Burma, in the spring of 1942, and the Japanese are coming. British and Indian ex-pats suddenly need to get out of the country, and fast. But getting home is not going to be easy: an incredible journey, lasting up to three months and undertaken by foot, through jungle and swamp, from the north of Burma over the mountainous border and into India.
It's a story rarely told, despite being one of the most difficult, desperate mass evacuations in human history. Astonishingly, some 220,000 refugees survived the harrowing journey, of up to 300 miles long; 4,268 are recorded to have died en route, from sickness, exhaustion, malnutrition, starvation or drowning – although the true death toll will never be known.
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