The Burma Campaign

by Frank McLynn

  It was typical of the modest and unassuming Slim that he never sought to claim all the credit for his great victory. He was lavish in his praise of his field commanders and said of ‘Punch’ Cowan: ‘To watch a highly skilled, experienced and resolute commander controlling a hard-fought battle is to see, not only a man triumphing over the highest mental and physical stress, but an artist producing his effects in the most complicated and difficult of all the arts.’75 Slim always made a point of mentioning everyone who played a part in his victories: engineers, lorry drivers, boffins, back-room boys, even paper-pushers. Most of all he constantly stressed the importance of airpower and was impatient with those, like Churchill, who tried to airbrush this factor out of victory in Burma (presumably, mainly, because the Prime Minister did not want to have to acknowledge the contribution of American airpower).76 There was always very close rapport between Slim and Baldwin on one hand and Stratemeyer on the other. During EXTENDED CAPITAL, Allied air forces flew 7,000 sorties a day to sustain the offensive, and by April, 90 per cent of 14th Army’s supplies (or 1,200 tons a day) were provided by air.77 It was particularly crucial, after Wedemeyer’s unforgivable withdrawal of the 75 aircraft in December, that a much greater American, General ‘Hap’ Arnold, made another 145 transport planes available; without these, EXTENDED CAPITAL could not have succeeded. Unlike Churchill, Slim had no narrow, chauvinistic concerns about acknowledging the huge contribution of his major ally: 75% of the 88,500 tons that reached 14th Army in March and 70% of the 80,000 tons supplied in April came from the USAAF.78

  The nearer 14th Army got to Rangoon, the more salient the issue of air supply, which was why Christison and the 12th Army had been assigned the task of conquering the Arakan peninsula and the offshore islands in the Bay of Bengal, to bring Rangoon within easy range of Allied aircraft. Their offensive opened on 12 December 1944 and achieved the capture of Akyab by 2 January 1945. Thereafter Christison’s advance slightly bogged down. A terrible battle for Kangaw, involving sanguinary hand-to-hand fighting, went on from 22 January to 2 February before the Japanese were subdued.79 The island of Cheduba was occupied without opposition, but Ramree island, 50 miles long, 20 miles wide and fringed by miasmal mangrove swamps, took longer than expected to succumb. The first landings took place on 21 January, but as Slim reported: ‘It was not until six weeks later that the last enemy fugitives fell victims to the naval patrols – and the sharks – as they attempted in small craft or on rafts to reach the mainland.’80 After mopping up in northern and central Arakan, Christison had to seize a bridgehead at Taungup prior to opening up the Taungup–Prome road before the monsoon. However, by the time Slim was advancing south from Mandalay and Meiktila, the all-weather airfields at Akyab, Cheduba and Ramree islands were either in full operation or close to it.

  The Arakan campaign was essentially a sideshow for Slim, but events on the Chinese front in the north were altogether more ominous and could conceivably have derailed his entire strategy. At the beginning of the year the omens were propitious. On 27 January 1945 came the historic moment when X-force, now under General Sultan, driving the Japanese before them up the Burma road to the border with China, made contact with their comrades in Y-force pushing south under General Sun.81 Sultan and Sun were supposed to be cooperating to take some of the pressure off Slim, and at first this seemed to be working out, for Y-force took Lashio on 7 March, while Sultan’s forces occupied Hsipaw, 35 miles south-west of Lashio but, more significantly, just 100 miles from Mandalay, where 33 Corps was even then pulverising Fort Dufferin.82 Meanwhile Colonel Lewis Pick reported to Sultan that the Ledo road had been cut through to Bhamo to meet the Burma road and was at last open. The first overland convoy, of 113 vehicles, from India to China left Ledo on 12 January and arrived at the Chinese border 16 days later, having covered 478 miles from Ledo; it then ate up the remaining 566 miles to Kunming on the Burma road in another eight days.83 This should have meant the end of the Hump, but the aerial route was not closed until November 1945, and in July, 71,042 tons of supplies were still being flown to China by that route. Stilwell was proved right about the Hump as about so much else. Given that 1,074 planes and their crew were lost on this perilous trans-Himalayan passage – or roughly one plane for every day the Hump was open – it was sheer madness for the USA to have supplied Chiang by this route without asking anything in return.84 In any case, suddenly all the sweetness and light on the Chinese front became the blackest darkness. Wedemeyer, whose idea of diplomacy was to give Chiang whatever he wanted without demur, backed the generalissimo when without warning on 23 February he ordered the immediate return of all Chinese and American forces operating under the NCAC umbrella. The direct consequence was that any chance of Slim using Sultan’s forces for the advance on Rangoon were gone, but even worse, Kimura could now withdraw all Chinese forces in the north for the campaign against Slim in central and south Burma; there were at least 6,000 unscathed Japanese soldiers in the hills of the Shan states. Slim responded by asking for the use of British 36th Division, which had been operating in the north with NCAC forces; fortunately Leese made no difficulty about this.85

