Burma '45: The Race To Rangoon

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Burma had been conquered from the north, a feat never before accomplished in history, and one worthy to rank with the most splendid of military achievements.

The task laid upon Mountbatten and his allied commanders of all services had been discharged with greatly inferior resources than had been deemed necessary by the chiefs of staff and Mountbatten himself only a few months earlier.

The frontiers of India were safe.

The road to China had been opened and secured.

Four-fifths of Burma had been freed.

The shield of Japan's conquests in Southeast Asia had been battered down.

The road to Singapore lay open.

And that was from the Campaign in Burma, one of the HMSO, His Majesty's Stationery Office, pamphlets prepared for Southeast Asia Command by the Central Office of Information.

Welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, and Jim.

So,

will they get to Rangoon before the monsoon?

Which I, you know, Sounds like a poem, doesn't it?

Has a ring.

What's quite clear is that Slim's army is firing on all cylinders, isn't it?

It's a honed machine now.

Yeah.

And, you know, such a far cry from

Ara Khan, January 1943.

Yeah.

Yeah, even two years previously.

It's quite extraordinary, the turnaround.

And he doesn't stint in praising his subordinates.

He never puts the praise on himself.

You know, he makes it absolutely clear that he's his junior commanders, the men, you know, they deserve all the praise.

And he says, 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 the arts.

And that's him talking about Punch Cowan, of course.

Slim is very good at being modest, isn't he?

And delivering praise down, isn't he?

But he's also, you know, got to deal with the people above him.

But this is operational art at its sort of most complex, isn't it?

Well, yes, and perfected, I would say.

You know, we can go, it was amazing what Patton did to get across the Rhine and the foundies training beforehand and organizing all his boats and all the rest of it.

Yeah, but you know, Patton Schmann compared to this, frankly.

I mean, this is of an entirely different order.

The kind of make-do and mend stuff, the kind of having to make 540 river boats in situ on the Irrawaddy.

I mean, you know, it's absolutely nuts.

And of course, it is the marriage of the ground forces, logistics, engineers with air power that really is the key to this.

But it's also having the vision to understand how you can get air power to work with your ground forces in the first place.

And that's the thing that he's honing back end of 1943 and into the beginning of 1944.

Win air superiority, own the airspace, get your guys on the ground to advance, clear spaces in the jungle, create landing strips where Dakotas can land or Piper Cubs or whatever they are.

You know, and this is making a huge difference.

So, you know, during extended capital, Operation Extended Capital, you know, the operation to take Mandalay and McTila, Allied air forces are flying 7,000 sorties by day.

And by April 1945, 90% of 14 Army supplies are coming in by air.

You know, that's amazing.

What I think is really, really interesting is there's always been this thing that Burber is just a British show, Americans aren't involved, and all the rest of it.

That's just to completely discount the huge contribution by the United States on this.

And, you know, and even after Wiedemeyer has taken away 75 planes in December, you remember they get most, you know, Mount Batten gets 50 of those back.

Then Hap Arnold, who is the commander-in-chief of the U.S.

Army Air Force back in Washington, he then says, okay, I understand why this is so important.

I'm going to give you a further 145 transports.

So, you know, 75% of the 88,500 tons that reach 14th Army during this operation just

in March alone.

comes from the USAAF.

You know, that is a substantial contribution.

And there's a a large Chinese faction in this fighting under Stilwell.

And, you know, 14th Army, let's not make any bones about this.

We keep saying British.

It's the Indian Army.

Yeah.

And it's Indian and West African soldiers.

And East African soldiers.

And East African soldiers.

And Gurkhas and Nepalese.

Exactly.

And in fact, 14th Army is sort of, is it 80%

non-British?

Not in terms of fighting troops, but it is in terms of overall footfall.

Well, but we're talking about the effect of overall footfall here, aren't we?

Yes, we are.

Without logistic business, guys on the railway, stevedors, people loading and unloading, packing, moving, building railways,

building roads.

That is, maybe it's not the sharp end, but it's this completely pan-allied effort.

And a British imperial effort is the truth.

Yes, I would say in sort of fighting troops, it's probably about 35% British.

Yeah, but they aren't able to do any of the fighting without all these other people contributing.

And I think that's what's really interesting is this is coalition warfare in its purest essence, isn't it?

You know, dealing with the Chinese means that there are political issues with the Chinese.

I mean, Stilwell's meant Chinese troops are not necessarily affected by this in terms of their morale and their attitude, but there are political shenanigans going on, aren't there?

Well, yes, because Chang is insitting all the Chinese troops that were in the NCAC.

They're withdrawn back into China.

And, you know, they're immediately flown out by the US 10th Air Force.

Well, that obviously means aircraft and all the rest of it.

So, you know, Slim just goes straight to Mountbatten when he hears this, kind of bypassing lease.

And Mountbatten then appeals to Churchill, who then turns to Marshall.

And Marshall agrees that the US transport should not be withdrawn until the 1st of June or the fall of Rangoon, whichever comes first.

So that's that sorted out.

But it's another kind of hassle.

There's then a big spat between Chang and Mountbatten, who've kind of sort of completely fallen out.

Everyone falls out with Chang because he's such a total asshole.

Yeah.

Well, and on an extremely sticky wicket.

It does raise the question, what on earth is Lise doing with his time?

Well, he's feeling redundant.

This is a problem.

And this is going to brew up trouble for later.

You know, he wants to, you know, he's got a massive ego.

He's coming with a massive superiority chip.

You know, oh, we'll show these sort of, you know, these backwater people to how we do things in the real theater of war over in, you know, the Mediterranean and Italy.

I'll show them what to do.

And he's kind of, you know, sorely disabused of that.

But he doesn't have the wit or the humility to recognize that actually he's a step out of time.

