World War II and the Far East

Introduction

The Japanese Blitzkrieg started on 7/8 December 1941. While the US Pacific Fleet was bombed at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese started landings at Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand. Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942. By 8 March, the Japanese had occupied Rangoon, and British and Indian soldiers retreated into eastern India. By April, Japan had achieved the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. After being worsted in Midway (June 1942), the Japanese were not in a position to make any offensive move in the Far East. 1943 was a year of stalemate. In February and March 1944, the Japanese launched two offensives at Arakan and in northeast India. The revitalized Commonwealth forces in India inflicted the greatest land defeat on the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). By mid-1944, the Japanese were in full retreat. The dropping of atom bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war on 15 August. This essay does not take into account the Pacific theater, where mainly US forces fought the Japanese. Here the objective is to analyze to what extent Japanese success in mainland Asia during the first half of the war was the result of Japanese superiority, or of the inferiority of the Allied forces, and to what extent the success of the Allied forces from 1944 on was the product of materialschlacht— the application of superior firepower and aggressive small unit tactics. Further, the importance of Chindits and American assistance to the Kuomintang within the broader context of the Allied policy of defeating Japan is also assessed. Finally, the contributions of the Asians who were hitherto subject peoples of the Western maritime powers, and the impact of the war on them, are also noted.

General Overviews

Thorne 1986 provides a snapshot of the domestic societies of the Asian states in turmoil under the pressure of war. An introductory account of the war in the Pacific and in the Far East is available in Willmott 1999, which links Japanese expansion in China with Japan’s entry into the global war. Credit is due to Willmott for contextualizing the war in the broader economic and political context. While Willmott mostly focuses on the Western perspective, Ienaga 1978 gives an overview of the war in the Far East and the Pacific from the Japanese side. Ienaga emphasizes totalitarianism in the domestic context, which gave rise to Japanese expansionism in the foreign sphere. The Japanese militarists portrayed World War II to the domestic audience as a war to solve the “China problem.” Paine 2012 focuses on the political, diplomatic, and military impact of Japan’s China War within the overall context of World War II. Both Ienaga and Willmott accept that for Japan, the war started in 1931 and continued until 1945. Paine traces the origins of Japan’s war in Asia to 1911 and considers the Pacific War as an extension of Tokyo’s China War. While Hastings 2007 claims that the land war in Asia was irrelevant to Japan’s fortunes during World War II, the anthology Marston 2010 and Paine’s monograph give equal importance to the Pacific theater and the land war in Asia. The following online resources are also available: Burmastar, Chindits, and National Archives.

Burmastar.
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An interesting site for getting information about British soldiers who fought in Burma.
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Chindits.
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For beginners, this site provides introductory information about Wingate’s force.
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Hastings, Max. Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45. London: HarperCollins, 2007.
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Hastings gives a balanced overview of the strategic decisions and tactical moves of the armies and navies engaged in the Pacific and in mainland Asia. However, the author makes the controversial point that ultimately the land war in which Japan engaged in the various regions in Asia was irrelevant in the broader context.
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Ienaga, Saburo. The Pacific War: 1931–45. Translated by Frank Baldwin. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
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Ienaga connects the failure of democracy at home and imperialism in Korea and China with Japan’s catastrophe. Rather than the military aspects, this volume emphasizes the sufferings of common people during the conflagration. Originally published in 1968 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten).
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Marston, Daniel, ed. The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Oxford: Osprey, 2010.
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This collection of thirteen essays with color maps gives equal attention to the air, land, and naval warfare that occurred from Hawaii and Midway in the Pacific to Arakan and Ledo in the west. The contributors take the position that the Pacific theater and the Asian war were equally important to Japan’s fate. Originally published in 2005.
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National Archives.
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Several British Cabinet papers related to the Far East can be downloaded. Moreover, researchers can also search the relevant Cabinet documents and order photocopies of them. This site is a must for researchers.
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Paine, S. C. M. The Wars for Asia: 1911–1949. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139105835Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces the linkages between Japan’s ambition in China and Tokyo’s broader goals in Asia.
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Thorne, Christopher. The Far Eastern War: States and Societies, 1941–45. London: Unwin, 1986.
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Though a bit dated, still the best wide-ranging survey of matters military and nonmilitary.
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Willmott, H. P. The Second World War in the Far East. London: Cassell, 1999.
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This book is beautifully illustrated with diagrams, charts, and color photographs and accompanied by a highly informative narrative. It is an essential volume for the undergraduate students.
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Journals

