Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [52]
Broad and burly, with a heavy jaw and much solid common sense, between the wars he advanced steadily in rank, assuaging financial embarrassment by the somewhat unexpected means of writing magazine stories under the pseudonym of Anthony Mills. It was Slim’s misfortune to command Burcorps, the British force in Burma, during the disastrous retreat of 1942. It was generally acknowledged that he bore no personal responsibility for that defeat, but he himself liked to tell a story of his later return to Burma. One night he slipped unnoticed into Fourteenth Army’s operations room, to perceive two staff officers standing before the map, one pointing confidently and proclaiming: “Uncle Bill will fight a battle there.” The other figure demanded why. “Because he always fights a battle going in where he took a licking coming out!”
In contrast to almost every other outstanding commander of the war, Slim was a disarmingly normal human being, possessed of notable self-knowledge. He was without pretension, devoted to his wife, Aileen, their family and the Indian Army. His calm, robust style of leadership and concern for the interests of his men won the admiration of all who served under him. “Slim is a grand man to work for—he has the makings of a really great commander,” enthused his chief of staff, Brig. John Lethbridge, in a 1944 letter to his wife. A soldier wrote of Slim: “His appearance was plain enough115: large, heavily built, grim-faced with that hard mouth and bulldog chin; the rakish Gurkha hat was at odds with the slung carbine and untidy trouser bottoms; he might have been a yard foreman who had become managing director, or a prosperous farmer who’d boxed in his youth.”
An Indian artillery officer told a typical “Uncle Bill” story. Suddenly summoned to order a full regimental shoot, the gunner dashed into his command post, knocking aside a big stranger who impeded his passage. Emerging shortly afterwards, he recognised his army commander, and began to stammer an apology for treating him so brusquely. “Don’t bother about that, my boy!” said Slim cheerfully. “If everybody worked like you, we’d get to Rangoon a lot sooner!” The only people who seemed doubtful of Slim’s merits were his superiors. Churchill never warmed to this bluff, understated officer, fighting a campaign with which the prime minister had no sympathy. Throughout Slim’s career as commander of Fourteenth Army there were attempts to “unstick” him, even in his final glory days. His blunt honesty, lack of bombast and unwillingness to play courtier did him few favours in the corridors of power. Only his soldiers never wavered in their devotion.
In a lecture to the officers of 10th Indian Division, which he led earlier in the war, Slim voiced some of his thoughts about command: “We make the best plans116 we can, gentlemen, and train our wills to hold steadfastly to them in the face of adversity, and yet to be flexible enough to change them when events show them to be unsound, or to take advantage of an opportunity that unfolds during the battle itself. But in the end every important battle develops to a point where there is no real control by senior commanders. Each soldier feels himself to be alone…The dominant feeling of the battlefield is loneliness, gentlemen.”
So it was through the bloody spring and early summer of 1944. On the plain at Imphal, and in the soaring Naga Hills where Kohima stood, British, Indian and Japanese troops struggled for mastery. “The scenery was superb117,” wrote one of the defenders, “the Highlands without heather, the Yorkshire fells without their stone villages, all on a colossal scale which made our trucks look very puny…On such an immense