And that actually his Inverted Commerce modern European fighting ways are out of touch with what's going on in Southeast Asia.

And he doesn't make any effort to try and get his head around that.

And his ego won't allow him to kind of, you know, how can I help you?

It's clear that you've got this under wrap.

So he's just not that kind of person.

And, you know, again, it just underlines what a sort of terrible decision it was.

But anyway, but I mean, you know, Stimsby's problem is that casualties in the 14th Army for the whole of extended capital have been comparatively slight, you know, 10,000 in total, which a vast number are disease again.

But he only has five divisions because 56th Division is still up

the northeast.

2nd British Division needs a rest and being pulled out.

And it's possible that even once they've kind of regrouped, that the Japanese might have local superiority.

So it's not a total slam dunk that they're going to just whip their way straight down to Rangoon and kind of overrun the whole of the country.

You know, there's still quite a big challenge ahead.

And, you know, it's really, really important to understand that, again, the distances involved.

You're talking about another 350 miles from Miktila to Rangoon.

You know, that's a big distance in this landscape.

This is all kind of quite challenging.

And we all know that the Japanese don't like surrendering.

So the idea that this is now going to be a cakewalk is not on anyone's mind.

But it's interesting, I think, to think about what the Japanese are doing because, you know, clearly their strategy is in complete ruins.

Their whole point was that they were supposed to hold the central part of Burma.

But, you know, they've lost that.

And in three weeks of operations after the fall of Mandalay, Douglas Gracie's 20th Division have cleared 45 miles by 40 and hold a 50-mile stretch of the Rangoon-Mandalay railway with another couple of thousand of Japanese dead and another 50 guns gone, which 50 guns doesn't sound very much, but it is in this theater.

That's the point.

The numbers that we're used to talking about Europe are not the same as they are here.

And, you know, early April, 2nd Division before they go back to India and 20th Division kind of link up.

And now the whole of northern and central Burma is in Allied hands.

You know, Kimura has lost that battle for central Burma.

But what he is thinking is: okay, let's move down to another defensive line and let's try and hold the Allies until the monsoon comes in early May.

And, you know, if we do that, then, you know, then that might give us a chance to have some reinforcements and maybe we can counter-attack and all that stuff.

I mean, it's delusional claptrap.

I mean, it's just bonkers.

It reminds me of Kesselring sort of thinking, well, if we can just kick the Allies back into Sea at Anzio, then we can do a counter-punch and push them back, you know, the Gustav line, and maybe we'll take all of Italy.

I mean, it is absolutely total fantasy.

Kimura has used all his reserves in the Mictila battle.

All his remaining divisions are at half strength or less.

Most of his motor transport's gone.

Most of his artillery's gone.

So, you know, he's still got his base troops and everything.

But, you know, he's not got much.

So he orders the remnants of 15th Army to head for Taungu, which is 250 miles south of Mandalay and 125 miles north.

east of Rangoon.

And the railway runs from kind of Mandalay down to Mictila down to Tungu in a kind of roughly straight north-south line and then about 70 miles 75 miles west of that also running pretty much in a straight north to south line is Irrawaddy Valley but the main rail link is not on the Irrawaddy Valley it's kind of further east than that and so right parallel with Tungu is Prome

and that is on the Irrawaddy So, you know, what he hopes to do is create a kind of defensive line that roughly runs parallel from the coast across the hills south of the Arakan to Prome, then across the Irrawaddy and across to the Taungu.

And he's assuming that these kind of main arteries, these main axis, these lines of communication are going to be the main defensive positions.

And he's also got the 28th Army, which has been in the Arakan battles.

Again, also really badly hammered and understrength, but not as understrength as the Japanese 15th Army.

So they're going to hold Prome and the Irrawaddy Valley.

while the remnants of 15th Army are told to hold Taungu.

And General Sakurai, who's the 28th Army Commander, he's told to try and keep the Brits north of Prome, which will give a bit of time for 54th Division to withdraw from the southern Arakan, where they've been fighting British 15th Corps and 26th Indian Division, 24th Indian Division, 25th Rover and the Commandos and so on.

But for Slim, clearly, the sites now are firmly on Rangoon, but he's got, you know, let's say best part of 350 miles.

And the deadline of the monsoon.

So just as Kimura's...

So Kimura's relying on the monsoon to rescue him.

And Slim is thinking, well, it might rescue the Japanese, right?

I've got to get on with it, not give them the chance to solidify.

Because everyone, this is the nature of the campaigning in Burma.

You're sort of kind of put on hold,

you know, particularly as Slim is further and further and further into Burma and his supply lines are getting longer and longer and longer.

The monsoon is going to generate far more friction the further he gets from India, essentially.

So he doesn't want that to get in his way, does he?

So he's got to crack on.

Yeah, exactly.

Slim's plan, as seeing as as he sees it time is running out yeah is to get frank mesavey who's four corps commanders great friend of the show great friend of the show he's not wearing his pajamas on this occasion no but he is wearing a slouch cap oh fantastic he's he wants a strike slim wants him to use a strike force led by four corps but also detach another back across the irrawadi to head south towards prome so in other words to divide what he's got and shuffle things around and crack on towards the railway line that goes to rangoon so all roads lead to Rangoon and you're going to have to seize them.

That the Japanese are using these roads, banking on these roads as defensive positions, is going to rather feed them into what Slim has planned, right?

Well, exactly.

So you've basically got these two corridors.

You've got the Irrawaddy Valley and they're completely, they're running north-south and they're parallel to one each other, separated by 75, 80 miles, something like that.

On the western side, on the right-hand side, where it was IV Corps doing the right hook, it is now going to put Montague Stomford's 33rd Corps going down the Irrawaddy Valley, whereas now IV Corps, which was on the right, is now going to be on the left going down McTeiler-Towngu down the railway line route.

