The Liberation of Burma

ALMOST TWENTY MONTHS have passed since General Joseph Stillwell emerged from the steaming jungles of northern Burma with the vow to return at the earliest possible moment. For over a year and a half his friends and admirers have eagerly anticipated the fulfillment of his desire. Few expected action within the first year-there was too much to be done. Many, however, counted on decisive action during the current dry season, and when Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed to supreme command, the D-day was thought to be at hand. But two of the six dry-season months have passed and a growing impatience is manifest. Some attribute the delay not to military, but to political reasons, and a plausible case can be made for that contention, but the military factors should not be lightly dismissed. The fact that natural barriers in northern Burma stopped the powerful Japanese drive of 1942 is evidence of the difficulties with which any army in that area must contend. The most obvious of these difficulties is the rugged nature of the terrain of western Burma. The Japanese stopped about fifty to sixty miles short of the border of Assam, which permitted us and our allies to use the latter as a base. From Assam to the Irrawaddi Valley is only one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles airline, but a succession of mountain ranges makes the surface distance much farther. Numerous rivers add to the difficulties of movement

Ancient history · Liberation · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Chemistry · Global Political and Social Dynamics · History · South Asian Studies and Conflicts