Rating: 
Summary: Serviceable Burma Theater History, but Lacking the Road
Review: "The Burma Road" as the title implies, might be a book focused on the Burma Road. Both the road's tumultuous construction, and its present condition are all ground ripe for a modern telling. Unfortunately this describes the first and last chapters, but little in between. The book instead quickly abandons its initial perspective and retells the Burma war from General Stilwell's point of view. This retelling is serviceable for those who have read little else on the war in Burma. For those who would like more substance; I recommend Louis Allen's "Burma: The Longest War 1941-1945." For those interested in General Stilwell; Barbara Tuchman's "Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-45" is a far better choice. "The Marauders" by Charlton Ogburn, is a classic description of what it was like to be on the ground with the American Army behind enemy lines. Terrence O'Brien's "Out of the Blue: A Pilot with the Chindits" is the equivalent British experience. In the mean time, I anxiously await Mr. Webster's further tales of his trip along the road, its residents replete with wartime remembrances, and lots of luxurious photographs of the past and present Burma Road.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent...
Review: Donovan Webster has written a real page-turner. The Burma Road is as good as anything written by the late, great Stephen Ambrose. Webster tells the often-overlooked story of the China-Burma-India theater of World War II and the efforts of the Allies to keep the Burma Road open and to retake those areas captured by the Japanese. It sure helps that one of the main figures involved in the CBI was General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell. Stilwell is a fascinating character and deserving of much more widespread recognition than he ever achieved, although it is likely he would have despised any media attention. Webster's research is impeccable and his prose is crisp and intelligent. This is truly a top-notch book and will certainly please any history buff, especially those interested in WW II.
Rating: 
Summary: Thorough account of oft neglected WWII theater
Review: Finally the definitive book on the China-Indian-Burma Theater. So much has been written about the European campaigns and the U.S.-Japanese island battles and so little about such a huge and critical area of the Second World War. Donovan Webster has stepped forward with this indispensable addition to any collection of WWII history.
Hopefully this will blaze the trail for others to write more specific books. Therein is one of my two little quibbles with "Burma Road..." it covers so much the casual reader can get lost trying to absorb it all. Webster focuses heavily on the strategies and tactics of officers. I prefer to dwell in the trenches with GI Joe.
But Webster has provided the primer for future works and an excellent place to start for those of us new to this theater of war. He is obviously a superior researcher and manages to write about the details of military campaigns in an engaging style.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough account of oft neglected WWII theater
Review: Finally the definitive book on the China-Indian-Burma Theater. So much has been written about the European campaigns of World War II and the U.S.-Japanese island battles yet so little about such a huge and critical area of the Second World War. Donovan Webster has stepped forward with this indispensable addition to any collection of WWII history.
Hopefully this will blaze the trail for others to write more specific books. Therein is one of my two little quibbles with "Burma Road..." it covers so much the casual reader can get lost trying to absorb it all. Webster focuses heavily on the strategies and tactics of officers. I prefer to dwell in the trenches with GI Joe.
But Webster has provided the primer for future works and an excellent place to start for those of us new to this theater of war. He is obviously a superior researcher and manages to write about the details of military campaigns in an engaging style.
