13. The aim given to Supreme Commander South East Asia is to maintain
and enlarge contacts with china both by air route and by making direct contact
in Northern Burma by use of suitably organized and air-supplied ground forces
of the greatest possible strength. With this aim in view, Lieutenant General
stilwell was ordered to occupy Northern Burma upto the Mogaung-Myitkyina
area so as to cover the construction of the overland route to China. It was
decided that Major General Wingate’s special force should at the appropriate
moment be brought in to cut the enemy road and rail communication to his
northern forces while the main Japanese forces were to be contained by IV
corps on the central front. The special forces succeeded in the operation.
15. Air Supremacy plays a vital role in favour of the special force in these
operations. The special force succeeded in the operation. It was a new type and
dimension of war and new tactics that made victory possible.
16. Chapter – 7. In this chapter significance of air power has been
discussded very clearly. The contribution which air power made the victory of
the Allied Forces in Burma was both unique and significant. The air operations
established beyond doubt that the aeroplane was not primarily a bomb carriage
but instead a new means of transportation and supply around which warfare
could be reshaped. Realizing the situation of war Admiral Mountbatten
integrated the British Empire Air Force and united Air Force on 14 December
and put under Air Chief Marshall Peirse who became the Allied Air
Commander-in-Chief with General Stratemeyer as his Second-in-Command.
Stratemeyer was put in charge of the Eastern Air Forces fighting in the Burma
campaign.
17. The author has discussed the significance of air power in conjunction
with land operations fought on different fronts in the following manners:
a. Organization of air forces in the South East Asia Command.
b. Army/Air co-operation.
c. Air operations- Local.
d. Air Supply.
(i) Air Support.
(ii) Air Transportation .
e. Air Operations- Long Range.
18. Chapter- 8. The Naval operations is being discussed in this chapter. The
campaign in Burma was primarily as Admiral Mountbatten says an `Infantry
man’s Battle’ and the scope of naval operations was therefore extremely
limited. The Eastern Fleet was generally responsible for security of sea
communications in Indian Ocean.
22. Chapter- 10. In this chapter the author has narrated Intelligence
and Security. Intelligence had still another aspect which was peculiar to the
operations in Burma and that was the need for inter service co-ordinations on
intelligence matters. The various problems which confronted the intelligence
staff and the way they were handled in practice during the campaign can be
studied as follows:
a. Intelligence Organization.
b. Employment of Sources and Agencies.
c. Enemy Appreciation.
24. Comments.
a. The Author could have given more numbers of maps of each front with
respect of neighboring countries for better understanding.
b. The author has incorporated the major administrative problems in the
second chapter just immediately after explaining the strategic concept. But it
would be better if the administrative problems were discussed at the later
chapters, because initially the readers remain more interested to know about
the operation itself.
c. The author could orient the readers with Burma in relation to India more
closely that would be more effective.
d. At the end of each operation the author could write reasons of victory
and defeat for both Allied and Japanese forces.
e. The author could include tactical lessons learnt and the principles of war
followed in each battle or chapter. This would more informative.
Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/299184734/Book-Review-war-in-
Burma
1. What is the book's main argument?
2. Who seems to be the intended audience for the book?
3. How is the book structured?
4. Does the structure of the book (its various parts and chapters) reinforce its larger argument?
How?
5. What kinds of sources, or examples, does the book offer in support of its argument, and which
are most (and least) effective? Why?
6. Does the book engage other writers' works on the same subject and, even if not, how would you
position the book in relation to other texts you are aware of on the same subject (texts you have
read for class, for example)?
7. Does the author seem biased or prejudiced in any way and, if so, is that prejudice or bias the
product of the author's own background, as far as you can tell?
8. How persuasive is the book (if certain aspects are more persuasive than others, explain why)
While her hoped-for objective, in this context, is that the book "will stir the conscience of Japan to
accept responsibility for this incident," the larger argument is that history, including horrific history,
needs to be told truthfully in order for us to learn from the past (16).
2. The book's intended audience is a non-academic American readership, generally uninitiated into
the events described. The book can fairly be called a work of popular narrative history directed at
a mass audience.
3. The book is divided into three parts, each subdivided into several chapters.
o Part I briefly sets the scene by historicizing the Japanese codes of warfare and honor,
then describes in detail the campaign waged by the Japanese and their many atrocities
against the civilian population of Nanking in 1937. Many of these graphic descriptions are
corroborated by eye witness accounts both Japanese and Chinese.
o Part II describes the ensuing Japanese occupation of the city. An important aspect of this
section is Chang's description of the lengths to which the Japanese government and
military went to limit media access to the city in order to prevent news of the massacre
from spreading (she calls this "Japanese damage control" [147]). This section ends with
the liberation of the city and the Allied war crimes tribunals, as a result of which seven
high-ranking Japanese officers were condemned to death by hanging, and executed.
o Part III describes the efforts of post-war Japan, led by its politicians and historians, to
cover up the events at Nanking, efforts Chang strongly condemns. She concludes with
the observation that although, at the time of the massacre, it was "front-page news across
the world, ... yet most of the world stood by and did nothing while an entire city was
butchered." She likens this to "the more recent response to the atrocities in Bosnia-
Herzegovina and Rwanda: while thousands have died almost unbelievably cruel deaths,
the entire world has watched CNN and wrung its hands" (221).
