287. Beyond Victory: Phil Craig on the Uncomfortable Realities of 1945
40:06 Share

You may get a little excited when you shop at Burlington. Burlington saves you up to 60% off other retailers prices every day. Will it be the low prices or the great brands? Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow! I told you so. Styles and selections vary by store.

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, Prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail-biting novel from time to time, with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music, and fast, free delivery, Prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to learn more.

This Father's Day, help Dad be all he can be with a gift from the Home Depot. Because he's not just Dad, he's the handyman of the house, the plumber in a pinch, and the emergency mechanic. Upgrade his gear this Father's Day with the Husky Mechanics 270-piece tool set from the Home Depot. Now on special buy for $119, a $695 value. For every kind of Dad, find the perfect gift this Father's Day at the Home Depot.

Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Saul David. Today I'm talking to Phil Craig, best-selling author and award-winning filmmaker about his new book, 1945, The Reckoning, War, Empire and the Struggle for the New World.

This is the third in the trilogy of Phil's books about Britain in the Second World War. The previous two, co-authored by Tim Clayton, were Finest Hour and End of the Beginning, about the events surrounding the battles of Britain and Alamein, respectively. Now, the focus of the new book, fascinating new book, is India, Burma and the fate of the British and other empires. And you put together a fascinating cast of characters.

But two in particular drive the story forward. And they are, of course, Subbaya Thimaya, or Timmy, as he was known, the first non-white soldier to be given command of a brigade in the Indian Army. And Subbas Chanda Bose, of course, much better known, the revolutionary nationalist and former president of the Indian National Congress, who by 1943 had thrown in his lot with the Japanese and was leading the anti-British Indian National Army.

Now, the fascinating thing about these two is that they both had the same ultimate aims, and that was for India to be ruled by the Indians. And yet they chose very different paths to achieve that goal. Tell us a little bit about both men, Phil, and why they chose those separate paths. They make such a fantastic juxtaposition. And I think when you're writing a book, it's wonderful to have characters that bounce off each other because their lives utterly interweave.

And they both indeed do believe in a free India. And Timmy, General Timmy, who is in many ways the hero of the book, I think, he is friends with the Nehru family. He's a lifelong critic of British imperialism. He refuses to order men into the streets to confront protesters during some of the protests about independence.

And he is very critical, actually, of some of the things that happened in the early years of the war. You know, the retreat from Burma, where there's some very bad things. The Indian refugees are treated particularly badly by the British authorities.

And obviously the Bengal famine is a huge issue, the Quit India campaign. So he's quite tempted, I think, to throw in his lot with those like Bose who say the way forward for India is to ally ourselves with the Nazis and with the Japanese. But he doesn't. And it's quite interesting why he doesn't. And I think it's partly his love for the Indian army as an institution.

And one of the fun things about this book has been really to get my teeth into the Indian Army, because it's a remarkable thing. It's kind of quite strange. It's quite eccentric. But my God, does it get good in the Second World War. I mean, it delivers a defeat to the Japanese, probably unequaled by any other land army in the war. He's very loyal to that and to the idea of it.

And I think fundamentally he doesn't trust Bose and he doesn't trust the Japanese and their promises. He's tempted. I mean, his own brother joins the INA. There's a chance he might have to fight his brother on the same battlefield. In fact, they almost do when it comes to the Battle of Rangoon. But he doesn't. He takes advice from one of the Nero, from the famous Nero's father, Moital Nero, the great man of Indian nationalism. And his idea is that the best way to create a strong independent India is to create an institution that can hold it together. And

And that's how he sees the Indian army being. And he looks over at Bose and what Bose is doing and the people Bose is fighting with. And don't forget the Japanese, when they're not slaughtering civilians in the rest of Southeast Asia and prisoners and nurses, they're often happily slaughtering the people who've allied themselves with them. I mean, they slaughter lots of Bose's people as well.