  Yet the real threat to EXTENDED CAPITAL at the exact point when the struggle for Meiktila was just beginning was Chiang’s demand that all his troops be flown out immediately in US planes of the 10th Air Force nominally designated for his use; if complied with, this demand would derail Slim’s entire strategy. Slim appealed to Mountbatten, who urgently contacted Churchill, who in turn contacted Marshall. The US army chief made the statesmanlike decision that the aircraft Slim needed would not be withdrawn until 1 June or the fall of Rangoon, whichever was the sooner.86 The crisis came as an annoying distraction for Mountbatten, who was enjoying his wife’s visit to him, going to see George Formby shows in Bombay and acting like an aerial sightseer as he observed Slim’s troops advancing from the Chindwin.87 Mountbatten decided that a visit to Chungking to beard the generalissimo in his lair was imperative. Wedemeyer, alarmed that his erstwhile boss would learn the extent to which his former deputy had double-crossed him with Chiang, hurriedly arranged an ‘urgent’ meeting in Washington that he and Ambassador Hurley had to attend. When Mountbatten suggested that he postpone his visit until his American ‘friends’ got back to China, the machiavellian Wedemeyer replied that Chiang would take umbrage if Mountbatten did not make the visit as arranged.88 No longer with any illusions about the generalissimo, Mountbatten did not enjoy his trip to Chungking. Chiang insulted his intelligence by trying the same nonsensical blandishments that had worked temporarily in 1943. When Mountbatten cut through this brusquely and asked why he had issued his unhelpful orders, Chiang replied that he was unwilling for Chinese troops to fight south of Mandalay. That would make Slim’s task very difficult, Mountbatten pointed out. That was his problem, said Chiang. Why did he not just rest content with Mandalay?89 Testily Mountbatten pointed out the obvious, that it was no longer a question of fighting south of Mandalay but fighting anywhere in Burma, since the generalissimo was recalling all his troops to China. It would be better, therefore, he added with asperity, for the Chinese to depart as soon as possible – the British were tired of the expense of feeding them – and leave the rest of South-East Asia to the Supreme Commander. That did not suit the dog-in-the-manger Chiang either; he did not want the British in Siam or Indochina since he considered that his sphere of influence.90 The exasperated Mountbatten was reduced to making notes in his diary about the superior charm (but lesser beauty) of Madame Sun Yat-sen as compared with her sister.91 He was also far from happy to learn that the old American suspicion of the British Empire was alive and well even among his so-called friends. General Raymond Wheeler told him that he backed Wedemeyer and Hurley completely in their desire to abandon Burma, while Sultan was on record as having said that the precarious Anglo-American entente would fracture completely if the British conquered Burma and pressed on to Malaya.92 Similar suspicions were entertained towards French colonialism. When Mountbatten recommended involving th
e French in the reconquest of Indochina, the Americans declared themselves totally opposed. The egregious Wedemeyer even tried to turn the conflict between Chiang and his US advisers on one hand and the British on the other into an excuse for self-pity: in a typical piece of over-the-top Wedemeyer rhetoric, he complained that he was subject to snarls from both the lion and the dragon.93