2. Chang chooses her three-part structure in order to communicate the diversity of voices that need
to be heard in order to fully comprehend the events in Nanking: the victims', the perpetrators', and
the historians'. That history has largely failed at its task to tell the full story is integral to her
argument. Thus she likens her three-part structure to that of the Japanese film Rashomon, in which
different witnesses of a rape recount its story, each from their own perspective (including the
victim's, the rapist's, and that of an eyewitness). The accounts, of course, vary considerably: "It is
for the reader to pull all the recollections together, to credit or discredit parts or all of each account,
and through this process to create out of subjective and often self-serving perceptions a more
objective picture of what might have occurred. This [film] should be included in the curriculum of
any course treating criminal justice. Its point goes to the heart of history" (14).
3. The book cites eye witness accounts on all sides, including Western eye witnesses: much mileage
is generated by the memoirs of American missionaries who were on the scene at the time of the
massacre. The book also provides a map of the city, marking specific locations of individual
massacres, and twenty-four pages of photographs. Without a doubt, the graphic verbal accounts
of those who witnessed the event are most effective: they are searing and hard to forget. Some of
the photographs, too, are extremely graphic (they include multiple images of nude victims of rape,
beheadings, corpses and the desecration of corpses, and severed heads); while these are very
effective primary sources, their veracity has been retroactively challenged, which diminishes their
effectiveness (see Historiography and Evaluating Contradictory Data and Claims). The map,
which appears prior to any of the main text, is ineffective: it shows no scale, does not identify
Nanking's location within the larger landmass of China for the intended uninitiated readership, nor
the troop movements of the Japanese army as they entered the city or the remnants of the Chinese
army as they fled. These are events the book describes, but which find no visual correlation on the
map itself. The sites of specific massacres visually identified on the map are simply marked "X"
(there are approximately forty-five) but are not identified by name, and can therefore not be linked
to specific events described in the later text.
4. On the issue of other, related works on this subject, please follow the link to Historiographic
Essays. Generally, there was no large body of literature on the Rape of Nanking prior to the
publication of Chang's book, although the book itself has spawned a large number of responses,
many of them in general agreement with Chang, some critical (these, mainly generated by
Japanese scholars), and a few that denounce her book as an outright fabrication. Again, follow the
link to historiographic essays and contradictory data and claims on this. Chang does not
provide a bibliography. Part of her argument, of course (in 1997, the year of her book's publication)
is that the Rape of Nanking had been a generally-forgotten event prior to her own efforts.
5. Chang does seem prejudiced against the Japanese version of the event (again, this is integral to
her argument and she openly reveals the animus she feels towards Japanese historians from the
start; given the nature of her project, it would seem difficult for her not to feel these sentiments).
Her personal background as the grandchild of former residents of Nanking (her grandparents
escaped just weeks before the massacres began) undoubtedly contributes towards her
perspective. Here, again, she makes no effort to conceal her position. Indeed, the manner in which
she personalizes her account in her introduction is an important and effective "hook" that draws
the reader in: "I first learned of the Rape of Nanking when I was a little girl. ... Their voices quivering
with outrage, my parents characterized the Great Nanking Massacre, or Nanjing Datusha, as the
single most diabolical incident committed by the Japanese. ... Throughout my childhood Nanjing
Datusha remained buried in the back of my mind as a metaphor for unspeakable evil" (7, 8).
6. Overall, the book is effective, in part because of its sensational and unfathomably horrific subject
matter. A strange moment of cognitive dissonance is created, however, by the fact that, as cited
above, Chang claims that the massacres occurred before the eyes of the world (the event, she
states in her conclusion, was "front-page news across the world ... splashed prominently across
the pages of newspapers like the New York Times" [221]), yet she cites only very few of these news
articles to back up her claim. (In fact, she cites the same one multiple times: "Japanese Atrocities
Marked Fall of Nanking After Chinese Command Fled," The New York Times, December 22, 1937,
p. 38 - hardly "front-page news"). Nevertheless, the book is memorable and powerful, and as
evidenced by its bestselling status, succeeded in its day in bringing to the world a story previously
largely unknown, denied, or ignored. As such, it stands as a success, although the controversy it
generated upon publication has slightly diminished its overall legacy (see Historiographic
Essays and Evaluating Contradictory Data and Claims).
Source: https://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/history/assignments/bookreviews.html
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