This is a very unusual story of a great eccentric. A linguist who developed extensive knowledge of Malaya and Indo-China. A fascinating read – Highly Recommended.
NAME: First In, Last Out, an Unconventional British Officer in Indo-China FILE: R2535 AUTHOR: J P Cross PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: hard back PAGES: 256 PRICE: £19.99 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Malaya, Borneo, Vietnam, French Indo-China, Japanese soldiers, Rifles, Border Scouts, linguist, Vietminh. Vientiane, Kathmandu, Viet Cong, Gurkas
ISBN: 978-1-78438-220-9
IMAGE: B2535.jpg6 BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/y8q774fsw LINKS: DESCRIPTION: This is a very unusual story of a great eccentric. A linguist who developed extensive knowledge of Malaya and Indo-China. A fascinating read - Highly Recommended. Every now and again a book publishes that provides a truly unique view of military history. In this book, the unusual career of Colonel J P Cross opens a completely new view of jungle warfare and the two very different campaigns of Malaya and Vietnam. Col Cross was both a jungle fighter and linguist extraordinaire which provided him with unique entry into the wars that have marked Malaya and Vietnam during the second half of the 20th Century. In Malaya the British managed to win a war against Communist expansion. In Vietnam both the French and the Americans faced a similar threat and lost at great cost. The major difference was that British soldiers, like Col Cross, had learned to fight a bitter jungle war against the Japanese and developed an understanding of the new threats that followed the Japanese defeat. The British proved flexible and pragmatic, including the use of Japanese troops when Col Cross commanded a battalion of Japanese soldiers against the Vietminh. The French and the Americans tried a very different approach of trying to fight a large engagement war with weapons and tactics more suitable to Europe. Col Cross was able to develop a unique view of the US efforts because his linguistic skills allowed him to blend into the environment and move around the war zone without interference from the Viet Cong and also obtain access to high Laotian political circles. This account of his activities will offer a completely new understanding of a region in chaos, developing out from European and Japanese colonialism.