General ‘Boy': The Life of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Browning

by Richard Mead

  Leese flew on to the Arakan, where he outlined his proposal to a delighted Christison. He then met Slim at the latter’s HQ at Meiktila, where he explained to him what he had in mind. Slim’s immediate reaction was that he was effectively being relieved of his command, in which case he would decline the offer of Twelfth Army and retire. Leese said that he should reflect on the proposals and later rang Boy to report on the meeting and to say that he believed that Slim would in due course accept them. Slim understood quite differently, continuing to believe that he had been sacked. He confided only in his immediate staff and then went on a few days’ leave with his wife to Shillong, arriving back on 13 May when he informed his other corps commanders, Stopford and Frank Messervy.

  The cat was now out of the bag, the news spreading like wildfire around Fourteenth Army and in India and being almost universally received with dismay. In the meantime a storm was also brewing in London, where Brooke had received a letter from Leese describing his proposals, but replied to say that he would not countenance the relief of Slim from Fourteenth Army without the strongest reasons being given by both Mountbatten and Leese. Brooke also wrote to Mountbatten demanding to know why he should agree to a change in an army commander without prior consultation. Auchinleck happened to be in London, where he too expressed his concerns to Brooke. In his diary for 17 May the CIGS wrote: ‘Leese is going wild and doing mad things, prepared a fair rap on the knuckles for him!’2 Four days later Leese arrived back in Kandy, where Mountbatten made it quite clear that Slim should be reinstated, on which Leese backed down and the status quo ante was duly confirmed. Boy wrote to Brooke on 24 May confirming that matters were settled, but expressing an opinion that Leese’s handling of the matter had adversely affected both those involved and the morale of Fourteenth Army. He queried whether Slim could in future serve comfortably under Leese.

  There the matter rested for a month, helped by the fact that Slim went on leave to the UK. Mountbatten travelled to Rangoon for the Victory Parade there on 15 June, with Boy holding the fort in Kandy, but Boy was asked to represent the Supreme Commander ‘to see fair play’ at subsequent talks held on HMS Cumberland, moored on Rangoon River, between the soon-to-be reinstated Governor of Burma, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith3 and the Burmese politicians headed by Aung San.4 Mountbatten was convinced of the need to bring Aung San and his colleagues, who had sided with the Japanese during the occupation, into some form of partnership with the British, against the inclinations of Dorman-Smith who considered initially that they should be treated as traitors. Boy had fully adopted Mountbatten’s position, but even the latter was surprised by the way in which he handled the matter. ‘I was staggered to find that Boy Browning, who was my representative at this meeting, had himself pressed and got the Governor to agree that Aung San’s forces should have their title changed to ‘Patriotic Burmese Forces’ and that Aung San should be made Deputy Inspector-General of the regular Burma Army, with the rank of Brigadier; a very far cry indeed from arresting him and declaring his Army illegal!’5

  Boy flew from Rangoon by Sunderland flying boat through monsoons storms to New Delhi, where he attended a Supreme Commander’s conference. This turned out to be Leese’s last appearance at such a forum. Brooke, who held the same opinion as Boy of the likely relationship between Leese and Slim, and had in any event always doubted the former’s ability, wrote to Mountbatten on 19 June advising him to replace Leese with Slim and offering Dempsey as the latter’s successor. On 2 July a letter from Mountbatten was delivered by hand to Leese informing him that his appointment had been terminated. Boy’s role in the affair had not been central, but his advice to Mountbatten and his reflections to Brooke had almost certainly been influential. In spite of his long friendship with Leese6 all Boy’s sympathies lay with Slim, whom he greatly admired.

  Boy now had other problems to contend with, the most difficult of which was the ‘Python’ scheme. Immediately after the end of the war in Europe, the British Government announced that all those who had served for more than three years and eight months overseas would be repatriated immediately. This had an immediate effect on SEAC, many of whose British units, and particularly those in Indian Divisions, had been serving in the theatre for much of war. Matters were made considerably worse when the Secretary of State for War, Sir James Grigg, unexpectedly announced in the House of Commons on 8 June that the qualifying time would be further reduced to three years and four months. This meant that the numerous formations and units which had arrived in India as reinforcements during the first half of 1942, including 2 Division, would no longer be available for ‘Zipper’, now being planned for August or September.