While the focus of Modern Asian Studies is on the general social, political, and economic contexts of modern Asia, the Journal of Military History and War in History concentrate on the theory and praxis of war. War and Society attempts to contextualize warfare broadly. The Oracle is a specialist journal for the Indian National Army (INA).

Journal of Military History.
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Published quarterly. Carries original research articles mainly on the conduct of war.
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Modern Asian Studies.
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Published by Cambridge University Press six times a year. This journal contains specialized essays on diplomatic, social, political, and economic aspects of Asian countries. Some of the essays touch on military aspects.
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Oracle.
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Published irregularly by the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, this is essential for those interested in the Indian National Army set up by the Japanese. This journal carries both articles by present-day scholars as well as pieces written by Japanese and Indian officers who collaborated in setting up the INA.
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War in History.
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Published four times annually, it is useful for both graduates and undergraduates.
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War and Society.
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Published twice annually, this journal is good for broader understanding of modern warfare.
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Grand Strategies in Conflict

Grand strategy, or national security policy, is an amalgam of politics, diplomacy, economic factors, cultural ethos, and military strategy. Dockrill 2004 maintains that Britain depended on its empire for trade and manpower but never allowed the empire to define the security policy of the mother country. As early as 1920, Britain lost the status of the strongest naval power to the United States. From the 1930s, Britain adopted a defensive strategy in the Far East and depended on the United States to deter Japan. In August 1943, the United States and Britain set up the South-East Asia Command (SEAC). After the formation of SEAC, writes Mark Jacobsen, Churchill was more interested in launching amphibious operations against Singapore and Indonesia than in the overland conquest of Burma (Jacobsen 1991). However, a shortage of landing craft and the Japanese offensive in Burma in early 1944 forced Churchill’s hand. General Hideki Tojo played the premier role in formulating Japan’s grand strategy. In 1941, the Japanese emperor ordered Prime Minister Tojo to become the War Minister in order to restrain the aggressiveness of the army. Tojo seized the post of Chief of the Army General Staff so that he could participate in the meetings of the Imperial General Headquarters. Tojo coordinated the contradictory policies of the various components of the Japanese military establishment. While the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) wanted a showdown with the United States Navy (USN), the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) was more interested in China and Southeast Asia. Tobe 2004 shows that Tojo knew when to cut his losses. For instance, against the General Staff’s wish, he ordered the withdrawal from Guadalcanal in February 1943. Akagi 2004 notes the conceptual failure of Japan’s wartime leadership. Japan entered World War II with a “limited war” perspective and failed to conceptualize a total war leading to unconditional surrender of the enemy. The Japanese leaders assumed that after their capturing the resource-rich areas, the United States’ military strength would be dissipated in a series of campaigns and then Washington would be forced to negotiate.

Akagi, Kanji. “Leadership in Japan’s Planning for War against Britain.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 53–63. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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This essay shows that while formulating grand strategy, the Japanese leaders were aware of Japan’s material inferiority vis-à-vis the combined strength of its opponents.
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Dockrill, Saki. “Britain’s Grand Strategy and Anglo-American Leadership in the War against Japan.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 6–24. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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For Britain, writes Dockrill, the empire in the Far East came third after home defense and the Mediterranean.
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Jacobsen, Mark. “Winston Churchill and the Third Front.” Journal of Strategic Studies 14 (1991): 337–362.
DOI: 10.1080/01402399108437455Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Jacobsen shows that Churchill’s grandiose plans for launching amphibious operations in Southeast Asia were impracticable.
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Tobe, Ryoichi. “Tojo Hideki as a War Leader.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 25–37. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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Tobe portrays the functioning of Japan’s foremost warlord.
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Fall of Hong Kong, Malaya, and Singapore

