Billy Williams came to colonial Burma in 1920, fresh from service in World War I, to a job as a "forest man" for a British teak company. Mesmerized by the intelligence, character, and even humor of the great animals who hauled logs through the remote jungles, he became a gifted "elephant wallah." Increasingly skilled at treating their illnesses and injuries, he also championed more humane treatment for them, even establishing an elephant "school"...

"Flying the notorious "Hump" route between India and China in 1943, a twin engine Curtiss-Wright C-46 plane suffered engine failure and crashed over the mountainous, remote border country. Among the passengers and crew were celebrated CBS journalist Eric Sevareid, a Soviet double-agent posing as an OSS operative, and General "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell's personal political adviser. Against the odds, all but one of the twenty-one people on the doomed aircraft...

"In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army steamrolled through Burma, capturing the only ground route from India to China. Supplies to this critical zone would now have to come from India by air-meaning across the Himalayas, on the most hazardous air route in the world. SKIES OF THUNDER is a story of an epic human endeavor, in which Allied troops faced the monumental challenge of operating from airfields hacked from the jungle, and took on "the Hump,"...

An Imperial Japanese Army regiment surrenders to British forces in Burma at the close of World War II and finds harmony through song. A private, thought to be dead, disguises himself as a Buddhist monk and stumbles upon spiritual enlightenment.

Made famous by a Hollywood movie, the bridges of the River Kwai emblematize one of the most misunderstood events in history. Contrary to the film version, the structures represent a period of terror, desperation, and death for 16,000 POWs.