Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  Almost without exception our return was welcomed. It was only in those areas on the north where the liberating troops were Chinese, and memories of their behaviour in the 1942 Retreat still lingered, that there was an element of nervousness. With the vast majority of the Burmese the trouble was that they expected us to bring them an immediate return to the carefree conditions of happy Burma before the war. This, alas, we could not do at once.

  The first necessity was to restore the framework of government throughout the country, but we were hampered by an acute shortage of qualified officials who could be installed in the civil districts which we rapidly, one after the other, liberated. Of the original British civil servants, some had in the past years vanished into other services or joined the armed forces. Too many, it seemed to me, were held in India under the exiled Burmese Government. Our own Civil Affairs staff were all allotted to the parts of Burma already in our hands before the last advance. As they retreated, the Japanese had taken with them many of the Burmese officials, who, mostly unwillingly, had served under them, while those who supported Ba Maw’s puppet government had fled, to avoid their own countrymen as much as to escape us. Gradually, Burmese civil officials of all ranks began to come out of hiding and report for duty; others were located and persuaded to return; but all had to have their records checked before they could be reinstalled, However, in a surprisingly short time considering all the difficulties, a civil administration, somewhat skeleton in form, was set up and, with increasing efficiency, functioning.

  It was an even more difficult matter to get the economic life of the country running again. Not only were we lacking many requirements for the army, but outside Burma there was a world shortage of the articles most needed to supply the desperate necessities of the civil population—notably cotton goods. Even were imports from abroad obtainable, they would not relieve the situation until communications within Burma were restored, and the ports, especially Rangoon, operating again. Nevertheless, even before we got the army back to full rations, we diverted some of its supplies and part of our precious air-lift to succour the most distressed areas.

  Parallel with this problem of the civil administration, was a smaller Burmese politico-military one. How to treat the Burmese National Army, originally Japanese sponsored, but now in arms against them? I had all along believed they could be a nuisance to the enemy but, unless their activities were closely tied in with ours, they promised to be almost as big a nuisance to us. It seemed to me that the only way satisfactorily to control them was to get hold of their Commander-in-Chief, Aung San, and to make him accept my orders. This, from what I knew of him and of the extreme Burmese nationalists, I thought might be difficult, but worth trying.

  Aung San had had a chequered career. In 1930 as an undergraduate at Rangoon University, like most Asian students, he took an active, and at times a rather violent, interest in politics. By 1939, he was the secretary of the extremist Nationalist Minority Group and served a seventeen-day prison sentence for his activities. About this time he was contacted by Japanese agents, who saw in the energetic and able young nationalist a promising tool for their own ripening designs. It thus happened that, when, in 1940, Aung San’s organization was proscribed, he and some thirty others of its members were able to evade the police and reach Japan. Here, they were given military training in a Japanese officers’ school and were indoctrinated with the belief that Japan would shortly drive the British out of Burma and bring freedom to its people. When the invasion did occur, Aung San and his companions came with it. The Japanese used them as a nucleus round which to collect irregular Burmese forces and to organize a Fifth Column throughout the area of operations. They were undoubtedly a help to their masters in many ways and, on one or two occasions during the Retreat, fought bravely against us, though their chief combat duties were the ambushing and murdering of stragglers.

  Aung San, whose intelligence and courage had brought him to the fore, showed anxiety to set up a Burmese Government, but the Japanese, although they wanted a puppet government, were not prepared to accept him as its head. Perhaps they had already sensed he would not be the pliable and submissive dupe they required, and in any case they had Ba Maw, who was much more what they wanted. Instead, they appointed Aung San Commander-in-Chief of the Burma Defence Army, later the Burma National Army, that was set up under the closest Japanese control.

  It was not long before Aung San found that what he meant by independence had little relation to what the Japanese were prepared to give—that he had exchanged an old master for an infinitely more tyrannical new one. As one of his leading followers once said to me, ‘If the British sucked our blood, the Japanese ground our bones!’ He became more and moie disillusioned with the Japanese, and early in 1943 we got news from Seagrim, a most gallant officer who had remained in the Karen Hills at the ultimate cost of his life, that Aung San’s feelings were changing. On the 1st August 1944 he was bold enough to speak publicly with contempt of the Japanese brand of independence, and it was clear that, if they did not soon liquidate him, he might prove useful to us. Force 136 through its agents already had channels of communication and, when the revolt of the Burma National Army occurred and it was clear Aung San had burnt his boats, it was time to deal directly with him. With the full approval of Admiral Mountbatten, the agents of Force 136 offered Aung San on the 21st April a safe conduct to my headquarters and my promise that, whether we came to an understanding or not, I would return him unharmed to his own people. He hesitated until the 15th May, but on that day it was reported to me that he and a staff officer had crossed the Irrawaddy at Allanmyo, and were asking to meet me. I sent an aircraft, which flew them to my headquarters at Meiktila the next day.