So it's, in a sense, I think Bose, in a sense, he's a tragic character because everything he does kind of goes wrong. But actually, it's also an interesting way of looking at how history is fundamentally unfair because Bose is the one who's remembered as the great hero in the India of today. Timmy is pretty much forgotten unless you happen to be in the Indian army or maybe you're a military historian.

But Bose, its airports, its statues, its schools, he is the great hero of independence. Whereas actually, I would argue, he did very little to advance it in the course of his life. But it's funny, there's a quote from Salman Rushdie that I love that I put it into the book. Rushdie says, something does not have to be true to be real. It's from Midnight Children.

And I think Bose's life and legacy is the perfect illustration of that. Look on any debate on Twitter about India in the Second World War, and you'll soon come across links to websites about Bose and incredible stories of successes and triumphs, especially in the final year. And they're mostly made up, exaggerated. His actual campaign is a disaster as a campaign, but it's a triumph as propaganda.

And people choose to believe in it. And more and more, I think, as the years pass, choose to believe in it because it's easier once he's gone and once the reality of the war is passing into history. And so now it's real, even if it's not true.

And I found that fascinating as a writer too. From the Western perspective, the sort of Anglo phone perspective, Bowes hasn't really had a particularly good rap, has he? I feel you've given him a kind of fairer go than most authors who've had a look at him. And that's of a piece with the rest of the book, Phil. Did you have any sneaking admiration for what he was trying to do or how he was going about it? I said he was tragic. I mean,

He's actually like many of the people that end up running independent countries as the age of empires comes to an end. There are lots of people like him, educated in Britain, they're constitutional politicians. Perhaps they get into a little bit of protest. Perhaps sometimes they know people who go further into violence. But in the end, they're prepared to sit down and negotiate their way. And that's fundamentally what Timmy's view of the world is as well.

But I think with Bose, he gets seduced by the age of dictators. These very glamorous men, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini in the 30s with their paramilitary groups, transforming society, cutting through quickly. You know, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, all of that way of thinking. And also, I think the idea of big on a soapbox.

with people marching around you with burning torches and uniforms. It gets into his head. And I think that's actually why he goes the way he goes fundamentally. But I do have a sneaking regard for him. He writes a brilliant book in the 30s. As you mentioned, he was the head of the Congress party. He travels around Europe. He meets politicians left and right.

He's on the cover of Time magazine. His book, The Indian Struggle, is actually very measured and thoughtful. And if you look at the relationship now between India today and the United Kingdom, it's kind of what Bose predicted. And he could have led it, I think. He could have been that guy. But he's somehow, the drama, the messianic side of him,

you know, there's something of a robe spear in Bose. It's like, let's perfect humanity, no matter how many actual humans have to die. Yeah. And he has almost the perfect end, doesn't he? Not, of course, for him at the time. He dies in a plane crash or in the aftermath of a plane crash towards the end of the war. I mean, it's all up by then. The INA is no longer any kind of relevant force at that stage. It's actually got

I think you explain or remind us, Phil, it's actually 20,000 strong at one stage, isn't it? I mean, this is a formidable force. Oh, no, it's much bigger than that. It's, I think, about 70,000 or 80,000 strong and supported by an enormous political organization right across the Japanese-occupied Far East, Indian emigres and expatriates.

pouring money into it's a government in exile you know when they go in to Imphal and Kohima Bose is convinced I think they sent about 8,000 of their best guys to accompany the Japanese for that campaign he's convinced that the minute the fighting starts the Indian army that's Timmy's British led Indian army they will all desert they won't fire on their comrades their former comrades their brothers their actual brothers

in the INA. And he also is convinced that across India, there'll be a massive revolution. And none of that happens. He's judged it all wrong. And I think it's partly because the Japanese themselves are such terrible allies. I mean, they are fantastically stupid in the way. And one of the things in the book that we, you know, as British people, it's kind of hard for us to accept at the beginning of this war in the Far East, in 41, 42, there's a huge amount of pleasure amongst colonized people.

