The Burma Campaign

by Frank McLynn

  When the great crisis of Kohima-Imphal broke, Stilwell did his best to help, although he could not resist a typical crack: ‘The Limeys have the wind up at Imphal.’ At Slim’s urging he decided to make another trip to Chungking to try to get Chiang to commit Y-force; he was also concerned that his Chinese generals were not driving their men hard enough and suspected secret orders were being received from the generalissimo. Chiang had in fact signalled Stilwell when Mountbatten diverted planes from the Hump for the Arakan operation to tell him to halt his advance pending clarification of Allied intentions, but Stilwell had ignored the signal, remarking wearily: ‘O Jesus, now that starts again.’35 Slim related that the impact of Arakan on Chiang ruined Stilwell’s promising start to his campaign, and the prospects of an early advance on Myitkyina, but that he himself forgave the American for his bitterness ‘and he was bitter even for Vinegar Joe’.36 Stilwell departed for Chungking, flying the usual Hump route via Kunming, in a jaundiced mood: ‘If I can’t move the Peanut, the jig is up for the season.’ He conferred with Chiang next day and found him inflexible on the subject of Y-force, though the generalissimo vaguely promised two divisions for the NCAC push on Myitkyina, which he, like Mountbatten, thought would take place some time in the indefinite future, and certainly after the monsoon. But while he was in Chungking, Stilwell received the unwelcome news that Frank Merrill had had a heart attack and had been rushed from the front to a hospital in Ledo.37 Before he could take any decision about the future of the Marauders, he had to fly back to India for a conference with Slim and Mountbatten. To his wife he wrote in ambivalent mood about the Supreme Commander: ‘Louis and I get along famously even if he does have curly eyebrows … Just a line before hopping off to see Louis who, to put it mildly, has his hind leg over his neck. If they don’t buck up on their side, we will also have our tit in the wringer. What a mess the Limeys can produce in short order.’38

  Stilwell went to Jorhat for the meeting in gloomy mood, expecting to be stitched up by the Limeys, since his recent request for Anglo-Indian troops to protect US airfields had been turned down – clearly because of the crisis at Kohima-Imphal. He decided, as it were, to get his retaliation in first by offering Slim and Mountbatten the Chinese 38th Division. This of course meant that his own campaign would be over and all hope of reaching Myitkyina before the monsoon gone. He made his magnanimous offer at a pre-lunch meeting with Slim alone (before Mountbatten arrived). Slim thought his old friend looked very tired, but he uttered no anti-Limey reproaches and showed considerable sympathy and understanding for Slim’s difficult position. To Stilwell’s delight, Slim answered that he was confident that Imphal would hold; he therefore wanted Stilwell to keep the Chinese and launch his attack on Myitkyina as planned, assuming of course that the operation was still on.39 Stilwell replied that it was very much still on, but that it was more than ever imperative that Slim should keep the secret from Mountbatten. When Slim readily assented, Vinegar Joe tried to press him further, and asked for a guarantee that his communications would not be cut. Slim very correctly replied that this was an impossible demand: he was stretched at Imphal and Kohima so certainly could not vouch for Japanese inability to slip past him into the Brahmaputra valley. What he could promise was that such severance would not last more than 10 days. Stilwell said he’d hoped Slim might reply along those lines and that he should not worry about his previous request for Anglo-Indian troops. He intended to detach a Marauder regiment to guard the airfields, from where they would fly in reinforcements once the attack on Myitkyina began.40 When Mountbatten arrived after lunch, the two men told him they were completely in agreement, and to the Supreme Commander’s surprise, all seemed sweetness and light; naturally they said nothing about Myitkyina. Stilwell wrote to his wife in high delight: ‘Much to my surprise, no question of help from us. On the contrary Slim and the Supreme Commander said, go ahead.’ This was particularly important to Vinegar Joe, as the Kachins were predicting an early monsoon.41