  The arrival of Aung San, dressed in the near Japanese uniform of a Major-General, complete with sword, startled one or two of my staff who had not been warned of his coming. However, he behaved with the utmost courtesy, and so, I hope, did we. He was a short, well-built, active man in early middle age, neat and soldierly in appearance, with regular Burmese features in a face that could be an impassive mask or light up with intelligence and humour. I found he spoke good English, learnt in his school and university days, and he was accompanied by a staff officer who spoke it perfectly, as well he might, if it were true as I was told that his father had been a senior British official who had married a Burmese lady.

  At our first interview, Aung San began to take rather a high hand. He was, he said the representative of the Provisional Government of Burma, which had been set up by the people of Burma through the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League. It was under this Provisional Government that he and his National Army served and from whom they took their orders. He was an Allied commander, who was prepared to co-operate with me, and he demanded the status of an Allied and not subordinate commander. I told him that I had no idea what his Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League was or represented. As far as I and the rest of the world were concerned, there was only one Government of Burma and that was His Majesty’s, now acting through the Supreme Commander, South-East Asia. I pointed out that he was in no position to take the line he had. I did not need his forces; I was destroying the Japanese quite nicely without their help, and could continue to do so. I would accept his co-operation and that of his army only on the clear understanding that it implied no recognition of any provisional government. He would be a subordinate commander, who would accept my orders and see that his officers and men also obeyed them and those of any British commander under whom I placed them. He showed disappointment at this, and repeated his demand to be treated as an Allied commander.

  I admired his boldness and told him so. ‘But,’ I said, ‘apart from the fact that you, a British subject, have fought against the British Government, I have here in this headquarters people who tell me there is a well substantiated case of civil murder, complete with witnesses, against you. I have been urged to place you on trial for that. You have nothing in writing, only a verbal promise at second-hand, that I woul
d return you to your friends. Don’t you think you are taking considerable risks in coming here and adopting this attitude?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, shortly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you are a British officer,’ he answered. I had to confess that he scored heavily—and what was more I believe he meant it. At any rate he had come out on my word alone. I laughed and asked him if he felt like that about the British, why had he been so keen to get rid of us? He said it was not that he disliked the British, but he did not want British or Japanese or any other foreigners to rule his country. I told him I could well understand that attitude, but it was not for us soldiers to discuss the future government of Burma. The British Government had announced its intention to grant self-government to Burma within the British Commonwealth, and we had better limit our discussion to the best method of throwing the Japanese out of the country as the next step towards self-government.

  We resumed in good temper, and I asked him to give me the strengths and present dispositions of his forces. This he was either unwilling or unable to do—I thought a bit of both. I pressed him in this, but could get nothing definite. I had the impression that he was not too sure what his forces were, where they were, or what exactly some of them were doing. I said I had had reports that there were many bands of armed Burmans roaming about, claiming to belong to his army, who were no better than dacoits preying on their own countrymen. Rather to my surprise, he agreed and said he hoped we would both of us deal severely with these men, who were no troops of his. He went on to say that, at first, he had hoped the Japanese would give real independence to Burma. When he found they would not, but were tightening the bonds on his people, he had, relying on our promises, turned to us as a better hope. ‘Go on, Aung San,’ I said. ‘You only come to us because you see we are winning!’

  ‘It wouldn’t be much good coming to you if you weren’t, would it?’ he replied, simply.

  I could not question the truth of this. I felt he had scored again, and I liked his honesty. In fact, I was beginning to like Aung San.

  I told him that after the war we should revive the old regular Burma Army, under British officers, on the basis of the Burma Rifles battalions which still existed, and that there would then be no place for any other army—his would have to go. He at once pressed that his forces should be incorporated in the new army as units. This was obviously not altogether the solicitude of a general for his men, but the desire of a politician to retain personal power in post-war Burma. I answered that I thought it most unlikely that the Burmese Government would accept them as units, but that I saw no reason why they should not, subject to a check of their records, be enlisted as individuals on the same terms as other recruits. He persisted in pressing for incorporation as units, but I held out no hopes of this. He then asked me if I would now supply and pay his units in the field? He was obviously finding this beyond his powers, and I knew that, if we did not accept the responsibility, his men would be reduced, as many were already, to living by exactions from the people—as dacoits in fact. I said I would not consider paying or supplying his troops unless he and they were completely under my orders. In our final talk, he had begun to take a more realistic view of his position, but he still would not definitely commit himself. Before he accepted the role of a subordinate commander, he said, he must consult with his ‘government’, and he asked to be returned, suggesting that he should meet me again in about a week’s time. I agreed, warned him of the consequences of refusing terms which, in view of his past, were most generous, shook hands, and sent him off by air again.

