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When the National Army Museum in London invited people some years ago to nominate ‘Britain’s greatest battle’, there was a clear winner. To the surprise of many, however, it wasn’t Blenheim, or Waterloo, or El Alamein that won the top spot – but the Battle of Imphal and Kohima, fought near the border between India and Burma (now Myanmar) on 8 March-18 July 1944.
Despite this accolade, Imphal and Kohima remains relatively unknown. The multinational British Fourteenth Army, which achieved a savagely fought victory over the Japanese and their allies in the battle, was nicknamed the ‘Forgotten Army’; and the wider Burma campaign of 1942-1944, of which it was a part, is often still described as a ‘forgotten war’. We should be careful not to overstate this: many books have, after all, been written about the campaign. But while the 80th anniversary this year of the D-Day landings will rightly be celebrated amid much pomp and ceremony, it seems likely that events to mark the same anniversary of Imphal and Kohima will be considerably more low-key.
Partly, this is a result of geography. Now, as then, the landing beaches of Normandy, along with other key European battlegrounds, lie within easy reach of Britain. By contrast, Imphal and Kohima was fought more than 5,000 miles away, amid the steep hills and dense jungles of one of the Second World War’s least accessible areas of conflict – and against an enemy who presented no direct threat to the homeland. As we shall see, the courage of the Allied soldiers who fought there seems only more remarkable in the context of the battle’s remote and inhospitable location.
The background, of course, was one of failure. Beginning in January 1942, the Japanese invasion of Burma had swept all before it, driving British and Commonwealth forces out of a country that was then still part of the British Empire. The capital city of Rangoon fell in March — and the resulting 900-mile withdrawal northwards, over difficult mountain terrain and across the Indian border, achieved infamy as the ‘longest retreat in the history of the Empire’.
Plans to recapture Burma took shape in 1943 — spearheaded first by the Chindits, the legendary special operations group of the British and Indian armies, which ran long-range penetration missions behind Japanese lines under the leadership of Orde Wingate. But it was the creation in late 1943 of the Fourteenth Army under the command of Lieutenant-General William (Bill) Slim that would make the crucial difference.
As we discover over the following pages, Slim would do a remarkable job, rebuilding the morale of a shattered force, while quickly developing the capability to defeat a ruthless and fanatical enemy amid some of the ‘worst country in the world’. At Imphal and Kohima – 80 years ago this spring – the Japanese would be driven back at last, and the myth of their invincibility would finally be dispelled. Such was the battle’s significance that it has been described by more than one historian as the ‘Stalingrad of the East’.
In our two-part special for this issue, Graham Goodlad first profiles Slim, tracing his rise from obscurity to become one the greatest of WWII generals; and then looks in detail at Imphal and Kohima, to understand how this brutal jungle battle became the turning point of the Burma campaign.
Bill Slim: Unforgotten commander
Graham Goodlad profiles the general who turned around British fortunes in the Burma campaign.
Few commanders have risen in popular esteem as much as Bill Slim, in the eight decades since his Fourteenth Army began its ultimately successful campaign against the Japanese occupation of Burma. Known ruefully at the time as the ‘Forgotten Army’, this is definitely no longer the case, with a wealth of studies exploring its achievements in recent years. In 2011, Slim shared the top-ranking spot with Wellington in a poll conducted by the National Army Museum, asking participants to nominate Britain’s greatest general. Two years later, the linked engagements of Imphal and Kohima, fought under his command between March and July 1944, were voted Britain’s greatest battle.
The title of Slim’s 1956 memoir, Defeat into Victory, helps to explain why he has received these accolades. He led an army that, in 1942, had been beaten by a widely underestimated Japanese foe, leading to a humiliating 900-mile retreat. Undaunted, Slim turned a humbled force into a highly effective instrument of war, which drove the Japanese out of Burma in the course of the next three years.
