| GURKHAS AT WAR: In Their Own Words: the Gurkha Experience, 1939 to the Present This collection of eyewitness material offers an unprecedented contiribution to the history of the Gurkhas, a famed but mysterious brigade whose story has always been told by ‘outsiders’. Gurkhas at War, the result of in-depth interviews conducted by editors J. P. Cross and Buddhiman Gurung, offers these remarkable soldiers a voice in print, for the first time.These first-person narratives centre on the sixty-year period from the outbreak of World War II to the confrontation in East Timor and include the re-structuring of the Gurkha Brigade in 1947 and the punitive measures directed at many Gurkhas who disputed their resettlement, events which remain as painful memories for those subjected to the change.J. P. Cross spent nearly thirty-nine years’ service in Asia, the majority of which was the Gurkhas.After leaving the army he began researching Gurkha culture at the University of Kathmandu.Buddhiman Gurung worked unofficially in a British recruiting camp for six years before assisting Cross during his last army posting. Gurung aided Cross in the task of coaxing stories from interviewees and transcribing them into English. Author: Format: 320pp,
16 pages of plates, 11 maps, hb. |