Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945 Paperback – February 9, 2000

An amazing record of the campaign which saw the total defeat of the Japanese army. The insight shown by Slim in his description of the enemy is masterful and typical of the only man in history who began as a Private and finished as C.I.G.S. of the combined British forces. Field Marshal Slim took the salute at my "Passing Out Parade" at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in December 1950 (Intake 6,) Even when he had reached the pinnacle of rank in the British Army, he never lost the 'common touch'. Lord Farrow.

This is a rare work in that it covers military battles from the viewpoint of a general officer, and a humble one at that. It is superbly written and is a semester of history on that theater in WWII. I understand why it sold well when published, and why people like Montgomery didn't like it.

This memoir is rated as one of the very best from WW II. Bill Slim was an awesome British general, and his story is well told
and worth reading. I think it would have been better had it been shorter and more focused. Overall it's an amazing account of how he rebuilt the 14th Army and crushed the Japanese in Burma. It's a theater most Americans know nothing about, and it was the site of several key victories over the Japanese forces. A brilliant memoir by a man at the center of it all.

Field Marshal Slim's book is an excellent guide to the fighting in Burma in World War II. He focuses on his experiences first as a corps commander and then army commander, explaining how the British were defeated and chased from Burma, the steps he took to restore morale amongst his troops and convince them they could defeat the Imperial Japanese Army, and then completely destroyed the Japanese forces opposing him.
He also discusses many of the other Allied commanders in the theatre, Such as General Stilwell, Admiral Montbatten and General Wingate, discussing their plans and theories from his unique viewpoint of a commander fighting the same enemies.

One of the great military histories. Disarmingly honest about his own decisions, right and wrong, but fair and professional in his assessments of events and the actions of both sides. His comments pn the actions of some Japanese commanders and their ultimate failure has interesting parallels with our current experience of terrorism.

It has become fashionable inside the business community to laud the efforts of certain military leaders and their emulation as a route towards supposed success. And so we have biographies on Patton and Schwartzkof purporting certain lessons that "business people" can learn from the greats --- though in the case above, the one a prima donna, and the latter achieving the military equivalant of a heavywieght prizefighter beating up a toddler, one wonders what we are learning.

Slim will probably never figure in a business seminar, but he certainly should. He was a person schooled in utter defeat and the lessons it teaches people. These lessons expressed in Slim's downhome, honest self-effacing style are really things that one can imbibe -- and learn a great chunk of military history to boot.

Slim was wary of theory over experience. Even in defeat he tried things first to see if they would work after making plans to implement then. During his retreat from Burma in 1942, he ran a test convoy up the roads with exactly the same wieght vehicles as he would withdraw in the future. This allowed him to see what would happen when he eventually had to retreat down the same road -- the importance of the dry run.

For Wingate fans you will find no blind adulation. Slim rightly recognised from a aerial perpective the waste of inserting men 100s of mile behind Japanese lines, rightfully insisting that they be better used and less expensively equipped as a regular fighting division. In the end he was proved right. A lesson in efficiency planning --- getting the best bang for you buck.

Slim kept a lean chain of command and did away with several levels inside his Army HQ, he refused to have a Chief-of-Staff as had recently been adopted by the British from the Americans. He was able to also cobble together chains of command that may have looked wierd on paper, but worked. His relationship with "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell the ascerbic American General who hated "limeys." Makes great reading. Slim alone in the entire British Command could handle him.

Personal courage was also not found wanting. He was frequently near the front and made it his duty to make sure that he had strong intelligence of the Japanese and a personal respect for them as fighting "insects." Noticably disturbed by Japanese attrocities against prisoners and wounded, he continually uses words of respect when describing Japanese resistance which was fantatical, yet "magnificent." Others, such a Wingate would learn this later in hard lessons.

Besides the fighting, Stillwell had to supply an Army spread over 800 miles of Jungle at the end of supply lines thousands of miles long, with virtually no roads, in some cases only jungle tracks operating as the lines of communication. He did this a large part with American help and British self-sufficiency. But is was Slim's decisions that allowed those best suited for the positions to get on with the business of supply. And where he could not purchase such equipment, they improvised, such as in rivercraft and jute parachutes.

Most importantly he recognised that one can never insist on 100% perfection in battle (nor business),both are adaptive to the situation and one perpares as best as one can, but it is more important to plan for imperfection and dealing with situations, rather than to insist on everything going to plan. Slim knew that the Japanese in Arakan and Imphal would cut off the forward British/Indian Army elements. He made no plan to hold at all places. He realised however that if British troops could pull into tough defensive positions supplied by air that mobile forces striking from the rear would eventually exhaust the Japanese offensive as they outstretched their lines of communication.

Slim has probably the ultimate recipe to maintain espirit de corps: it is well laid out and easy to understand. He identifies it as a common goal that everyone can buy into. He states that the material needs of troops for good morale are "last, important, but clearly last." He realised that fancy weapons, or fantastic incentive programmes can only supplement morale, the cannot built it.

There is also the combat story between the covers and Slim's personal confrontation with his inner being, failure has a way of stripping away a man's defences and forcing him to look at what he really is... and Slim was obviously on the edge at least once. But then he pulls it together and soldiers on... one is enlightened by his honesty and the plain humanity of the man, a trait almost never found in the overt ego-feeding extravaganzas of business and military biographies stocking the shelves of bookstore "Business Sections".

A great biography that entertains with majesty and adventure and teaches us something about the rigours of command and how good leaders lead, without the theory, without the ego -- just Bill Slim, simple teacher from Northern England who found himself a soldier and, through Defeat turned his forgotten Army and forgotten campaign into the western allies greatest Victory....but if the US could come close to producing leaders half as great.

I am a history buff, but I have never read much about Southeast Asia. It was very interesting.

Returned. Not sufficient photographs. This book was purchased for a presentation to someone whose grandfather had served in Burma. Not suitable for this. Have now purchased "Burma, The Forgotten War" by Jon Latimer. More details, photographs, hard cover.