This was achieved against a ruthless, determined enemy, in a theatre that was never considered a priority by London when it came to the allocation of resources. The fighting took place in one of the most unforgiving environments on earth – a land of dense jungle and wide plains, ringed by forbidding mountains, divided by large rivers, and with an oppressive weather system. Huge overland distances, and a shortage of roads and railways, made the task all the more challenging. From May to October, the monsoon season brought catastrophic flooding. It was a place described by Slim as ‘some of the world’s worst country, breeding the world’s worst diseases in the world’s worst climate’. So how did he bring about this extraordinary turn-around of fortune?
‘Heaven-born captain’
One of Slim’s earliest and best biographers, Ronald Lewin, borrowed an epithet from the ancient Chinese military writer Sun Tzu to describe his subject. He was, Lewin wrote, a ‘heaven-born captain’ – someone who can ‘alter his tactics in relation to his opponent and thus succeed in winning’. Flexibility of approach, combined with an intuitive understanding of people and situations, go a long way towards explaining Slim’s gift for leadership. Although the least egotistical of men, given to self-criticism, he also possessed a steely tenacity when it came to thinking through a problem and devising a workable strategy.
There was little in Slim’s background to suggest that he would attain high military command. Yet his early life undoubtedly shaped the quietly determined senior officer that he was to become. He was born into a lower-middle-class family in Bristol, who relocated to Birmingham after business failure prompted his father to seek a new start. Although the young Slim showed an interest in military history, a career as an army officer was beyond his means, and enlistment as a private was not an attractive option.
Instead, Slim worked as a primary school teacher in a working-class area, and then as a clerk in industry. Here he acquired familiarity with the kind of young men whom he would one day lead with genuine empathy. In a curious phrase, it was later said of him that he never forgot ‘the smell of a soldier’s feet’. He owed his later rapport with the ranks – a quality often cited as crucial to his success as a leader – to his inner-city roots.
It was the outbreak of the First World War that started Slim on his military career. Having enrolled two years earlier in the Birmingham University Officer Training Corps – even though he was never a student – he was granted a temporary commission in the summer of 1914. Service at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia saw him wounded twice. In the interwar period, after being commissioned into the Indian Army, he made slow if steady progress, with the 6th Gurkha Rifles and then as a staff college student and teacher.
In the early stages of the Second World War, Slim was consigned to what were essentially sideshows, facing the Italians on the Sudan–Ethiopia border and then fighting the Vichy French in the Middle East. The real turning point for his career prospects came in March 1942, when senior Indian Army figures recommended his appointment as commander of Burma Corps. He arrived in Burma just as the Japanese invaders were driving all before them in the Far East.
It was a severe trial for the 50-year-old Slim. To lead his exhausted forces to the safety of north-east India, keeping them united and just ahead of both the Japanese and the oncoming monsoon, was no small feat. The operation was conducted in extreme heat, with a lack of essential supplies, over poor roads clogged with refugees. The troops were short of water, disease-ridden, and under constant threat of aerial attack. It was a miracle that their morale did not completely collapse.
The real test of Slim’s greatness as a commander would be his ability to learn from the disaster of 1942, to rebuild his army, and eventually to turn the tables on the enemy. In analysing the causes of the debacle, he did not spare commanders on his own side, including himself, from blame. He contrasted their poorly focused thinking with the single-mindedness of the Japanese. The latter were also far more imaginative in the tactics they employed. They would outflank the British and Commonwealth units, cut their lines of communication, and launch surprise attacks from the jungle. The key lesson, Slim reasoned, was the need to emulate the Japanese in their willingness to take risks. The enemy had been faster-moving and more aggressive, gaining the upper hand psychologically. He resolved that this should not happen again.
Planning the fightback
In his reflections on the retreat, Slim was too hard on himself. He had shown remarkable composure and grit – qualities that communicated themselves to the troops under his command. Without any loss of authority, ‘Uncle Bill’ won their loyalty and affection by the natural, down-to-earth way in which he conducted himself. His stocky figure, with prominent jaw jutting out under his customary bush hat, became a familiar sight. Slim made frequent personal appearances, talking informally to groups gathered around his jeep. For journeys across the expanse of the Burma theatre, he had the use of an Avro Anson, a serviceable if uncomfortable twin-engine monoplane. Slim related easily to the different elements that made up his multi-racial army, speaking to them in their own languages – British, Indians, Gurkhas, Africans, and others. It was significant that his troops spoke of fighting with, not under, him. The bond that Slim created would be vital in sustaining their spirit when the fightback began.
