by Raymond A. Callahan and Daniel Marston
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2021. Pp. xii, 280.
Illus., maps, notes, biblio., index. $34.95. ISBN: 0700630414
Victory on the “Forgotten Front”
The British XIV Army, commanded by William Slim, spent four years on the Burma front, the ultimate “forgotten front” of W.W. II, and thus, despite remarkable performances, both army and general are pretty much “forgotten” as well. Professors Callahan (Delaware, emeritus) and Marston (Johns Hopkins), add to the recent increase in interest in this theater and Slim with the valuable account of how Slim and others reorganized and rebuilt the army and led it to victory.
The authors open with an overview of what went wrong on the Burma front in 1942-1944 and what was done to correct it. The problems were due to a combination of a lack of resources, an Indian Army greatly weakened by a hasty expansion (ten fold in about two years), and, perhaps most importantly, a theater not thought important nor understood by Churchill and most British leaders, concentrating on the threat to Britain and the war in North Africa, and seeking quick fixes to that in India-Burma. The “cure”, implemented by British Indian Army officers such as Wavell, Auchinleck, and William Slim, who implemented numerous reforms, opened the Indian Army to the so-called “non-martial” races, and turned it into an outstanding combat force. Although only comprising about a third of the book, arguably this is the most important part. The balance of the book is an excellent account of the operations of the remarkably polyglot XIV Army (Britons were a very distinct minority in the ranks) in beating off the final Japanese offensive into India, then liberating Burma, preparing for operations to recover Malaya, and then, upon the relatively sudden surrender of Japan, spending months securing colonial territories – Dutch and French, as well as British – from Japanese control and coping with local nationalists.
There’s some very interesting material here. The importance of the expanded role of native Indian officers, and the role of literally hundreds of Polish officers in reforming the army, the under appreciated role of African troops in the final campaign, and much more. The authors also give us some very critical looks at the roles of Winston Churchill and Orde Wingate, who arguably hampered the recovery of the army and of Burma.
One shortcoming of the book, is that while discussing the logistical problems of conducting operations in such a difficult and distant theatre, the authors don’t say much about how the extreme diversity of the troops who comprised the army played a role in those problems.
A volume in the Kansas series “Modern War Studies”, The 1945 Burma Campaign and the Transformation of the British Indian Army is essential reading for anyone interested in the Asia-Pacific war, the British Empire’s war, or the art of command.
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