Tells the story of a US Army surgeon who served in India and Burma from 1941 to 1944. The book draws heavily on Grindlay's unpublished diary which he kept during his entire time in the CBI. It sheds a great deal of new light on the conduct of tropical and combat medicine in World War II plus providing new perspectives on such personalities as General Joseph W. Stilwell.

United States Army surgeon John H. Grindlay served in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II in 1941-1944. Drawing on his unpublished war diary and letters, this book sheds new light on the conduct of battlefield medicine in the tropics and provides a new perspective on such personalities as General Joseph W. Stilwell, the famed "Burma Surgeon" Dr. Gordon S. Seagrave, and Chiang Kai-shek. Stilwell's famous 1942 "walkout" retreat from Burma to India is covered, along with the 1943 Allied return to Burma to push the Japanese from the Ledo Road connecting northeast India to southwestern China.