For most who read about WWII, the battles in Burma are probably one of the areas that are the least covered. As part of the CBI theater of operations, Burma was the last to get men, materiel and money for conducting the war. In fact, through most of the Pacific war, Burma was a case of just holding the enemy.

Southeast Asia is one of the more difficult areas in which to wage a campaign of any sort. In addition to the enemy, you have to fight the terrain and the climate. In this area of monsoons, you basically stop fighting from May through to September/October. This is due to the heavy downpour of rain that affects everything. Rivers and streams are turned into raging torrents and once dry and dusty roads become quagmires, making just about any major movement impossible.

Then there were the Japanese. Few realize that the greatest successes of the Japanese Army were in 1944 when they nearly overtook all of China and were pressing into India. Fortunately, they were stopped with great loss of life and materiel, never again to be the strong force they once were.

In Burma, it was decided to take advantage of these losses and press the Japanese out of the country. What then followed was a brilliant tactical and strategic advance by the British and Indian 14th Army. The key to the entire operation was the central Burma town of Meiktila as taking that would cut off any Japanese forces to the north and provide a clear route to Rangoon.

The story of cunning, tactical brilliance and swift envelopment is all here in this Osprey book. Though titled Mektila, it is the story of the entire campaign that ends with the return to Rangoon. Superbly written in a style that keeps you riveted to each page, Osprey also provides excellent maps and 3-D 'birds eye' representations of important battle areas. Along with excellent photographs and full color battle paintings, commissioned for this work, you are drawn into the campaign.

I've read only a very few of these 'Campaign' books and this is, so far, the best that I've read. Metkila 1945 is a book that I can highly recommend to both the enthusiast and the casual reader.

Available in bookstores everywhere, through Classic Motorbooks at (800) 826-6600 or at www.motorbooks.com. For more on the complete line of Osprey books, visit www.ospreypublishing.com

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