that the Japanese are sweeping through Asia, driving all the old masters out. People who look like us are getting rid of the British and the Dutch and the French and the Yanks. And that's rather thrilling. So there's a lot of goodwill for the Japanese to work with. Almost always they blow it by their own kind of cruelty and stupidity. And then, you know, in Burma, there's a large army fighting alongside them in Burma until very near the end on the Japanese side, Burmese people who like bows.

want to build an independent state outside the British Empire. But fundamentally, the Japanese just kind of call it all wrong, I think. The important thing, though, about all of that is that it does show us that there was a real groundswell of desire for independence across the region and that the old colonial masters were

would not be welcomed back necessarily. Later in the book, we get into what happens in Vietnam and Indonesia and certain other places where a certain amount of force is used to put those colonial masters back, which slightly contradicts the propaganda at the heart of the Allied war effort. Yeah, well, come on to that. I mean, let's go back to the INA just for a second before we come to Bozazen, which I've already kind of prefigured a little bit. But the traditional...

view of writing about the INA, not that a huge amount of work's been done on it, is that it's pretty ineffective. And of course, you talk about when it first really tries to fight seriously in the early 1944 attempted invasion of India, when it doesn't do very well. And of course, that expected flood of desertions doesn't take place either. But there were one or two moments, weren't there? You write, for example, about the Battle of Mount Popar that took place in Burma in

late March, early April 1945. Tell us about that. I mean, it's a little bit hazy, I think, in terms of the detail. But tell us about what do we know about that battle? There are great commanders under Bose. I mean, Dillon, Singh Dillon is perhaps the best of them. And they fight a series of delaying actions as the British sweep through Burma, the British-led Indian army sweeps through Burma.

Which is an army that's 80% Indian and 10% West African, East African, and only about 10% British, I think. So yeah, there are some moments of resistance, but even they, even at the time they're doing that, they're kind of doing it for posterity. They want to have a story to tell after the war, which is a story that, as it turns out, lots of people want to hear. And it's kind of weird with Boas. Somebody else, I forget earlier, a story from the 50s said it was so much easier to

to reintegrate the INA and to allow the INA back into the kind of mainstream of Indian life once Bose was dead. So he dies at a very good moment for his legend because once he's off the scene and we can forget about all the compromises he made and the times he spent hanging out with Hitler and the architects of the Holocaust and his friendship with Goebbels and Himmler, once he's gone, he can be turned into this kind of, it's like the person that never compromised.

And I think the further we move away from the age of empires, the more we think about them in purely negative terms. We focus on the cruelty and the expropriation. It's easier for us to look at Bose and say, well, you were the good guy. Whereas Timmy, who actually lived in the middle of it, had to make the compromises necessary, I would argue, to make real change happen.

He just seems a bit wishy-washy, doesn't he? Whereas Bose, oh yeah, go Bose. You never backed down, did you? You kept going. So it's somewhere in the book, as well as I hope some really cool stories that excite a kick out of what's happening. There's an argument about how history works.

how we choose to remember certain things and how that changes, how a reckoning now can't be the same as a reckoning then. Because we don't understand the sort of traditional and conservative forces that were acting on the players. I mean, two and a half million Indians volunteered to be in this army. And a lot of them probably didn't particularly like the British, but they still did it, partly because I think it was a good job. But I think there was a lot of patriotism in there. There was a lot of

feeling of happiness in the early years of the war when Indians were having victories in North Africa, Eritrea, massive parades, entirely run and organized by Indian people themselves. This wasn't fake. So this is a factor in it too. There was a kind of legacy of sort of attachment to the empire, to the Raj, because it had delivered certain good things. I mean, it sort of unravels when it starts making some terrible mistakes.