  Boy was incandescent with rage. ‘The idiot [Grigg]’, he wrote to Daphne, ‘did it without asking us about the repercussions and without any warning, a pure electioneering stunt which will probably have the effect of prolonging our part in the Jap war by six months. It really is too infuriating. There’s an enormous ‘block’ of chaps who are now caught within the four shorter months and their going has completely bitched our next operation – there will be one hell of a row with the chiefs of staff when they realize what it means … we’ve been so rude to Grigg over this business that we shall all come back soon I suspect with small bowler hats plonked firmly on our heads.’7 It might have been this which persuaded Boy to vote Liberal in the General Election that saw Churchill defeated, and he predicted correctly to Daphne that the troops would vote for Labour if they voted for anyone.

  Daphne, at the time, was hard at work on another book, based on an episode in the history of Menabilly. The King’s General had as its hero Sir Richard Grenvile, a leading Cavalier during the English Civil War. Boy liked the title, although Daphne herself expressed some concern that the readers might think that Grenvile’s character reflected his own. Initially Boy was unworried: ‘About people thinking it was me –well – we can take it!’8 He suggested that it might be dedicated to Mountbatten, but she insisted that it should be him. The dedication duly appeared as ‘To my husband, also a general, but, I trust, a more discreet one’. However, when Boy read the book many months later, he was dismayed. A suggestion from him that it should have a happy ending had been ignored and although he thought it beautifully written he had two observations: ‘to wit (a) the chap is so unpleasant that it makes the book a bit unpleasant and (b) the word ‘discreet’ in the dedication is nothing like enough to deal with the matter!!’9

  Any chance that Boy might have hoped for in the way of leave in the UK was dashed by an increase in his workload, juggling the resources required for ‘Zipper’, dealing with political issues in Burma, where nationalism was gathering pace, and beginning to consider the possible implications of an end to the war not only on Malaya, but also on the wider SEAC area. Mountbatten was away from 11 July to 14 August, first on a visit to his fellow Supreme Commander, General MacArthur, in the Philippines, and subsequently to attend the Potsdam Conference. Daphne was hopeful that Boy would accompany him, ‘but’, as she wrote to Tod, ‘the lights and the music of Kandy must have been too much for him.’10 This was symptomatic of her mood at the time, believing that he did not want to come home and beginning to question her own feelings for him. She was still seeing Christopher Puxley, who came to stay at Menabilly during July, but the affair was nearing its end.

  Mountbatten’s return to Kandy was preceded by momentous news. At Potsdam he had been let into the secret of the atomic bomb and had been authorized by Churchill to send a signal to Boy that the Japanese were expected to capitulate on or about 15 August, although he was unable to provide the reason. This changed every assumption that SEAC had been making about the prosecution of the war and its aftermath, but Boy was able to put in hand the preliminary planning for the new circumstances by the time of Mountbatten’s return. This would involve the occupation not only of Malaya, but also of Hong Kong, Thailand, French Indo-China and the Netherlands East Indies.

  The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 Aug
ust respectively and the Japanese duly capitulated on 15 August, just as Churchill had forecast. It did not help the planning that Boy had been ill with a septic throat which required him to be hospitalized and given ‘frightful pills’ every four hours. He was well enough to meet Mountbatten on his return, but the Supreme Commander noted that he was still looking very ill. He was far from fully recovered a week later, but this did not stop him being sent as Mountbatten’s representative to conduct the preliminary surrender negotiations in Rangoon. MacArthur had decreed that no formal surrenders should take place until he had signed the overall instrument in Tokyo Bay on 2 September, but there was a mass of detail to agree in respect of local arrangements before then.

