Harry Birrell’s War

From the moment he received a cine-camera at age 10, Harry Birrell devoted his life to documenting the world around him, including his enlistment and his adventures serving in the Burma, Nepal and India. Not only did he capture the war as he saw it, but he kept copious diaries from 1939 to 1945 so that his family would know what he had experienced in the event of his death. These unique record of the campaign are compelling, insightful, funny, charming, moving - all in equal measure.

As a soldier posted with the Gurkhas for most of the war, Harry Birrell worked as a surveyor, mapping out the country as the war with the Japanese ebbed and flowed around him. While this might seem like it was away from any action, the job of creating these references for the fighting part of the army was critical and required him to be at the front line in order that the troops and their commanders had the most up to date and accurate maps as the war evolved. As a result, he has an unusual insider overview of that brutal campaign as well as wonderful insight into the Gurkhas under his command.