That's basically how it's working.

There's a bit of a sort of shuffle of division.

So Gracie's 20th Division stays in 33rd Corps, but they're now joined by the 7th Golden Arrow Division.

19th Division, Pete Rees, which was in, obviously, in 33 Corps, is now in Mesovy's IV Corps.

There's also a few little tensions between Stopford and Slim because it's now clear that Mesovy's IV Corps is the vanguard for the drive on Rangoon.

And earlier, Slim had said, stop, Monty, I think, you know, Rangoon is going to be yours.

You know, and these things are quite important.

And one of the reasons why there's this slight sort of tension between Slim and Stopford is because one of Stopford's staff appealed directly to Mountbatten that the Corps was being starved as supplies.

And so Slim summons Stopford to Bagan for a bit of a dressing down.

And Stopford says, look, this guy obviously knows has a direct in to Mount Batten.

This has nothing to do with me.

And they're kind of, it's fine.

You know, they smooth it over.

You know, and frankly, in this incredibly testing time, despite all their successes, if that's the limit of the problems they've got, you know, they're not huge.

So I think, you know, you can, you don't want to come sort of overcook the disharmony.

I think for the most part, 14th Army is operating as an extremely well-oiled machine.

Yeah.

Well, and there's disharmony to come at a higher level anyway.

Yes.

This level, it's ticking over nicely.

Now, I think what's interesting here, though, because obviously Mount Batten's an amphibious combined operations specialist, isn't it?

So he's going to want to land some people in some landing craft, isn't he?

I mean, he's just, he's just it.

He's a naval guy.

He's itching for it, right?

Okay, so there's two schools of thought on this.

So there's one school of thought, which is that Mount Baton is a kind of sort of narcissistic prima donna.

He's jealous of Slim.

He doesn't want Slim getting all the glory.

And he's damned if it's going to be 14 Farmers going to get to Rangoon.

He's going to spoil it with an amphibious operation which will claim it.

The alternative view is that actually Mount Batten and Slim have always got on very well.

And there is no evidence again to suggest that they haven't at any point, pretty much.

And that Mount Batten is there as an amphibious operate, you know, combined operations amphibious guy.

That's the reason why he's sent to be Superman Ally Commander in the first place.

And that if you can get to Rangoons as quickly as you possibly can with an amphibious operation, why wouldn't you do that?

And I fall very much into the latter camp, I have to say.

I couldn't tell that from your tone, Jim.

Yeah, no, you never know, would you?

But historians are always so keen to kind of pick up on the disharmony and the discord.

And, you know, there's a tremendously, well, it's Frank MacLynn, who's a sort of journo historian, who's written a book.

He's written all sorts of very diverse things, and including

a history of Burma.

But he's really got it in for Mount Batten.

And it's so based on his own personal prejudice.

It's just, you know, you can't take it seriously.

Yes.

A lot of this is, though, is people thrashing out what the best way of approaching things is, right?

It's not about who gets there first.

It's about winning the war in Burma.

mount batten's got amphibious operations he's got 15th corps which have been detached from 14th corps who have won the battle in the aracana are now kind of sort of you know not really doing a huge amount 14th army have had this tremendous battle and they're absolutely exhausted and you and you've got shipping and you've got landing craft got air power why wouldn't you use that you know the point is to win the war as quickly as possible so i i refute the kind of it's all mount battening a prima donna thing yeah but well so what we're talking about is operation dracula we talked about previously and the idea is an amphibious landing that will land at Rangoon and therefore you get there quicker, don't you?

You're there instantly, aren't you?

Sounds like a really good idea to me.

You know, and Slim's actually in favour of this sort of, you know, because Dracula coordinated with what he's doing is a far better prospect, isn't it?

And he's worried that Kimura is going to pack the city with suicide squads and hold out until the monsoon.

So, you know, the more the merrier.

And again,

so much of the way things are being done in Burma, a hammer and anvil, isn't it?

You make the Japanese the meat and and the sandwich to mix my metaphors don't you and this will do that this will offer that yeah exactly that and obviously once you've taken rang rangoon from the british perspective strategically you you can then go to malaya more easily you've cleared the coast and and you set yourself up for that yes and obviously what you want to do is you want to get you you want to clear as much of burma of the japanese as quickly as possible with the monsoon hovering over you so i think the the thing that is pressing slim and his drive southwards is not that mountain batman might take the the glory for taking Rangoon.

He is Supreme Ally Commander after all, and why shouldn't he?

Yeah.

It's just to get as far as you possibly can before the rains come down because then everyone will feel wretched and miserable and you're making your life even harder.

You know, this is like Pete Rees driving on his infantry brigadier.

You know, you're exhausted now, but push on because that will save the rivers of blood tomorrow and the next week and the week after, you know, which they know because they've been through several monsoons since this war began.

So I think that's what's really going on.

But what's interesting about Dracula is originally there's a variety of it, which is actually going to go into the island of Phuket in Malaya called Operation Roger.

This is then, you know, they think, actually, no, this is just overextended and it's not really going to achieve very much.

Let's just consolidate in, you know, in Burma and taking Rangoon.

So Dracula, as it was originally conceived, is kind of sort of, is revived and announced on the 2nd of April that this is going to happen using 26th Indian Division.

which has now been wrested from its Arakan operations, and the British 2nd Division volume, which had been obviously in 34 Corps for the Battle for Mandalay.

One peculiarity of Dracula is that Dracula is the nickname of Eric Down, who's the airborne specialist who was supplanted at 1st Airborne Division by Roy Urquhart and who was sent east to prepare for this operation.

And it's his nickname because he looks like a vampire.

Fantastic.

I love that.