Maintaining morale was just one aspect of Slim’s comprehensive reappraisal of the situation in Burma. A systematic thinker, he laid down several key principles for taking on the Japanese. Among these were an insistence that soldiers must learn to move and fight in the jungle, and not be intimidated when the Japanese worked around their rear. Frontal assaults should rarely be used – instead, attacks should as a rule be launched from behind or on the flanks. Tanks were to be used in all environments except swamps – this would prove important on the uplands in the Imphal-Kohima campaign two years later – and they should be deployed alongside infantry, in the greatest numbers available. There were to be no non-combatants – even medical units must be prepared to fight. Finally, at all costs they must hold the initiative, using mobility and surprise to disconcert the enemy.
Slim was, of course, aware that the Burma campaign could never expect to be allocated all the resources that he might desire. But he did his best to motivate and care for his men, improving their diet and medical facilities – tackling the scourge of malaria was a priority. Alongside attending to the troops’ physical needs, Slim made sure that all ranks understood the justice of the cause for which they were fighting.
A rigorous programme of training was started, aimed at making Slim’s army the equal of the Japanese. All aspects of jungle warfare were covered, from cross-country mobility to tank and artillery training, river crossings, and night manoeuvres. Skills were consolidated by undertaking ever deeper patrols into the jungle. Successful small-scale raids on Japanese units began to dispel the myth that the enemy was an unbeatable superman. At Slim’s insistence, these activities continued through the monsoon, a period of the year when armies traditionally thought it was impossible to function.
Air-ground cooperation was a key feature of the new style of warfare. Slim worked hard to promote the idea of ‘airmindedness’ – the supply of ground forces by transport aircraft, enabling them to operate in the jungle, far from viable road and rail links. This required the air force to win local air superiority, seeing off Japanese fighters and providing support in the form of ground attack and targeted bombing raids.
A team player
Crucial to Slim’s eventual success was his ability to maintain good working relationships with key figures in the South East Asian theatre. The Supreme Commander from October 1943, Lord Louis Mountbatten respected Slim’s judgment and made two major pledges to him. There would be no more retreats and he would ensure that Slim was provided with air transport to resupply his forces. Now appointed head of Fourteenth Army, Slim enjoyed a great deal of operational autonomy. Mountbatten’s support was invaluable in shielding him from unwanted political interference.
Slim worked well with the senior land forces commander, General Sir George Giffard. Friction arose when Giffard was replaced in November 1944 by Sir Oliver Leese, who tried to transfer Slim from command of Fourteenth Army to a less significant role – a move that backfired and led to his supersession by Slim himself. Slim was one of the few British figures to win the respect of the notoriously awkward US commander in the China-Burma-India theatre, General ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell. As a mark of his regard, Stilwell presented him with a US M1 Carbine, which became his trademark personal weapon.
A more ambivalent relationship developed between Slim and his most colourful subordinate, Orde Wingate, leader of the Chindit special operations group of the British and Indian armies. Wingate’s single-minded belief in long-range penetration activities behind the Japanese lines did not concur with Slim’s overall strategic vision. He was unhappy with the diversion of air transport to resupply the Chindits, and did not believe that special forces of this kind were necessary. But Wingate was a charismatic leader, who also wielded considerable influence with Winston Churchill, and he had to be handled with care.
Slim cooperated with Wingate in the planning of his most ambitious venture, Operation Thursday, which saw some 9,000 soldiers lifted by glider and aircraft into northern Burma in March 1944. He paid a handsome tribute to Wingate when he was killed in an air crash in the early stages of the operation, but caused offence to Chindit veterans by adopting a more critical tone in his memoirs 12 years later. This was one of the few wartime relationships that was not a success for Slim.
