Inferno - Max Hastings [144]
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 to be Britain’s ablest general of the war. On 24 March the Japanese struck hard at the Chinese in the north. The British counterattacked 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 General Sun’s men, whose intervention was decisive in enabling the British to avert the annihilation of the Burcorps.
But the Allied position in Burma had become untenable. Chinese troops matched Sun’s. 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 and a motley party of Americans, Chinese and press correspondents walked through the jungle for two weeks before reaching the safety of Imphal, in British-ruled Assam, on 20 May. The American 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!” He himself bore substantial responsibility for mishandling the Chinese troops under his command, whom he abandoned to make his own escape. By 30 April, Slim’s men were safely across the Irrawaddy. They then retreated westwards preceded by a rabble of deserters and looters, who behaved with predictable savagery towards the civilian population. On 3 May, the Burcorps began its withdrawal across the Chindwin River boundary between Burma and India under Japanese fire. The Burma Rifles platoon defending Slim’s own 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 40 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 Corp. 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 30 miles a day, while fighting 34 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 retreat with some skill. But the Japanese now occupied Britain’s entire Southeast Asian empire, to the gates of India. An Asian wrote of the spectacle of Western POWs driven to hard labour alongside the native peoples: “We always felt that they were superior to us. The Japanese opened our eyes; because [the white men] were sweeping the floor with me … walking without shoes.” This proved an enduring revelation. Meanwhile, the Burma Road to China would