Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  It is or interest that our estimates of enemy casualties in the Imphal-Kohima battle were, as we discovered after their final surrender, very close to the figures the Japanese themselves calculated. These were:

  Our battle casualties at Kohima-Imphal were over 15,000, but to these must be added a much larger number evacuated sick during the monsoon campaign and pursuit. Including these we had probably a rather higher total than the Japanese, but the great bulk of our casualties recovered; most of theirs died on the retreat from lack of medical care, exposure, and exhaustion.

  The more I considered the enemy situation and our own, the more I was sure that here was our opportunity. My orders were to drive the enemy out of a considerable part of Northern Burma and take Mandalay, but more important than the occupation of any area or any town, was the destruction of the Japanese Army. A second great defeat for that army, properly exploited, would disrupt it and leave, not Mandalay, but all Burma at our mercy. It, therefore, became my aim to force another major battle on the enemy at the earliest feasible moment.

  With this General Giffard was in complete agreement. He did not underestimate the difficulties, especially logistically, but he did everything in his power to overcome them for me. Recognizing how important it was that I should be able to concentrate my attention on the vital Central front, he relieved me, not only of the Arakan front, but of the vast line of communication area that I had up to then controlled, and which had made me look back almost as often as forward. I had a sentimental pang at parting from my old 15 Corps, but my gratitude for the relief was great. I had already handed back the N.C.A.C., so now I was free to devote all my energies to the forthcoming battle.

  It posed innumerable problems of supply, transportation, air support, medical arrangements, engineering, communications, reinforcement, reorganization, and training; but three questions dominated all our considerations:

  (i) How and where could we bring the enemy main forces to battle with the greatest advantage to ourselves?

  (ii) What would be the greatest strength we could maintain east of the Chindwin for the battle?

  (iii) What would be the Japanese strength?

  I wanted to fight the battle on ground where our superiority in the air and in armour would have its greatest scope, that is, in comparatively open country. The obvious place was the Shwebo plain, a great loop of land enclosed between the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin, immediately north-west of Mandalay. This is part of the ‘dry belt’, the central plain of Burma. Here the country is generally flat or undulating, covered in cultivation with some scrub patches, easily passable, sprinkled with villages, criss-crossed by many cart tracks and some roads. Over considerable areas it is so open and, except in the rainy season, so dusty, as to offer something like desert conditions. It would suit us admirably.

  But it was one thing to decide we would like to fight there, another to persuade the Japanese to do so. If they did, the enemy commander would know full well what disadvantages he was accepting. He would fight with the river loop around him—difficult when all his supplies would have to be brought over it under air attack, disastrous if he had to retreat. Yet I was quite sure he would fight in the Shwebo plain. I relied on my knowledge of the Japanese and on the mentality of their high command as I had known it. I knew there had been changes in that command. In October reports had reached me that Kawabe had been sent back to Japan in disgrace and replaced by a General Kimura, of whom not a great deal was known, except that he was regarded by the Japanese as one of their best men. Even so, I expected him to conform to type, to be over-bold, inflexible, and reluctant to change a plan once made. In spite of the Imphal lesson, he would, I thought, be confident that he could beat me on his own ground and, even if he were not, he would never dare to lose face by giving up territory without a struggle. He would see the Chindwin behind us; not the Irrawaddy behind him. I did not believe it was in the Japanese nature to let Mandalay go, or even be brought into the front line, without a pitched battle. He might try to hold us on the Chindwin or even to throw our bridgeheads into the river, but he had largely lost his chance to do that. In fact, I was prepared to back my judgment that he would choose to fight a defensive battle, with his main strength, north of Mandalay. If he won this, he could then leave the difficulties of maintenance in the monsoon to force us to withdraw; he might even hope to restage an offensive of his own into India after the rains. The Japanese were always military optimists.