Rating:
Summary: A new authentic voice
Review: Finally, a new authentic voice.Ledo, Shaduzup, Shingbwiyang, Myitkyina, Bhamo...I knew these names by heart before I was 10. Stilwell, Pick, Seagrave, .... legendary names circulating around our dinner table, their stories, great and small, told and retold. I grew up with their photographs looking down at me from on the sunroom wall. A penetrating statement by Stillwell became our family motto, hammered home, to my chagrin, again and again to me by my father over the years. I can still clearly see myself as a child of seven sitting on General Pick's knee in our living room. There he would sit talking with my father, Col. Joe Green, the Road Engineer, Pick's right hand man. They visited often back then in the early 1950's, Pick and my father. Often, amidst the pressing concerns of the day and the Cold War, they talked of Burma and the Road and the men who built it, who fought and who died. I grew up hearing a uniquely authentic and unvarnished story of the CBI, the very good, the very bad, the very funny and the very ugly. The stories and history came from men who were profoundly changed by that experience. These men were faced with almost insurmountable obstacles; the Burmese jungles, rivers and mountains and a deadly and implacable foe. Men, who in spite of every hardship, got the 'Road That Couldn't Be Built' done in record time with a major pipeline, and a myriad of airstrips thrown in to boot. None of the men from the CBI that I have known over the years considered themselves heroes. When I would ask my father how he felt about being the road engineer on one of the great engineering feats of any century, he would reply " It was just a job of work, son. We all just wanted to do our best, stay alive and get home as quickly as possible." He refused to consider the possibility of writing a book. With the passing of these modest, brave and dedicated builder/warriors the authentic voice has muted and faded, until now. I bought the book by Donovan Webster primarily because in his Prologue he talked about walking the Road. Imagine, I said to myself, a writer who actually took the time to visit what he was writing about, I couldn't resist. Not expecting much I began to read. Suddenly I realized I was captivated. I was reading this history book like it was a novel. Then it stuck me, even though this was very much an overview of a theater of operations, this guy GOT IT. He had somehow managed to capture and retell the stories in that same authentic voice that I had heard over the years from the men who were there. All of this was the result of many interviews and hundreds of hours spent on the Road and off. One thing I can assure any reader is that Webster has correctly assessed, at least the way I first heard it, Chang, (difficult and self-seeking) Stillwell, (a soldier's soldier) Slim, (reliable) Wingate,(gifted and mad) Sun, (the best of a bad lot) the tribal Nagas (ferocious) and Kachins,(delightful and terrifying), the Merrill's Marauders, (unequaled courage and skill) Raiders,(mad English with a real talent for mayhem) engineers, black and white, (the best men, 24/7 worked their hearts out) and the rest. All crafted to fit together in a coherent and highly readable book as the story of real people in a deadly situation. It is a relief to hear the 'voice' again from the men who were there. This book has the ring of truth, a palpable sense of the sweat, the smell, the bugs, rats, mud, monsoon, fear, tragedy, death and ultimate triumph. It is all there. It is true that there is much more to tell. It would be unfair to criticize this work for being superficial. Is an overview. The story is truly vast and this book could easily have been a thousand pages or more. The official (and dry) U.S. Army history is a multi-volume set. One thing that really impressed me about this book was Webster's style and editorial judgment in dealing with the people and events. He didn't write it like it was a PhD thesis or a technical study. He managed to capture that "golden thread", the story, the theme of the conflict in this theater of war; viz, No matter what, Build the Road, Keep China in the war. He accomplishes this in a real time fashion by the use of narrative without playing the games of revisionist history. When the Road was built nobody knew about the atom bomb. In early 1945 the men in Burma, including my father, were looking at another 18 months of war, either on the Japanese home islands or fighting the bulk of the Japanese army in China. Their greatest fear was that the Imperial Army would fight to the last man as they had on Saipan. They had witnessed the savagery and slaughter of Myitkyina, Imphal and Kohima. Upon completion many looked to, as their reward, being transferred to the far Pacific to follow Stilwell to Okinawa. As far as they knew or believed convoys would be traveling the Road to China for months if not years to come.