  Lieutenant General Numata, the Chief of Staff to Field Marshal Count Terauchi, Commander-in-Chief of Japan’s Southern Army and thus Mountbatten’s opposite number, arrived by plane at Mingaladon airfield outside Rangoon on the morning of 26 August. He and his delegation were received by Stopford, in his new capacity as Commander of Twelfth Army, and then escorted to Government House in Rangoon. Numata and two of his colleagues sat facing a row of Allied officers in the Throne Room and, when Boy entered at 1215, the meeting began. The Japanese were presented with a document which made Terauchi fully responsible for enforcing the cease fire, for removing all minefields, for making all signals in clear and not in code and for maintaining law and order until the Allies arrived. Other matters addressed included arrangements to drop doctors and medical supplies into POW camps and twenty-four hour reconnaissance flights over occupied territories.

  The Japanese had come in the belief that they would be able to negotiate the terms of any agreement, but Boy made it quite clear that he would only permit clarification. When Rear-Admiral Chudo asked for separate arrangements for the Japanese Navy, this was denied, as the Tenth Area Fleet was under Terauchi’s operational control. The meeting came to a standstill when the Japanese realized that some of their objectives were not going to be met and they had to withdraw to confer amongst themselves, but understanding that they were not going to make any progress, they reluctantly agreed to continue. Further meetings on matters of detail took place on that day and the next and the preliminary surrender agreement was signed by Boy and Numata at 1825 on 27 August.11

  With the capitulation, the SEAC area had increased enormously and now included Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, the southern half of French Indo-China, the Netherlands East Indies and Thailand. Both politically and militarily, the last of these proved to be the easiest to handle. Although nominally neutral, it had been occupied by and cooperated with the Japanese, but with no colonial history and a government only too anxious to please the Allies, it could be largely left to its own devices, although the HQ and a brigade of 7 Indian Division was sent in during the first week of September to oversee the Japanese surrender and to release the many POWs in the country. In Borneo, Australian troops had already landed and were speedily augmented, whilst Operation ‘Zipper’ took place as a tactical exercise to facilitate the re-occupation of Malaya. 5 Indian Division arrived in Singapore by sea on 5 September.

  The French and the Dutch were as anxious as the British to resume their former colonial roles and sent large delegations to HQ SACSEA to establish their positions. Neither country, however, had any military units in the Far East and, as nationalist sentiment was known to be vigorously opposed to re-colonization and unrest was almost certain, ALFSEA was compelled to provide the necessary troops to keep order. Advance elements of 20 Indian Division arrived at Saigon on 13 September, where Gracey took control of Terauchi’s HQ and established a SACSEA Control Commission, whilst 23 Indian Division began to land in Java at the end of the month.

  On 12 September, Mountbatten took the formal unconditional surrender of all the Japanese forces in the SEAC area in the Council Chamber of the Municipal Buildings in Singapore, accompanied by Wheeler, the Land, Sea and Air C-in-Cs and representatives from China, India, Australia, France and the Netherlands. Boy was not present, as once again he was holding the fort at Kandy, but he deputed Kimmins and Sherman to organize a suitably impressive ceremony. He flew to Singapore with Gordon Lennox later in the month, where he met Mountbatten and Dempsey who had recently arrived to assume command of Fourteenth Army. On 27 September the three of them drove round the island, visiting the released POWs and inspecting the various military and naval installations. They then went to meet the new Secretary of State for War, Mr J. J. Lawson, in Boy’s words to Daphne ‘a very decent old chap and quite shrewd [and] certainly honest – but he would have been more suitable if he was ten years younger.’12 Boy returned to Kandy the next day, accompanied by Lawson, but leaving Gordon Lennox behind to represent him in Singapore.

  It had already been decided that the HQs of SACSEA, ALFSEA and Air Command South-East Asia would be relocated to Singapore as soon as practicable, but to Mountbatten’s displeasure the Admiralty decided that the East Indies Fleet, which had come under SEAC, should remain in Colombo, whilst the Pacific Fleet would have its base in Hong Kong, which was outside the SEAC area. Boy needed to plan the SACSEA move at the very time its staff was rapidly diminishing, due to both demobilization and an insistence from the British Government that cuts should be made for budgetary reasons. In a situation where the demands on the HQ in particular were heavier than ever, this placed a great deal of strain on him.