Is that a coincidence or is that why they've called him?

Well, because I think Dracula was originally put forward, no, it was only in the summer of 1944, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Well, you know, and he's long gone from First Airborne by then.

He's the man known as the most abrasive man in the British Army.

That's his reputation.

Which, you know, as as we know, is quite a claim, really.

That's quite a claim.

There's quite a lot of abrasive characters.

But, I mean, one of the interesting things that also is going on at this point is it's clear that the Japanese are losing.

So some people are now picking a side, aren't they?

Yeah, yeah.

Including Aung San.

Well, particularly Aung Sang, I think, and, you know, for later resonance, I think this is very interesting, isn't it?

So Aung Sung and his Burma National Army in early January, let it be known that they're thinking of changing sides.

And this is via the SOE in an operation called Nation.

The British have learned, they've learned from obviously the Jedbras, they've learned from Italy and all the rest of it, is that you don't want these irregulars running a mob and doing their own thing.

You need to control them on a fairly tight leash.

And, you know, and you can do that by sending liaison officers and saying, you know, we'll arm you and we'll equip you and we'll make sure you're all right, but you have to do what we say.

So here are these people doing it.

So they then set up an operation, an SOE operation code named Nation, which is to liaise with the Burma National Army, the BNA, and leaderships of other groups.

And the first parachute dropped by the SOE is by an all-Burma force under Chen Pai Mint, which is dropped back on the 27th of January.

And they report that urgent training is needed of the BNA troops.

Well, no surprise there.

This is very much sort of part and parcel.

You know, this is where experience in Europe really does count in a way that Oliver Lease's experiences don't count.

And one of the people that's parachuted into Burma on the 20th of March is Major Tom Carew, who I knew and was absolutely delightful friend and is the father of a great mate of mine called Keggy Carou, who's also a writer.

Yes.

But he reports back that, you know, within a week, he reckons that sort of BNA operations can start.

Right.

Slim recognized that Aung San might be a major headache after victory, but just does see the benefits.

So he's come in from the cold.

He's come in from the cold.

Well, you know, that's what I do in his situation.

You don't want to be on the receiving end of the British Army at this point, do you?

Or the Indian Army.

And you want to be in on the liberation of Burma from the Japanese, which is the political side that you want to find yourself on.

So what are the conditions like?

I mean, it's pre-monsoon, so you've storms, it's very, very humid, it's extreme heat.

I was in Cambodia pre-monsoon last year, and the weather's disgusting.

Yeah.

You know, and that's pretty much the same latitude.

Sticky.

Really, really sticky.

And then when it does rain, you're soaked in an instant and it's oppressive.

And that obviously, this kind of atmospheric tumult makes flying more difficult, doesn't it?

Well, it does.

And also, if you suddenly got a waterlogged airstrip, you can't, for all your bites, it's kind of not enough.

And, you know, that then can affect supplies and that affects your speed.

So, you know, these are challenges which are starting to accumulate.

And you can see why this sense of urgency is, everyone's tired.

You know,

big battles like Mandalay and Mictila, you know, they take it out of divisions.

And, you know, it is still 17th Division and...

5th Division and 7th Division, you know, they're doing the running.

So 30 Corps, for example, is given instructions to carry out what Slim calls Union Jack Sweep.

So the idea is you have a sort of a big rectangular area on the map and you sweep down diagonally, you know, and then up and down the other side and, you know, a bit like the shape of a Union Jack.

And so 20th Division and 7th Divisions are pushing southwards down the Irrawaddy Valley with these sweeps and, you know, quite often meeting fanatical resistance.

Then 36th Division, your great uncle's sister.

Which we'll come to in a later episode.

They're added to 30 Corps and also the British 2nd Division is brought back as well.

So meanwhile, on the 30th of March, Punch Cowan starts moving south with his 17th Division.

So, that's 63rd Brigade and 48th Brigade that we were talking about in the Mictila battle.

And their big aim is to kind of sort of how are we going to get Piobui, which is a significant town.

It's where the Battle of where the Japanese had their headquarters for the Battle of Mictila, for example.

About 25 miles south of Mictila, something like that.

Again, there's a railway line, you know, the railway runs through there.

So, it's an important nodal point.

It's an important hub.

And Cowan does a classic pincher.

He does basically a mini version of Mictila, a mandala.

So he sends 48th Division straight down, sort of south from Mictila, going down the main road there along the railway line.

And he sends 63rd Brigade in a kind of wide arc with a battle group, which is called Claude Cole.

Two squadrons of Probin's horse, great friends of the show.

Two squadrons of armoured cars, one self-propelled battery.

They've got those now.

Two infantry battalions.

You know, it is a classic Kampfgrupper, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

That's exactly what that is.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And they roll on.

So it's a sort of thunder run, isn't it?

Yeah.

Well, the idea is to go in a sort of wide arc to the right and then sweep south of Pyobui and then come up and attack from the south as 48th Brigade is attacking from the north.

That's the plan.

They go through a bunch of villages.

So Yindor, and there's a thousand Japanese there.

Yanaung, Yadwan, Yadan.

I can't.

How do you pronounce it?

Yuadan.

Yanaung.

Yuwadan.

Yuwadan.

Sedwin, which is south of Pyobui.

And on the 9th of April, 48th Brigade, they take the airstrip north of Pyobi on the 8th.

