Collins, 1969

This second volume of two covers 1941 to 1943, the most crucial years in thelifeof one of the great military leaders and strategists of our time. Fresh from campaigns in the Western Desert and East Africa, Wavell was appointed as Commander-in-Chief India in December1941. Almost immediately he faced the swiftest and most devastating invasion of the 20th century. As the first Allied Supreme Commander of the War, his task was to contain the Japanese forces who were sweeping the Allies out of the Philippines, Borneo, Singapore and Burma, and forcing the front into India. The intensely dramatic narrative of these events shows how a commander of exceptional ability faced a victorious enemy on a front that ranged from the Philippines to Assam. This is also the story of Wavell's personal relations with figures as diverse as Chiang Kai-Shek, Stalin, Nehru, General Percival, the ill-fated Commander of Singapore, the American Commander General Stilwell, and Brigadier Orde Wingate, and behind all these, the commanding presence of Churchill...