Poor Jack Furtling-Titmuss. A British chap who couldn’t fight so he picked up a BBC camera instead of a gun to follow His Majesty’s forces into battle against the Japanese in World War Two. Jack may have been a civilian, but he too had to endure the same hell the soldier had to endured. His American counterpart, Marty Barnett of Paramount was in Burma at the same time, but unlike Jack, Marty did not leave behind quite a rather colorful description of life in the jungle.

Paul Martin, a freelance cameraman in the UK has one of Jack’s letters transcribed on his site.

For the Southern US photogs who suffer annually from the malady known in impolite circles as “swampass” – Jack can one up you…

(and the photo on Paul’s site is actually of UK Whipple, an American newsreeler who worked for Hearst.)