  None of this was of much interest to Slim, now that he had the assurance of the airpower he needed to complete the drive to Rangoon. He was full of confidence, knowing that the campaign was essentially won but aware that there must be much more vicious fighting before he could enter Rangoon. The casualties at the two battles of Meiktila and Mandalay had been relatively light on the British side – just 10,000 for the entire 14th Army94 – but against this Slim was aware that henceforth he would be fighting with five divisions instead of the seven (5, 7, 17, 2, 19, 20, 36) he disposed of in March during the struggle for Mandalay and Meiktila. The exhausted 2nd Division was being returned to India, while 36 Division was too dependent on logistical support from the NCAC forces that had now been withdrawn to China; it was even conceivable that, fighting on just one front, the regrouped Japanese might enjoy local superiority in infantry.95 Speed would be Slim’s secret weapon – a rapid advance by motorised and armoured units over open country that would leave the enemy gasping. He tried out his ideas in March even while the battles for Meiktila and Mandalay were raging. He ordered Gracey and 20 Division to strike south at the stricken Japanese 33rd Army as it retreated to the Shan hills and Toungoo. Gracey and his men followed a line from Kyaukse to Meiktila, ‘killing lavishly as they went’96 in a campaign reminiscent of General Phil Sheridan’s in the Shenandoah valley in 1864. They killed more than 3,000 Japanese and captured 50 guns, leaving the Japanese 33rd Army as the flimsiest of paper tigers, down to just 8,000 men and a handful of guns. Meanwhile, immediately after the fall of Mandalay, 19 Division struck south-east at Maymyo, the old summer capital of Burma set in the hills, and achieved total surprise, overwhelming the garrison and cutting the rail link between the Japanese in central Burma and those fighting the Chinese in the north. In 10 weeks of hard fighting since reaching the Irrawaddy the redoubtable 19 Division had killed 6,000 of the enemy. Kimura’s original fallback plan of trying to halt the British on a line running south-west from Kyaukse was in ruins.97 Slim’s idea of sending out full brigades to harry and pester the enemy was bearing fruit: further prizes to come his way in March were the towns of Myotha and Wundwin. These fell to brigades of 20 Division, which also took Kyaukse itself on 30 March. Slim paid eloquent testimony to these exploits: ‘This breakout of the 20th Division was a spectacular achievement which only a magnificent division, magnificently led, could have staged after weeks of the heaviest defensive fighting.’98 In three weeks the division had cleaned out an area 45 miles by 40, controlling a 50-mile stretch of the Rangoon–Mandalay railway; in their wake the Japanese had left behind 2,000 dead and 50 guns. Finally 2 Division, the last across the Irrawaddy and soon to be retired to India, while not meeting the determined opposition 19 and 20 Division had run into, was still held up by a series of stubborn enemy rearguard actions; nevertheless, by mid-March they had taken Kyauktalon, Myinthi and the Ava bridge. In sum, by the end of March both banks of the Irrawaddy from Mandalay to Chauk, plus the main road and railway route to Rangoon as far south as Wundwin, were securely in British hands.99

  All eyes were now on Rangoon, 320 miles from Meiktila by rail and 370 from Chauk via the Irrawaddy valley. With seven divisions Slim had originally planned a double advance by both itineraries, using a corps in each, but with his slimmed-down manpower he opted to concentrate on the railway route. The strike force would be led by Messervy and 4 Corps, but Slim detached a division west across the hills to follow the course of the Irrawaddy south to Prome, whence another road and railway ran south to Rangoon. This task he gave to Montagu Stopford, whose 33 Corps was now in effect reduced to 20 Division, since 2 Division was leaving and 19 Division had been assigned to Messervy.100 Reese and Messervy were commanders after Slim’s heart, but he seems to have experienced increasing difficulties with Stopford, whose assignment can in part be read as a form of relegation. Tension between the two had been noticed by Mountbatten on 19 February, when Slim rather patronisingly remarked to the leader of 33 Corps: ‘Well, goodbye Monty, good luck to your attack and don’t make a balls of it.’101 Stopford chafed under Slim’s leadership and had one of his staff officers send a complaint to Mountbatten that he was being starved of supplies, bypassing Slim altogether. An angry Slim summoned him to Pagan for a tense interview, where Stopford convinced Slim he had never seen the offending paper with the complaints to SEAC. This may have been a classic case of telling the truth but not the whole truth. It was the only occasion hitherto when command relations in 14th Army resembled the disastrous state of affairs in the Imperial Japanese army.102 Slim assured a dejected Stopford that his depleted 33 Corps might still get to Rangoon ahead of Messervy. If the contretemps with Stopford introduced a sour note into the general atmosphere of 14th Army triumphalism, this was counter-balanced by the good news that Aung San, leader of the anti-British Burmese National Army and generally considered a Japanese puppet and quisling, had fallen out with his masters and declared them the BNA’s enemy. Slim was not convinced by Aung San’s sudden enthusiasm for the British and read his apostasy, correctly, as a simple calculation that they, not the Japanese, were going to win. Although foreseeing that Aung San and his army would be a major headache after liberation, Slim thought it was better to have them on his side; Mountbatten agreed.103

