Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  In any case I had not come to discuss the tactical conduct of Stilwell’s campaign—I had every confidence in his handling of that and it was his business, not mine. The fly-in of Wingate’s Special Force, due to commence on the 5th March, was intended primarily to help the American-Chinese advance, and I wanted to make sure he was completely familiar with the final arrangements.

  Stilwell was always rather prickly about Wingate’s force. To begin with, Mountbatten and Wingate between them had persuaded the American Chiefs of Staff to send United States troops, even if only a regiment, to the Burma front, when he himself had failed to get them. Further, he felt passionately that all American troops in the theatre should be under his direct command, and had been angered when they were allotted to Wingate. Stilwell had pressed for them to be transferred to him, and confessed quite frankly to me that he had been very surprised when Mountbatten yielded to his request. Nevertheless he did not seem particularly grateful to the Supreme Commander and some bitterness remained. Nor did he approve of Wingate’s long-range penetration methods; he preferred the short-hook tactics. He now professed doubts as to the value of Wingate’s operation, but had to admit, when I put it to him, that if he were the commander of the Japanese 18th Division and suddenly found ten thousand troops sitting across his rear, cutting his communications, he would not feel too happy about it. At last, he grinned at me over his glasses, and said, ‘That’ll be fine if Wingate does it and stays there; if he goes in for real fighting and not shadow boxing like last time.’ I told him that my only doubt was, not that Wingate’s people would shadow box, but that with his new stronghold technique they might get too pinned down. I promised that whatever happened we would cut the Japanese line of communication for him and keep it cut for quite a time. No commander could ask more than that.

  I was struck, as I always was when I visited Stilwell’s headquarters, how unnecessarily primitive all its arrangements were. There was, compared with my own or other headquarters, no shortage of transport or supplies, yet he delighted in an exhibition of rough living which, like his omission of rank badges and the rest, was designed to foster the idea of the tough, hard-bitten, plain, fighting general. Goodness knows he was tough and wiry enough to be recognized as such without the play acting, for it was as much a bit of stage management as Mountbatten’s meticulous turn-out under any conditions, but it achieved its publicity purpose. Many people sneer at generals who wear quaint head-dress with too many or too few badges, carry odd sticks, affect articles of civilian attire in uniform, or indulge in all sorts of tricks to make themselves easily recognizable to their troops or to anybody else. These things have their value if there is a real man behind them, and, for the rest, his countrymen should forgive almost anything to a general who wins battles. His soldiers will. Stilwell, thank heaven, had a sense of humour, which some who practise these arts have not, and he could, and did, not infrequently augh at himself.

  By this date we had won our battle in Arakan and I was able to give Stilwell an account of the first real victory of the Burma campaign. He followed that success up with one of his own within the next few days. The Maingkwan-Walawbum battle, while it did not, as we had hoped it would, destroy the Japanese 18th Division, was a triumph for the Chinese and a personal one for Stilwell. His tactical plan for the battle was bold but sound. Merrill’s Marauders, after an outflanking move, duly captured Walawbum, thus cutting off the main Japanese force; but the Chinese advance to link up with them was slow and over-cautious. Indeed, at one stage in the afternoon it stopped altogether while a division was issued with a leisurely meal. Meanwhile the Marauders had been turned out of Walawbum, and it was with some difficulty that American officers with the Chinese persuaded some of their tanks and infantry to go on again. They found Walawbum only lightly held by the enemy and entered it, but withdrew again when darkness fell. Next morning, however, another formation finally occupied the village, but by then the bulk of the Japanese 18th Division had extricated itself from the trap.

  The Chinese, in spite of the dilatoriness of some of their formations, had, when put to it, fought well, and inflicted some hundreds of casualties on the enemy. My old friends, the 38th Chinese Division, bore the brunt of the fighting, and the Chinese tanks, in this their first serious action, especially distinguished themselves. With their escorting battalion they suddenly encountered two Japanese battalions, concealed in tall elephant grass, waiting to counter-attack. The Chinese, although raw troops, flung themselves on the enemy and routed them. Walawbum was an undoubted victory. It just missed complete success because Stilwell himself could not be everywhere at once, and at this time his actual presence was the only thing that would impart real drive to his troops. Nevertheless, although it escaped almost intact, the Japanese 18th Division was roughly handled and had hurriedly to retreat, leaving a large part of the Hukawng Valley in our hands. Now we had won a battle handsomely on each flank of the Burma front.

  From the N.C.A.C. I flew back to my Comilla headquarters for a day, and then on to Lalaghat and Hailakandi where the two brigades of the first wave of Wingate’s Special Force were ready to fly into Burma. Of this wave, 16 Brigade which was to march in was already well on its way. Starting from Ledo on the 8th February, it had pushed steadily southward, supplied by air through extremely difficult hill and jungle country, to the Chindwin near Singkaling Kamti. Here the rafts the troops had built were supplemented by rubber boats dropped by No. 1 Air Commando, and the brigade crossed to continue its arduous march through almost uninhabited country. In response to a request from Stilwell, the brigade raided Lonkin, some fifty miles south of Maingkwan, but found it practically empty of enemy. No opposition except a Japanese-led Burmese patrol or two was encountered. Passing the great Indawgyi Lake by the end of March, 16 Brigade had established itself in a stronghold christened ‘Aberdeen’, some twenty-five miles from the Rangoon-Myitkyina railway, which was the main supply route for the Japanese 18th Division fighting Stilwell, and their 56th Division watching the Yunnan Chinese. The brigade had covered four hundred and fifty miles of about the most difficult country in the world in just over six weeks—a magnificent feat of endurance.

