The Chancy War: Winning China, Burma, and India in World War II - Hardcover

Fischer, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517584247 ISBN 13: 9780517584248

Publisher: Crown, 1991

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Here, Fischer (American Studies/Notre Dame; Notre Dame Remembered, 1986) writes vividly of the ``Green Hell'' of southeast Asia after Japan struck in WW II. Chancy indeed was the Allied outlook when the Japanese military machine cut the Burma Road, thereby isolating China from the West while Japan advanced toward India. Fischer, who during the war was the army's official historian for the region, honors many heroes: General ``Vinegar Hoe'' Stillwell, who led his battered G.I.s and Chinese in the incredible ``walk out of Burma'' retreat; General Chennault and his volunteer American ``Flying Tigers,'' who destroyed hundreds of Japanese planes; the legendary Ranger regiment of ``Merrill's Marauders''; American airmen who daily flew the ``Hump'' over the high Himalayas with material to help keep China in the war; the fighting British generals Wavell and Slim; Father Stuart, the brave Irish missionary who rallied his Burmese tribesmen while confounding the enemy and saving thousands of lives. Less well treated, though, are the corrupt Chiang Kai- shek and the overbearing British Raj, which did little to aid the building of the Ledo Road through fearsome, dense jungles amid intense heat, monsoons, deadly fauna, and the Japanese enemy--one of the great feats of the war. When completed, the Ledo Road joined the retaken Burma Road to open up a 1750-mile lifeline from Calcutta to Kunming, China. Short on background material and chronology, but Fischer's impressionistic, anecdotal style will engage military-history fans. (Sixteen-page b&w insert--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal

In this anecdotal history of the China, Burma, India (CBI) Theater, Fischer (professor emeritus, Univ. of Notre Dame) covers a number of personalities, such as General Joseph W. Stilwell and many others, along with accounts of battles and some units that served in the CBI. While there are no new interpretations here, so few recent works have been published on the CBI that this is a welcome addition to the literature. The reader who wishes a detailed history of the subject should track down Charles Romanus and Riley Sunderland's Stilwell's Mission to China (1953), Stilwell's Command Problems (1956), and Time Runs Out in CBI (1959), published by the U.S. Army but now out of print. Fischer's highly readable work for a general audience is recommended for public and academic libraries that have limited works on World War II in Asia.
- Dennis L. Noble, Washington State Lib., Clallam Bay Corrections Ctr.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0517584247
• ISBN 13: 9780517584248
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 250