All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [142]
Stilwell, an inveterate anglophobe, was underwhelmed by his first meeting with Alexander on 13 March. He wrote in his diary with accustomed sourness: ‘Astonished to find me – mere me, a goddam American – in command of Chinese troops. “Extrawdinery!” Looked me over as if I had just crawled out from under a rock!’ Stilwell was given the assistance of a British-led Frontier Force mounted unit, for reconnaissance duties. Its leader, Captain Arthur Sandeman of the Central India Horse, achieved the doubtful distinction of becoming the last British officer to die leading a cavalry charge. Blundering into the path of Japanese machine-gunners, he drew his sabre, ordered his bugler to signal the attack, and advanced on the enemy until he and his companions met their inevitable fate.
The Chinese intervention provoked the Japanese to reinforce their two-division invasion army, sending two more formations to Rangoon by sea. The British were reorganised into a corps commanded by William Slim, a shrewd, rugged Gurkha officer who would eventually show himself Britain’s ablest general of the war. On 24 March the Japanese struck hard at the Chinese in the north. The British counter-attacked to relieve pressure on their allies, but the enemy prevailed on both fronts. Slim’s Burcorps, struggling to avert complete collapse on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, called for Chinese assistance. Stilwell was predictably contemptuous, writing on 28 March: ‘Riot among British soldiers at Yenangyaung. British destroying the oil fields. GOOD GOD. What are we fighting for?’ Yet to the astonishment of Stilwell as well as the British, a Chinese division, led by one of Chiang’s ablest officers, Gen. Sun Li-Jen, pushed back the Japanese and achieved a notable little victory. Although an imperial formation was almost wiped out in the fighting around the Irrawaddy, Slim emerged from the battle full of respect for Gen. Sun’s men, whose intervention was decisive in enabling the British to avert the annihilation of Burcorps.
But the Allied position in Burma had become untenable. The Japanese considered that the Chinese formations fought more bravely and energetically than the Commonwealth forces, but within days they were falling back northwards, eventually into China. The pursuing Japanese were content to halt at the border. Stilwell, who bore substantial personal responsibility for mishandling the Nationalists under his command, abandoned them and set off westwards with a motley party of Americans, press correspondents and just two Chinese. He walked through the jungle for two weeks before reaching the safety of Imphal, in British-ruled Assam, on 20 May. Stilwell wrote: ‘We got a hell of a beating. It was as humiliating as hell. We ought to find out why it happened and go back!’ By 30 April, Slim’s men were safely across the Irrawaddy. They then retreated westward preceded by a rabble of deserters and looters, who behaved with predictable savagery towards the civilian population. On 3 May, Burcorps began its withdrawal across the Chindwin river boundary between Burma and India under Japanese fire. The Burma Rifles platoon defending Slim’s headquarters melted away into the night. Most of his men made good their escape, but almost all transport and heavy equipment – some 2,000 vehicles, 110 tanks and forty guns – had to be abandoned on the east bank of the river. Even when the fugitives reached safety, they found no warm welcome. ‘The attitude of the army [in India] to those of us back from Burma was appalling,’ said Corporal William Norman. ‘They blamed us for the defeat.’
The Japanese had advanced across Burma for 127 days, covering 1,500 miles at an average speed of almost thirty miles a day, while fighting thirty-four actions. The British had lost 13,000 men killed, wounded and captured, while the Japanese suffered only 4,000 casualties. This was not a disaster of the same magnitude as Malaya, and Slim conducted his