Jack Bowsher is represented by Past Preservers. For media enquires please use the link below to see Jack's profile.
Jack Bowsher
About Jack
Jack has always had a passion for history. His grandfather did his National Service in the late 1940s driving Sexton self -propelled guns, under NCOs who were veterans of the Second World War. He passed on the stories of these men, alongside war films, model kits and visits to historical places. Jack and his Grandfather, inspired by A Bridge Too Far, dragged the whole family to the Netherlands to drive Hell's Highway from Eindhoven to Arnhem.
Now a passionate military historian, Jack is dedicated to sharing his love of history with others. As a teacher and Head of History in a Hertfordshire secondary school, he is inspiring the next generation of historians.
In 2023 Jack achieved a Distinction in his Military History MA which secured his first book deal with Chilselbury Publishing: Forgotten Armour: Tank Warfare in Burma is out now. Jack spoke at We Have Ways Festival 2023 and 2024, and at Tank Fest 2024. Jack has also appeared on several podcasts, livestreams, TV documentaries and YouTube channels. In October 2024 Jack was elected to be an Associate Fellow of the Royal History Society. At the end of 2024, Jack founded The Forgotten War Podcast: Burma Campaign WW2 with co-host Dr Robert Lyman MBE. In 2025 he was invited to the VJ Day 85 as a guest of the Burma Star Memorial Fund and Lord Slim. Jack's second book Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945 was also released in 2025, and he is now working on two books for Osprey Publishing for release in 2027.
Projects
Books
The Forgotten War Podcast
The Forgotten War Podcast
The success of Jack's first two books have led to two new exciting projects with Osprey Publishing: a New Vanguard series book Tank's in Burma, and Fighting Retreat: Burma 1942, both of which will be out in 2027.
Forgotten Armour and Thunder Run are available at Chiselbury Publishing, Amazon, Waterstones, and many more!
The Forgotten War Podcast
The Forgotten War Podcast
The Forgotten War Podcast
Hosted by Jack and Dr Robert Lyman MBE (A War of Empires), The Forgotten War Podcast dives into the Burma Campaign. Series 1 took listeners on an overview of the entire campaign, & later series get right into any and every corner of the war against Japan in Southeast Asia in detail not heard anywhere else.
Festivals & Conferences
The Forgotten War Podcast
Jack is a regular speaker at festivals and conferences, such as Al Murray and James Holland's annual We Have Ways Festival, The Tank Museum's Tankfest, IWM's Podcast Live Festival, The International Second World War Conference, and many more.
TV Documentaries
Jack has recently been interviewed as a talking head in Wildbear Entertainment's soon to be released The Tank: Ultimate Weapon of WWII, with other projects in the pipeline.
Articles
Other Appearances
Jack has written and published a variety of articles, including for Tracklinks Magazine, Salient Points by the Great War Group, and Zero Post by the Vickers MG Collections and Research Association
Other Appearances
Other Appearances
Over the past few years Jack has appeared on numerous podcasts and YouTube Channels, including We Have Ways Podcast, History Rage, WW2TV, Redcoat History, Lord HardThrasher, History with Jackson, Battleground 44, Fighting on Film, and recorded for Guidl Tours.
Forgotten Armour: Tank Warfare in Burma
Available at Chiselbury, Amazon, Waterstones, and many more.
£22.00
Now available in Paperback!
Forgotten Armour is a new and exciting appraisal of the role of tanks in India and Burma in the Second World War.
Often regarded primarily as an infantryman’s war in dense jungle and through monsoon conditions, the book shows that this is far from the whole story. Using original research from archives, eyewitness testimony, official histories, and recent academic studies, this promise to be a fresh take on the war against Japan.
Beginning with the failure to fully mechanise the interwar Indian Army, and tracing the development of armoured training, logistics and tactics, Forgotten Armour tells the story of the Second World War in India and Burma from the cramped interior of tanks. From 7th Armoured Brigade’s heroic efforts to save the retreating troops in 1942, the desperate struggles at the Admin Box, Imphal, and Kohima, through to the greatest example of modern manoeuvre warfare in the Second World War during the reconquest of Burma.
Once tanks arrived in the theatre, and bunker busting methods were devised, armour proved decisive in their encounters against the Japanese and saved countless Allied lives. It is time to remember the Forgotten Army’s Forgotten Armour.
Second book out now! Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945
Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945 Buy Now from Chiselbury Publishing, Amazon, Waterstones, and many more.
Many histories of the Burma Campaign climax with the incredible battles of Imphal and Kohima in 1944. The reconquest of Burma that followed in 1945 is often, taken granted: it was just mopping up. Yet that campaign was the culmination of the journey that the British and Indian armies had gone through since December 1941. This was achieved without the lavish scale of materiel afforded in other theatres, and in a location that posed varied and extreme geographical challenges.
This campaign, especially around the Japanese supply hub at the town of Meiktila, should be the stuff of legend in our collective memory of the Second World War. Had it been carried out by Monty, Patton, Rommel, or Zhukov, it would be as well-known as the battles of France, Alamein, the Bulge, Kursk, or Overlord. Yet it is the most incredible battle that you’ve never heard of. The culmination of all-arms manoeuvre warfare in the Second World War; tanks, motorised infantry, self-propelled artillery and air support charging across the dusty dry belt of central Burma, striking the Japanese Burma Area Army by surprise in unexpected places. Outnumbered and surrounded, 17th Indian Infantry Division and 255th Indian Tank Brigade annihilated their enemy in the battle that really finished the Japanese in Southeast Asia.
This is Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945.