Marking the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, The History Podcast: The Second Map uncovers Britain’s overlooked role in the war against Japan on the Asian front during World War ll.
The new three-part series from BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, begins in early December 1941, when a 14-year-old boy in London hears news of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour.
Hours later, he learns of Japan’s air strikes and invasions of British colonies in South East Asia. Already keeping a map of Europe to follow the war against Nazi Germany, he pins up a second map charting the battles against Japan.
Over the next three and a half years, he records the defeats and later victories, some of which would involve his own family. Now aged 98, he shares his memories of this lesser-known part of the war.
Created and hosted by the award-winning producer of Three Million and Partition Voices, the podcast tells how Britain’s early defeats gave way to victories, including epic jungle battles and a pivotal tennis court clash that saved the British Empire.
While Pearl Harbour and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are well known, the fighting involving what was then the largest British-led army of almost a million troops, often called the “forgotten army”, is rarely told.
The series features testimonies from British, Indian, and Japanese soldiers, as well as former prisoners of war and civilian internees. It also hears from descendants in Britain uncovering family stories of courage, capture, and survival.
The History Podcast: The Second Map will be available on BBC Sounds from Friday 15 August.
