Behind the Forgotten Front by Barbara Hawkins

Harry Flynn journeys to a world of tigers, elephants, and snow-capped Himalayan Mountains where he must take risks if he’s to survive. It’s 1942 and he expects to find the glory of battle, instead, he reports for duty as an ordinary supply officer in the Indian subcontinent. There, General Joseph ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell is constructing a ‘road to no where’ through Japanese-occupied Burma. Even though men are dying a man a mile from typhus, malaria and crumbling mountain slopes, the general pushes harder: he’ll do anything to get the road built. Harry’s forced to obey orders he’s convinced are obstructing the war effort. So he rebels. When a commanding officer spots Harry’s unconventional skills, he’s transferred to America’s first guerrilla-supported unit: Merrill’s Marauders and later the Mars Task Force. Harry forges unlikely friendships and takes comfort in the lure of sensuous women. In the end, he must decide what makes life worth living, or die.  

BARBARA HAWKINS holds a BA from the University of Minnesota where she studied Botany and Mathematics and an MA in Civil Engineering from California State University, Sacramento.  Adventure travel is a hobby she has had since before it had a name, traveling to remote regions of other continents and staying one step ahead of political disaster, sometimes dragging her daughter along to expand her horizons. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area.  www.barbarahawkins-writer.com