Chang's threat to make a separate peace with Japan was taken very seriously. The Road had to be built. Mr. Webster captured the importance of Joe Stillwell in this scheme as the central driving force of the Burma Campaign. His will, example and leadership galvanized everybody and the entire effort. He kept the perspective that existed in 1944, the Road was the reason for everything in Burma. All was focused on one goal, build the Road, and keep China in the war. If you don't read another book about the CBI read this one. It's the real deal. Dad would have loved it. Kevin O'C. Green
Rating: 
Summary: A good read but lacking so much
Review: Having read the other reviews it seems rather churlish to pour a dose of cold water on them. But I feel I must take odds with some of the more gushing phrases ladled out, and whatever else it may be, it is most definitely NOT 'the definitive account from the American and British perspective' as claimed by David Roy above. Certainly Mr Webster's book is very readable and well written, but to say that it is the full story of China-Burma-India is another matter altogether. It completely ignores the dominant Anglo-Indian nature of the the Burma campaign of 1942-45 to concentrate on the 'Ledo' or 'Stilwell Road'. The Burma Road ran from Rangoon to Lashio and was used to send American lend-lease materials through British-run Burma to Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist regime in China in the period 1937-41. When the Japanese invaded Burma in 1942 they cut this important lifeline and General 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell, as commander of American forces in theatre and Chief of Staff to the Chinese Army, persuaded the American government - which was desperate to keep China in the war - to build a road from Ledo in Assam through to link up with the old Burma Road. Mr Webster completely fails to explain the political background to this decision or the problems it caused. These were threefold. Firstly, British and American strategic objectives diverged entirely: while the Americans were desperate to aid China, the British were reluctant to support a land campaign through Burma since prime minster Winston Churchill's focus was on the seaborne recapture of Singapore, in an effort to restore British imperial prestige. Second, north-east India was hopelessly undeveloped and the logistical task of moving resources even as far as Ledo seemed insuperable to the British High Command in India, which had other priorities and other problems. Finally there was another American force already operating in the form of the airlift over 'the Hump', and subsequently Claire Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force in China itself. Chennault believed air power alone was necessary to support China and defeat the Japanese, and he and Stilwell remained at loggerheads over the relative merits of land and air supply to the end. More fundamental than any of these points, however, is the simple fact that Stilwell was a minor cog in a much, much bigger wheel. American forces in theatre never amounted to more than fifteen per cent and of these, combat forces were less than one per cent. If this were indeed the story of the China-Burma-India Theater, and not merely the Stilwell Road, Mr Webster would not have reduced the 600,000 men of the Anglo-Indian Fourteenth Army to mere bit-part players in another example of 'how America won the war', while Wingate and the Chindits were nothing like as important strategically as XV Corps and its operations in opening up Arakan to provide air support to Fourteenth Army's reconquest. Nor would Mr Webster have consigned the role of the engineers, signallers, medics and transportation corps troops, which included a majority of African-Americans, to the background - it is their story more than anyone's; and while everyone has heard of Merrill's Marauders, how many people have heard of the 464th Anti-Aircraft Battalion who were, in fact, the first American combat troops to enter Burma? Yet their history is not even in the rather thin bibliography. Thus the dichotomy between the title and the book's contents is very disappointing. Nathan N. Prefer's 'Vinegar Joe's War' is more useful as history, even within the limited terms of the Stilwell Road. As for the Stilwell Road itself, within months of its opening it was completely redundant as the original Burma Road was reopened in May 1945 following the Anglo-Indian recapture of Rangoon. The book is only a start point to the subject, certainly not the last word on it.
Rating:
Summary: An Informative but Unengrossing History
Review: Here Donovan Webster gives us a serviceable history of what is probably the least appreciated theatre of operation during World War II, the China-Burma-India (CBI) campaign. Much of the story doesn't actually cover the Burma Road itself, that being the land route for the delivery of supplies from Burma into southern China (then a US ally), which was needed for circumventing Japanese sea and air blockades. Instead, much of this book focuses on the efforts of India-based Allied troops in expelling the Japanese from Indochina, particularly Burma, which they had besieged as a stepping stone toward controlling Singapore and India. This story is told mostly from the perspective of General Joseph Stilwell, and his tactical strategies and diplomatic troubles with Chiang Kai-Shek and unenthusiastic military planners back home provide intrigue for the book. Another bonus is some coverage of the real-life Bridge Over the River Kwai, actually the Kwae Yai River in Thailand.