I mean they're rolling on aren't they

by the 11th of April it's like 10 days after the end of end of the battle of McTila yeah basically they've destroyed the remnants of the 50th Japanese 53rd Division who by this point all they have left is two anti-tank guns two battalion guns 33 grenade throwers and a handful of machine guns it's kind of interesting interesting this thing because this is a you know Napoleonic war thing isn't it to say how many artillery pieces of the enemies you've seized as a way of showing how decisively you've won and there's a there's a flavor of that in this isn't there yeah there is a bit that because it is a good measure measure of how deep the water the japanese find themselves in now but just think of this al these guys that you know um when when do they cross they cross the night of the 14th 15th don't they do you remember 7th indian division crosses don't they and 17th division punch can 17th division then follow through 17th 18th something like that yes okay that's right so then they have until the end of

six weeks of fighting getting to mctila and then fighting in mctila six weeks of combat every single day you know every day those two brigades, well, and 99th, 63rd, 48th, 99th Brigade are in battle.

And 63rd and 48th every single day.

Now they're fighting again.

So they have basically been on the go non-stop for two months in Burma in these conditions with supplies, more supplies than the Japanese, but still not as many supplies as you'd want in an ideal situation.

And they're still going.

Hats off to those guys.

I mean, seriously.

Well, and

against an enemy that insists on fighting to the death.

Fighting to the death.

And giving no quarter, and none was given.

So the Japanese 18th Division, they pull out a purebui because General Honda from 15th Army has finally gone, all right, we do need to trade space for time.

We've got to get out of here.

We're being overwhelmed.

But obviously, there's vicious hand-to-hand fighting.

You know, the hallmark of all of this, the Germans, right?

We've talked about why won't the Germans give up, haven't we, in Northwest Europe?

But they do.

It's the thing, in the end.

You can be a British soldier in Italy or in Europe and barely see a living German soldier.

You know, that it is possible to do that.

It is not possible to do this for Japanese.

There is a point where a Japanese screaming at you will come charging at you at some point.

You know, you just will see them.

And if you want to read about that, again, George McDonald Fraser really underlines that point.

Yes, and his book covers all this period, by the way.

Yeah.

And he says something like, that guy running towards me with his sword didn't think that the war was over.

He didn't think that he'd lost.

By the time they've taken it, there's 2,000 Japanese dead in and around the town.

And Slim says, Fritz Seis, Piobui was one of the most decisive battles of the Burma War.

It shattered Honda's army, but it did more.

It settled the fate of Rangoon.

I just feel somehow we're doing him a disservice.

There's nothing wrong with the Bromi accent, by the way.

Jim, he's so dazzling, Slim, in lots of ways, that maybe this is our way of just taking him down a peg.

Well, no, not having to look directly into the eyes of the sun, Jim.

Yeah, yeah, maybe that's our way of doing that.

Making him human.

But, but, you know, these actions, you know, these actions are just absolutely devastating the remnants of the Japanese 15th Army, who were already bad at the end of McTeel-Mandalay.

That's a point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so by the 14th of April, which is, as you pointed out, that's two months after they cross on the 14th of February, don't they?

The first crossings are on the 14th of February.

18th Division is down to 3,100 men.

49th Division is down to 1,600 and 53rd Division down to 1,600 as as well.

And when you add on the sort of, you know, backroom staff, that means the entire 15th Army is 8,000 men, which is less than half the size of a normal division for an army.

Yeah.

At this point, I would jack it in.

Yeah, me too.

But it's not an option, is it?

No.

I mean, what's amazing here is Slim has 312 miles to travel to Rangoon, and he's got three weeks.

Well, three weeks until Dracula.

Yeah, until Dracula.

But the thing is, is the way, the rate he's going, I think it must feel possible, right?

Now, we've talked about growing confidence.

We've talked about, even though they, as you pointed out, they are fighting in a difficult environment right at the end of their supply lines, they're very confident in what they can pull off with this tempo of operations.

Yeah.

So Slim urges 5th Division, who are spearheading 4 Corps' advance, to head for Shui-Myo.

5th Division have now taken over from 17th Division from Punjab.

Yeah, because they're doing this leapfrogging thing that's part of how they've been doing stuff.

And they get to Shui-Myo on the 16th of April before Japanese suicide squads are dug in.

But I mean amazing.

By nightfall the Four Corps Vanguard are 240 miles from Rangoon.

It's incredible.

Yeah.

Right, we need to take a quick break as we race to Rangoon.

Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk.

Will we get to Rangoon before Dracula?

Yeah, and then the next town they come to is Pianmana, which is bypassed because it's quite heavily defended.

And, you know, there's an airfield at Lua, which is 10 miles further south.

And that's quickly taken.

And this is really important because it means the 5th Division can now be resupplied by air.

So, you know, it's a classic thing.

You know, it says all of our airfields.

And then the next dash is to Taungu, you know, which is where the Japanese at Kimura intends to make his stand.

But they want to get there.

They want to hustle the Japanese before they can prepare the defenses and also yet again seize the airfield that's there.

And then that can bring them to within range of Rangoon.

So Slim is now told that Drakka is definitely going to be launched on the 2nd of May without any kind of, you know, it's set in stone now, which means that the 4 Corps now have 11 days to travel 200 miles if they're going to sort of get there first and to get there ahead of 15 Corps who are going to be spearheading the Tractor operation.

So Slim now launches the Karen guerrillas on the Japanese as they're falling back to Tangu ahead of 4th Corps' arrival.

The Japanese driving hard through the night down jungle roads to Tongu ran into ambush after ambush.

Bridges were blown ahead of them.

Their foraging parties massacred.

Their sentries stalked.

Their staff cars shot up.

You get this sense of chaos, don't you?

This is an

Japanese army that is absolutely run ragged, that is, you know, short of supplies, short of food, short of ammunition, no morale, and frankly just needs to...

It is cruel, inhumane, insane to keep them fighting.

You know, we've said this a number of times.

You know, why do people surrender in a battle?

You know, in medieval times or even more recent times, they do so because they haven't got enough supplies and they're not going to win.

This isn't the case here.

