From Burma With Love

Stephen W. Reiss

Description

Hollywood contacted the author several years ago about making a movie from the first edition of "From Burma with Love". Now that this second edition has been published, it's just a matter time before a cast is hired. Who will play the leading man? Will it win for Best Picture?
During World War II, the Japanese blockaded all the harbors along the coast of China and Burma. To get supplies into central China, the Americans, British, and their allies built the Burma Road which became the Epic Story of the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater. It was 700 miles through jungles, over mountains, and crossing streams. Some 200,000 native laborers were involved. That was Irwin Reiss' job -- recruiting local tribesmen to move dirt and build bridges by hand and limited heavy help from Caterpillar tractors. Read these letters from the jungle and from the homefront and then ask yourself why is ongoing turmoil in other parts of the world.

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Histoire
• History

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 30 juin 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665565820
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

From Burma With Love
 
 
 
 
 
Fifteen months of World War II letters between Irwin and Mary Reiss
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Stephen W. Reiss

 
© 2023 Stephen W. Reiss. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
AuthorHouse™
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
 
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6583-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6582-0 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023909451
 
 
Published by AuthorHouse 06/292023
 
 
 
 

From Burma with Love
Table of Contents
Dedication
Observation
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Stage and Cast of Characters
The University of Illinois – July 20, 1937
Letters to brother Frank Reiss and his wife Gerry
December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor Attacked by Japan
A Wedding in Atascadero, California – November 8, 1942
Fort Washington, Maryland – January 20, 1943
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut – July 15, 1943
Camp Reynolds, Pennsylvania – December 1, 1943
At Sea on the USS Wake Island Aircraft Carrier – February 17, 1944
Karachi, India – March 30, 1944
Calcutta, India – May 12, 1944
Ramgarh Training Center, India – June 6, 1944
Stilwell Road, Story of the Ledo Lifeline
Along the Ledo Road in Burma – August 27, 1944
Ledo, Assam, India – December 11, 1944
Thar Desert, India – February 12, 1945
Enroute to Miami, Florida and Van Nuys, California – March 1, 1945
Roundup, Ex-CBI Roundup, and Sound-off
Granddad’s Mondays – Eleven Years of Stories
Dad’s Letter from Fort Benning, Georgia in 1941
The Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor
Epilogue
Obituary and Eulogy of Irwin H. Reiss
Obituary, Guinness World Record, and Eulogy of Mary L. Reiss
About the Author
Dedication
Irv and Mary Reiss (aka Dad and Mom) wrote this book as two letters per day for fifteen months from late 1943 through March 1945. Friends and relatives added more letters to bring the total to nearly 1,000. Virtually all of Mary’s and Irv’s letters ended with “I love you very very much” and “I miss you very very much.” It’s easy to empathize with their frustrations and anxieties about being separated and worried, especially with the birth and nurturing of their first child Stephen (aka “me”) in June 1944. This book title of From Burma with Love is an understatement as you will see.
All of their letters were subject to military censorship. Irv even had a month of formal censorship training such that he was overly aware of what he could and could not tell Mary about his job, location, experiences, and future plans. He could not answer all of her questions. Censorship made their communications more difficult as did the two- and three-week delays in international mail delivery.
On 1/11/11, maybe even at 1:11 in the morning, I had a vivid dream. I had arrived at some destination and my late father was already there waiting for me. He knew I was coming but I did not know he would meet my arrival. We were both about age 65. He looked terrific and was all smiles like the cover of this book. Our mega bear hug was strong and powerful. Perhaps we were in heaven but there were no bright lights and no words were spoken. Our seconds together were so good that it woke me up and the dream was over. My interpretation of this dream or vision is that Dad was aware of my transcriptions of all his and Mom’s letters and that he was both pleased and proud they would soon be published.
News commentator, Tom Brokaw, certainly got it right. This is indeed The Greatest Generation!!! I am honored to dedicate this book to my parents, Irv and Mary Reiss.
Stephen W. Reiss
Dunlap, Illinois 61525
Observation
Most adults know their parents as adults extremely well because we may have had 50 or more years of overlap living. But the farther we go back in our ages, the less we know or remember about our parents when they were younger adults. But when your age is -0.7 years to +0.8 years, as I was when the 425,000 words in the book were written, you recall absolutely nothing. So, the transcription of nearly 1,000 letters and the gathering of over 100 photographs for this book has allowed me to “meet” my parents in their mid-twenties and to learn about my life from before I was born to before I could walk. Compiling this book and dedicating it to my parents has been an absolutely fascinating and extremely rewarding experience.
Stephen W. Reiss
Dunlap, Illinois 61525
 
