| Original caption: “Allies advance along Arakan Front – In spite of the difficulties caused by the monsoon and continued stubborn Japanese resistance, Allied troops in the Arakan are slowly pushing forward and repelling enemy advances. This image shows Mahrattas lined up for an attack on Japanese positions.” This image shows 4th Battalion, 5th Mahratta Light Infantry, 17th Indian Division, British Indian Army, lined up for an attack on Japanese positions near Arakan. The Naik (“Corporal in the British India Army”) in the foreground carries a Thompson sub machine gun and the Jawans (“Enlisted Soldier in the British India Army”) in the background carry an Enfield SMLE with fixed bayonets. The Kohima garrison had 2 platoons of the 27th Company, 5th Mahratta Light Infantry. The bulk of the 17th Indian Division under acting Major-General David T. “Punch” Cowan (October 9, 1896 – April 15, 1983) General Officer Commanding, at Tiddim, India, during the retreat into India, the fighting around Tiddim in 1943, the Battle of Imphal in 1944 and the drive into Central Burma in 1945. His son Major Michael H. T. Cowan (1921 – March 6, 1945) was killed in action in Burma serving with the 6th Gurkha Rifles. Date of photo estimated. The almost intolerable setback in the Arakan in 1943 would eventually compel India Command to fundamentally rethink its doctrine for fighting in the jungle in 1944. As early as April 1942, United Kingdom Winston S. Churchill (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) had informed the Chiefs of Staff that he wanted plans framed for “a counteroffensive” in Burma. Neither the Prime Minister nor Field Marshal Archibald P. Wavell (May 5, 1883 – May 24, 1950), the General Officer Commanding in India, wished to wait long for a 2nd round with the Imperial Japanese Army. Only the rapid reconquest of the territories lost could undo the damage done to the reputation of Britain and its empire. With this aim in mind, it was broadly agreed that an amphibious strategy rather than a ground campaign was preferable for retaking Burma. As Churchill would write later, “going into swampy jungles to fight the Japanese” was like “going into the water to fight a shark.” However, the amphibious resources required to cross the Bay of Bengal and retake Rangoon and then move on to Singapore were not available in the Far East in the autumn and winter of 1942. These precious resources, instead, were sent to seize Madagascar from the Vichy French. Then, just as it seemed they would be transferred east, they were assigned to North Africa for Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of Tunisia and Morocco. In the circumstances, Churchill, and the Chiefs of Staff, were willing to forgo an offensive in Burma in 1942. But, Wavell wanted to act with “boldness and determination.” He had written to his Chief of Staff in September noting that “we may find Japanese opposition very much lower than we expect in Burma …The Jap[anese] has never fought defensively and may not be much good at it.” Efforts had been made to document the mistakes of the preceding year. Doctrine had been adapted and veterans had been sent to formations to disseminate recommended techniques. “Both the morale of the Indian Army and the prestige of the Raj,” he said, required at least some “demonstration of offensive capacity.” On November 19, Wavell ordered the 14th Indian Division, which had been advancing cautiously down the Arakan coast since September, to launch a full-scale attack south. The primary objective was to seize a jumping off place, at the tip of the Mayu peninsula, for an assault on Akyab island, where there was 1 of 2 serviceable ports in the eastern Bay of Bengal and a strategically important airfield. Success, should it be achieved, would sharply reduce the Japanese air threat to the industrial region around Calcutta, provide a forward air base to cover amphibious operations in the next campaigning season, and erode Japanese air strength in Burma. Wavell’s plans were certainly aggressive and proactive, but there remained a plethora of problems besetting the Indian Army. The troops still lacked a cause for which they deemed it worth fighting and Quit India had only served to complicate and exacerbate this situation. Although, in general, lessons had been learnt, there had been insufficient time to retrain since its own devices’ to implement changes in doctrine and training. Thus, teamwork, trust and morale were still deficient in the force that advanced south and east into the Burmese jungle in November 1942. Nothing resembling the transformation of the Army in the United Kingdom and in North Africa had yet materialized in Burma. The outcome of the Arakan campaign was perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, little different to what had occurred in Malaya and Burma in the 1st half of the year. The 14th Indian Division, under Major General Wilfrid L. Lloyd (March 1, 1896 – January 22, 1944), comprising 4 brigades, advanced steadily against limited Japanese opposition, of just 2 battalions, until it was only 10 miles from the southern tip of the Mayu peninsula, near Donbaik. Here it ran into a complex bunker system and the newly arrived Japanese 55th Division. Wavell hurried reinforcements to the front and pressed Lloyd, whose division, by mid-March, commanded an unworkable 9 brigades, to crush the Japanese by sheer weight of numbers. Repeated assaults failed to