  If Slim and Stilwell were behaving like seasoned professionals during the crisis weeks of April, Mountbatten’s behaviour was decidedly odd. It was the end of the month before the pain in his eye completely eased, and perhaps this is the explanation for what can only be described as ‘inappropriate behaviour’. Pownall had noticed that his boss seemed to be acting strangely, repeating orders that Slim had already given and in general trying to take the credit for his general’s success in the field, and took him to task for his micromanaging interventionism. ‘I told Mountbatten frankly that he had gone completely off the rails and he had no right to go about things the way he had done … I’m bound to say Mountbatten took all this amazingly well, indeed he cried “Peccavi” and apologised. I hope that in the future I shall only have to wag my finger at him and he’ll be more careful.’42 Yet the Supreme Commander drew back from one act of folly only to launch himself into an even greater one: it was a classic instance of reculer pour mieux sauter. While the struggle for Kohima-Imphal raged at its most intense, and every plane, piece of equipment and sum of money was vital, he took the extraordinary decision to move his entire headquarters, personnel, equipment, bag and baggage from Delhi to the island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). To all dispassionate observers this seemed indeed a case of a man who could not stand the heat and was therefore getting out of the kitchen. The new headquarters, at Kandy, was 1,600 miles to the south of Delhi and 500 miles farther away from the battlefields of Burma. Mountbatten’s only excuse for this piece of egregious idiocy was that Kandy was more suitable as a base for amphibious operations.43 But if Kohima-Imphal proved anything, it proved that the future of Burma was going to be decided on land, and that all the old Churchill/Mountbatten dreams of seaborne invasions of Sumatra and the like were so much moonshine. The Americans were quite right to see this bizarre decision as a flight from reality, and they were not alone. Auchinleck, Giffard, Slim and Peirse all thought Kandy was much too far from the fighting, and in London alarm signals were raised. Auchinleck was particularly irritated that Mountbatten was breaking a solemn promise he had made to him in October 1943 about eschewing ostentation and an imperial staff.44

  Yet Mountbatten would not be dissuaded, and on 17 April the mass exodus took place – a criminal waste of resources at such a juncture. Here was the Supreme Commander acting like a Riviera playboy while 14th Army was fighting the battle that would decide the war. And yet Mountbatten had the almost unbelievable gall to claim that he was the architect of victory. His new headquarters in Kandy became a byword for luxury and elegance. Visitors could not get over the general air of affluence and prosperity and the Supreme Commander’s sleek fleet of limousines – ‘much too grand for me’, as one observer waspishly remarked.45 Mountbatten compounded the problem of being too far from the war and thus being unable to engender any sense of urgency in his personnel by the most grotesque overstaffing. There were now 7,000 men and women on the staff of SEAC and there was not even an operation for them to plan. Soon this incredible figure escalated to 10,000, at the very time commanders in the war theatres were complaining of manpower shortages. Alanbrooke was justifiably incensed when Mountbatten, having quit a perfectly good headquarters in Delhi, then demanded to have his own ‘ambassador’ there – which, as Alanbrooke saw clearly, would in turn become an excuse for building up another huge staff of drones. As he rightly remarked a little later: ‘Seldom has a Supreme Commander been more deficient of the main attributes of a Supreme Commander than Dickie Mountbatten … I find it very hard to remain pleasant when he turns up! He is the most crashing bore I have met on a committee, is always fiddling about with unimportant matters and wasting other people’s time.’46 To cap it all, Mountbatten was approaching a state of nervous exhaustion: the incessant travel, the tough decisions he had had to take over Imphal, the pain from his eye all contributed to the crazy decision to relocate to Kandy. This should have provided a rest cure, but observers continued to claim that he looked tired and drawn; his friend Noel Coward was one of these.47 Wavel
l, who had more time for him and Wingate than any other senior general, said that he had lost ‘that first, fine, careless confidence that caused my predecessor to call him the Boy Champion’.48

  As if to prove the point, Mountbatten had no sooner moved to Kandy than he was off again, this time on a flying visit to Stilwell’s front. A jaundiced Vinegar Joe reported to his wife on the tactlessness of the Supremo and his minions: ‘The Glamour Boy was over addressing our troops the other day. His own backyard was on fire and that was the time he chose to make a pep talk to us. Impressing his personality on our troops. A Limey forestry official came to our HQ and made the proposition that the US pay the British for the trees we are cutting down in Burma to make a road to China.’49 As if to thumb his nose at the British, Stilwell sent a message to Stalin, congratuating him on the Red Army’s twenty-fifth birthday; not surprisingly, Soviet sources played this up and the Supreme Leader replied effusively (a case of Uncle Joe to Vinegar Joe).50 Since Stalin was an ally, there was no reason on the surface why Stilwell should not have congratulated him, but usually the Anglophone Allies, and particularly the British, liked to keep their contacts with the USSR to a formally polite level; by sending this message Stilwell increased the gap between himself and the Red-baiters of the extreme right, such as the devious Wedemeyer. Stilwell was undoubtedly in a strange, unsettled and volatile mood in the spring of 1944. On the one hand he was more vehement and savage than ever. Sharing Slim’s loathing for the Japanese, when a (rare) prisoner offered to shake hands with him as a noble opponent, Stilwell raged at him: ‘Not with you, you dirty bastard.’51 On the other, he was far more reflective than usual, setting down on paper his views on a variety of existential matters. Pondering the qualities of a great commander, he concluded that it was 80 per cent character, 10 per cent power of decision, 5 per cent technical knowledge and 5 per cent everything else.52 Clearly he did not share Napoleon’s conviction that the prime requisite was luck. In May he sent his wife a long letter dedicated to the proposition that he was one of life’s worriers, but not about himself. ‘Strangely enough I do not worry about my own life. It never occurs to me that my plane will crash or that the next bomb has my name on it. The possibility occurs to me, but it does not weigh on my mind at all. I wonder what that indicates.’53

