Imperial Military Transportation in British Asia is an insightful addition to both the literature on the First Burma Campaign (1941-42) and the history of military transportation more broadly. Charney's work details the battle to modernize a railway system that had been beset by colonial and organizational politics and adapt it to military use, describing how it ultimately helped facilitate Britain's longest fighting retreat and the evacuation of terrified civilians as Burma fell to the Imperial Japanese Army. Works including Lunt's Hell of a Licking, Carew's The Longest Retreat, and the more recent First Burma Campaign by Gre-han have documented the military perspective on the fall of Burma. Char-ney uses primary documents, including the personal papers of Brigadier John Biddulph, who led the transformation of the railways, to describe the difficulties of implementing a technical transportation revolution in the face of not only the Imperial Japanese Army, but also the closed ranks of the Burmese Railway and resistance from the military establishment.
展开▼
