Fighting Through to Kohima: A Memoir of War in India and Burma

click here for more details, find new or used items	Michael Lowry Our price £19.95 New from £18.85 Used from £23.50 Pages: 224 (Hardcover) ISBN: 1844150038 Pub: Leo Cooper Ltd Pub date: 2003-09 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 238166

Reader Reviews:

Evocative personal perspective of the battle of Kohima (10/10 people found this helpful)

Many readers will remember Michael Lowry's superb account as a Company Commander in Arakan in 1944, a book published shortly after the war and now long out of print. He has now returned to print with an excellent, readable and very personal account of the war, taking his infantry company through the `Box' battles in Arakan in February and March 1944 to the turning point battles of the Kohima hills in April and May 1944. Lowry begins by painting in the fascinating context of his time at Sandhurst at the outset of war followed by regimental service on the North West Frontier, an experience that bonded him fully into his regimental family and taught him the necessary detail of soldiering in plenty of time before he was thrown into the maelstrom that was Burma. He writes as an ordinary man, leading well-trained and disciplined troops in the desperate struggles against a fanatical enemy in the gloom of the Arakan jungle and the mud, rain and hand-to-hand terror of the Kohima ridge. In so doing, however, he comes across as a professional, caring and diligent leader, looking after each of his soldiers as he would one day care for the sheep on the farm he went on to run after his retirement.

The book is a refreshing antidote to the `jungle hell' variety of Burma Campaign history. Lowry's perspective by contrast is that of an infantry leader in a well-ordered and disciplined team, in no way dominated or outclassed by the fanatical `warrior ants' (as Slim called them) of the Japanese Imperial Army against whom they were fighting. It is a story of complete professionalism, of a commitment to maintaining the highest standards in the fastidious detail of an infantryman's existence, and of hard and relevant training. It is also a story of the camaraderie and affection that builds up between men dependent upon each other for their very lives, and who become lifelong friends through the shared experience of battle. Because of this it is possible in part vicariously to experience the loss Lowry feels when describing the death of his friends and to wonder again, for those of us who were not yet born at the time of these events, at the extraordinary sacrifices of this gallant generation.

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