British soldiers in World War II, with their old-fashioned helmets, spring-powered PIAT anti-tank guns and veneration of heroic defeats, may have lost the propaganda war – to be fair, the cut of a British Army battledress blouse probably did that on Day One – but their record speaks for itself. World War II may have started badly for the British in France and the Far East. but they were victorious in the North African desert, in Europe and in India and Burma where the ‘Forgotten Army’ first held the Japanese and then inflicted at Imphal and Kohima the greatest loss to the Japanese on land.