I guess my point I'm making is it's easier looking back to thinking black and white when you don't actually have to live the experience. Yeah, I mean, that's why Timmy is such a fascinating character. And you've already pointed out in some ways he's the hero of the book. You hinted at a moment ago, history hasn't really been fair to him. Of all the characters that you...

portray he's in many ways the most admirable he he take he chooses a difficult path frankly which is you know to somehow keep on the right side of both his his principles but also you know the the salt that he's eaten as they had it in the old Indian army the loyalty to the institution and

People like him, of course, were tremendously useful to the Indian army after independence, setting up the new army, the fighting, of course, against Pakistan. It's not like he didn't have a role to play. It's not like all the Indian army who fought on the side of the British were suddenly airbrushed out of history. But you're absolutely right. Now, looking back.

It's the Boses who, of course, at least as far as the British were concerned, and some Indians too, would have been seen as a traitor at that time. Who's the great hero now? And Timmy is largely forgotten. Timmy has a wonderful second act, though, because he does become chief of the whole Indian army. And he's quite irascible, Timmy. There's some great stories in his life about him clashing with authority.

And, you know, starting to resign and having big shouting matches with his generals. It's part of who he is. And yet he's chosen for this amazing diplomatic job in the 1950s, dealing with all the prisoners of war from Korea. And he handles it magnificently. And there are some wonderful commendations about him from the likes of President Eisenhower and the Chinese. So, you know, in his own lifetime, he is kind of acclaimed. But I guess since the 60s, you start to think about empire in a very different way.

and colonialism and race. So it's easy for those who love bows to say, oh, Tinny, just a mercenary, just a mercenary for the evil Brits. And it just really wasn't like that.

Now, there are many other characters, as I pointed out, that you portray in this book. One of my favorites was this wonderful British nurse, Angela Noblet, who, of course, came from, you know, sort of the typical middle class colonial background, but had extraordinary kind of sensitivity, didn't she, to the world in which she was operating? You're talking about a woman I love. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about you. You don't have any connection. I can't remember reading through the notes of the book.

No, I just came across her. It was one of those wonderful moments. You have had them many times when you're just thinking who your main cast is going to be. And you find somebody so perfect and so fresh. I mean, she did write a pamphlet for the Imperial War Museum in the 80s, but really she was a very little known person.

Her sensibility is so modern. You almost have to check yourself. You think, well, is this really her at the time? So you go back to the diaries, and yes, it is her. And she has this wonderful front seat on change, on history. She's present through some very dramatic stories of battle casualties, of epidemics. She witnesses the Indian, the Bengal famine close up. She gets very steamed up about injustice and unfairness. She makes wonderful friends with people.

from all races and backgrounds. And she writes about it in a warm and funny and slightly cheeky style. She's falling in and out of love. You know, it's like in the movie, she's played by Kristen Scott Thomas or something. She's just one of those great energetic women of that era. And just so full of insight.

And no, I love spending time in our company. And the way that my books tend to work, my books are written, this is the third of the trilogy, is I like to try and lead with the characters if you can so that you have the, you know, people will identify and hopefully like

or find interesting, someone like Timmy or Angela, and then you can layer in the sort of political analysis after, rather than just sort of doing loads of kind of political stuff and dropping in your example. So there are a lot of mini biographies, and she's one of my favourites too. Well, I mentioned your filmmaking background, Phil. We've rather underplayed that, haven't they? Because a big chunk of your professional life has been spent making documentaries and

many award-winning documentaries. And I think, you know, there's no question that your writing style is influenced by that, isn't it? And the fact that you do have to get people front and center and then give a bit of context after you've set up the characters. And that's what draws people into reading narrative history. I was...

reading the foreword to your book, in which James Holland talks about your first book. Well, actually, I'm not sure it was your first book. We talked about Finest Hour, which is the first of the trilogy. And it absolutely got him fascinated with the possibility of writing popular narrative history. That's the way he wanted to do it. And you can see what's happened to his career since, Phil. So you've got a lot to be... I'm still waiting for my 10%, James, if you're listening. It's so flattering. I mean, James is a brilliant writer and an incredible communicator.

as we all know. So yeah, it was, it was so, you know, I was very touched that he decided to,

Say that the book I wrote with Tim Clayton 25 years ago now inspired him to do similar things. And I think he does write in a similar way. Yeah, TV, it's all about intercutting. It's about pace. It's about not having a feel for what people can handle. Most people, I mean, there are some very nerdy military history books that many people love. But some people don't want to read chapter after chapter of what this brigade did and how many trucks they had. And here's another map.