  I was impressed by Aung San. He was not the ambitious, unscrupulous guerrilla leader I had expected. He was certainly ambitious and meant to secure for himself a dominant position in post-war Burma, but I judged him to be a genuine patriot and a well-balanced realist—characters which are not always combined. His experience with the Japanese had put his views on the British into a truer perspective. He was ready himself to co-operate with us in the liberation and restoration of Burma and, I thought, probably to go on co-operating after that had been accomplished. The greatest impression he made on me was one of honesty. He was not free with glib assurances and he hesitated to commit himself, but I had the idea that if he agreed to do something he would keep his word. I could do business with Aung San.

  Operations against the Japanese were continuing over wide areas, and I wanted to get the role of Aung San’s forces clear before clashes occurred between them and our troops. Having reported to my superiors the results of our interview and my views on his reliability, I therefore, instead of waiting for him to come in again, sent him, a few days later, definite proposals.

  I would employ and ration all units of the Burma National Army then in action, provided they reported to and placed themselves unreservedly under the orders of the nearest British commander. I would recommend that suitable individual members of the B.N.A. should be allowed to volunteer for recruitment in the future Burma defence forces. Aung Sang accepted these terms without haggling, asking only that he should be consulted on major decisions on the employment of the B.N.A. and on the enlistment of its members into the regular forces. On the 30th May, my Deputy Chief Civil Affairs Officer told Aung San that I had informed the Supreme Commander of our arrangement and that it was in force. Accordingly, somewhat to their surprise, our troops began to meet parties of Burmese in Japanese uniforms, who marched in, and whose officers stated they were reporting for duty with the British. They were regarded with considerable suspicion at first but, almost without exception, obeyed orders well. They proved definitely useful in gaining information and in dealing drastically with small parties of Japanese. Aung San had kept his word. I have always felt that, with proper treatment, Aung San would have proved a Burmese Smuts.

  In our preparations for the invasion of Malaya, which were pushed on simultaneously with all these activities in Burma, a factor which had already caused us anxiety rapidly assumed serious proportions and threatened to cripple all our plans. This was the repatriation of British troops. Many of my British soldiers and officers had served continuously for four or five years in the East, most of them in the often heart-breaking conditions of the Burma front, without in all that time a sight of their homes. In danger and discomfort, keyed up under strain, they suffered the soldiers’ dumb pain of separation. Letters were late and sometimes irregular; time and distance seemed to make strangers of those they loved. In their months’ old newspapers from home they read of the unfaithfulness of soldiers’ wives, and saw pictures of English girls gambolling in the harvest fields with Italian prisoners. They heard that men on other fronts got home leave. Their own newspaper, Seac, was full of articles and letters urging the return home of men with long service in South-East Asia. They heard of protests and read of promises by distant politicians that their experience and their common sense made them doubt. There was a danger that ‘Repat’ would become an obsession. When I asked a man in his foxhole or sitting beside the track what he was, he would often, instead of answering, ‘I am a Lancashire Fusilier’, ‘an F.O.O.’s signaller’, or ‘the Bren Gunner of this section’, say ‘I am four and two’, or ‘Three and ten’. He meant that was the number of years and months he had served in the East, and the unspoken question in his eyes was, ‘How many more?’ I could not answer him. The British officers, N.C.O.s, and privates who had served longest were our key men. If we sent them home without replacement, neither our British nor our Indian formations could continue to fight efficiently.

  It was not for want of representations by their commanders, from the Supreme Commander downwards, that these men remained; their replacement was out of our hands. That being so, it would have been wiser and kinder if we had confined ourselves to doing all we could to speed up repatriation—as indeed we did—and everything possible to discourage so much talk about it. Yet, when all was said and done, we still had men with four and even five years in the East without leave home, and that is trying a man higher tha
n he should be tried. The British soldier is accustomed to longer periods of overseas service than any other, yet it is not surprising that, under this growing spate of repatriation talk, among some of them the élan which they had shown for so long began to fade. To their honour, my British soldiers, officers and men, endured to the end; never did they shirk duty or hesitate to enter battle, but the strain was telling on them.

  The War Office had decided, some time before, that the period of unbroken service in the East for officers and men of the British Army should be four years. In Burma we had many who had served longer than that, but whose repatriation had been delayed for one cause or another. In 1945, the period was reduced from four years to three years eight months and, although we did our best to get men home, for reasons of transportation and partly because replacements were not forthcoming for key men, the backlog of those overdue for repatriation began to pile up. This reduction to three years eight months removed the framework of units and made considerable alterations necessary. There was much reorganization and retraining, and almost all British and many Indian and African units lost battle-worthiness. This forced the postponement of the planned date of the landing in Malaya to the 9th September. Then without warning, on the 7th June, the Supreme Commander was told by the Secretary of State for War that next day he was announcing in Parliament that the period of service in the East was reduced to three years four months, and that the men affected would be sent home as soon as possible without waiting for their replacement.