Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945

by William Slim

Morale is a state of mind. It is that intangible force which will move a whole group of men to give their last ounce to achieve something, without counting the cost to themselves; that makes them feel they are part of something greater than themselves. If they are to feel that, their morale must, if it is to endure—and the essence of morale is that it should endure—have certain foundations. These foundations are spiritual, intellectual, and material, and that is the order of their importance. Spiritual first, because only spiritual foundations can stand real strain. Next intellectual, because men are swayed by reason as well as feeling. Material last—important, but last—because the very highest kinds of morale are often met when material conditions are lowest.

1. Spiritual (a) There must be a great and noble object. (b) Its achievement must be vital. (c) The method of achievement must be active, aggressive. (d) The man must feel that what he is and what he does matters directly towards the attainment of the object.

2. Intellectual (a) He must be convinced that the object can be attained; that it is not out of reach. (b) He must see, too, that the organization to which he belongs and which is striving to attain the object is an efficient one. (c) He must have confidence in his leaders and know that whatever dangers and hardships he is called upon to suffer, his life will not be lightly flung away.

3. Material (a) The man must feel that he will get a fair deal from his commanders and from the army generally. (b) He must, as far as humanly possible, be given the best weapons and equipment for his task. (c) His living...

I wanted superior strength at the decisive point for the opening of the struggle; after one victory to confirm the spirit of the Fourteenth Army, I should not worry so much about the odds against us.

Next morning I assembled Snelling and one or two of his leading air-supply staff officers and explained the position. If we could not get proper parachutes of silk or other special cloth we must make them of what we could get. I believed it possible to make a serviceable supply-dropping parachute from either paper or jute. There are great paper nulls in Calcutta; all the jute in the world is grown in Bengal and most of it manufactured there. I despatched officers forthwith to Calcutta to explore possibilities. The paper parachute, although I still believe it quite practicable, we could not obtain, because the manufacturers could not produce the kind of paper required in the time. With jute we were more fortunate. My assignment officer visited some of the leaders of the British jute industry in Calcutta, told them our difficulty, and asked their help. He warned them that to save time I had sent him direct and that my need was my only authority. I hoped they would be paid, but when or how I could not guarantee. The answer of these Calcutta business men was, ‘Never mind about that! If the Fourteenth Army want parachutes they shall have them!’ And have them we did. Within ten days we were experimenting with various types of ‘parajutes’ as we called them. Some fell with a sickening thud; others had a high percentage of failure. By trial and error we arrived at the most efficient shape and weave for the cloth. In a month we had a parajute that was eighty-five per cent as efficie...

The cost of a parajute was just over £1; that of a standard parachute over £20. As we used several hundreds of thousands of parajutes we saved the British taxpayer some millions of pounds, and, more important even than that, our operations went on. My reward was a ponderous rebuke from above for not obtaining the supply through the proper channels! I replied that I never wanted to find a more proper channel for help when in need than those Calcutta jute men.

If you are a general, whether your army has won a great battle or lost it, it is hard not to slur over your own mistakes, to blame others for theirs; to say, if you lost, what bad luck you had, and, if you won, how little luck had to do with it. My army had indubitably won this battle and I look back now on its conduct with considerable personal satisfaction, allowing myself, in the warm glow of success, a good deal more credit, no doubt, than I deserved.

Yet I was quite sure he would fight in the Shwebo plain. I relied on my knowledge of the Japanese and on the mentality of their high command as I had known it. I knew there had been changes in that command. In October reports had reached me that Kawabe had been sent back to Japan in disgrace and replaced by a General Kimura, of whom not a great deal was known, except that he was regarded by the Japanese as one of their best men. Even so, I expected him to conform to type, to be over-bold, inflexible, and reluctant to change a plan once made. In spite of the Imphal lesson, he would, I thought, be confident that he could beat me on his own ground and, even if he were not, he would never dare to lose face by giving up territory without a struggle. He would see the Chindwin behind us; not the Irrawaddy behind him.

One hot day at the beginning of the advance, I took Bill Hasted, my quiet-spoken Chief Engineer, a little upstream of Kalewa and said, ‘Billy, there’s the river and there are the trees,’ pointing to the great forests within half a mile of the bank ‘In two months I want five hundred tons of supplies a day down that river.’ He looked thoughtfully at the river and the trees, and then at me. ‘The difficult we will do at once; the impossible will take a little longer,’ he quoted from a saying in frequent use in the Fourteenth Army, and added with a grin, ‘For miracles we like a month’s notice!’ ‘You’re lucky,’ I answered, ‘You’ve got two!’

To watch a highly skilled, experienced, and resolute commander controlling a hard-fought battle is to see, not only a man triumphing over the highest mental and physical stresses, but an artist producing his effects in the most complicated and difficult of all the arts.

The only hope is to take the offensive at least locally whatever the risk and by daring and surprise throw out the enemy’s plans.

The fighter and the bomber between them had to sweep the skies and push back the enemy landing grounds; the air battle had to be won first—and from now on it will always have to be won first.

In Burma, the time spent in action with the enemy by special forces was only a fraction of that endured by the normal divisions, and it must be remembered that risk is danger multiplied by time.

There is, however, one kind of special unit which should be retained—that designed to be employed in small parties, usually behind the enemy, on tasks beyond the normal scope of warfare in the field. There will be an increasing need for highly qualified and individually trained men—and women—to sabotage vital installations, to spread rumours, to misdirect the enemy, to transmit intelligence, to kill or kidnap individuals, and to inspire resistance movements.