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DON’T LAUGH AT THE JAPANESE
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‘I arrived at Lucknow a lance-corporal for showing initiative. I suggested we lit a fire near enough to the sacred animal to make it uncomfortable and it worked a treat. With a snort, the creature got up and left the railway line and the troop train went on its way. I stand to be corrected but I believe that to this day I’m the only member of the British Armed Forces to have been promoted for scorching a cow.’
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Don’t Laugh at the Japanese tells the tale of a young man’s greatest adventure. Leaving behind the rolling farmlands of North Wales, he embarks on his military service in India at the outbreak of World War Two.
Training and the early days of his service do little to prepare him for what lies ahead and at times it’s only the irrepressible humour of the British squaddie that keeps him going.
Told through the eyes of the now elderly Corporal, we relive the story of the 900 mile march from the Arakan Coast through the jungles and highlands of Burma to Kohima, site of the bloodiest battle of the Far Eastern War where, in Spring 1944, 3,000 British and Indian troops held out for 64 days against 20,000 Japanese in a conflict that came to be known as ‘The Stalingrad of the East’.
Thrown together from all walks of life, the small patrol learns to deal with unpredictable donkeys, hostile wildlife, the terrible climate, inscrutable villagers and the fear of an unknown and alien enemy.
The sardonic and fatherly Sgt Major Ellis leads his small band on a journey that steals away innocence and delivers the survivors back to homes and families that they now see through very different eyes.
Writer:
Bob Rogers has written two comedy series for the BBC and a number of one-off specials as well as TV comedy for HTV; a former journalist, his screenplay, ‘A Town like Arthur’ is being shot in Wales and Canada in 2007. Bob’s father fought in the Far East and was one of the British servicemen who survived the Battle of Kohima.
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Tuesday, April 3, 2007 |
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