  Our problem, therefore, was to get as many divisions and as much armour as possible, and as quickly as possible, into the Shwebo plain, and there fight an army battle. The answer, as almost all answers in war and particularly in Burma, depended on supply and transport. True, we held three bridgeheads over the Chindwin, notably the one at Kalewa; the difficulty was not to cross the river, but to maintain a large force once it was over. I had available for the battle six and two-thirds divisions and two tank brigades (2nd, 5th, 7th, 17th, 19th, 20th Divisions, 268 Brigade, 28 East African Brigade, 254 and 255 Tank Brigades), and I could, I knew, obtain another division, or perhaps two, from General Giffard if I could use them. Yet, scheme as we might, take risks to the limit of reason, we could not with our transport resources, air and road, maintain in battle trans-Chindwin more than four and two-third divisions and the two tank brigades. Even that would perhaps be optimistic. We should be four hundred miles from railhead, and of that distance two hundred and fifty would be earth road only, liable, unless we made it all-weather before the monsoon, to become impassable. Our air-lift was strictly limited and based mainly in the Comilla and Chittagong areas, two hundred and sixty and two hundred and forty miles away. Even the forward airfields around Imphal were two hundred miles distant and not served by rail. In whatever way we worked out our maintenance calculations, the best answer we could get was always the same—four and two-thirds divisions and two tank brigades.

  What was this force likely to meet? The total enemy strength in Burma, as far as we knew in December 1944, was:

  Ten infantry divisions

  One tank regiment

  Two independent mixed brigades

  100,000 Japanese line of communication troops

  Two Indian National Army divisions (about 6,000 each)

  The Burma National Army (seven battalions)

  Several of the divisions were under strength still, but the Japanese had for some time been bringing in reinforcements to Burma at the rate, we estimated, of seven thousand a month. The line of communication troops, though not as skilful as those in divisions, could be relied on to fight defensively with equal desperation, and Japanese morale, while not at the supreme pitch it had attained before the Imphal defeat, was still of the last man and the last cartridge standard. The individual Japanese soldier remained, as I had always called him, the most formidable fighting insect in history. The I.N.A. divisions had little fighting value; the B.N.A., judging by our experiences of 1942, might be more of a nuisance, but it was likely to be kept for internal security duties.

  This total was a considerable force, but it was not to be expected that the whole of it would oppose Fourteenth Army. I relied on Northern Area Combat Command and the Yunnan Chinese to hold two Japanese divisions in the north; 15 Corps to keep one and a third in Arakan; and our deception schemes, with their threats of amphibious attack, to tie down a further one and a third in the south. This would leave against Fourteenth Army, five and one-third Japanese divisions, one independent mixed brigade, one tank regiment, some thirty or forty thousand line of communication troops and the two I.N.A. divisions. It would always be possible, of course, for the Japanese, by taking risks on other sectors, to increase their forces in the Mandalay area, but I hoped that if we kept up the pressure elsewhere this was not very likely. There was also the possibility that further enemy formations would be brought from Siam and Indo-China. I did not think any would come from Japan or overseas, as the American successes in the Pacific and against Japanese shipping made it unlikely. Indeed, I hoped the enemy wo
uld find it hard to replace any further losses we could inflict on him in Burma. A constant anxiety in all our plans was the amount of air-lift we could rely on getting. Even with optimistic estimates of what we could bring forward by road and by river, we should still need thousands of tons daily by air. After much discussion, a firm allotment of our minimum requirements in air-lift was made to Fourteenth Army for the forthcoming operations, and on this we made our plans.

  All the same, four and two-thirds British and Indian divisions, a river behind them and at the end of this precarious line of communication, was not the odds I should have liked with which to attack five and a third Japanese divisions in their own selected positions. A year ago I would not have looked at the proposal. Even now, it was not so much our advantage in the air, in armour, in greater mobility in the open, which gave me confidence to go on with my plan, but the spirit of my troops, my trust in their experienced commanders and in the high fighting value and hardihood of them all.

  It will be noted that my plan was based on three foundations:

  (i) The firm intention of the enemy commander to fight with his main forces north of Mandalay.

  (ii) The ability of other sectors of our Burma front to hold off from us during the battle some four or five Japanese divisions.

  (iii) A definite air and road maintenance lift on which I could rely.