Some people like the more, I call it, likely novelized style that I write in. I mean, it's based on facts, but it is likely novelized in the way it flows, hopefully in the way it's written. And I really like that. I mentioned the Bengal famine. Angela is on a train and she writes this amazing account of being on a train.

going through Bengal, and the train stops, and there's a goods train, and she sees in the dark lots of figures underneath this train poking up bamboo sticks into the floor, and they've got little bowls, and they're collecting whatever little bits of grain might fall from the train if they succeed in puncturing a bag of flour or grain or rice. And, you know, wow, she's face-to-face with something that is, you know, horrific and one of the great tragedies of the British Empire. Some would say more than a tragedy.

And yeah, so you get into the story through her very personal experience and her emotional reaction, which hopefully the reader has as well. So yeah, I do like writing like that. Okay, we'll take a break there. Do join us in a moment when we'll hear from Phil about British attempts to reestablish imperial control in Southeast Asia. McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. I hope you're ready for the most dippable chicken in McDonald's history.

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment.

Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Are you still quoting 30-year-old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now. It pays to discover. Learn more at discover.com slash credit card. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report.

Welcome back.

Now, the subtitle of the book, of course, is The Reckoning. And The Reckoning is going to come at the end of the war when, on the one hand, India is really on a one-way path to independence. It's going to be a rocky road, as we know. A lot of lives will be lost before Pakistan, well, before East and West Pakistan, as they originally were in India, are finally given their independence. But you've also got a lot of kind of grim stories that relate to the rest of the British Empire that, you know, certainly are due in airing

Phil and you're to be credited frankly with moving into this territory because there are a lot of stories that I was kind of half aware of. I mean the SRD, the Special, sorry the Services Reconnaissance Department which was an Australian kind of special forces outfit I suppose a bit like SOE back in Europe and what it was up to in Borneo. I mean tell us a little bit about that because it is

Quite a controversial story, isn't it, in 1945, particularly with reference to operations Semet and Kingfisher. What was going on in Borneo, Phil? Yeah, I mean, the book, I feel, was overwhelmingly positive about Bryn's role in the Second World War. Of course, I do have a trilogy about it. It's kind of my love letter to that generation, people like Angela and others.

And no doubt the world needed Britain's power and Britain's empire to overcome great, great evil. And yet, I think if we want to really understand the warts and all, have a full reckoning, we have to look at some of the stories that are not often told in Britain, but are told in the outside world. And yes, some pretty grim things happen in Vietnam and Indonesia. I call it imperial muscle memory.

The attempt to put colonial rulers back into their palaces. And in the case of Vietnam, this has catastrophic consequences for the world. I mean, literally setting the world up for millions and millions more deaths. But Borneo is a really interesting story and one I wasn't very much aware of. And in a way, it's a microcosm of some of the cynicism

that emerges in the final months of the war when people are starting to say, well, actually, we should try and grab some of these colonial possessions back because, frankly, we're going to need the money. But also, if you're Churchill or a de Gaulle, it's about national pride, prestige, and a subtext of there's a new rivalry emerging, not just with Stalin, with the Americans. The people behind the Borny operation were quite concerned, I think, that the Americans might grab those oil fields, which were very profitable oil fields, by the way.

So they cook up this scheme, and the scheme involves sending Australian special forces in to stir up a rebellion as a kind of precursor to an invasion by the Australian army. Nothing wrong with that, you may say. But even at the beginning of this, people are asking, do we need to?

