Burma's Secret Jungle War with Joe Simpson - Season 1

Former mountaineer Joe Simpson travels to Inywa in Myanmar to retrace the WWII journey of his father, Ian, who served with the Chindits, the special forces who fought a harsh guerilla campaign behind Japanese lines in 1944.

Using his father's maps and secret diary, and guided by explorer Ed Stafford, the first man to walk the length of the Amazon, Joe sets out to find the jungle airstrip where 20,000 Chindits were dropped in the biggest air operation before D-Day. Joe experiences some of the jungle conditions that made this one of the toughest campaigns of the second World War - crossing a river with a homemade bamboo raft, getting lost in the jungle (even with GPS) - but then finds that events in modern-day Myanmar threaten to derail his plans. The first free elections since 1990 trigger renewed hostilities in Kachin province - usually off-limits to tourists - and Joe has to put his 30-year-old dream on hold.

Halfway through the jungle trek, the first free elections since 1990 trigger unrest and force Joe to divert to Bhamo, a small town in the north east of what is now called Myanmar. Joe can see the hills and ridges where his father trekked, but is not allowed to go there. Three days later, Joe and Ed Stafford, his jungle guide, are allowed to restart their journey, walking up a river crossed by the Chindits and travelling to villages and battlefields where the Allied special forces engaged the Japanese in fierce fighting. He meets villagers who still remember the Chindits, sees the spot where his father's commanding officer was beheaded in a battle and emerges with a deeper respect for what Lt Ian Simpson experienced.