OVER the summer we have seen tributes paid to the brave men who took part in the invasion of Europe following D-Day 60 years ago.

Yet, as the author of a new book, Burma: The Forgotten War, due to be published by John Murray on 11 October, I was gripped by a feeling of 'Who remembers the boys who fought in the Far East?'

What a contrast were those remembrances, splashed all over the newspapers and television, with those very many Lancashiremen who served in Burma.

When news of D-Day reached Lieutenant John Hudson fighting at Imphal, North East India in 1944, he noted: "Press reporters never reached our besieged positions and any stories that were printed, after heavy censorship, were late and inaccurate ... We were important to our own kinsfolk and nobody else, but when a bullet struck home we were just as dead as the lads in Europe and we were glad they could not see the conditions we had to endure.'

It is no surprise the men who served in Fourteenth Army refer to themselves as the 'Forgotten Army'.

This year coincides with the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Fourteenth Army's triumphant campaign to reconquer Burma over a dangerous and implacable enemy.

Lancashire units - 2nd East Lancs, 1/8th and 10th Lancashire Fusiliers among others, and 1st Lancashire Fusiliers and 2nd King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) served with the famous Chindits in this campaign.

Veterans, can be traced quite easily through the Burma Star Association, one of the few Second World War veterans' associations still operating.

They too deserve to be remembered.

Jon Latimer, by e-mail