War in the wilderness

War in the Wilderness offers the disturbing and harrowing first-hand accounts of no less than 50 veterans of Major-General Orde Wingate's two bitterly-fought campaigns in North Burma in 1943-44. Chindit service in the Burmese jungle was widely acknowledged as the most demanding ground combat role given to any Allied troops in the Second World War, yet the men who made up Special Force were ordinary soldiers, trained in an extraordinary regime to accomplish and survive the impossible. Landed by Glider or Dakota on rough and remote jungle airstrips, hundreds of miles behind Japanese lines, the men lived on emergency rations for months, battling the monsoon conditions, disease and a ruthless enemy. They marched for 1000 miles in tropical conditions, across some of the wildest country on Earth, with half their bodyweight on their backs. The Burma campaign left thousands dead and virtually all survivors were hospitalised. But those who did return remained Chindits for the rest of their lives. Their suffering and achievements were recognised by their place of honour, at the head of the annual Cenotaph parade for many years after the war. In this book Tony Redding has gathered together the memories of those men, who came from every walk of life to fight alongside one another in the most punishing infantry campaign of the conflict.