dislodge the considerably outnumbered defenders whose “‘fanatical’ willingness to stand and fight quite literally to the last man and round, required each position to [be] carefully cleared of all surviving Japanese infantrymen” before the attack could progress. As the British and Commonwealth advance ran out of steam, the Japanese prepared to counter-attack. On March 7, the Japanese launched their own offensive and the British Commonwealth forces in the Arakan disintegrated. By the end of May, after a humiliating retreat, with casualties of 916 dead, 2,889 wounded and 1,252 missing, Wavell’s forces were back to their original start line. This was an almost intolerable setback. Once again, a British and Commonwealth Army, with superior artillery and a monopoly on tanks, had been decisively beaten by a force only half its size. On April 9, Wavell wrote to his Eastern Army Commander, Lieutenant General Noel M. S. Irwin (December 24, 1892 – December 21, 1972), asking “has there been any surrender without fighting or desertion to the enemy by Indian troops? I am more worried about the morale aspect both of the troops and to India [sic] than anything else.” He was right to be concerned. As Raymond Callahan has outlined: On at least 2 occasions British battalions fell apart in something like panic. Many of the Indian troops were in an equally bad state. Poorly trained and terrified of the jungle, patrols, unless accompanied by a British officer, would simply lie up and return after a suitable interval to report that they had seen nothing. On 1 occasion a critical position was lost because its jittery defenders had fired off all their ammunition at night noise in the jungle. 1 unit refused an order to advance, another threw away its rifles during a retirement, and, perhaps not surprisingly, “defeatist and disloyal” talk was reported rife among the wounded. A liaison, the General Staff Officer, Grade 2 of the 26th Indian division, who visited the front in May reported that: “I came away unfortunately with the definite impression, gained from personal observation and conversations with senior and junior officers, NCOs, men and escaped POW that on this front the Japanese soldier, with the notable exception of the gunners, was definitely superior to the troops forming the bulk of our forces in the area.” “Outstanding was the fact that our troops were either exhausted, browned off, or both, and that both Indian and British troops did not have their hearts in the campaign. The former were obviously scared of the Jap[anese] and generally demoralized by the nature of the campaign, in other words, the thick jungle and the subsequent blindness of movement, the multiple noises of the jungle at night, the terror stories of the Jap[anese] brutality…the undermining influence of fever, and the mounting list of failures; the latter also fear the jungle, hate the country, and see no object in fighting for it, and also have the strong feeling that they are taking part in a forgotten campaign in which no one in authority is taking any real interest…” “Reinforcements that have arrived have consisted mostly of untrained men, many of whom according to Lieutenant Colonel Basil J. Leech (July 30, 1906 – January 14, 1976) the General Officer Commanding, Tenth Lancashire Fusiliers, had never even seen a Bren Gun. All complained of the lack of pre-campaign training…” “To sum up the man to man situation the seasoned and highly trained Jap[anese] troops are confronted by a force which, although impressive on paper, is little better, in a large number of cases, than a rather unwilling band of raw levies.” The liaison officer concluded with the observation that the majority of commanding officers and staff officers he had met no longer had confidence in the men under their command. Morale reports showed that the experience in the Arakan had certainly exerted a “damping effect” on British troops. Many wanted to leave India and appeared to be driven by “a strong conviction that their ‘contract’ was to fight the Germans” and not the Japanese. “The present citizen army is more interested in fighting for home and family than for Empire possessions,” noted the compilers of the reports. It was certainly clear that British troops exhibited “little enthusiasm for defending India for the Indians.” Soldiers asked themselves, as a later report outlined, “‘what do I get out of India?’ Is it worth defending it if, as we are told, we are going to hand it over to Congress when the war is over.’” Morale among British troops was, therefore, “a tender plant” and the “complete lack of real enthusiasm for service in India and for the necessity of beating the Japanese” was considered “almost universal” and not “a sound foundation upon which to base a prolonged campaign.” General Staff Branch found that Indian troops “on the Arakan front, and those on Lines of Communication” were “generally speaking” also in a not very “happy frame of mind”: “Men returning to back areas or proceeding on leave, are indulging in a good deal of gloomy, alarmist, or defeatist talk. The Japanese ‘I’ [Information] offensive has recently been intensified, and subversive propaganda has been instrumental in lowering morale, even to the extent of causing a few Indian ranks to desert to the enemy in the field.” By the end of the campaign, it was clear that “general confidence in the allied cause and in final victory” had been “shaken by the withdrawal