First Burma Campaign

The British Army's report on the Japanese invasion of Burma during WWII-based on firsthand accounts by the officers who survived it.
In 1942, the Japanese military drove British and Indian forces out of Burma. Colonel E.C.V. Foucar, M.C., was given the task of discovering what happened. Seeking information and documentary evidence from officers of the First Burma Campaign, Foucar wrote this detailed account for the Director of Military Training.
This volume describes the challenging geographical, climatic, and political conditions in Burma before turning to the devastating Japanese ground assault. He describes harrowing episodes such as the 'Disaster' at Sittang Bridge, the evacuation of Rangoon, and the march to the River Irrawaddy in an attempt to secure the north of Burma and its oilfields.
With the Japanese closing in on the beleaguered British force, the decision was taken to abandon Burma and try to reach India. The ragged, disease-ridden troops battled their way west just as the monsoons broke. General Wavell, wrote that, "operations were now a race with the weather as with the Japanese and as much a fight against nature as against the enemy."

Born in 1894, during the First World War EMILE CHARLES VICTOR FOUCAR was serving in the London Regiment as a Second Lieutenant when he was awarded the Military Cross, this being announced in The London Gazette on 26 September 1917\. After the war, Foucar returned to Burma where he as a lawyer based in Rangoon; he was the fourth generation of his family living in the country. Rejoining the Army in the Second World War, by 1942 had risen to the rank of Colonel. In October that year, he was appointed to a General Staff post for the purpose of assembling the records and writing a narrative of the First Burma Campaign.