  The first was a matter of my own judgment in which, perhaps rashly, I had at that time considerable faith. The second, I thought, should be safe enough, as 15 Corps in Arakan would have two Indian, two West African divisions, an. East African and a commando brigade, and a tank brigade, i.e., four and two-thirds divisions and armour. Sultan’s N.C.A.C. would have one British, three (later five) Chinese divisions, Mars Force (a Sino-American formation the equivalent of a weak division), and a Chinese tank brigade—the equivalent of five or six divisions. It looked at first sight as if these flank forces, one nearly as large, the other larger than mine, were out of balance. The fact was that my force was as big as maintenance would allow. It is true that a reduction in the N.C.A.C. strength, if it had meant an increase of air-lift for Fourteenth Army, would have helped me a great deal and left them enough for their tasks. It was more likely, however, that any spare American air transport would have gone to China, and if, as I hoped, the Chinese divisions pushed hard down the east of the Irrawaddy, well south of Lashio, they would take a big weight off me at Mandalay.

  To have reduced 15 Corps in Arakan would not have helped me. It was maintained largely by sea, its rail and road communications with India were separate from mine, and it now used comparatively little air transport. On the other hand, 15 Corps could be of the greatest help to Fourteenth Army, when, after a successful battle in the Mandalay area, we pushed south. My air supply bases were, as I have said, two hundred to two hundred and fifty miles from where the battle would, I hoped, be fought. Two hundred and fifty miles was, with Dakotas, the limit of economical air supply; after that distance is exceeded delivery falls off rapidly and more and more aircraft are needed for the same lift. We had no more aeroplanes, so, if the Fourteenth Army was to exploit a success by moving south of Mandalay, the only answer was to bring our air supply bases nearer. These, if they were to support large operations, would have to be accessible by either rail or sea. There were no sites with rail access, but the islands, Akyab, Cheduba, and Ramree, all in Japanese hands, off the Arakan coast, would, if taken quickly, provide excellent airfields within the necessary two hundred and fifty miles radius of most of Burma south of Mandalay. I pressed very hard that, in addition to holding down the largest possible number of Japanese formations in Arakan, 15 Corps should establish air bases in these islands to supply Fourteenth Army.

  As we in Fourteenth Army Headquarters worked hard at our plans, and as our divisions reorganized, regrouped, and began to move into their assembly areas, above us in Supreme Headquarters, change and reorganization were in the air. In mid-October, Stilwell was recalled. The Generalissimo had insisted on it, and, in spite of pressure from Washington and from Admiral Mountbatten, had refused to yield. The only thing that was surprising was that the open breach had not come sooner. Stilwell, although Chiang’s Chief of Staff, had never bothered to hide his contempt for ‘The Peanut’, as he usually called him in private and in public. The American had no confidence in the Chinaman’s military judgment or political integrity, and announced it. He believed that the Generalissimo was more interested in using American Lease-Lend money and equipment to secure his own personal position in China than in fighting the Japanese. Stilwell, who overestimated his own indispensability to Chiang and the extent to which the American Government would go in his support, was surprised and deeply hurt. In Fourteenth Army and, I think, throughout the British forces our sympathies were with Stilwell—unlike the American 14th Air Force who demonstratively rejoiced at his downfall. To my mind he had strange ideas of loyalty to his superiors, whether they were American, British, or Chinese, and he fought too many people who were not enemies; but I liked him. There was no one whom I would rather have had commanding the Chinese army that was to advance with mine. Under Stilwell it would advance. We saw him go with regret, and he took with him our admiration as a fighting soldier. He was replaced by three generals who divided between them his half-dozen jobs. The command of N.C.A.C. went to his loyal second-in-command, Lieut.-General Dan Sultan, whom I already knew and liked. Wedemeyer, Admiral Mountbatten’s American Deputy Chief of Staff, replaced Stilwell in China as Chiang Kai-shek’s adviser, but I gathered that the idea of building up a great American-led Chinese army to march to the sea vanished with Stilwell. General Wheeler became Deputy Supreme Commander, an excellent appointment.