I mean, there's no supply to him from Japan. We're talking now the very final months of the war. The Japanese basically haven't got a Navy or an Air Force. You could let this stuff wither on the vine. What's the rush? And what's the agenda? And the more you dig in, you see that this supposedly Australian group is actually controlled from London. I mentioned the power of tradition. Australians are proudly independent, but at the time, maybe not quite so much. Maybe the sort of weight of connection to the British, I don't know, in that area at least.

And they're sent in to stir up this little jungle war, which they do. And they promise all of the people who are helping them protection. When the invasion comes, you'll be protected. Because basically, we're talking about a couple of hundred people. Three bands of a couple of hundred people each. And they're operating with very primitive weapons. And there's thousands of Japanese soldiers on this island. Anyway, the invasion comes. And the Australians who were in the invasion know nothing about the operation in the land.

And they're not in the least bit interested in helping. And everything starts to unravel. And it's really very grim indeed. And lots of people die. Oh, I should also add, as part of this, they start paying the local indigenous fighters money for human heads. So this story is about everything. I mean, it really is heart of darkness. But at the heart of it is a kind of misunderstanding about what the priorities were. And so that's kind of bad enough. It's a great story of a little known jungle campaign, but it gets really dark.

When after the war, people say, hang on a minute, not very far away from where this is happening is a notorious camp called Sander Camp.

Two and a half thousand Australian and British prisoners are murdered in the last weeks of the war on these death marches. And this is a very big story in Australia, and it certainly was in the years after the war. And guess what? It turns out that this group, this special forces group, had a possible mission, or had a mission that they were planning to do a rescue. I mentioned the Allies by now have total control of the air and the water areas.

There's no guarantee that these people would all have been saved, but nobody did rescue them and they all died. I mean, six survived. Six people survived out of 2,500. And when it comes out in the press in Australia in the late 40s, there's fury. Well, why was this abandoned?

Well, it turns out it was deprioritized to make way for, guess what, the operation we've just discussed, which is kind of all about oil fields. Now, you don't have to be an Australian who's lost somebody in Sandakan to feel that's a bit wrong, isn't it? Look at the Atlantic Charter. Look at the principles for which we were supposed to be fighting, and most often were, very often were fighting. Self-determination, the right of people to choose their own government, the right of

What happened in Borneo is an example of backsliding from that. And it's not the only one. And I can't say today that Operation Kingfisher is the operation that was cancelled. I can't say today that that would have saved those men. In fact, there's a very fine author called Paul Ham wrote a whole book about Sandakan. And he's quite sceptical that it could have saved them. But at least it would have been an effort. And similar things were tried by the Americans, actually, in the Philippines. Raids on these camps. And it turned out in these camps, Los Banos is the famous one.

also to add instruction to slaughter the prisoners and the americans got there in time to save them could the australians have done the same we will never know but what they did do goes very badly wrong causes an awful lot of unnecessary loss of life and i still can't really understand how it was meant to advance the cause of grabbing those oil fields anyway all seems to be just an ill-conceived waste of everybody's time when something much more important could have been attempted

So, yeah, that is one of the darker stories of a book, which is, like I say, overwhelmingly positive about our role in the Second World War. I just think you need to know this stuff if you want the warts and all of how the war was won. And I suppose, fascinatingly, given what's going to come next in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s is the story of Vietnam. I mean, you've already hinted at that, haven't you? But clearly there was an agenda.

along similar lines to restore the French to power in French Indochina. And there was a certain amount of assistance from the British. So tell us a bit about what was going on there. Well, that is an amazing story. And again, I didn't know much about it. I really didn't. General Leclerc is quite famous for leading the Free French into Paris.

an act of liberation, which is rightly celebrated to this day. But I bet not many people know, within a few months, with the full support of Churchill and de Gaulle, General Leclerc is on another mission, taking French soldiers to French Indochina, quotes, to further the interests of the white race in Asia. To further the interests of the white race in Asia. And the largest part of this force is British, led by General Greasy, the great hero of the war in Burma.

and most of his troops are Indians. So they're going to be sent into war for the future of the white race in Asia too.