  Boy’s first concern was with RAPWI, the Repatriation of Prisoners of War and Internees. There were about 125,000 Allied prisoners and civilian internees in Japanese hands at the time of the surrender, most in extremely poor physical condition, and all of them needed to be released, provided with food and medicine and, as soon as they were fit to go, returned to Europe, Australasia or America. The problem of looking after them was largely taken over by Lady Louis Mountbatten who, as Superintendent-in-Chief of the St John Ambulance Brigade and Chairman of its Joint War Organization with the Red Cross, had already had similar experience in Europe.

  The task for Boy and his staff was first to distribute supplies, then to transfer the prisoners to safety and finally to juggle the required shipping with the simultaneous demand for the repatriation of the tens of thousands of servicemen who had been promised demobilization by the British Government. The first RAPWI vessel sailed from Singapore for the UK on 10 September, only five days after the colony had been liberated, and by the end of the month over 53,000 former prisoners had been evacuated from the SEAC area. The number rose to 71,000 by the end of October, but slowed thereafter as many of those released had required hospitalization and were not fit to travel. Some were in any event domiciled in the area, including many of the Dutch civilians interned in Java and Sumatra.

  For the time being SEAC was responsible for all aspects of the government of the liberated territories and the next most significant concern was to ensure the provision of essential foodstuffs, notably rice and flour, in circumstances where the annual crops had been much reduced. Once again, the adequacy of shipping was the major problem. Furthermore, seaways had to be cleared of mines and the ports converted back to non-military use. Entirely new skills were demanded of the SEAC staff to ensure a return to peacetime normality.

  It quickly became apparent that the colonial possessions of Britain’s European allies were going to prove troublesome. The problem surfaced quickly in Indo-China, where the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh declared a republic in Vietnam on 17 September. The British, who had gone in primarily to disarm and in due course repatriate the Japanese, found themselves involved in internal politics. As temperatures rose to boiling point between the local French and the nationalists, Gracey concluded that it was essential to proclaim martial law, although this was contrary to Mountbatten’s orders. It was popular with the French, however, and gave General Leclerc, who had arrived from Europe, time to assert control over the key Saigon area. French troops began to arrive during the autumn, allowing 20 Indian Division to withdraw early in 1946.

  The situation in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) wa
s much more complex, although the intelligence on the ground was so poor that it took the Allies longer to realize it. The advance party from 23 Indian Division landed in Java only on 25 September, followed by Royal Marines from HMS Cumberland and then an infantry battalion. The division’s GOC, Major General Hawthorne, arrived on 30 September in the company of Christison, now Commander Allied Land Forces, Netherlands East Indies who had been briefed prior to his departure by Boy. The main centres of Western Java were speedily occupied, followed by other major cities. In the meantime 26 Indian Division landed in Sumatra.

  Boy was already frustrated by the ‘bone-headed’ attitude of the Dutch, who clearly wanted to restore the position they had held prior to the Japanese occupation and were reluctant to enter into any substantive discussion with the nationalists. Mountbatten, by instinct a liberal who sympathized with the nationalist view, was not always helpful. ‘Supremo is showing signs of cold feet’, wrote Boy to Daphne, ‘over such things as the press (who are a perfect nuisance) and the setting up of British courts in Dutch territory owing to the fact that there are no Dutch courts and someone has to deal summarily with those Indonesians who commit crimes against our troops and against normal law and order.’13 The military situation rapidly deteriorated, with the Japanese temporarily rearmed in order to be able to assist their former enemies to retain control of the key centres.

  With most of the other issues under control and civilian rule gradually being introduced in the British possessions, the NEI problem completely dominated the coming months and the strain began to take a toll on Boy’s health, with another attack of ‘me tum’ in mid-October. He was also dismayed to find that he now needed glasses for reading. The impending move to Singapore filled him with gloom, although it had the advantage of being much closer to the action.