Philip Stibbe - Return Via Rangoon

Return Via Rangoon — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Return Via Rangoon" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...57

Pen & Sword Books Limited

Presents

Pen & Sword Paperbacks

The Showcase for distinguished writing and enduring scholarship in Military History

BEYOND THE CHINDWIN Major Bernard Fergusson This is an account of the adventure of No 5 Column of the WESTGATE EXPEDITION into Burma, in 1943. Fifty years after its first publication it still stands as a military classic. It was written in 12 days, only a year after the end of the story which it tells. The immediacy of the narrative makes the story as exciting as any novel. With the constant reassessment of Wingates role in the war in Burma, this account should be required reading. Without the experiences of the 1943 expedition, the 1944 Allied operation could not have been put together and certainly could not have been successful.

NOT ORDINARY MEN The Story of the Battle for Kohima John Colvin Probably one of the greatest battles in history in effect the Battle of Burma, naked, unparalleled heroism, the British/Indian Thermopylae Lord Mountbatten In April 1944, the Japanese, obsessed by the conquest of India, began their offensive. For sixteen days, less than 700 British and Indian troops held the assaults of 13,000 Japanese troops at the tiny garrison of Kohima. In hand to hand combat, in pouring rain and under continual bombardment, they held out. This epic battle was to prove the turning point of the Burma Campaign.

ISBN: 0-85052-486-5 * Price: 9.95 Pages: 256pp * Size: 216138mm

ISBN: 0-85052-477-6 * Price: 9.95 Pages: 248pp * Size: 234156mm

RETURN VIA RANGOON

RETURN VIA
RANGOON

P. G. STIBBE

First published in Great Britain in 1994.
This paperback edition published in 1995 by
LEO COOPER
190 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JL
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd,
47 Church Street,
Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Philip Stibbe, 1994, 1995

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 85052 476 8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any
means, without permission from the publishers.

Co Published in Thailand, Burma, Laos and
Cambodia by White Lotus Co Ltd,
GPO Box 1141, Bangkok 10501, Thailand.

ISBN 9748496473

White Lotus: Sole Distributor for Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia.

Printed at Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

Contents

To

Rifleman Maung Tun
The Burma Rifles
Hintha, March 1943

Authors Note

This book was first written in the summer of 1945 and published two years later. After forty-five years I have revised this account of my experiences. I hope the result is a more objective and a more readable piece of writing.

Basically the tale is the same. I have left the Epilogue as I wrote it in 1945 because what I said then still seems to me to ring true, and because I feel indebted to those who shared my experiences, and, especially, to the man who deliberately gave his life for me.

In the words of T. P. Cameron Wilson:

still through chaos
Works on the ancient plan,
And two things have altered not
Since first the world began
The beauty of the wild green earth
And the bravery of man.

P.G.S
1993

Foreword

by
JAMES LEASOR

When Christopher Columbus set out in 1492 to discover the New World, he found it difficult to sustain the courage and confidence of his crew.

The prospect of sailing into totally unknown seas terrified and distressed them. Many believed that, beyond sight of shore, the earth ended suddenly and they would plunge down into a measureless and fearful deep. Some threatened Columbus. All begged him to turn back while they could. Why should they attempt what no-one else had ever attempted before them? Columbus resolutely ignored such faintheartedness. After each day of discord and danger he made the simple entry in his log: This day I sailed on.

Reading Philip Stibbes account of his experiences in Burma as one of Brigadier Orde Wingates Chindits during the Second World War, I was reminded of Columbuss stoicism and his determination not to give in. Like Columbus, Stibbe never lost confidence in himself, in his comrades, or what they set out to achieve. His book is a remarkable testimony to human resilience and the strength of human spirit.

Stibbe was-at Oxford when war broke out. He joined the army, was commissioned, and in 1942, exactly 450 years after Columbus sailed West, Stibbe was marching East in Wingates first column of British and Gurkha troops, plus a contingent of the Burma Rifles. They took the name Chindits from the mythical stone creature, chinthes, that guard Burmese temples.

Until they set off British and Indian armies in Malaya and Burma had been in constant retreat. Humiliated, and defeatist, confidence in themselves and their leaders had eroded.

Wingate was determined to prove that, under his leadership, they could achieve what no other army in history had ever attempted: to fight through the monsoon. He was convinced that they could not only beat the Japanese, but also the climate and the jungle itself. Supplied by air, they would attack bridges, railways and other targets in the heart of Burma, then melt away to appear elsewhere unexpectedly, days or even only hours later. Such strategy may be commonplace now, but then it was revolutionary.

They could only be given rudimentary equipment, because that was all there was. In addition to the enemy, they would also face malaria, dysentery and unknown fevers so strange and malignant that medical officers would simply declare them NYD Not Yet Diagnosed. Wounds would rarely heal in monsoon conditions; even minor cuts could suppurate, often becoming open sores as big as saucers.

Before they set out, Wingate, an unorthodox leader with a close knowledge of the Old Testament, addressed them in Biblical terms: The River Chindwin is Jordan. Once across, there is no turning back. The only way out of Burma is via Rangoon. That is how Philip Stibbe returned three years after he went in.

During the campaign he was so badly wounded that he had to be left behind. A Burmese rifleman loyally volunteered to stay with him. Foraging for food, this brave companion was captured by the Japs who believed that a wounded British officer was hiding nearby. They tortured him to reveal Stibbes whereabouts. He died rather than do so.

Despite this, the Japanese eventually found Stibbe. Almost as a matter of course, they tortured him. Then, starving, ill, suffering from his fearful wound, he was taken south to Rangoon jail. Here he stayed a prisoner until the end of the war.

Philip Stibbe wrote and published the first edition of this book shortly afterwards. At that time, we were both undergraduates, reading English at neighbouring Oxford colleges, Merton and Oriel, and both back after years with the Army in Burma. I was impressed then, and now, by the amazing way in which he seemed able to rise above all hardships.

Whether I am wiser than I was when I joined the Army as an undergraduate, I cannot tell, he writes, But certainly I am happier.

Next page

1234567...57

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Return Via Rangoon»

Look at similar books to Return Via Rangoon. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Philip Dick

The Gun

Claire Stibbe

No Good Lie

Mark Stibbe

Explaining Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Stibbe

Paradise lodge: a novel

Amy Chung

The Rangoon Sisters

Veranneman

Belgium in the Second World War

Stibbe

Reasons to be cheerful: Winner of the 2019 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction

Stibbe

Love, Nina: a nanny writes home

Stibbe

An Almost Perfect Christmas

Nina Stibbe

An Almost Perfect Christmas

Philip Roth

Philip Roth at 80

Mark Stibbe

100 Bible Verses That Will Change Your Life: It’s Time to Encounter the Father’s Love

Discussion, reviews of the book Return Via Rangoon and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.