And who are they fighting? Well, they're fighting Ho Chi Minh, who thought he was an ally of the West. He'd been working with the Americans. The Americans even helped him draft a declaration of independence. This is the OSS. He's friends in the OSS, the forerunners of the CIA. He's writing letters to Washington, to London, saying he wants to be friends. He believes in, you know, he admires the founding fathers. Yes, he was a communist. So maybe that was in the

people's minds as well but he was a communist who wanted to be friends and he had the overwhelming support of his people so what do we do we send an army in of British and French soldiers to basically kick him out and put the French back in charge but it gets worse so the fighting is quite intense and General Greasy needs more men so where do you think he gets them I see you know so I thought

I'll tell the audience. I do. The listeners don't. Well, the listeners, I think I was stunned. And I've actually sat with a few kind of academics who've studied, you know, colonialism and are rather critical of it. And they didn't know this story.

The people they find to fight this colonial war are Japanese prisoners of war. Tens of thousands of them released, given weapons, and told to serve under British command. They do this in Dutch East Indies too. And they do it in Vietnam and they do it in Cambodia. And so they send Japanese soldiers in to fight and kill Japanese

militias who had been our allies not many weeks before or at least the americans allies and they do it with great enthusiasm and great skill because the japanese are quite good at fighting aren't they but this is all happening in the weeks immediately at the after the end of the war so we're talking october november december at 45 and what are the newspapers of the world filling up with

desperately sad accounts of suffering from Japanese prisoners of war camps and railway gangs and all the stories that we know and all the horrors that were revealed by these emaciated survivors of places like Sandakan and as that is happening we're busy hiring Japanese to fight for us to keep the imperial game going and it is I mean it is shocking I think and it's

You know, it's shocking that we don't know about it because it doesn't sit easily with the way we like to think of the war. Britain, plucky underdogs hanging on against the odds. Dunkirk, dad's army. But it's another factor of it. And we need to understand that's how the rest of the world sees us. The biggest national holiday, one of them in Indonesia today, is called Heroes Day, in which they celebrate a battle in Subayara, which was a huge port, flattened. I mean, it ends up looking like Gaza or Aleppo, flattened by...

a British army containing Indian and Japanese soldiers supported by bombardments from cruisers and destroyers and massive bombing from the RAF. And this was to put the Dutch back in charge of Indonesia. And the Indonesians didn't want them. And actually, that one doesn't. The penny drops with that. Within a couple of years, they've gone. In Vietnam, the consequences are rather more long-lasting. But it just intrigues me that something that is a national holiday in one part of the world that

that very much involved Britain in 1945 would be known to less than 0.01% of people in Britain. That's one of the reasons I wanted to write the book. Well, so refreshing about what you've just said. And of course, what you've written in the book, Phil, is that, you know, it's not a clear cut story, the story of the Second World War, Britain's involvement in it.

is not that clear cut. And the more nuance you add, the more interesting it is for historians like me, but also a little bit more confusing it is for the average reader. And yet, as you pointed out, it's important we understand these wrinkles, as it were, in history, not just the kind of wrinkles that make someone like Colonel Timmy or General Timmy as he became famous,

such a fascinating and ambivalent character, I suppose, in modern India, but also some of the other people you bring out too. It's really wonderful in that sense. And it's also quite brave, I think, because most of us writing about the Second World War, James Holland included, tend to have an overwhelmingly positive spin on it.

because generally speaking, that's how we feel. And that's what people want to read. And yet at the same time, it's very important that, you know, we show both sides of the coin and you've done it so well in this book. Oh, thank you very much. And there's lots of positive material, lots of heroism. You know, the campaign in Berber is extraordinary. Slim is the greatest general of the Second World War on the British side, I would argue. And there's lots of stuff about that in the book. And of course, we also could not cover British power the way that it's put to in Europe and

And I was able to find a very moving personal connection to one of the greatest acts of the Second World War from the British side, which is happening 80 years ago right now as we're talking. And I'm talking about the relief of Belsen. And I tell the story of the doctors who did just the most remarkable work.

