HAS anyone heard of Kohima, Imphal, Nunshigum or the dreadful Kabow Valley, the 84-mile length of which cost 16,000 lives. Heard of the longest campaign of WWII, fought against the most savage enemy in the swamps and jungle of a country larger than France, Belgium and Holland combined? Fought, not with fleets of aircraft or dozens of tanks, but with the rifle, bayonet and cold courage of the PBI, the Poor Bloody Infantry, supported by the equally heroic gunners, tormented by flies, mosquitoes and leeches, suffering from jungle sores, foot rot and the scalding itch of prickly heat. No canteens, or concert parties, these were the soldiers fighting a shoestring war.

During my last six months in Burma, which concluded nearly four and a half years overseas service, I saw neither a woman or an egg, did not sleep beneath a roof or a tent, slept only in the clothes that I worked and fought in, washed by monsoon rain and, smothered in monsoon mud, did not have a hot bath or shower and, except on very rare occasions, ate nothing that did not come out of a tin. Christmas lunch 1945 - as usual bully beef and dog biscuits; Christmas dinner, bully stew and beans.

A few weeks ago, the media was full of the dignitaries, parades and pomp celebrating D- Day. September 2, yes, this month, was the anniversary of the conclusion of the war against Japan, and what did the media make of it? Not one single solitary squeak. The Fourteenth Army? Forgotten then, forgotten now.

Robert Follett, Oakfield Road, Falmouth (an ex-Infantry man of African desert and Burma jungle)