  On the morning of Sunday, March 5th, I circled the landing ground at Hailakandi. Below me, at the end of the wide brown airstrip, was parked a great flock of squat, clumsy gliders, their square wing-tips almost touching; around the edges of the field stood the more graceful Dakotas that were to lift them into the sky. Men swarmed about the aircraft, loading them, laying out tow ropes, leading mules, humping packs, and moving endlessly in dusty columns, for all the world like busy ants round captive moths.

  I landed and met Wingate at his temporary headquarters near the airstrip. Everything was going well. There had been no serious hitch in the assembly or preparation for the fly-in, which was due to begin at dusk that evening. For some days previously our diversionary air attacks had been almost continuous on the enemy’s airfields and communication centres to keep his air force occupied. Meanwhile, ostentatious air reconnaissances over the Mandalay district had been carried out in the hope of convincing the enemy that any airborne expedition would be directed against that area. The attacks on airfields were useful in keeping Japanese aircraft out of the sky, but the false reconnaissances, as far as I ever discovered, had little effect.

  Just a month earlier, on 4th February, Stratemeyer, the American commander of the Eastern Air Command, and I had issued a joint directive to Wingate and Cochrane, the American commander of No. 1 Air Commando. In this, Wingate’s force was ordered to march and fly in to the Rail Indaw area (Rail Indaw to distinguish it from another Indaw not on the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway), and from there to operate under direct command of Fourteenth Army, with the objects of:

  (i) Helping the advance of Stilwell’s Ledo force on Myitkyina by cutting the communications of the Japanese 18th Division, harassing its rear, and preventing its reinforcement.

  (ii) Creating a favourable situation for the Yunnan Chinese forces to c
ross the Salween and enter Burma.

  (iii) Inflicting the greatest possible damage and confusion on the enemy in North Burma.

  The tactical plan for getting the force into position behind the enemy was based on four assembly places:

  ‘Aberdeen’, 27 miles north-west of Indaw.

  ‘Piccadilly’, 40 miles north-east of Indaw.

  ‘Broadway’, 35 miles east-north-east of Indaw.

  ‘Chowringhee’, 35 miles east of Indaw.

  These places were all away from roads and uninhabited. They were selected because there was enough flat ground to make the building of an airstrip possible in a short time and because there was water in the immediate vicinity. They were in fact fancy names written on the map, within striking distance of Indaw.

  It was intended that in the first wave 16 Brigade should march to Aberdeen, 77 Brigade fly in two halves to Piccadilly and Broadway, and III Brigade land at Chowringhee. The remaining three brigades, 14, 23, and 3 West African, were to be held for the second wave which it was expected would be required to relieve the first in two or three months.

  As the afternoon wore on, the atmosphere of excitement and suspense at Hailakandi grew—the old familiar feeling of waiting to go over the top, intensified by the strangeness and magnitude of this operation. Everyone, even the mules, moved about calmly, quietly, and purposefully. Except perhaps for those patient beasts, it was, all the same, obvious that everyone realized that what was, up to this time, the biggest and most hazardous airborne operation of the war was about to begin.

  During the morning the gliders had been loaded with supplies, ammunition, engineer equipment, signalling stores, and men’s kits. In the late afternoon the first wave, 77 Brigade Headquarters, the leading British and Gurkha infantry, and a small detachment of American airfield engineers emplaned. Each Dakota was to take two gliders. This was a heavy load, and, as far as I know, never before had these aircraft towed more than one. There had been a clash of opinion among the airmen themselves on its practicability. Cochrane, in charge of the gliders, was confident it could be done; Old, whose Combat Cargo planes would provide the tugs, maintained it was unsound. Various airmen, British and American, took sides and argument was heated. Eventually, after experiments, Wingate agreed with Cochrane, and then Baldwin and I accepted the double tow. Now as I watched the last preparations I was assailed by no doubts on that score. The Dakotas taxied into position. The tow ropes were fixed. Everyone was very quiet as the roar of engines died down and we waited for zero hour. I was standing on the airstrip with Wingate, Baldwin, and one or two more, when we saw a jeep driving furiously towards us. A couple of American airmen jumped out and confronted us with an air photograph, still wet from the developing tent. It was a picture of Piccadilly landing ground, taken two hours previously. It showed almost the whole level space, on which the gliders were to land that night, obstructed by great tree-trunks. It would be impossible to put down even one glider safely. To avoid suspicion no aircraft had reconnoitred the landing grounds for some days before the fly-in, so this photo was a complete shock to us. We looked at one another in dismay.

