THE ROAD PAST MANDALAY (REISSUES)

The author description of Burmese aar transport you to Burma jungles

Outstanding in its scope of the British Indian Army's contribution in the Second World War through the eyes of one who had been there. Would be of interest to any student of military history specially with reference to the formation and the role played by Wingates Chindits in Burma. The battle descriptions, very dispassionately, puts the reader there as an eye witness to all the horror and destruction caused by men. It is also a travelogue and the authors love of the country and the hills comes through very evocatively and throwing light into the life of a military man in the British Indian Army. A superb read.

Simply told with great warmth, the love of his Gurkha soldiers coupled with the horror of the Burma campaign and a career soldiers eye are beautifully told

This book was recommended to me by a active Brigadier in the Australian Army as the best guide to the next conflict. Having read it, I can see why.

This is an excellent book. It has great insight into the ""Forgotten Army' and Wingate. Excellent companion to the first volume.Highly recommended.

This book appealed to me as a fascinating piece of history, & great , true life adventure tale. Speaking as a former student & teacher, I found American schools turn students OFF to history. In contrast, I have found John Masters turns people ON.I first became acquainted with John Masters via his three historical novels, set in India during British rule. Enthralled with the first one to come my way --- [ "The Deceivers" - based on the the very real problem the British had rooting out the "Thugs". Yeah, folks, Indiana Jones & "The Temple of Doom" was based upon "Gunga Din" --- & both were based upon these very real cultic robbers & assassins. ---SCARED ME SILLY !!! ] --- I found it difficult to find the other two novels. [Thanks to Amazon & perseverance, I finally did. ] Then came the author's partial autobiography -- "Bugles & a Tiger" -- describing his life as a young British officer in India, choosing to lead Gurkha infantry. It was only recently that I came upon the continuation of his story --- namely his service in the Middle East & Burma during WW!!It was having read these four books that caused me to snatch up this final one, as soon as I came across it on Amazon.It came to me from the UK. I find it is not as well written as his other books. [ Which I rate EXCELLENT!] Yet, it intrigues me, filling in a piece of the great void of history left by our grossly inadequate educational system. Our current involvement in places such as Iraq, Iran, & Afghanistan are very much repetitions of the British experiences -- i.e.: history repeating itself. Masters' writings really bring home the fact that what is happening now is grounded upon what has gone before. Or, as King Solomon put it, "There is nothing new under the sun."I highly recommend not just this one book, but all five by this author. They are NOT exclusively for history bluffs --- NOT just for folks who are trying to figure out what is happening in our world today. They are great, gut gripping, classic tales based upon a reality most Americans know little or nothing about. Lastly, Thank You Amazon ! Were it not for you, I would never have found these books.

I have found it to be an interesting, informative, and something of a page-turner of a book. It is the biography of a British Indian Army officer from the start of World War II to its end in 1945, and I think that it is well written.John Masters is first posted with the Gurkhas to the Middle East as a more junior officer, followed by Staff College in India, and then to Burma as a Chindit with a high rank, getting as far as commanding a brigade, followed in the end by a period as in effect number two of the division that took Mandalay towards the end of World War II.It is difficult to know how useful this book is. It is a War Memoir, and for people with an interest in what happened in particular in Burma it'll be informative. In essence, John Masters thinks that the concept of having Chindits was sound, but that the concept was not carried out well in practice, firstly, because politics entered into its creation, and, secondly, because Generel Stilwell simply got it wrong on the ground.The little that I have read about the war in Burma confirms the view given by John Masters that General Slim was excellent, but that General "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell was rubbish.There is an interesting sub-plot in that John Masters falls in love with a married woman called Barbara who already has two children. They have a baby, Barbara then gets a divorce, and then John Masters and Barbara get married. British culture of the day, particularly in India, frowned upon that sort of thing. In fact, it could wreck a promising military career. There were plenty of very pretty single women he could have fallen in love with and married. It isn't at all obvious to me why none of the single women would do.There is a significant amount of discussion of religion in this book, or at least it crops up a lot. Page 266 is the key to what John Masters thinks. "The hand of God? Causing death and mutilation, taking sides in violence? Not the Christian God, surely. Let each man believe what he wished." The senior padre thought otherwise. To him the hand of God had been with them.The independence movement is mentioned. It is clear that by the time of World War II it did intrude on the military. The Indian National Army is referred to as the Indian Traitor Army by John Masters.There is also the deliberate killing of severely wounded men so that they don't fall into the hands of the Japanese.The book would have been of real use to soldiers if John Masters had given a clear indication of what he felt at actually killing people and / or ordering that people be killed in the many different circumstances that it happened. He never really wavers from the line that war is terrible and terrible things are done that have to be done.For myself, there is much that is troubling. Much as I would like to be able to agree with John Masters a married woman with two small children is not an obvious yes, it is perfectly OK. There are two sides to every story.On the religious front I get the impression that John Masters hasn't really thought it through. He'd like it all to be Heaven on Earth, but it can't be all Heaven on Earth. Bad things can and will happen to people down here. At the same time, all credit to John Masters in that he does mention religion ... and politics. A very anodyne war memoir it would have been if he hadn't given us the benefit of his religious and political views.A book worth reading by historians, (and by relatives of the people mentioned in the book), but I suspect that soldiers in general looking for advice / guidance / real words of wisdom aren't going to find it here. I'm feeling generous, so it is five stars, but although it is a lot better than just an OK, it is not quite in the excellent category, and, therefore, arguably, four stars. Maybe it is four and half stars.