Last night we started reading Harp of Burma, a book often touted as Japan’s post-World War II version of All Quiet on the Western Front. It provides a soldier’s eye view of Lieut. Gen. Renya Mutaguchi‘s ill-fated campaign in Burma, which ended up turning into one giant suicide mission as the war turned against the […]
Tags:chemical weapons·Haruki Murakami·Iran·Japan·Tokyo subway attacks·writing
We’ve previously written about Allied mustard-gas experimentation during World War II, involving live human subjects who were occasionally given no protection whatsoever. But it wasn’t until we read about the Bari disaster that we realized hundreds of Allied troops perished from mustard-gas exposure. This wasn’t due to deliberate release, mind you, but rather a horrific […]
En route to the Indo-Burmese jungle, the main character in Now the Hell Will Start spent several weeks at a British rest camp called Deolali, about 125 miles from Bombay. Prior to World War II, the camp had been used as a holding area for British soldiers who’d completed their service in Asia, and were […]
Tags:chemical weapons·Deolali·India·mustard gas·Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·World War II
Should any of y’all find yourselves near Doylestown, Penn., in the coming weeks, carve out a few hours to check out “From Swords to Ploughshares” at the James A. Michener Art Museum. The exhibit features 300 pieces of “trench art”—that is, baubles produced by 20th-century soldiers as they awaited their ghastly fates. Most of the […]