There is this sort of maniacal win.

if only we can just hold a line before the one soon it'll all will be okay no it won't you know just throw in the tower they don't of course i mean they're compromised on the front they're compromised in their rear they're totally yeah you know and also slim is entirely inside their decision loop inside their thinking and you know he's thinking two steps ahead and they're five steps behind at all times So fifth diff, they get into Tango on the 22nd of April, having covered 50 miles in three days.

Yes, and the reason they're able to do this is, you know, because of the Japanese are so screwed anyway, and because they've been ravaged by the current guerrillas on the on the way down they're never able to make the stand that they're supposed to be making at toamgu they just can't do it you know so so they're now 160 miles from rangoon and they're it's 10 days before dracula and if they're doing 50 miles in three days this is it's tantalizingly close isn't it yeah but it would the odds would suggest they're not going to quite do it yeah well yeah but let's see they're running out of time on the fifth day to win the test match

They received surrender of the surrender of 1st Division of Bose's INA, 150 officers and 3,000 men.

So that's the Indian National Army are over.

They're cooked.

Just explain to me why Somers Chandra Bose is still so fated, why there's an international airport named after him in Kolkata.

Well, because they did absolutely nothing and they all surrendered.

Everything changes after the end of the war.

It's politics, Jim.

Everything can suddenly go into a mirror version of itself in an instant.

And, you know, leaving the British behind and redefining India in its own image.

And that's how.

I know, you know, you like to fruss and russum about this.

I've kind of relaxed about it really.

I just can't be.

just annoys me so on the 24th of April 5th division have clocked up another 20 miles but they're I mean this is the thing though this kind of meant momentum this kind of tempo they they're knackered by this point they're exhausted the thing is this kind of tempo everyone ends up worn out the gear starts to you know yeah things start to break down yeah you know and they're 140 miles from rangoon and they've got seven days to go Are they going to make it?

It feels like they're running out of steam.

17th Division now leapfrogging.

Again,

they're now in the lead once again for the first time since Poabui.

Yeah, and they reached Daiku on the 26th of April.

They're 80 miles.

Come on, guys.

You can do it.

Yeah, but here's the interesting thing.

Finally, the penny is beginning to drop for General Kimura.

Well, I suppose, is he so afraid of his superiors of delivering bad news?

Is he that?

They're just all kind of so into it, aren't they?

They're just sort of.

It's a bit like Kessering in his oath to Hitler, isn't it?

It's the same sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're opting for death rather than dishonor, aren't they?

Yep.

There's no Karl Wolf.

No, there's not.

There's no one.

No one reaching out to the Allies and circling back of an early peace opportunity.

That's right.

Beetling backwards and forwards between Ceylon and Rangoon.

He's decided there's no point defending Rangoon.

It's impossible.

So we'll make a last-it stand at Pegu, which is north of Rangoon.

Yeah, and hold on until the monsoon breaks.

So hold them off Rangoon.

That's pretty much ideal, isn't it, for Slim in this situation?

And so 17th Division, they press on.

There's minefields and suicide squads and more than 500 dead on the road.

This is another road of bones.

You know, this is like the one leading out of Imphal.

They're dying because of disease and malnutrition and starvation.

And, you know, it's just horrific.

Absolutely horrific.

And they have

pretty stiff opposition north of Pegu, but then they reach the town at nightfall on the 27th of April.

And this is a town which is on both sides of the of the Pegu River.

Defenders either side, you know, they're making a bit of a stand here.

There is now a difficult choice because, you know, you can either have rations or you can have arms.

You know, there's only so much amount of supplies that can be brought forward.

So Slim thinks, well, you know, just got to get on with it.

So we're going to have to put the men on quarter rations.

Not half rations, quarter rations.

So he goes up to the front and to try and sort of gee the men up.

And he speaks to one gunner and he says, I'm sorry, you've got to do all this on half rations.

And the gunner says, don't you worry about that, sir.

Put us on quarter rations, but give us your ammo and we'll get you into Rangoon.

I mean, this is a heartily related tale, isn't it?

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The marvellous spirit of 14th Army.

Exactly.

The gunner's obviously thinking, well, if we get the Rangoon, this might stop.

Yeah.

And then we'll be all right.

What he didn't say was what he was muttering under his breath once Uncle Bill had walked away.

Exactly.

Uncle, here we go again.

I wanted a fair cup of tea.

Peigo, the Japanese has filled it with mines and booby traps, and it's cleared on the 2nd of May.

Yes.

Just as the monsoon hits.

Literally, the rain starts coming down that day.

Yeah.

That's the day when Draculus launched, of course.

But Rangoon has been abandoned.

And isn't there the story of the aeroplane flying over Rangoon and on the roof of one of the buildings?

Some people have put Japs gone.

Get finger at extract digit.

Yeah, exactly that.

Yeah.

And Rangoon has been abandoned.

Slim says on the evening of the 2nd, when news of the successful landing south of Rangoon and the Japanese evacuation have been received, 17th Division was halted in drenching rain, 41 miles by road from its goal.

So Kimura hadn't succeeded in stopping Slim get to Rangoon first.

by fighting at Peigo, but he's been destroyed, completely destroyed in the process.

So what?

It It doesn't really matter.

Well, places don't matter.

It's destroying the enemy that matters.

Exactly that.

The Japanese used to understand that.

Yeah.

But along the way, they've forgotten it.

There's a meanwhile, though, isn't there, Jim?

33 Corps, you know, Stopford's 33 Corps have been doing a great job clearing the Irrawadi Valley, you know, having a really tough time.

I mean, plenty of Japanese defenses there.

Definitely monsoon hampers up the final mopping up operations.

But, you know, there's still huge fights at Alamio and Karma, which is near Prome, between the 11th and the 15th of May.

So, you know, you've got this little pocket.