  Wingate, though obviously feeling the mounting strain, had been quiet and controlled. Now, not unnaturally perhaps, he became very moved. His immediate reaction was to declare emphatically to me that the whole plan had been betrayed—probably by the Chinese—and that it would be dangerous to go on with it. I asked if Broadway and Chowringhee, the other proposed landing places, had been photographed at the same time. I was told they had been and that both appeared vacant and unobstructed.

  Wingate was now in a very emotional state, and to avoid discussion with him before an audience, I drew him on one side. I said I did not think the Chinese had betrayed him as they certainly had no knowledge of actual landing grounds, or, as far as I knew, of the operation at all; but he reiterated that someone had betrayed the plan and that the fly-in should be cancelled. I pointed out that only one of the three landing grounds had been obstructed, and that it was the one which he had used in 1943 and of which a picture with a Dakota on it had appeared in an American magazine. We knew the Japanese were nervous of air landing and were blocking many possible landing sites in North and Central Burma; what more likely than they should include a known one we had already used, like Piccadilly? He replied that, even if Broadway and Chowringhee were not physically obstructed, it was most probable that Japanese troops were concealed in the surrounding jungle ready to destroy our gliders as they landed. With great feeling he said it would be ‘murder’. I told him I doubted if these places were ambushed. Had the Japanese known of the plan I was sure they would have either ambushed or obstructed all three landing grounds. Wingate was by now calmer and much more in control of himself. After thinking for a moment, he said there would be great risk. I agreed. He paused, then looked straight at me: ‘The responsibility is yours,’ he said.

  I knew it was. Not for the first time I felt the weight of decision crushing in on me with an almost physical pressure. The gliders, if they were to take off that night, must do so within the hour. There was no time for prolonged inquiry or discussion. On my answer would depend not only the possibility of a disaster with wide implications on the whole Burma campaign and beyond, but the lives of these splendid men, tense and waiting in and around their aircraft. At that moment I would have given a great deal if Wingate or anybody else could have relieved me of the duty of decision. But that is a burden the commander himself must bear.

  I knew that if I cancelled the fly-in or even postponed it, when the men were keyed to the highest pitch, there would be a terrible reaction; we would never get their morale to the same peak again. The whole plan of campaign, too, would be thrown out. I had promised Stilwell we would cut the communications of the enemy opposing him, and he was relying on our doing it. I had to consider also that one Chindit brigade had already marched into the area; we could hardly desert it. I was, in addition, very nervous that if we kept the aircraft crowded on the airfields as they were, the Japanese would discover them, with disastrous consequences. I knew at this time that a major Japanese offensive was about to break on the Assam front, and I calculated on Wingate’s operation to confuse and hamper it. Above all, somehow I did not believe that the Japanese knew of our plan or that the obstruction of Piccadilly was evidence that they did. There was a risk, a grave risk, but not a certainty of disaster. ‘The operation will go on,’ I said.1

  Wingate accepted my decision with, I think, relief. He had by now recovered from his first shock and had realized that the obstruction of one landing site need not hold all the implications he had imagined. We walked back to the group of officers and, with Baldwin’s concurrence, I announced that the fly-in would proceed, adding that as Piccadilly was obviously out, it was for Wingate as the tactical commander to decide what changes should be made. He stated the case for continuing the operation clearly and calmly, and directed that the troops allotted to Piccadilly were to be diverted to Chowringhee. Although this was strictly Wingate’s business and not mine, I very much doubted the wisdom of this. Chowringhee was on the east of the Irrawaddy; the railway and road to be cut were on the west. Before the troops could be effective, therefore, they had to cross the river, and I questioned if this could be done as quickly or as easily as Wingate thought. I asked Calvert, the commander of 77 Brigade, and I found him strongly against Chowringhee. Cochrane also opposed it for the very sound reason that the layout there was quite different from Piccadilly and Broadway and there was little time to re-brief pilots. Baldwin, who as commander of the Third Tactical Air Force, had the overall responsibility for the air side of the operation, was emphatic that Chowringhee could not be used by Piccadilly aircrews, and that settled it. Wingate saw the force of these opinions and accepted that the fly-in would take place as originally planned, with the exception that the troops for Piccadilly would go to Broadway.

  Cochrane collected the Piccadilly Dakota and glider pilots, whose destination was now changed, to re-brief th
em. Curious to see how he would break the news of the alteration and a little anxious lest so obvious a hitch at the start might have a rather depressing effect on them, I followed to listen. Cochrane sprang on to the bonnet of a jeep. ‘Say, fellers,’ he announced, ‘we’ve got a better place to go to!’

  The leading Dakota, with its two gliders trailing behind, roared down the runway just after six o’clock, only a few minutes behind scheduled time. The moment it was clear the others followed at about half a minute intervals. The gliders took the air first, one or two wobbling nervously before they took station behind, and a little above, the towing aircraft. More than once I feared a Dakota would overrun the strip before the gliders were up, but all took off safely and began the long climb to gain height to cross the hills. The darkening sky was full of these queer triangles of aircraft labouring slowly higher and higher into the distance. Eventually even the drone of engines faded and we were left waiting.