Master of defensive warfare
In making his plans, Slim would have preferred to make an amphibious landing on the coast of south-west Burma. However, it was clear by the end of 1943 that the necessary shipping could not be spared. Instead, he worked on ambitious plans for the destruction of Japanese land forces in Burma. As part of this, he developed the concept of an administrative area, known from its rectangular shape as the ‘admin box’. Here, rather than retreat, troops would dig in when surrounded by the enemy, and be sustained by air-dropped supplies. This would then make possible an aggressive counter-attack.
The ‘box’ was an updated version of the old infantry square – as deployed, for example, at Waterloo almost 130 years earlier. In devising this method, Slim was exploiting a key weakness of the Japanese: their tendency to carry out recklessly brave frontal charges. Although they might overwhelm irresolute defenders, such attacks could be shattered, if deployed against hardened troops who could be confident of support from the air.
The new method was put to the test in February 1944 in the Arakan, a coastal area in the south of the country, where the Japanese had inflicted a serious defeat a year earlier. The prize was Akyab Island at the end of the Mayu Peninsula, where the Japanese held a strategically important air-field. This time the British-Indian forces were much better prepared. Engineers improved a narrow hill track, the Ngakyedauk Pass, and an admin box, some 1,200 yards in diameter, was established at its eastern end.
Reinforcements were fed into the box while Douglas C-47 Skytrain (Dakota) aircraft flew more than 700 sorties, dropping 2,300 tons of food and ammunition to the beleaguered troops. Spitfires provided cover for the transport planes, driving Japanese fighters from the skies overhead. The Japanese infantry fought desperately to win control but determined resistance, supported by tanks, drove them back. Ultimately, an inability to get food to the starving Japanese forces compelled them to withdraw. Allied casualties were slightly heavier than enemy losses – some 3,500 were killed or wounded, compared to 3,200 Japanese. But the ‘Battle of the Admin Box’ had shown what could be achieved through improved training and tactics, and the winning of air superiority.
Arakan provided a template for the much larger battles of Imphal and Kohima, which are explored in depth in an accompanying article. This epic confrontation played a key role in the war of attrition on which Slim was now embarked, drawing the Japanese into northern India so that their supply lines became dangerously overstretched. By July 1944, Imphal and Kohima had been won, but the Burma campaign was still far from finished.
The final and no less challenging phase of the war entailed a gruelling advance eastward. By December, two divisions had reached the Chindwin River. Sappers constructed the war’s longest floating Bailey bridge, 1,154 feet long, at the strategically significant river port of Kalewa. Despite repeated Japanese air attacks, a vital bridge-head had been established. The struggle for central Burma now began in earnest. Beyond the Chindwin, a different style of warfare was called for, as open plains replaced the dense jungle of Arakan and northern India. Rapid armoured thrusts, movements on broad fronts, and close cooperation between infantry, tanks, artillery, and air power would typify operations from now on.
Across the Irrawaddy
Slim sent two corps forward in the expectation of a decisive clash in the central plain north of Burma’s main river, the north–south flowing Irrawaddy. This was Operation Capital, whose objective was to drive the Japanese out and reopen the Burma Road supply route to China. In fact, as became clear by mid- December, Japanese General Heitaro Kimura had decided to deploy behind the Irrawaddy. He hoped that the Allied forces would become overstretched, enabling him to launch a counter-offensive.
Slim realised that he was in danger of being drawn into an enormous cul-de-sac, with an opposed river-crossing on a broad front. He therefore modified his plans, in a move which is often regarded as the strategic master-stroke of the entire Burma campaign. General Montagu Stopford’s 33rd Corps, together with 19th Indian Division, would attack across the Irrawaddy, seeking to convince the enemy that their main objective was to capture Burma’s second city, Mandalay. This was a distraction to cover a crossing by 4th Corps further south, who would then race to take Meiktila, the most important link in the Japanese communications and supply chain.
The aim was to isolate the Japanese at Mandalay, preventing them from receiving supplies from Rangoon on the coast: 33rd Corps would effectively serve as the hammer and 4th Corps as the anvil, crushing the enemy between the two. Operation Extended Capital was a risky undertaking, relying on speed and surprise to bring it to completion before the onset of the monsoon. But, in the absence of enough planes for a descent on Meiktila from the air, there was no realistic alternative.
