Rating: 
Summary: Fraser's own story and own voice
Review: This is Fraser's memoir, written decades later, of his experiences as a teenaged infantryman fighting the Japanese in Burma with General Slim's army in World War II. He doesn't exaggerate those experiences or attempt to twist them into a novelish coming-of-age story or a Flashman-style comic adventure. There is a strong element of the old-style "dialect story" in the recreated dialogue between Fraser and his comrades, most of whom are from Cumberland in the North of England, but these are both convincing and fun, and when the group comes under fire you share Fraser's feelings of comradeship with them in part because of that dialogue.What surprised and pleased me most about this book is the imprint of Fraser's own personality and strong opinions --- Flashman he is not. He's an old man now, and has grown more conservative and just a little cranky, but he's no less sharp an observer, resulting in a voice that's perfect (for my tastes) for first-person narration of and commentary on witnessed historical events. He indulges in some sentimentality that his famous character Flashman would have mocked --- about the characteristics of "Englishmen," for instance --- but knowing what he experienced in Burma you feel that he's more than earned the right to sentimentalize. Toward the end he leaves his narrative to defend the use of the atom bomb against Japan; he says that to protect his grandchildren he'd "gladly throw the switch on the entire Japanese nation," and that if you can't say the same you've got no business being a parent. I was shocked and delighted with the honesty of that sentence, and of this book as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: Fraser's own story and own voice
Review: This is Fraser's memoir, written decades later, of his experiences as a teenaged infantryman fighting the Japanese in Burma with General Slim's army in World War II. He doesn't exaggerate those experiences or attempt to twist them into a novelish coming-of-age story or a Flashman-style comic adventure. There is a strong element of the old-style "dialect story" in the recreated dialogue between Fraser and his comrades, most of whom are from Cumberland in the North of England, but these are both convincing and fun, and when the group comes under fire you share Fraser's feelings of comradeship with them in part because of that dialogue. What surprised and pleased me most about this book is the imprint of Fraser's own personality and strong opinions --- Flashman he is not. He's an old man now, and has grown more conservative and just a little cranky, but he's no less sharp an observer, resulting in a voice that's perfect (for my tastes) for first-person narration of and commentary on witnessed historical events. He indulges in some sentimentality that his famous character Flashman would have mocked --- about the characteristics of "Englishmen," for instance --- but knowing what he experienced in Burma you feel that he's more than earned the right to sentimentalize. Toward the end he leaves his narrative to defend the use of the atom bomb against Japan; he says that to protect his grandchildren he'd "gladly throw the switch on the entire Japanese nation," and that if you can't say the same you've got no business being a parent. I was shocked and delighted with the honesty of that sentence, and of this book as a whole.
Rating: 
Summary: An amazing book
Review: This is one of the best personal memoirs of any war. Fraser's experience as a young man fighting in Burma during World War II is recalled in wonderful detail. He manages somehow to bring out all the horrors, oddities, laughter, and comaraderie that characterize many similar military units, and we get to know each member of the small band with all their strengths and failings. Particularly striking is Fraser's occasional use of official historical accounts of the Burmese campaign as preface pieces to his own descriptions; the cold eye of the historian paints a very different picture compared to one who was there, when every shot fired could end in the death of yourself or a comrade. Fraser's introduction alone is a gem, and his brief discussions of the ordinary soldier's view of the Nazi concentration camps and the Hiroshima bombing provide a stark contrast to the moralizing that surround these subjects today. Fraser's book reminds us that at bottom, all wars are characterized by the men who fought in the lowest ranks: men whose efforts make them stand out and who deserve our admiration, thanks and respect.
Rating:
Summary: A CLASSIC ACCOUNT OF THE RECONQUEST OF BURMA
Review: While Britain was ingloriously kicked out of SE Asia in 1941, their soldiers seemed to exemplify the worst effects of years of defeat and despair. The debacle of Burma and Singapore and the debilitating effects of defeat infected both the British, Indian and Commonwealth armies. After the defeats and the long road back is where George Mac Fraser comes in. The British and Indian Armies has been integrated trained and tested in the rugged battles of Imphal and Kohima. The Black Cat Division full of men from mostly Cumbria, are ready to be tested in the long road back to Rangoon. Fraser recounts his role in the big push to capture most of Burma and then the mop-up operations with British Special Forces in the closing weeks of the war. Fraser's autobiographical writing is characteristically wry and at times cynically humourous. At other times he evinces what one may call the "ugly" side of the racist feeling of the enemy that filled the heads of both sides in this conflict. Like a lot of authors of the same era, Japanese are "Japs" and they are a lesser form of humanity. Lesser because they kill, rape and murder and kill British POWs to a degree that the British soldier (and any normal human being) finds shocking. What happens is, in turn, a dehumanisation of the British/ Indian soldier and any notion of him being a gentlemanly warrior. Quarter is neither asked nor given. Killing Japs and more Japs becomes the end in itself. When the initial offence breaks the backs of the main line of Japanese defence, the Gurkhas hunt Japanese with their long Kukris, Indian troops kill Japanese wounded, and the British go for vengence. At the end of the book Fraser is aware of the mentality engendered on him and his men. He makes no apologies for it. In one of his more famous quotes he asks if the British soldier fully cognizent of what the A Bomb would do the Japanese women and children would withhold bombing if giving the choice. He answers that if it could in some way end the suffering on the Burma Front by shortening the hell they faced, then the British Soldier would join in a single chorus that "yes use the damned thing...." It is chilling in the sense what this war in the jungle did to them. Fighting far from home in a jungle with sparse rations, rotting clothes, little rest, constant wet of the monsoons or constant dryness of the central plains --- the wasting of the body and the mind is much in evidence in this book. Fraser also loved his mates and the times he spent with them. Those days around fires on the Central Plains the intial rush to capture Rangoon before the Monsoon rains is very poetically detailed by this warrior Scot. Seven years after reading this book I can still remember his description of when the chase ends and the first drops of the monsoon rains come as they rest on the road to Burma. The British Warrior poet is a much more developed genre than its American counterpart. In this war there are many good British haunting memoirs about the Burma Front and the "Fogotten War."
But this is still one of the best and stays with you a very long time. ... to being the consummate jungle fighters, unparalleled, is where Japane
| 
