The Jungle is Neutral (Classics of World War II, The Secret War)

Time-Life Books, Richmond, VA. 1988. Hardcover. Reprint of the 1949 2nd Impression by Chatto and Windus. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: Near Fine; light shelfwear to gilt edges of textblock; small scuffs to the board fore edges. No DJ. Brown leatherette/marbled boards with dark brown leather spine and tip covers (1/4 leather); real leather with 22K gold-tooled lettering and raised ribs. Page Edges are gilded with 22K gold on all three sides; sew-in red cloth pagemarker; Morse code endpapers. Gilt lettering on the spine and front board. Frontispiece drawing of Chapman opposite title page; all maps present; fold out map present in rear. 435 pp 8vo. In this book the author, narrates with typical British aplomb an amazing tale of four years spent he as a guerrilla in the jungle, haranguing the Japanese in occupied Malaysia. Traveling sometimes by bicycle and/or motorcycle, rarely by truck, and mainly in dugouts, on foot, and often on his belly through the jungle muck, Chapman recruits sympathetic Chinese, Malays, Tamils, and Sakai tribesman into an irregular corps of jungle fighters. Their mission: to harass the Japanese in any way possible. In riveting scenes, they blow up bridges, cut communication lines, and affix plasticine to troop-filled trucks idling by the road. They build mines by stuffing bamboo with gelignite. They throw grenades and disappear into the jungle, their faces darkened with carbon, their tommy guns wrapped in tape so as not to reflect the moonlight. And when he is not battling the Japanese, or escaping from their prisons, he is fighting the jungle's incessant rain, wild tigers, unfriendly tribesmen, leeches, and undergrowth so thick it can take four hours to walk a mile. A clean very presentable copy. …