Thunder Run!

I received my copy of Jack Bowsher’s book Thunder Run, published by Chislebury, today. This is Jack’s second foray into the complexities of the Burma Campaign, following his debut in Forgotten Armour: Tank Warfare in Burma, which revealed a new and exciting talent in Burma Campaign historiography. He has not disappointed in this new account of the tumultuous events of 1945, bringing to life in a fresh and stimulating way the extraordinary battles that decided the fate of General Kimura’s Burma Area Army during the pre-monsoon months of 1945, battles that enabled General Bill Slim’s phenomenal 14th Army to win back Burma against all the odds. Making extensive use of memoirs and other accounts, as well as Unit War Diaries, Bowsher perfectly describes the achievements of the 14th Army and its Indian, African, British and American troops and airmen in this most remarkable of campaigns.

The 1945 campaign to reconquer Burma was a multi-faceted set of operations which proved a spectacular success for the Allies, in stark contrast the years of failure in 1942 and 1943. It set the seal on the triumph of the 14th Army which had destroyed the Japanese 15^th Army in Assam and Manipur in 1944 and which now defeated the Japanese in Burma before the A-bombs were dropped in August 1945. The campaign was General Slim’s great triumph of arms, turning 1942 defeat into stupendous and unexpected victory, certainly in London. It was many other things as well, including the coming of age of the Indian Army. Defeated in 1942, the Indian Army smashed the Japanese in the great battles of 1945 at Mandalay and Meiktila, before going on to capture Rangoon. Every aspect of warfare was here represented: crazy logistical, topographical and climatic challenges, great river crossings and combined arms manoeuvre, as Slim carefully but comprehensively unstitched the Japanese defence of Burma.

Thunder Run focuses on just one of the range of military operations that brought victory to the Allies in 1945 – the seizure of the key nodal point at Meiktila. This extraordinary victory came about by virtue of Slim’s ability to read the strategic situation, quickly moving from his anticipated encounter with battle north of Mandalay (Operation Capital) to Operation Extended Capital. This proved to be one of the most remarkable moves of the war, entailing the despatch of 4 Indian Corps through the jungled Gangaw Valley to strike hard at Meiktila, far to the south of where Kimura anticipated he would need to fight the Allies. Jack’s book covers the decisive battle, preceded by the crossings of one of the world’s greatest rivers. He is to be congratulated for doing a first class job of retelling the largely unknown story of the campaign that won back in 1945 what the British Empire had lost in 1942.

I know that you will enjoy it as much as me.