Sunset in the East: A War Memoir of Burma and Java 1943-46

It is generally recognized that the war in Burma against the Japanese was as fierce as any. The Battle of Kohima was the turning point of this extraordinary campaign and personal accounts of the fighting there are greatly sought after. The author was in the thick of the action and his record is indeed a graphic and moving one.

Thereafter he was sent down to Malaya, but when the War ended, he found himself in Indonesia under the most bizarre circumstances. A bitter war of national independence from the Dutch colonial power was underway and it became necessary to employ the defeated Japanese troops to keep a semblance of order. This little known turn of events makes for the most fascinating reading and adds a new dimension to what would in any case be a first class memoir.

John Hudson is an author and historian.