While the author doesn't exactly endorse the post-war feature-film vision of one side grinning stoically while the other indulges in bayonet practice on its prisoners, the book is nevertheless in essence an adulatory history of the British at war in the area.
All books describing war are depressing, and in almost equal measure. Why? Because they're almost all one-sided, and invariably show that men will stop at nothing in order to win. At the ancient temple city of Pagan, for instance, Japanese troops were discovered in tunnels. When even napalm wouldn't force them out, the tunnels were simply sealed, burying them alive (though the author refrains from explicitly saying as much).
Race played its part too. Wingate, for example, only wanted to command British soldiers. And for one attack, across a river at dawn, an unprepared British unit was given the "privilege" of the assault rather than a better prepared Indian one. The majority of the British were shot to death in sinking boats, leaving the Indians, correctly supported, to follow up and overrun the position the following day.
Jon Latimer is a military historian, the author of works on the battle of El Alamein and the use of deception in warfare. The true drama of the story, the contrast between the glorious names of the regiments and the utter horror of the actual conflict, remains unremarked. Latimer doesn't anywhere in this book question the justice of men's arms and legs being blown off in defense of a state's distant territorial possessions. But then that comes as no great surprise in the circumstances.
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