Lindsay and Harris 2006 claims that static linear defense in Hong Kong was penetrated by infiltration and flanking attacks by the Japanese. On Christmas Day 1941, Hong Kong, with 12,000 British, Indian and Canadian soldiers, surrendered to the Japanese. Britain’s War Cabinet wrote off Hong Kong as indefensible in case of a Japanese attack. However, Singapore was another matter. When General Percival surrendered Singapore, both Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Chief of Imperial General Staff Field-Marshal Alanbrooke were appalled. The British commanders’ assumption was that Singapore could not be attacked from the landward side, and that the naval fortress could be held for a long time against a Japanese assault. Nevertheless, Singapore’s defense, backed by 50,000 Indians and 40,000 Britons, Australians, and New Zealanders, collapsed against a numerically inferior Japanese force. Owen 2001 blames the higher echelons of the army and navy for underestimating the Japanese troops and their aircraft. Farrell 2006 blames Britain’s faulty grand strategy for the debacle at Singapore. Without a strong fleet, the base was useless. Despite not possessing a fleet, Britain decided to mount a stiff fight in Singapore in order to keep Australia and New Zealand within the orbit of the British Empire. Farrell’s analysis is in tune with the interpretation advanced by Callahan 2001. Without the fleet and adequate aircraft, Singapore was vulnerable. Given his European commitments, Churchill was unwilling and unable to send substantial air and naval assets to Singapore. However, imperial prestige forced the War Cabinet to hold on to Singapore. Nevertheless as Day writes, the Australians were not convinced of British sincerity in strengthening the defense of the Far East (Day 1986). In general, military officers, and following them, historians, blame the British civil administration of Malaya for sloth and inefficiency that hastened the collapse. A British diplomat, Andrew Gilchrist, and Carl Bridge offer an alternative (Gilchrist 1992, Bridge 2006). Both agree that British defeat in Malaya was not a foregone conclusion. Gilchrist blames the army, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force (RAF) commanders for not planning jointly and pooling their resources. For inadequate training and tactical deficiencies of the Commonwealth troops during the Malayan campaign, see Warren 2006 and Thompson 2013. Most of the literature on Singapore has been written by the Western officers and scholars. An exception is Tsuji 2007, by the Chief of the Operations and Planning Staff of the 25th Japanese Army during the Malayan campaign. Bold leadership and realistic training, claims Tsuji, saw the Japanese troops through the campaign.