However, the book becomes mostly a straight military history of battles and logistics, with little effort made to explore underlying phenomena. For example, Webster usually provides little context for what was going on simultaneously in other theatres of operation during the war, accidentally reinforcing claims that the CBI campaign was ultimately unimportant for the outcome of the war, which Webster is trying to debunk. And what's especially missing is any coverage whatsoever of the people of Burma, other than the Kachins, an ethnic group who joined the Allied forces. There is almost no description of the local peoples and how they had to deal with two foreign armies obliterating their land just to use it as a stepping stone, and how this may have affected their society for decades to come. Also missing is any conclusion covering the true impact of the CBI campaign on the overall outcome of WWII, if there was any. That makes this book high on names and dates, but low on insight. [~doomsdayer520~]
Rating:
Summary: Interesting read on a little known subject
Review: I enjoy reading military history, but the China, Burma, India theater of operations is part of WW II that I had never read about. What I knew or know about it comes mostly from watching the History Channal, but I saw the author on Book Notes on C-Span and decided to read the reviews of it on Amazon. The author was intersting on Book Notes and the disparity of the reviews intriqued me, so I purchased it. I found it both an interesting and engrossing read, and would certainly recommend to anyone who is interested in a part of WW II that took a back seat to both the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Book
Review: I feel so privledged to be the first to write a review. I some how ended up with a preview copy via a friend. Being a WWII buff, I've spent most of my reading focus on the European theatre. Several months ago I entered the Pacific side of things by reading "Ghost Soldiers." I learned of the Japanese Bushido code, the inhumane and cruel tactics of Japanese soliders (even to their own troops), and their never say die approach to war. Not to mention the incredible will of the US soldier. "The Burma Road" furthered my knowledge of the Japanese war machine, but more importantly introduced me to many new characters, battles, and "fun" little tales about the war (i.e. air dropping fried chicken on top of starving allied troops trapped defending a hill). WWII buffs will find the book fascinating and general history buffs will walk away feeling enlightened as well. This book more than any other that I've read on war really touches upon the politics of war. It really is a perfect mix of politics, strategy, battlefied stories, characters and various foreign cultures. After reading this book, I can't believe I didn't know more about this campaign. It truly is fascinating and there are many side stories to keep you entertained. The writing is excellent. It begins with the author trying to visit the actual road and being stopped by a sentry. I was a little worried that the author would include himself in the story, but quickly after the intro, he focuses on the CBI campaign using very friendly historical narrative and not his bumbling adventures through the bush. Add it to your must read list.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent read
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Webster's book. Compared with Louis Allen's Burma: The Longest War, 1941-1945, Webster's book is somewhat condensed but it provides an excellent picture of CBI for those interested in a good but not overly detailed look at the theatre. Webster is an excellent writer and kept my interest throughout. While I would recommend this book highly, there were certain aspects of the book that irked me. First, I would rate the maps as merely acceptable. For instance, Chapter 1 begins on Page 13 and ends on Page 45 and covers the allied retreat from Burma (including Stillwell's famous "Walkout"), yet the map depicting the retreat does not appear until Page 43. There were also numerous times when Webster referred to a town and yet the town is not shown on any of the maps. I would like to see more books such as Bill Sloan's Given Up for Dead which place a primary map inside the cover. Having a map inside the cover makes it very easy to refer to the map throughout the reading. I was also irked by numerous spelling errors in the book. For instance, on Page 241, Sloan refers to Lieutenant General Reyna Mutaguchi by name three times in the first paragraph and yet spells the name "Mutaguchji" the third time. On another occasion I recall that "unit" was misspelled "init" although I did not note the page. A timeline would also have been helpful. This criticism is certainly not unique to Webster's book as most World War II books lack timelines. If any WW II authors or editors happen to catch this, please consider the use of timelines to go with more detailed maps. Despite the maps not being great and the spelling errors, Webster's The Burma Road is an excellent read. It peaked my interest in the CBI to the point that I plan to purchase Allen's longer work on the subject.
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