from [the] Arakan, and [by] the crop of wild rumors which followed in its trail.” “An appreciable victory over the Japanese on the Eastern Frontier” was desperately needed to restore the prestige and morale of the Indian Army. They show that between February and May 1943, the sick rate jumped by 45 percent, from 68 per 1,000 to 98 per 1,000. It would rise again to 138 per 1,000 in July, a 75 percent increase from February 1943 (figures are not available for 1942). The medical services were so “overwhelmed” with cases of battle exhaustion, that 1 report pointed out that “no purpose would be served by counting psychiatric heads in this campaign. The whole of Fourteenth Indian Division was for practical purposes a psychiatric casualty.” As significant as these morale problems were, the army in Burma was also let down by its commanders. Clear direction had been distinctly lacking; 14th Indian Division’s Headquarters had been incapable of managing 9 whole brigades; remarkably it was only on 14 April that Lieutenant General William J. “Bill” Slim’s (August 6, 1891 – December 14, 1970) XV Corps Headquarters was activated to oversee the final phases of the disastrous campaign (much as had happened at the end of the 1st Burma campaign). Wavell unquestionably had to shoulder some of the blame too. He wrote to Brooke on May 22: “I knew the difficulties and dangers, since I was employing troops not fully trained or of best quality … We have found weakness in the present Indian Army which we knew to exist owing to the great expansion, but which are more pronounced than we realized.” Wavell had clearly overestimated the fighting abilities of his troops. It was time to face facts, and, as he told Brooke, “do our best to remedy” the situation. The same day, he wrote a letter to all officers serving in India Command. “It is most certainly not our way to lose heart when we have been worsted,” he affirmed. “We have never yet failed to avenge a defeat or to regain what we have lost. We must examine calmly and with confidence the reasons for our failure and work to remedy them before we fight the next round.” The remarkable turnaround that had happened in the desert now desperately needed to be replicated in the jungle. The British collapse in the Arakan over the next month was as bad as anything that had happened in Malaya or Burma. The only compensation, as Churchill noted sarcastically the day before he ordered Wavell home, was that the relatively small scale of the operations kept them from attracting much public notice. The Arakan campaign not only brought Wavell’s replacement by Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (June 21, 1884 – March 23, 1981), but Irwin’s removal from Eastern Army. He was replaced by Lieutenant General Sir George Giffard (September 27, 1886 – November 17, 1964), who had been 1 of the British Army’s progressives in the bleak years between the wars, and had come from West Africa, where he had been General Officer Commanding. A man totally lacking in charisma, he nonetheless, as Slim later said, “understood the fundamentals of war – that soldiers must be trained before they can fight, fed before they can march, and relieved before they are worn out.” This marked a great advance on the past. But the most important change was the emergence of Slim himself. At the end of the Arakan offensive, Irwin compounded his previous errors by trying to sack Slim, after Slim had saved what could be saved but in doing so had withdrawn farther than Irwin wished. This, fortunately, was aborted by Irwin’s own supercession. During the ensuing summer, Slim, still commanding XV Corps, mulling over the lessons of the retreat from Burma and the Arakan campaign, produced the formula that was to turn the tide. His ideas, his official biographer has written, “were bold but simple?” They were devised to counter an enemy whose reaction, made instinctive by training, was to bypass or infiltrate. In countries where forces are small and areas vast positions can always be turned. If the defender (who may of course be the attacker unexpectedly thrown on the defensive), holds well-stocked pivots of maneuver on approaches to vital areas the enemy will be forced to attack, to establish lines of communication to his infiltrating or outflanking forces. The pivots must then stand firm, supplied if necessary by air, and when the supply line of the infiltrators has been cut they can be destroyed by reserves: then a counteroffensive can be launched. The structure of Indian Army divisions was also changing during the summer and autumn of 1943, producing a force more adapted to the warfare Slim envisioned. In the aftermath of the 1941-42 disasters in Malaya and Burma, a conference in Delhi came to the obvious conclusion that tables of organization and equipment drawn up with the Middle East in mind produced fatally clumsy, road-bound units. As a solution, 2 changes were proposed. The 1st was the creation of Indian light divisions, with fewer men and vehicles – the latter all 4-wheel drive – and dependent largely on pack mule transport companies; the 2nd, the reduction of the degree of mechanization in some divisions, transforming them into “A & MT” (Animal and Motor Transport) divisions without reducing their strength as was done with the light divisions. 