And it turned out that one of them was directly connected to my own family, which I did not know when I started working on the book. And that was rather thrilling. And I think I say towards the end, you know, it was the power of Britain and all its ambiguity and sometimes in all its horror. Historically, it was a power of Britain that allowed men like him to be in Belsen. The one thing does not happen without the other.

I think, I mean, that is, and it is actually just remarkable the lives that they saved. They basically improvised in the space of about 10 days an entirely new way of dealing with this kind of famine relief and combined with infectious disease. And the guy I focused on, Peter Kim, you know, he spends weeks going in and out of these huts rescuing people. They create this thing called the human laundry. Nobody's ever done anything like this before where they strip people, they wash them, they give them clean clothes, they burn the rags.

It's very heartwarming and lovely. There are no lovely stories about the Holocaust, of course, but it is one of the most positive stories you will ever read about the Holocaust. And it's directly about, you know, the altruistic side of Britain's war effort, which of course was there and was of course important. And most soldiers, I think, if they were new, because these are the guys who all end up voting for Attlee, most British soldiers, if they'd known about what was happening in Vietnam, we probably would not be too happy about it either.

But they didn't, did they? Phil, this book's been a long time coming. I reviewed one of your books, which you co-wrote with Tim Clayton, Trafalgar in 2005. And I think it's your first major book since then. First of all, why so long? And secondly, what next? Because you're running out of time if you're going to take that amount of time. No, well, you mentioned I had a TV career. I mean, Tim and I did some books together, which we really enjoyed. And Tim's kept on writing. He's written some wonderful books by himself.

And I kind of, you know, slipped back into the TV world, which has its pleasures and satisfactions. It's different. Two years ago, I was 62. Rupert, the publisher at Hodder said, you know, you never finished the trilogy, did you, Phil? And the original book was still selling, is still selling, which is kind of amazing. So I thought, you know what? This is the moment. I'm going to just kind of, I want to do it because I reckon I can be writing books in my seventies, whereas not many people are making TV shows in their seventies, to be honest. It's a different kind of a business.

I had my enthusiasm for writing. I'd slightly forgotten how much fun it is. It's certainly more satisfying and less ephemeral than a TV show. You get something solid at the end of it that allows you to say rather more. The average script of an hour-long TV show is about 20 pages. So everything is boiled down and simplified.

And I think if you want to say something nuanced and thoughtful, a book is the way to go. And yeah, more to come. I don't know. I've got two or three options, actually. I'm juggling ideas. I think it might depend on how well this one does. Great stuff, Phil. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Best of luck with the book. It will be out, I think, by the time we broadcast this.

It's been a great pleasure talking to you, Saul. Thank you for bringing up the Trafalgar Review. We love that. It's on the cover of the paperback still. Yeah, amazing. I mean, fabulous book. And the other thought that occurred to me as we sort of stopped the discussion of 1945, The Reckoning, is you made a great duo. And I've always imagined actually co-authoring a book would be bloody difficult. But you two made it look quite easy. Oh, thank you. Well, we did different things. And Tim is a great...

great mate actually and his book actually his book on Waterloo is really worth reading yeah I reviewed that too fantastic book it's the best best thing I've read on Waterloo honestly and I've read a lot on Waterloo talented young man great stuff Phil thanks so much for taking the time to do this alright mate thank you very much Saul I will see you around the traps as they say in Australia see you and best of luck with the book thanks so much bye bye ok that's all we have time for do join us on Friday when we'll have more from Battleground Ukraine goodbye