The logistics were challenging in the extreme. Headed by an able commander, General Frank Messervy, 4th Corps had to travel more than 300 miles southwards along rough dirt tracks. The chief engineer, Bill Hasted, devised an ingenious method of strengthening the surfaces to take the army’s vehicles, laying strips of hessian soaked in tar, known as ‘bithess’. The troops relied on air-drops, as well as on supplies moved by river, on barges improvised from felled trees. Elaborate deception was used to disguise the fact that the main thrust was towards Meiktila. A dummy 4th Corps headquarters was established, through which misleading radio traffic was routed, while the army on the move maintained wireless silence.
The Japanese learned the truth when they heard in late February 1945 that Allied forces had taken the airfield at Thabutkon, just 15 miles to the north of Meiktila. The armoured spearhead arrived at the beginning of March and a bitter struggle ensued for control of the town, with Sherman tanks blasting Japanese bunkers and infantry contesting control of one building after another. They encountered desperate resistance, including attacks by Japanese suicide bombers, who hurled themselves at the tanks.
Meanwhile, Allied forces began the assault on Mandalay. The fighting was no less intense here. Pagoda-covered Mandalay Hill, studded with Japanese bunkers and machine-gun nests, proved a tough challenge. Pushing on into the old city, the troops were stalled outside Fort Dufferin. The fortress proved impervious to artillery-fire and low-level ‘skipping’ bombing carried out by Hurricane and P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers. Eventually it was learned that the Japanese defenders had abandoned their posts, escaping through the drains under cover of darkness. Mandalay fell on 21 March.
The Japanese mounted a determined attempt to retake Meiktila, shelling its airfield as C-47 transports landed with British and Commonwealth reinforcements. But, by the end of March, with his divisions reduced to half-strength and most of his trucks and artillery lost, General Kimura called off further efforts. Prolonged Japanese resistance meant that Slim did not reach Rangoon, as he had hoped, before the onset of the monsoon season. But in the end, this did not matter, as the capital was taken virtually unopposed by an amphibious landing launched from Arakan. By 6 May, the reconquest of Burma was practically complete.
The man and his reputation
After the war, Slim went on to act as Chief of the Imperial General Staff – the professional head of the army – for four years, before taking up his final official post as Governor-General of Australia. These were just rewards for someone who was, by any standards, one of the Second World War’s most outstanding commanders. Yet wider recognition was slow to come. It was not until 1993 – 23 years after his death, and following a campaign by veterans of the Burma Star Association – that a statue of Slim joined that of Bernard Montgomery outside the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall.
As he readily acknowledged, Slim did not win his victories unaided. He owed a great deal to his staff officers and corps commanders, and he could have achieved nothing without the courage and determination of the soldiers under his command. They had complete faith in their leader, and in following him they overcame enormous challenges of terrain, climate, and physical hardship.
But it was Slim who conceived the overall strategy for driving the Japanese from Burma, and who trained and moulded the troops of Fourteenth Army for the task ahead. He was undeterred when colleagues expressed scepticism about his plans and – as Operation Extended Capital showed – he understood how to adapt to changing circumstances. He showed an imaginative understanding of the potential of army- air force cooperation. Slim possessed in abundance the vital qualities of a successful general: concentration on the overall objective, realism in matching resources to goals, and an ability to inspire and win the confidence of his troops. Between 1942 and 1945, he showed himself a master of defensive warfare and then of the offensive. In so doing, he turned abject defeat into complete, decisive victory.
Further Reading:
• Ronald Lewin, Slim: the standard bearer (Leo Cooper, 1976).
• Robert Lyman, Slim, Master of War: Burma and the birth of modern warfare (Constable, 2004).
• Russell Miller, Uncle Bill: the authorised biography of Field Marshal Viscount Slim (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013).
Images: Wikimedia Commons WIPL
You can read the second part, Imphal and Kohima: Turning point in Burma by Graham Goodlad here
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