  Although both Mountbatten and Stilwell in their different ways showed clear signs of exhaustion, probably the toughest decisions that spring were taken by Slim, and not just about Kohima-Imphal. When Wingate died there was the immediate question of who should succeed him, and the subsequent and more important one of just what role the Chindits should now fill. ‘It is an interesting sidelight on a strange personality,’ Slim wrote, ‘that, after his death, three different officers each informed me that Wingate had told him he was to be his successor should one be required. I have no doubt at all that they were speaking the truth.’54 There were five possible candidates to succeed Wingate: Calvert, Symes, Tulloch, Fergusson and Lentaigne. Tulloch was ruled out at the start because he had never commanded a Chindit column in the field, so Slim used him as a sounding-board and unofficial adviser in the selection process. Symes, who had taken on the post as Wingate’s deputy at Auchinleck’s urging, as a kind of Indian army ‘minder’ for the turbulent prophet, was a reluctant Number Two who did the job on the express assurance that he would be a shoo-in to succeed Wingate if anything happened to him. Slim, however, considered that his case was the same as Tulloch’s: he had not commanded Special Force in the field. Fergusson and Calvert were both true Wingate believers and disciples, but if one of them was to be chosen it surely had to be Calvert, as his fighting record hitherto was so much more impressive. On the other hand, he was wild and unstable, a fighter but not really a strategic leader and planner; he did not bear the nickname ‘Mad Mike’ for nothing.55 By a process of elimination, therefore, Slim came to Lentaigne, who had the considerable advantage of being a Gurkha officer – a breed Slim liked and trusted. Slim told Tulloch that his inclination was to appoint Lentaigne. Tulloch, unaccountably, advised Slim that Lentaigne was the commander most in tune with Wingate – a grotesque and unaccountable travesty of the facts. In fact Lentaigne hated and despised Wingate and thought that all his ideas and theories about Long Range Penetration were arrant nonsense.56 He was also a heavy drinker, but Slim, following Abe Lincoln’s example with General Grant, discounted this as unimportant.

  Slim described his selection procedure as follows: ‘His [Wingate’s] successor had to be someone known to the men of Special Force, one who had shared their hardships, and in whose skill and courage they could trust. I chose Brigadier Lentaigne. He not only fulfilled all these requirements, but I knew him to be, in addition, the most balanced and experienced of Wingate’s commanders.’57 Here Slim was being slightly disingenuous. What he did not say was that Lentaigne was the only one, Symes apart, who fully agreed with Slim that the more grandiose plans for Special Force should be wound up, that Long Range Penetration should be wound up and that the Chindits should henceforth function as an adjunct to 14th Army, just as the Marauders did with the Chinese divisions. Slim told Lentaigne forthrightly that the halcyon days were over and that henceforth there would be no special channel to Churchill, bypassing the normal military hierachies. The appointment of Lentaigne was deeply unpopular with some of the Chindit brigades. Calvert felt slighted and Symes, feeling he had been double-crossed, first protested to Giffard, and when that produced no result, put in a formal protest to Alanbrooke in London.58 His resignation was accepted, and Tulloch became Lentaigne’s deputy, as a reward for his services. The effect on the morale of Special Force was palpable, and all the latent fissures, which had been held down because of the sheer domineering force of Wingate’s personality, became overt and manifest. There were three factions at large; 77 Brigade under Calvert, which was fanatically loyal to Wingate; 111 Brigade under Lentaigne and John Masters, where Wingate and all his works were loathed; and a third neutral bloc in 14 Brigade, under Brodie.59 The Calvert faction thought Lentaigne weak, defeatist and cowardly; he hated Wingate but had never had the guts to stand up to him while he was alive and would similarly let Slim (and later Stilwell) walk all over him.60 Lentaigne was certainly Slim’s man. When Slim announced that he wanted to recall the Chindits to help in the defence of Kohima-Imphal, it was Tulloch who pointed out that they were already fighting a desperate action at White City. Actually, as Tulloch later conceded, Lentaigne’s judgement in this instance was sound. If he had agreed without demur to be withdrawn to Imphal, they would not later on have fallen into Stilwell’s clutches, with disastrous results for them.61

