The Jungle is Neutral

Book excerpt: After the fall of Malaysia to the Japanese, the unflappable F. Spencer Chapman survived for years in the jungle as a guerilla fighter. The Jungle is Neutral is his amazing tale of survival and valor against all odds. As he traveled by bicycle, motorcycle, dugout, on foot, or on his belly through the jungle muck, Chapman recruited sympathetic Chinese, Malays, Tamils, and Sakai tribesmen into an irregular corps of jungle fighters. Their mission: to harass the Japanese in any way possible. In riveting scenes, Chapman recalls their daring raids as they blew up bridges, cut communications lines, and affixed plasticine to troop-filled trucks idling by the road. They threw grenades and disappeared into the jungle, their faces darkened with carbon, their tommy guns wrapped in tape so as not to reflect the moonlight. When Chapman wasn't battling the Japanese or escaping from their prisons, he found himself fighting the jungle's incessant rain, wild tigers, unfriendly tribesmen, leeches, disease, and malnutrition. This classic tale has been compared to Lawrence of Arabia's classic account, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and the gritty account of day-to-day operations is so accurate that the French Foreign Legion used the book as a primer on jungle warfare. It is a war story without rival.