No Surrender in Burma

This British Commando’s WWII memoir recounts his attempt to escape Japanese-occupied Burma and his harrowing experiences as a POW.

This is the extraordinary story of Lance Corporal Fred Goode, a British Commando stationed in Burma in 1941. Cut off behind enemy lines the following year, Goode walked 2,000 miles towards India and freedom, but was betrayed to Japanese forces only 20 miles short of his destination. Tortured by the infamous Kempeitai—Imperial Japan’s military police—Goode was then sent to Rangoon's notorious Central Jail, where he remained a prisoner of war until Japan’s surrender.

Goode was one of fifty men sent to Burma to support and train Chinese forces fighting in Japanese-occupied China. With Japan's entry into World War II in December of that year, their mission expanded to include destroying airfields and taking bullion to India. When they were overtaken by enemy forces before crossing the Irrawaddy River, their commanding officer instructed them to split into four groups and head for India or Yunnan. Of the original fifty, only eight survived.