Beyond the Chindwin. Being an Account of the Adventures of Number Five Column of the Wingate Expedition into Burma, 1943
FERGUSSON, Bernard
With a Foreword by Field-Marshall Earl Wavell.
THE ORIGINAL EDITION IN UNCLIPPED DUSTWRAPPER
Published: Collins, 1945
Stock code: 51787
Price: £70.00
8vo., First Edition, with portrait frontispiece, 10 plates on 6, 6 maps in the text and rear endpaper map, neat contemporary signature on front free endpaper; brown cloth, gilt back, backstrip gilt very slightly dulled else a very good, bright, clean copy in unclipped dustwrapper.
Fergusson's first book and one of the undisputed classics of the war in Burma, it tells the gripping story of the first Wingate expedition behind Japanese lines, in which Fergusson (then a Major in the Black Watch) commanded No. 5 Column of No. 2 Group. Includes OOB, list of officers of 5 Column and a section of valuable Notes updating the main narrative in the light of later information. Bernard Fergusson, later Lord Ballantrae, (1911-1980) joined the Black Watch in 1931 and served during WWII in the Middle East and India, but in was in Burma that he made his name as one of the foremost commanders in the theatre. In the first Wingate expedition he commanded 5 Column; in the second (in which Wingate met his death) he commanded 16 Brigade, the only one to enter Burma overland. The first exploit is recounted here; the story of the overland column is told in his equally gripping 'The Wild Green Earth' (1946). After the war, Fergusson went on to command 1 Battalion Black Watch and 29th Infantry Brigade. Enser, p.106; Graham & Cole G17.