Again, what are the Japanese doing?

You know, and afterwards, 33 Corps, they find another 1,400 Japanese dead.

And the killing continues throughout May and on into June and July because those clearing up operations slow down inevitably with the monsoon and with tracks getting, turning into mud and the rain going on.

But, you know, between in that time till, you know, the end of July, a further 11,500 Japanese are killed in action and just 96 Anglo-Indians in that time.

And on the 28th of July, 28,000 Japanese troops of the 28th Army begin the long march into Siam, having broken out of the Sitang River Valley.

And actually, quite a skillful operation, it has to be said.

And during that operation, 14th Army kill another 12,000 troops.

For the cost of 95 of their own men killed.

It's just, it's, you know,

they have been utterly destroyed.

Yeah.

You know, really reduced to kind of 10,000, you know, 15,000 men.

That's all that's left of the Burma Arm area.

The Sitang River Bend battle.

As shades of fillets, but without them escaping.

Well, again, you know, it gives me kind of hope for the future because I think, you know, it'd be fun to do, it'd be interesting to do an episode or two just on that alone.

And any one of the, you know, the Battle of Papuai is an epic, which we've told in very kind of brief terms here, just because this is, you know, we're trying to give a big overview.

But, you know, so many of these battles deserve a proper reappreciation.

In fact, actually, I'm very keen to get myself over there.

So I think once we've got over there, then we could be much better placed to.

Francis Tukas involved in the

core commander by them.

Brought up to core level.

Yeah.

Now, here's the thing, though.

Obviously, we've talked about how, you know, Slim is so dazzling, we dare not look him in the eye.

This isn't really what's going on at the time at all, is it?

It's just...

The scale of this victory, both at Infal and now here at Mandalay and McTeela.

You know, it's obviously it's written about back home and people talk about this other stuff, but I don't think people really appreciate just how difficult it's been.

What an amazing piece of generalship this has been.

The vision, the foresight, the coordination, the detail, the make, do, and mend, the fighting skill, the wherewithal to understand how you need to adapt your tactics for the different locations within Burma, the building up of morale, the control of malaria, the whole picture, the 360 degree in the round.

This is why Slim is considered the greatest fighting general of the Second World War and arguably, you know, Britain has ever had.

You know, it is absolutely remarkable.

And you would have absolutely have thought that having brought off one of the greatest military achievements ever, let alone the current war, you know, the Slim would immediately be fated, lionized, you know, kind of put on the highest of pedestals.

But it's not what happens.

I mean, and what we're about to relate to you makes me feel sick to my core.

It's an absolutely amazing story.

It's a total freaking shower.

And I'm ashamed of this.

And needless to say, this is Lisa's doing.

Not a friend of the show, I think it's fair to say.

So Lise has been feeling increasingly cut out of the loop.

And on 3rd of May, so the day after Rangoon Falls, Lise visits Mountbatten in candy and salon.

Anyway, Mount Batten's not on peak form.

He's just been recovering from dysentery.

And Lee says, gosh, you know, I mean, Bill's done a terrific job, but, you know, he's been in the job a long time now.

He must be absolutely exhausted.

And I wonder whether, you know, maybe it's time for

his work is done.

Let's get a new army commander in and give Bill a bit of a rest.

And, you know, I've been thinking that maybe Philip Christensen at 15 Corps is the man to oversee the, you know, and maybe Slim can oversee the post-war administration of Burma.

Mount Ban says, well, I don't really think so.

I kind of want, I want Bill Slim staying where he is.

But, you know, I don't mind you carefully suggesting this to Slim if you want to.

Sound him out.

But Lise, because he's such a numbskull, flies over to, sees this as a green light.

And he then does something even more unforgivable.

He flies straight to Akiyab first, because it's on the coast, rather than going to see Slim first.

And he meets up with Christesen.

And he says, Right, you know,

Bill's stepping down.

You know, he's very tired.

He's had a long time doing this.

He's had this great victory, but it's time for some fresh water.

You know, and I want you to command 14th Army.

And Christeson, who gets on very, very well, Slim, says, oh, terrific.

Well, you know, sure.

I mean, you know, if Bill's fine with that, that's great.

Lise then thinks, well, you know, yes, because we're going to set up another army, which is going to be the occupying army of Burma, and we'll call this 12th Army, while 14th Army pushes down on into Malaya and all the rest of it.

And so he says to Christeson that Slim's already left 14th Army, but he hasn't.

You know, he hasn't even spoken to Slim about this.

So from Akyab, because it goes, you know, geographically, it goes Ceylon, Kandy Ceylon in Sri Lanka, to Akyab, the Bay of Bengal, then to Mictila, where...

Slim's now got his TAC HQ.

Slim thinks, oh, great, you know, Lise is coming.

Bring me some congrats.

And Lee says, before we talk of anything else, I must tell you that I've decided to give Christerson command of the 14th Army.

I don't consider you capable of planning large-scale amphibious operations, so I don't think it'd be fair to either 14th Army or yourself to leave you in charge of it.

You know, and Slim's resolute jaw kind of hits the floor.

It's like,

WTF.

Yeah.

Well, although in person, he sort of says, well, he says no.

He rejects it.

But he rejects the offer of 12th Army, yeah.

With a sort of straight back, doesn't he?

Yeah.

To Lisa's face.

So off camera, he's like, oh, God, here we go again.

I've dealt with this before.

Because after all, he's had that whole business where Noel Irwin, 43, after the failure of the Arakan campaign, basically tries to say, it wasn't me, it was Slim who did this.

He tries to get pin it on Slim.

So Slim's, with his staff, is sort of saying,

don't worry, I've dealt with this before.

But he must have been absolutely apoplectic.

Yeah, and it's clear he is.

He absolutely is.

And he knows this is jealousy.