  As a result of Tulloch’s intervention a compromise was reached, with 14 and 111 Brigades (those most sympathetic to Slim and Lentaigne’s new bearing) ordered to move west towards the Chindwin and block the roads Japanese 15 and 31 Divisions would be using in the Imphal campaign, while Calvert and 77 Brigade were left where they were for the time being pending a visit from Lentaigne.62 Now nominally under the command of the newly promoted Morris, 111 Brigade’s actual command devolved on John Masters, another Lentaigne loyalist (Lentaigne, Morris and Masters were all Gurkha officers). Meanwhile Calvert and Fergusson had an angry confrontation with their despised superior officer, who flew to ‘Aberdeen’ to meet them. He gave them the unwelcome news that they would be collaborating in the Imphal battle and were to help take the pressure off 4 Corps. Both the Wingate loyalists protested vehemently. Fergusson wanted another crack at Indaw, while Calvert was adamant that it was madness to abandon White City and Broadway; both men put it to Lentaigne that they were all now being used as Slim’s football.63 When Lentaigne reported back to Slim, he decided to go halfway to meet Calvert and Fergusson (though his critics claim his next action was sheer machiavellianism). He announced that henceforth Calvert and Fergusson would come under Stilwell’s command and that their mission was to abandon White City and move towards Mogaung to assist in the operations of the Chinese there. Events prevented the immediate implementati
on of the new orders. Now finally convinced that the Chindit operation was no mere raid but a genuine cancer ‘in their guts’ (as Wingate had put it), the Japanese launched a massive attack on Broadway on 27 March.64 A ferocious running battle went on until 1 April, when the Japanese, worsted, drew off. Broadway was now left in peace until Calvert reluctantly obeyed his orders and withdrew on 13 May, missing what would have been an annihilating attack on the stronghold by 24 hours.65 Meanwhile the Japanese switched their attention to White City, which was attacked on 6 April. Calvert and his men fought a heroic holding action while reinforcements from the West African Brigade began to arrive. Soon so many Nigerians were in place that Calvert had numerical superiority. Although Calvert had been genuinely delayed by Japanese incursions, Slim and Lentaigne suspected him of stalling. Lentaigne flew in on 11 April and ordered Calvert and 2,400 men to move off into the jungle as a ‘floater’ column, leaving the Nigerians to man the strongholds.66

  On 13 April Calvert attacked the village of Sepein near Mawlu but in his usual headstrong way did not time his attack well and went in too soon. Initially repulsed, he returned to the fray with substantial reinforcements from the Nigerians at White City. Caught between Calvert’s brigade and the West Africans, the Japanese counterattacked ferociously, and Calvert had to call in an air strike before they were beaten back. At a cost of 100 dead and 200 wounded, Calvert made the unconfirmed claim that he had inflicted 3,000 Japanese casualties and thus could hold White City indefinitely.67 When Lentaigne repeated the order for a definitive abandonment of Broadway and White City – adding that he was to build a new stronghold called ‘Blackpool’ 60 miles north (near Hopin and 30 miles south of Mogaung) so as to link with Stilwell – Calvert replied by sending signals that could only be considered insubordinate, making quite clear his contempt for his new commander.68 To sugar the pill, Lentaigne sent back word that 111 Brigade was also being assigned to the Stilwell theatre and would be blocking the road and railway to Mogaung while 77 Brigade established Blackpool. Calvert, still stalling, pointed out that the new orders would take the Chindits over the 90 days’ indenture of active service and then into leave that had been agreed with Wingate. Lentaigne had to fly in again and repeat the order in person on 8 May before Calvert would comply. He pointed out that because of the delay in moving north, the Japanese now had a new division in the Chindit area – 33 Division, under General Honda Masaki. Lentaigne might have expected that Calvert, a member of the enemy faction so to speak, would have opposed his plans, but he was alarmed to find that his loyal ally Masters also had misgivings about the orders for 111 Brigade. Masters stressed how tired his men were, and Lentaigne promised to send Brodie’s 14 Brigade to their support.69 Both brigades soon had reason enough for their misgivings. Calvert had no sooner founded Blackpool than he was assailed; bitter fighting ensued, with many of the Chindits loudly complaining that they were having to fight for a pointless stronghold.70 As for Masters and 111 Brigade, who moved up to relieve their rivals at Blackpool, they too managed to beat off an enemy attack, but prevailed only with the help of Colonel Philip Cochran’s Mustangs (Cochran, it will be remembered, was one of Wingate’s earliest supporters).71