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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 355
EAN num: 9781592281077
ISBN number: 1592281079
Label: The Lyons Press
Manufacturer: The Lyons Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 350
Printing Date: August 01, 2003
Publishing house: The Lyons Press
Sale Popularity Level: 92100
Studio: The Lyons Press
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Product Description:
THE JUNGLE IS NEUTRAL makes The Bridge Over the River Kwai look like a tussle in a schoolyard.
F. SPENCER CHAPMAN, the book's unflappable author, narrates with typical British aplomb an amazing tale of four years spent as a guerrilla in the jungle, haranguing the Japanese in occupied Malaysia.
Traveling sometimes by bicycle and motorcycle, rarely by truck, and mainly in dugouts, on foot, and often on his belly through the jungle muck, Chapman recruits sympathetic Chinese, Malays, Tamils, and Sakai tribesman into an irregular corps of jungle fighters. Their mission: to harass the Japanese in any way possible. In riveting scenes, they blow up bridges, cut communication lines, and affix plasticine to troop-filled trucks idling by the road. They build mines by stuffing bamboo with gelignite. They throw grenades and disappear into the jungle, their faces darkened with carbon, their tommy guns wrapped in tape so as not to reflect the moonlight.
And when he is not battling the Japanese, or escaping from their prisons, he is fighting the jungle's incessant rain, wild tigers, unfriendly tribesmen, leeches, and undergrowth so thick it can take four hours to walk a mile.
It is a war story without rival.
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Rated by buyers 
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As a former Marine officer who spent 30 months in the jungles of Vietnam, I found the title a bit misleading. The books focused in excrutiating detail on the trials and tribulations of the author and his team living, and moving in the jungles of Indonesia while avoiding the Japanese. Perhaps my expectations were set incorrectly when the book was recommended as an excellent "lessons learned" by a former French Foreign Legion officer who recounted the lessons and skills described in the book as useful to him while in Indochina. Except for a few instances where the author describs some land navigation techniques and some campcraft, I found the book to be long and extremely detailed desciption of life in the jungle during WWII with very few take-away lessons for contemporary COIN personnel who wish to develop their jungle skills.
Rated by buyers -
This is an action-packed yet highly detailed account of jungle guerrilla warfare. In simple yet descriptive language, Mr. Chapman provides for us the details we need to understand just how challenging such warfare is for the guerrilla as well as the counter-insurgency forces. In the process we see why the jungle so often favors the small and light guerrilla force that can sustain itself only through support from the indigenous people in the jungle. Mr. Chapman demonstrates once again as Col John Boyd used to say, "Machines do not fight wars, people do. And they use their minds."
A detailed inside account of guerrilla warfare offering a deeper understanding of the key components to their being effective. A must read for anyone interested in unconventional warfare and the history of guerrilla warfare in southeast Asia.
Rated by buyers -
Other reviews here are quite accurate. This is a quick, very interesting read about a British major who "willingly" remained in Japanese occupied Malaysia for 3 and 1/2 years -- despite being hunted by men, animals, and disease. This book is something along the lines of Lawrence of Arabia meets Heart of Darkness or Dispatches. The very first 100 pages of this book will leave any guerrilla warfare junkie drooling. Having read various accounts of guerrilla warfare from Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, and Pacific Islands -- this is a cut above. The best information this book provides is amazing detail about nighttime raiding and guerrilla camp organization. Che Guevara's diaries seem incoherent and lacking in comparison. The author is an amazing individual -- look him up on Wikipedia, he's written another dozen adventure books. However, the majority of this book is semi-tedious accounts of day-to-day life is the miserable jungle, being sick, diet, etc.
If you're interesting in WWII, Malaysia, guerrilla warfare, or adventure stories along the lines of Shackleton -- this is a must read.
Rated by buyers -
This book could have been an excellent five star book had it kept up the action at the pace from page 1 to page 100. Those pages should be given to every western military college and used as a briefing on insurgent warfare. In a two week period the author of this book and two fellow soldiers blew up eight Japanese locomotive trains, numerous trucks, and miles of rail road tracks. This commando team killed well over 500 Japanese Army soldiers and - perhaps - were much more effective against the IJA than the weak and ill led Allied armies that surrendered to Japan in early 1942. The trouble with this book is he author becomes a training instructor for the communists and other non-regular soldiers fighting the IJA (Imperial Japanese Army). So, the book becomes more involved with the day-to-day running of camp life from about page 130 until page 330. So, from mid 1942 until early 1945 this excellent soldier tells about training insurgents, living in a camp, putting up with illness, and there is lots of writing on eating.
So, yes, I read this book. Is it worth it? Yes, he gives good leadership advise on conducting small unit leadership in a jungle type enviorment. The centralized location and ramdom attacks on enemy targets allows a very small group of soldiers to do massive damage to IJA operations. The bits on camp life and cooking get a little long. I'm not making this part up; on every three pages he will give a long description on a meal.
Past page 330 the book gets wildly interesting again. Liberator bombers are used as long range supply drop transports and they are seen operating all over the SE Asia area. The author makes contact and starts living the normal life of a soldier. He admits that he missed the main parts of the war. While he initially helped hinder IJA in 1942 and trained insurgents in late '42 to early '45 it was the other allied soldiers who fought and won from Burma to Stalingrad. The author admits that he sort of wishes that he had been part of that action.
But this is a fair war book and I'll give it a nice 3 star rating. It give insight into jungle operations and how to conduct insurgent actions.
I hope you enjoy this good book.
Rated by buyers -
I had read a review on the "The Jungle is Neutral" over 30 years ago and finally found the opportunity to purchase and read the book. Book is written mostly as a chronicle of what happened to the author in what is now Malaysia during the Japanese occupation of WWII. It is an interesting read of that trying time and the author's nerve and tenacity (as well as a lot of luck) needed to survive in the "wild." Book is well-written but is often too interested in minutiae. Still, I enjoyed the read and the information conveyed.
Tom
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