This is, you know, Lise being crass.

You know, he knows this is politics and not performance.

Lise then casually signals to Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

He just says, or is he Alan Brooke by this point?

I think he's Alan Brooke by this point.

Anyway, so he signals to Brooke and says that he's replaced Slim.

Brooke is just absolutely gobsmacked.

Well, Jim, Jim, let's not forget the timing here.

This is VE Day around the end of the war in Europe, where Brooke's thinking, everything's going absolutely brilliantly.

We've defeated Germany.

The last thing he wants.

And then this photo numberskull numberskull has just gone and wrecked everything.

Yeah, exactly.

Another headache to sort out just at the point I don't need.

So, so on the 9th of May, Slim tells his senior staff he'd been sacked, and then the news leaks out to the other ranks.

And of course, you know, they're incandescent about this for obvious reasons.

Mountain Batten, of course, is also outraged, you know, and he's feeling thinking crucky.

Okay, I wasn't quite on the ball when I was speaking to Leesh.

I should have been a bit more clear about this.

And on the 14th of May, Brooks sends the bluntest of signals to Lease with a really severe reframer, telling him that this is absolutely beyond his remit.

How dare he do something like this?

And also, coincidentally, the Orc, Auchinleck, is in London at the time, who's the Commander in Chief of India, and he is also dumbfounded.

And on the 20th of May, Auckinleck tells Churchill that Slim is the finest general in Southeast Asia and recommends him as his successor as a CNC.

And the long and short of it is that Lise is sacked.

Hooray!

Instead,

Slim takes his job.

He becomes CNC of Allied Forces Southeast Asia.

And the tragedy for Christensen, who has done a fantastic job, very well for him, he's left high and dry because he's been tarnished.

And Stopford is given 14th army, and Dempsey is given 12th Army.

A terrible business, isn't it?

And that is a sort of sour note on the end of the Burma campaign.

But the great thing is that history's forgotten it.

Slim's reputation just grew and grew and grew afterwards, so much so that it's now, you know, he's one of the three people to have a statue outside the Ministry of Defence, alongside Monty and Brooke.

You know, he is widely considered now one of the very greatest generals ever in British history.

And frankly, it's hard to argue with that.

You know, it is an astonishing turnaround from where they are, where they were.

The vision that he has, the way he coordinates it, gels it, persuades, you know, coerces, gets the best subordinates, reconfigures 14th Army and turns it into this war-winning machine, I think is just testimony to that all-rounder vision that he's got got as the master battlefield commander, the master of the strategic aim, the operational art, and the tactical pizzazz.

You know, it is the plaudits, the accolades of him are entirely justified.

It's an astonishing achievement.

And the flexibility of the Indian Army to turn itself from, you know, basically a colonial police force in 1939 to take on millions of volunteers and expand at a vast rate to get through its setbacks.

I mean, this is often the story in the war that I think is the bit that leaves me, you know, it's D-Day four years after Dunkirk.

We're talking about two years after the Arakan offensive.

That an organization, and yes, it's because of its leadership, but the fact it can generate leaders that can do this and then generate people who can work with a leader with this kind of vision and drive and ability.

These are extraordinary organizations.

And, you know, there's a lot of talk now, isn't there, of resilience is a word that's being banded around a sort of buzzword in defense chat.

The indian army's resilience in the face of the defeat in burma in the opening stages of the war and you know most organizations will go well we well that's us done we can't we've got we've got nothing but the fact that they're able to turn themselves around and yes obviously having the staff and the industrial base to be able to do it but it's the the people the brains and the application i think is it's truly remarkable and across the world as well because because this after all this is this this is the the junior theater so i mean of the you know the three theaters northwest europe mediterranean and this is the this is the the junior and yet they've still got the people and the resilience and the intellectual firepower because a lot of it comes down to that to turn this around don't don't underestimate the fact that this is a multinational force and multinational managing and organizing and and and bringing together and gelling a multinational force is is much harder than a single nation force obviously so you have that challenge as well there's several books that we should recommend i i would recommend louis Allen's magisterial book, Burma the Longest War.

It's hard work.

We've read it so that you don't have to.

But if you do want to read it,

that is the kind of the big authority.

There's also the four official histories of the war against Japan.

I think they are in a sort of paperback reprint version these days, but you can still buy the originals on ABE books.

A War of Empires by Rob Lyman.

We've talked about this a lot.

It's excellent.

I would also recommend Defeat into Victory by Slim, which is really good.

There's various memoirs.

Of course, the standout is George MacDonald Fraser's, which is exactly this period.

But I've got to say, I found

these twin series we've done on the Burma campaign, you know, from the middle of 1943 right through to the middle of 1945, these two years of war in Southeast Asia, in Burma.

I found it absolutely fascinating.

And I am totally in awe of every single person that fought in this campaign and what they achieved.

And, you know, and I think we should also, there should be a nod to the Japanese because while the commanders are obviously cruel, you know, hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops

were flung to the lions in the cruelest possible way.

And what they had to endure was out of all proportion to the hardships faced by 14th Army and 15th Corps, which is saying something, frankly.

And it's a horror story.

And it's also a horror story in a country that is so beautiful and so lovely, that was so ravished by war, and that it still is ravished to this day.

You know, many of the problems that

emerge from the end of empire, the end of this war,

this brief conquest by Japan, they're still being felt to this day.

That's Burma now Myanmar's tragedy.

But gosh, what a fascinating story this is.

Well, thanks, Jim.

We have one more episode for you in this series to follow, which is about the forgotten bit, the forgotten bit, the forgotten bit, what it's like in a wartime counter battalion, the 10th Gloucesters.

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Thanks for listening, everybody.

Thanks, Jim.

Cheerio, everyone.

Cheerio.