2 divisions were chosen for transformation into light divisions, and 4 became A & MT formations. Auchinleck took these changes a step further, in the direction of greater jungle mobility and the reduction of mechanical transport to the essential minimum, and that exclusively 4-wheel drive (made possible, of course, by a greater supply of such vehicles, especially the ubiquitous, and invaluable, jeep). The ground organization to support air supply, improvised in 1942 and greatly improved as a result of the experience gained in Chindit I, was also expanding as more air supply companies of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps were raised. Together, Slim’s new ideas, the new Army and new spirit that was emerging as a result of Auchinleck’s efforts and Major General Reginald Savory’s (July 26, 1894 − June 14, 1980) training. Responsibility for infantry training was also changed at the same time, a critically important matter if the new training scheme was to succeed. In the aftermath of the retreat from Burma in 1942, Wavell had created an Inspector of Infantry to tackle the problem of retraining the Indian Army to meet the Japanese. However, he had then filled the position with a very tired man, Major General J. Bruce Scott (December 25, 1892 – May 30, 1974), who had commanded the 1st Burma Division throughout the withdrawal. A capable officer, and certainly experienced in fighting the Japanese, he was unfortunately so worn out by the rigors of the campaign that he was not able to impart the necessary drive to the immense job of re-orienting the Indian Army’s training from the desert to the jungle. In the aftermath of the Arakan disaster, Wavell, rather late in the day, had recognized this and, on June 11, 1943, replaced Bruce Scott with a more dynamic man, Major General Reginald Savory, then commanding the 23rd Indian Division in Assam. As Inspector (changed after a few months to Director) of Infantry, Savory, with wide powers over training, organization, arms and equipment, played a critical role for the rest of the war. He kept in touch with changing tactical requirements by frequent visits to the front, and the programs run by his 2 training divisions were tough and realistic. This was supplemented when the troops reached their divisions in Burma, by highly specialized training to suit the particular circumstances in which the division was fighting. The end result of the process was soldiers ready, in Savory’s words, “to go anywhere and fight anything.” A similar training program was set up for British troops in India. In addition, 2 schools for officers were established in India to teach the latest tactical doctrine for war in Burma, and to emphasize the necessity to close cooperation between all arms. The revolution in training wrought by the reorganization of June 1943 and the hard work of Savory and his subordinates were the foundations for Slim’s great victories. When Auchinleck took over as commander-in-chief in late July, the renovation of the Indian Army was, therefore, already underway. Auchinleck saw that the pace did not slacken. The Intelligence School at Karachi (the location – 1 of the principal ports of embarkation for the Middle East – is significant) had concentrated largely, and incredibly, on the German and Italian Armies hitherto. Colonel Guy T. Wards (June 15, 1913 – August 5, 1989), a Japanese-speaking former military attaché in Tokyo, was brought in as Commandant, and the supply of relevantly trained intelligence officers quickly improved. Auchinleck also made changes in the welfare organizations and arrangements for the troops, as well as tackling vigorously the immense problem of malaria prevention and treatment, and seeing to the provision of a more varied diet of fresh foodstuffs. Obviously he did not do it all alone, but the impulsion was his, and the fact that much of this had not been put in hand before indicates that the change of commanders-in-chief was very timely. Of all these alterations, the medical improvements were not only the most striking but possibly the most important. New drugs, tighter discipline to ensure the troops actually took them, and DDT to destroy the sources of the disease produced dramatic results. The ratio of sick to wounded that stood at a 120 to 1 in 1943 dropped to 20 to 1 in 1944 and to 6 to 1 by the end of the war. The malaria rate dropped, during intense operations, from 84 percent of the strength of Eastern Army in 1943 to 1 per 1,000 per day in 14th Army in 1945. Without this reduction it is hard to see how Slim’s great campaigns of 1944-45 could have been sustained. As the basics – training, health, and welfare – began to raise morale, changes in commanders and tactical thinking laid the foundation for a future in which defeat would not again depress it. As Churchill and the British planners began to examine closely the requirements of both Anvil and Shingle Operations, the Anzio landing that Churchill was determined upon, it became apparent that the Mediterranean would require not most but all of the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command (SEAC) Lord Mountbatten’s (June 25, 1900 – August 27, 1979) amphibious resources. On December 30, the Chiefs of Staff withdrew what little had been left to SEAC after the 2nd Cairo conference. With this, SEAC was left with its Irakar offensive (Operation Cudgel), a minor advance in north Burma, whatever Stilwell’s Chinese could do – and Orde C. Wingate’s Chindits (February 26, 1903 – March 24, 1944). It was a program that, soberly considered, made no