Acknowledgement I
Pay special attention to all the family photographs in this book and then thank my brother Ken Reiss who put that part of this project together. Ken is our self-appointed family photo archivist. He has digitized literally thousands of family photos from old black and white prints, old negatives, color slides and prints, plus new digital pictures he has taken himself. I’m impressed with Ken’s energy, expertise, and enthusiasm. Thanks, bro.
Acknowledgement II
Pay special attention to a new chapter - Letters to brother Frank Reiss and his wife Gerry . It is the first main reason for this second edition of FBWL because it contains 47 additional letters by Irv Reiss from 7/1/1941 to 12/20/1942. They were found by F&G’s grandson, Jesse Reiss, when he was cleaning out his grandparent’s estate after the first edition of this book was published. Some of the dates of letters to F&G overlap with letters between Irv and his future wife Mary in the next chapter. Thanks, Jesse.
Acknowledgement III
Pay special attention to the photographs on the next page and on the back cover where Diane and I celebrated our 50 th wedding anniversary with our entire family on July 10, 2021 in Petoskey, Michigan. That is the second main reason for this second edition of FBWL. On the left is Grant and Hany plus Kayla and Blake. On the right is Adam and Heather plus Will and Ava.
Our grands are included as co-authors of this second edition because they give me great joy and purpose in documenting our family history. I’ve sent them at least two weekly stories every Monday since Palm Sunday 2012. I call them Granddad’s Mondays and there have been over 1,400 of them so far. Every December stories for that year are bound into Christmas books for each grand, their parents, and ourselves. Twenty-two of our Granddad’s Mondays stories which elaborate on subjects in this book are included as a new chapter. They are the third main reason for this second edition. Thanks, family.

 

Introduction
Irv Reiss served in the US Army from June 27, 1941 until September 17, 1945 (a day short of his 28 th birthday) for a total of 4 years, 2 months, and 20 days. Domestic service was 3 years, 28 days and foreign service in India and Burma (Myanmar) was 1 year, 1 month, and 23 days. Most of the domestic service was either “being trained” or “training others” who most often were non-commissioned officers at Camp Roberts in California.
The foreign service in India included hospital time for severe headaches which were never cured and training others in censorship and in the Chinese language. The foreign service in Burma is much more intense and is the heart of this book – hence the name, From Burma with Love. Irv was a labor officer along the Ledo Road from August 28, 1944 until December 11, 1944. His job was to hire and feed and pay several thousand native laborers (and a few elephants) to help build that road from Ledo, India to Mongyu, Burma. Read his letter of October 7, 1944. Most of those 3.5 months were spent between Mile Posts 79 and 272 in the table below.
THREE NAMES - TWO ROADS - ONE PURPOSE
Burma Road – Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 resulted in the Second Sino-Japanese War which continued with sporadic fighting throughout the 1930s. In 1937 full scale war broke out and Japan occupied most of coastal China. This forced the Chinese to seek another method of bringing in supplies and war materiel. A route from Kunming, China to a railhead at Lashio, Burma was completed in 1938. Supplies were landed at Rangoon, Burma and brought by rail to Lashio. Built by Chinese laborers stone by stone, this route was known as The Burma Road.
Ledo Road – During World War II, Japan invaded and occupied Burma in early 1942, blocking the Burma Road supply line. War planners decided to build a new road from Ledo, Assam, India to bypass the cut off part of the Burma Road. Supplies landed at Karachi and Calcutta, India could be brought by rail to Ledo and trucked over the road to China. It proved to be an extremely difficult task but the Japanese were driven back and a new route forged through the mountains and jungles of northern Burma. The Ledo Road was completed by U.S. Army Engineers in early 1945. It ran 465 miles from Ledo to a junction with the Burma Road at Mongyu, Burma.
Stilwell Road – In addition to building the Ledo Road, Army Engineers and local workers also upgraded over 600 miles of the northern part of the Burma Road. The Ledo Road and the upgraded portion of the Burma Road from Mongyu to Kunming were later named the Stilwell Road in honor of American General Joseph W. Stilwell who was Commander of the China-Burma-India Theater and