Prelude to the Monsoon: Assignment in Sumatra

"When Major Gideon Francois Jacobs of the British Royal Marines parachuted into the jungle of north Sumatra in the summer of 1945, he entered a world little known to Westerners. . . . It seemed to be a wild, primitive island where little of historical significance had happened or was likely to happen." So begins the Introduction to one of the most remarkable memoirs of World War II. The drama it captures is one that has been scarcely recognized in the West. Beginning with Japanese surrender...