sense, except upon the premise that SEAC had to do something. None of these operations led the British anywhere they wanted to go. Imperial Japanese Army Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi’s (October 7, 1888 – August 2, 1966) expanded version of Plan 21, now known as the “U-Go” offensive. While the Japanese did not expect the“‘March on Delhi” actually to materialize, but any wavering in the morale of the Indian Army caused by the presence of the 1st Indian National Army Division, or any unrest Subhas Chandra Bose (January 23, 1897 – August 18, 1945) could spark off in India, would be pure gain. In its final form the Japanese offensive consisted of 2 separate but closely related operations. In the Arakan, the new 28th Army would mount an offensive (Ha-Go) against XV Corps, drawing in and pinning down Slim’s reserves. Then Mutaguchi, with 3 divisions, would destroy IV Corps in the Imphal plain, seizing the great supply depots there and depriving the British of their springboard for operations into Burma. While this was taking place, another new formation, 33rd Army, with 2 divisions, would hold off Stilwell and the Yunnan Chinese – if the latter should decide to move. The Japanese were working to very narrow administrative margins, frighteningly so in the case of the 15th Army, but Mutaguchi counted on the élan of his men to carry the day — after which he could subsist from captured British dumps. It was, after all, what had happened in 1941-42. It was Mutaguchi’s misfortune that the army he hoped to defeat no longer existed. Slim had made it plain on taking over in October 1943 that units cut off were henceforth to stand fast and rely on air supply. The changes in 14th Army organization and training, and the new spirit Auchinleck, Savory and Slim had fostered, were aimed at ensuring that when isolated units stood and fought, it would be to good effect. As signs of a Japanese offensive mounted, Slim ordered his Principal Administrative Officer, Major General Arthur H. I. Snelling (September 30, 1897 – December 30, 1965), to put the air supply organization on alert to supply XV Corps by air, and the packers began to work around the clock. Despite all the warnings the British had, however, the Japanese, using only 1 of 28th Army’s 2 divisions, opened their offensive in February with a stunning tactical surprise, slashing into the rear of the 7th Indian Division, overrunning the divisional headquarters, and then surrounding much of the XV Corps “tail” in what became known as the “Admin Box.” A year before, such a blow would have guaranteed a Japanese victory. Now the divisional commander, Major General F. W. Messervy (December 9, 1893 – February 2, 1974) — an old hand at having his headquarters overrun – the Germans had done it twice in North Africa, made his way into the Box, whose heterogeneous garrison of infantrymen, gunners, and rear-area troops formed a new version of the old square and stood firm. Messervy’s division went onto air supply, and, in 714 sorties over the next 5 weeks, the tireless Dakotas showered down 2,300 tons of everything from ammunition to mail, razor blades and SEAC, the theatre newspaper (the latter, edited by Lieutenant Colonel H. Frank Owen (November 4, 1905 – January 23, 1979), Royal Tank Regiment, formerly of the Evening Standard, was 1 of Mountbatten’s morale-building innovations). The degree of air superiority necessary for uninterrupted aerial resupply had been assured when, in November 1943, the Supermarine Spitfire finally reached South-East Asia and the RAF at last had an aircraft capable of outmatching the A6M Mitsubishi 0. The incredible valor, which had served the Japanese so well before, now turned against them. Without armor or air support, with only a week’s supplies of his own and deprived by the stubborn defense of the Admin Box of those he hoped to capture, the Japanese commander battered on as the traditions of his service required, while Slim brought up 4 divisions to hammer the Japanese against the anvil provided by his 2 forward divisions. Slim later wrote for the official historians an account of the mood in which he fought this battle: “This was to be our first major test against the Japanese in our comeback, and I was not prepared at that stage to undertake it on equal terms. I wanted the greatest superiority I could get. Completely to destroy a Japanese offensive would, I thought, have the greatest moral effect on our troops.” He accomplished what he set out to do. The Japanese force attacking the “Admin Box” alone lost 5,000 of its 8,000 men. For the 1st time since December 8, 1941, the Indian Army had won an unequivocal victory. It was the turning point of the war in Burma. Air supply played a critical role in the Arakan victory and this prefigured the future, as did the problems in arranging it. The resources available to Troop Carrier Command’s 6 squadrons could not meet all the demands made on their 126 planes. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1699.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.85 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 3747 x 2769 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Number Nine Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | Arakan |
| Country | Burma |
| Archive | Imperial War Museum |
| Record Number | IND 3457 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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