  One advantage did come from Stilwell’s departure. It became easier to set up a reasonable land command in South-East Asia in the place of the, to say the least, illogical organization that had been tried up till then. Admiral Mountbatten at last was able to persuade the Combined Chiefs of Staff to accept an Allied Land Forces commander with an integrated Anglo-American Headquarters. A.L.F.S.E.A., Allied Land Forces South-East Asia, would control Fourteenth Army, N.C.A.C., 15 Corps and Line of Communications Command. We welcomed this, but a sad blow fell on Fourteenth Army when we learned that General Giffard was not to continue to command. He had seen us through our efforts to become an army and through our first and most desperate battles. Fourteenth Army owed much to his integrity, his judgment, his sound administration, his support in our darkest hours, and to the universal confidence he inspired among us. We saw him go with grief. I and others built on the foundations he laid. He was succeeded on the 12th November 1944 by Lieut.-General Sir Oliver Leese, who had commanded the Eighth Army in Italy.

  General Leese, whom I had already known when he was an instructor at the Quetta Staff College, I found easy to serve under. His military judgment was eminently sound. Indeed, in this I differed from him only once—on the need for a sea and airborne operation against Rangoon—and then he was right and I was wrong. His staff, which he brought with him and which replaced most of our old friends at General Giffard’s headquarters, had a good deal of desert sand in its shoes and was rather inclined to thrust Eighth Army down our throats. No doubt we provoked them, for not only were my people a bit sore at losing General Giffard, but, while we had the greatest admiration for the Eighth Army, we also thought that the Fourteenth Army was now quite something. However, almost all the new men were experienced and able staff officers—some like Bastyan, the Chief Administrative Officer, were outstanding—and our staffs soon settled down to working together. The new Commander-in-Chief approved the plans which I had worked out under his predecessor and which were in fact already under way.

  During September and October there was great activity throughout the Fourteenth Army back areas. For two years our formations had fought in jungles and amongst hills; they were now about to break out into open country with unobstructed views and freedom of movement away from tracks. Not only would the laborious tactics
of the jungle have to be replaced by speed, mechanization, and mobility, but commanders and troops would have to adjust their mentality to the changed conditions. This was especially so in the use of armour and artillery. Instead of one or two tanks, surrounded by infantry, carefully nosing forward along a narrow jungle track, we might hope to use powerful, rapidly moving, armoured formations on extended fronts. Artillery would fire at longer ranges, change position more frequently, and have to be ready to answer calls from the air more quickly. In the same way, our supporting airmen would have to be ready instantly to come to the help of infantry. In all the divisions not engaged in actual fighting, training to meet these new conditions proceeded vigorously. It says much for the energy and skill of corps and divisional commanders that, in the short time available, and in spite of constant moves, so much was accomplished to fit the troops for their new role.

  When General Giffard relieved me of the Line of Communication Command and of Arakan, it meant that the airfields and supply depots from which our air maintenance came would no longer be in the Fourteenth Army area or under its control, as up to then they had been. The air supply organization had, therefore, passed from me to General Giffard. The combined Army, R.A.F., and U.ST.A.A.F. staffs which had proved so successful during the Imphal battle were expanded into a new organization, comprising the Anglo-American Combat Cargo Task Force (C.C.T.F.) with a British Army component known as Combined Army Air Transport Organization (C.A.A.T.O.). The American Brigadier-General Evans commanded the air component and Brigadier Dawson from my staff went to command the army portion. At first, especially during the concentration of 4 and 33 Corps forward for the Chindwin crossings, the new organization suffered from teething troubles. Complaints, especially from 33 Corps, of irregular and incorrect deliveries were frequent. It had obviously been easier and simpler for Fourteenth Army to control its own air supply, but, now that A.L.F.S.E.A. was itself directly commanding several formations besides my army, it was no longer possible for us to do it. The new organization, however, quickly found its feet. It was able to obtain more signal units, and thus to strengthen what had always been our weakest link—communications. We provided more F.A.M.O.s (Forward Airfield Maintenance Organizations) mainly from beach groups now not required for amphibious operations, and in a short time air supply to Fourteenth Army was working better than ever. C.A.A.T.O., Brigadier Dawson, and his men expanded the Fourteenth Army system of air supply, and it later became the accepted organization for the whole British Army. They made a major contribution to the ultimate victory.