Compiling and editing Forgotten Voices of Burma was a new experience for me; I was already the author of some fourteen books and have contributed to several more, but this book, published by Ebury last month, was very different. This would not be my book, but a story told in the words of the men and women who fought in the long and difficult Burma campaign, taken from recordings in the Sound Archive of the Imperial War Museum. There was so much material in this remarkable archive that I was spoilt for choice; selecting which of the fascinating first-hand accounts to use was a major challenge in itself. The next task was then to weave the tapestry of a little-known campaign spanning nearly four years. But I had to stay out of it. It is their story, not mine; and what a story.

Listening to these accounts in the Sound Archive day after day, I sometimes found myself so engrossed by what I was hearing that my fingers stopped typing into my lap-top. There were tales of battles fought in appalling conditions at Kohima and Imphal, of terrifying missions by the Chindits, and of the long advance to Rangoon. I was astounded by the ferocity of the close fighting on the tennis court of the District Commissioner’s bungalow at Kohima; and the courage of those who took part, cut off from reinforcements for days. I was deeply affected by accounts from those who saw and heard the wounded massacred in the field hospital in the Arakan; as well as officers telling how they had to administer lethal doses of morphine to their own mortally wounded men to prevent them falling in to Japanese hands.

This coming Sunday, millions of people will be remembering those who have fought for their country by wearing a red poppy, attending a church service or simply observing two minutes’ silence at 11am. And although the poppy sprang from the bloody fields of Flanders, today it represents all those who have fought in many far-flung corners of the world, and even if we are separated from them by the passage of history we do our best to remember that they were individual men and women who were afraid but faced their own dangers with amazing fortitude and courage. I hope that Forgotten Voices of Burma is a fitting tribute to these men and women who fought in this ‘forgotten’ campaign and will help them to be remembered too.

Julian Thompson

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