The Imperial Japanese Army - The Invincible Years 1941-42, Bill Yenne, Osprey Publishing, 2014, £20, 360 pages, ISBN 978-1-78200-932-0.

This book by American scholar Bill Yenne will be equally welcome on both sides of the Atlantic.  Americans, British, Dutch and French tend to know about the fall of their own colonies to the Japanese in 1941-2 but are often less aware about the details of the whole region.  Yenne looks at the campaign as a coordinated plan from the Japanese point of view and follows it chronologically.  This requires some mental dexterity by the reader, as the narrative switches from the mainland to one island, then another and back again, but it is the most logical approach and gives a true feeling of how the Allied disasters unfolded.

There is an excellent opening section tracing the evolution of the Imperial Japanese Army from the days of the Shoguns to the efficient machine that swept across much of South East Asia in
less than six months.  It also charts the political decisions that accompanied it. Yenne uses the careers of two Army contemporaries, Hideki Tojo (later Japanese supremo) and Tomoyuki Yamashita (The Tiger of Malaya and conqueror of Singapore) to demonstrates the changes in thinking that took place in the minds of the military, particularly in the years following The Great War.  He also highlights the battle for priority within the high command between The Northern Road (Manchuria and the
conflict with Russia) and The Southern Road to the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
 

The main part of the book tells the story of the offensives to capture Malaya, Burma, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, French Indo-China and the Philippines. Inevitably there is a lack of detail in covering such a wide span of operations but all the main events on
land, sea and air are there and give a good introduction to anyone wanting to learn more about the campaign.  The comprehensive
bibliography includes books and papers from the past 60 years that cover the subject in greater detail, but is perhaps lacking in some of the latest research.  The maps cover all the areas of operations in adequate detail.  Yenne finishes with a brief overview of the final years of the war and the fate of the main Japanese protagonists.

This is an excellent book for anyone coming fresh to the subject or only knowing part of the story.  It would be a welcome addition to any military history library.