St Cross Emeritus Fellow publishes new book about the Burma Front in the Second World War

St Cross Emeritus Fellow Professor Kate Venables has published a new book with Pen & Sword publishers, Letters from the Burma Front: Dear Annie & Flo. Drawing on her father’s correspondence from his time as a young army doctor in a mobile surgical unit during the Burma campaign of the Second World War, the book offers a vivid and personal insight into one of the most complex theatres of the conflict. Alongside the letters themselves, Professor Venables provides expertly researched historical context that brings to life the social and military realities of the Allied advance through Burma, from trench warfare and river crossings to encounters with soldiers, prisoners of war, and civilians. 

Professor Kate Venables is Dr Harry Walker’s daughter and followed him into medicine. She is an Emeritus Reader and Fellow at the University of Oxford, specialising in epidemiology and the occupational causes of disease. After retiring she did a life-writing PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, and this book, together with recent articles in medical history journals on other topics, draws on some of the research that she was unable to include in the thesis.

Blending family memoir, medical history, and wartime experience, Letters from the Burma Front is richly illustrated with photographs from both private and public collections. Written with clarity and empathy, the book captures the humanity that endures amid the hardships of war and the enduring bonds of friendship and home. 

Her new book is now available from Pen And Sword Publishers.