The Irish Experience During the Second World War: An Oral History Book

This is, hands down, the best first person account of war in the China-Burma-India Theater in WW2. Written by the author of the Flashman historical novels, it benefits greatly from Mr. Fraser's talents as a fiction writer, but it's all true. Fraser described his service in General Slim's Army in Burma as the "last echo of Kipling's world", and that is not so far off the mark. Having served in infantry units myself, I felt the truth of this account in my bones. The strange decisions the soldiers had to make, like whether to shoot Japanese soldiers while sleeping, or to wake them up first, are the reality of the grunt's world (they decided it didn't matter much, one way or the other). Fraser is brutally honest, as when he describes being in the last battle of the war, in which, finally, the invisible enemy became visible. His battalion had spent months being shot at and losing men in the jungle, by Japanese who melted away in the forest, and finally they were fighting in the open; he tells of his happiness in being able to finally see and shoot the enemy. And yet, Fraser and his comrades were not blood-thirsty; few soldiers are, and those that are, are usually poor soldiers. They were there to do a job and get out alive, and that's how most soldiers feel. Not for the faint of heart, but so truthful in its description of the combat infantryman's world.

If you have not encountered Mr. Fraser in the Flashman series, you should do so. Flashman, Royal Flash, and etc, etc. Some very funny stuff there, but his memoir of the war in Burma is another thing altogether; funny, but tragic, and true.