  Another factor complicating the advance on Rangoon was the sudden, and final, revival of DRACULA. Even while Slim and the 14th Army were achieving stunning victories in central Burma, the Supreme Commander was still not convinced this was the way to subdue the country, and continued to hanker after his perennial obsession – amphibious operations – which would, after all, make him, not Slim, the real conqueror of Burma. Never interested in such glory-hunting demarcation disputes, Slim was in favour of a modified DRACULA, as he feared Kimura would pack Rangoon with suicide squads that would hold out until the monsoon, and could therefore do with all the help he could get. Yet in January–February 1945, both Mountbatten and Leese, in a rare show of unanimity, agreed that they should be looking ahead to the reconquest of Singapore and therefore that the first target for a joint naval and airborne attack should be the island of Phuket; in a ridiculous pun, which works only through gross anglicisation, a wag on Mountbatten’s staff had dubbed the modified DRACULA ‘Operation ROGER’.104 With an amphibious assault on Rangoon seemingly ruled out, Slim was more concerned by the calendar and the likely irruption of the monsoon in mid-May than by Japanese opposition, at any rate short of the capital city itself. When he ordered the advance south, the men of 14th Army found the going tough. They were marching in intense humidity, crippling heat and savage pre-monsoon storms – always the harbinger of the main deluge to come. The change in weather as March merged into April made flying difficult and dangerous, with planes particularly liable to be thrown around in mountainous cumulus clouds. As Slim said over and over again, the role of the RAF and the USAAF in the final month of his campaign has never been fully recognised. The infantry and tanks fought a blitzkrieg war, seizing airstrips then passing on to allow aircraft to land in their rear, still cleaving to the original plan of building an airfield every 50 miles.105 Suddenly it was announced that 14th Army would not just be racing the monsoon to Rangoon but an amphibious operation as well. The British chiefs of staff unknowingly came to Slim’s assistance by deciding that the attack on Phuket island should not be attempted until the capture of Rangoon was accomplished fact. Reversing his earlier decision, on 2 April Mountbatten announced that the original DRACULA would take place after all, using a division of paratroops, and that the assault would take place no later than 5 May. Now 14th Army had both the weather and the amphibious 15 Corps as competitors in the race for the Burme
se capital.106

  At first Slim planned to leave substantial enemy forces in his rear and mop up once Rangoon was taken, concentrating all his resources on a sustained dash south. In the light of the revised DRACULA, he changed his mind and decided to make 33 Corps responsible for what he called ‘Union Jack’ sweeps diagonally across designated squares. Doubtless Stopford thought his boss had been disingenuous in his earlier assurances of a fair crack at Rangoon. The Union Jack operations saw 33 Division pitted against staunch and often fanatical resistance at Prome, Salim, Padan, Magwe, Yenangyaung, Allanmyo and at Mount Popa, where 500–600 crack Japanese troops made a heroic stand that took the British from the end of March to 19 April to overcome.107 The encounters in all these places were all the more bitter as the originally retreating Japanese were joined by their comrades fleeing south after the rout in the Arakan. What made the ‘Union Jack’ operations so successful was the lightning speed of Slim’s mechanised forces. On 11 April, one of the mechanised brigades was 60 miles from Taungdwingyi but three days later took the enemy by surprise and seized the town. Similarly 7 Division’s blitzkrieg caught the Japanese napping at Yenangyaung on 22 April, and this was a key target because of the oilfields. Slim was exultant: ‘The Japanese were bewildered by the speed, strength and direction of 20th Division’s thrust. Their whole plan for the defence of the oilfields had collapsed; even their retreat was cut off.’108 Allanmyo fell to Stopford on 28 April, but on 1 May he was no farther south than Magwe, though with the road clear to advance south from Allanmyo to Prome and Rangoon. An unexpected bonus had come his way in mid-April when the pro-British Karens finally rose in open rebellion against the Japanese, further impeding enemy attempts to halt the dash to Rangoon. The Karens fought ferociously and mercilessly and in one guerrilla operation were estimated to have inflicted 4,000 casualties for the nugatory loss of just 70 irregular fighters. Altogether in the Karen hills Stopford estimated that his guerrilla allies were responsible for 10,000 casualties, more even than his own troops.109