General Bill Slim

"There is only one principle of war, that's this: hit the other man, as quickly as you can, as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he isn't looking." General Bill Slim

In the early part of 1944, the Second World War was at its height. The Germans, Italians and Japanese were fighting against Britain, the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union. At this stage in the war, the British and Americans were getting ready to invade France and attack the Germans who were occupying it. In Russia, the ice and snow were melting fast ready for a summer of hard fighting. In the Pacific, the U.S. Navy, Marines and Army were attacking one after another of the little islands occupied by the Japanese in 1942. The cinema news was full of terrible scenes of war and destruction.

At the place where Burma and India meet, on the Bay of Bengal and northwards into the Assam hills, the war was quieter but this was just the calm before the storm. In 1942, the battle-hardened Japanese soldiers had pushed the British and Indian forces up Burma and just into India and then stopped. The Japanese knew that, although the Anglo-Indian forces were weak and had lost hope, they themselves would need a long rest and reinforcements before starting to invade India.

For the next two years, there were no major battles as both sides trained and prepared for the war that must come but, in March 1944, with things going badly for them in China and in the Pacific, the Japanese decided that the time had come for the attack on India.

The general in charge of British and Indian forces in this part of the world was Bill Slim. Once he learned that the Japanese attack had begun, he hurried forwards to organise and encourage the soldiers he had spent two years training for this moment.

Slim's men loved this big, friendly and very democratic man of action. In this war, the armies were huge and there were soldiers from every class of society. And the soldiers, however good, were mostly not professional military men. Slim had what is called 'the common touch', an ability immediately to make friends with men of all colours and classes. These skills would help him a lot in the crisis that was coming.

The Japanese, repeating what had happened in 1942, advanced quickly which left 'pockets' of British and Indian soldiers behind enemy lines. In 1942, these 'left-behind' units either surrendered to the Japanese or tried to get back to their own side. Now, they knew better. Those who surrendered would suffer much worse than a quick death in battle – the Japanese often tortured and beheaded their prisoners. Soldiers who ran probably couldn't get to safety through the many kilometres of thick jungle. Now, in 1944, there was a new way of fighting.

Soldiers tried to get into a good defensive position (e.g. a hilltop) and hold off the Japanese until others could attack them from behind. This tactic also forced the Japanese to slow their general attack and leave large numbers of their soldiers where they could be attacked from the air or by long range artillery with the soldiers on the hilltop able to radio information on Japanese positions back to the pilots and gunners. This was the new style of fighting that Slim had carefully developed and it was successful, as the number of Japanese soldiers killed and wounded in these hill fights began to increase greatly. British and Indian losses were also quite high though.

The new tactics stopped the Japanese advance and Slim went on the attack immediately and, in the following ten months, completely destroyed the Japanese Army in Burma.

Slim was not the typical British general in many ways. He was born in 1890 in Birmingham. His family was lower middle class and Catholic. In late 19th century Britain, almost all army officers were from the Protestant upper classes and certainly very few were Catholic. In those days, Catholics were not allowed into many university colleges, top schools or government jobs, including the job of Prime Minister.

Slim went to a very good school in Birmingham and was a good student. However, his family only had enough money to send his older brother to university so Bill left school at 18 to become a primary school teacher. Normally, the officer training corps at Birmingham University would be only for the students but Bill's older brother got him in and so he started on the long journey to becoming a general. Things might have taken longer but, in 1914, the First World War began and Slim was made an officer and sent to fight. He was a brave and very skilled soldier and was twice wounded in battle.

After the war, he stayed in the army in various parts of the British Empire. By the time the Second World War started in 1939, he was already a colonel. His first fight came when the British moved to get the Italians out of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), which they had attacked and colonised in 1936. They were successful in this but Slim was wounded again, something very unusual for an officer of Slim's rank. It was because of his belief in leading from the front. He also fought in the Middle East as an officer of the Indian Army but it was his job as head of the British and Indian forces in Burma that was his greatest success.

So, what made him such a great leader of men in war? Above all, his humanity and obvious love of his men. His social and religious background made him accepted by his men. He was a great natural diplomat who managed the officers under him very well. In a war where supplies and logistics were as important as blood and courage, Slim was an excellent organiser but, more important, he was an excellent military tactician. He taught his men to stand and fight the Japanese from a strong defensive position and it was he who had the idea of keeping these soldiers supplied by air and defended by long-range artillery. By the time he had won in 1945, he had reinvented modern jungle warfare.

From 1953 to 1959, he was governor of Australia where he was very popular with the Australians for being a real war hero and a normal man they could talk to. He died in 1970, much missed by the men he had led twenty-five years earlier.