Bridge, Carl. “The Malayan Campaign, 1941–42, in International Perspective.” In The Second World War. Edited by Nick Smart, 91–104. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006.
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This article argues that the British Empire had the wherewithal to defend Malaya, but the British were outgeneraled, outfought, and outwitted.
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Callahan, Raymond. The Worst Disaster: The Fall of Singapore. Singapore: Cultured Lotus, 2001.
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Callahan highlights the contradictions in Churchill’s strategy as regards Singapore. The Japanese threat was underestimated, and simultaneously Britain expected American aid in case the Japanese undertook a “mad dog act.” Even when the situation became hopeless, Churchill decided to hold onto Singapore as long as possible in order to impress the Australians and the Americans. Originally published in 1977 (Newark: University of Delaware Press).
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Day, David. “Anzacs on the Run: The View from Whitehall, 1941–42.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 14 (1986): 187–202.
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This essay argues that the Australians complained bitterly about Britain’s “Hitler First” strategy and demanded that the Allies concentrate on the Far East rather than the Mediterranean.
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Farrell, Brian, P. The Defence and Fall of Singapore: 1940–42. Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2006.
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Farrell acidly comments that Singapore was actually lost at the planning table. The Singapore catastrophe was the price of high politics of imperial defense by pretense rather than muscle.
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Gilchrist, Andrew. Malaya 1941: The Fall of a Fighting Empire. London: Robert Hale, 1992.
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This memoir challenges the inevitability of British defeat in Malaya. Gilchrist asserts that the prime minister of Thailand was eager that the British should activate MATADOR. A preemptive strike into Thailand would have dislocated the Japanese Southern Army’s plan to capture Singapore by advancing through Malaya.
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Lindsay, Oliver, and John R. Harris. The Battle for Hong Kong 1941–45: Hostage to Fortune. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006.
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An example of “history from below.” John R. Harris, a corporal of the Royal Engineers stationed at Hong Kong, emphasizes the Japanese outflanking tactics and night attacks that crumpled British defense of the island. Originally published in 2005 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press).
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Owen, Frank. The Fall of Singapore. London: Penguin, 2001.
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In his narrative, Owen blames every rung of the command ladder from top to bottom but has sympathy for both the Indian and British rank and file. Originally published in 1960 (London: Michael Joseph).
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Thompson, Peter. The Battle for Singapore: The True Story of the Greatest Catastrophe of World War II. London: Piatkus, 2013.
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The running narrative gives a blow-by-blow account of the Commonwealth disaster that ended at the Ford factory in Singapore. The author argues that the disintegration of the Australian units in the later stages of the campaign is overstressed by British officers and authors. Originally published in 2005.
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Tsuji, Masanobu. Japan’s Greatest Victory, Britain’s Worst Defeat from the Japanese Perspective: The Capture of Singapore, 1942. Translated by Margaret E. Lake. Staplehurst, UK: Spellmount, 2007.
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The best operational-tactical account available from the Japanese side. The author claims that the Japanese soldiers were not veterans of jungle warfare. Rather, the IJA took bold risks. Unorthodox tactics, high morale, and army-navy cooperation gave victory to the IJA.
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Warren, Alan. Britain’s Greatest Defeat: Singapore, 1942. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006.
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Focuses on the tactical incompetence of the Commonwealth troops both in the fighting on the Malayan mainland and also in “fortress” Singapore. Originally published in 2002 in hardcover.
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Retreat and Reconquest of Burma

Superior tactics, air superiority, and high morale enabled the numerically inferior Japanese troops to drive the Commonwealth soldiers from Burma. The Japanese excelled in establishing roadblocks against the road-bound British divisions, and even Slim 2009 accepts that the lightly equipped Japanese soldiers’ ability to move through dense jungle was marvelous. Warren 2011 shows the speed and mobility of the IJA in their advance from Thailand up to Mandalay. The First Arakan Offensive (December 1942–January 1943) proved to be a defeat for the Commonwealth troops. From mid-1944, the military balance shifted against Japan along the Burma-India theater. By then, the Commonwealth forces numbered more than 600,000 men. Complete air superiority, adequate supplies (Dunlop 2004, Dunlop 2009), and Japanese overconfidence resulted in the collapse of the IJA’s HA-GO (Arakan) and U-GO (Imphal-Kohima) offensives. The principal weakness of Renya Mutaguchi’s troops, as Arakawa 2004 notes, was lack of logistical support. Detailed planning and new training of the Allied land force eroded Japanese superiority in infantry combat. Allen 2002 provides much information on the tactical and operational aspects of the war in Burma. Latimer 2004 portrays the conflict through the eyes of the common soldiers. The latest work on the siege of Kohima (22 March–6 June 1944) is Keane 2010, which challenges the established wisdom (first propounded by Slim) that the commander of the 31st Japanese Division, Lieutenant-General Kotuku Sato, was incompetent. Keane asserts that Sato was a humane and pragmatic general who realized the limitations imposed on the Japanese by inadequate logistics. Sato’s troops lacked transportation and supplies to reach the Dimapur railhead. Lyman 2011 describes the series of hard-fought small-unit actions that characterized the battlefield around Imphal and Kohima.

Allen, Louis. Burma: The Longest War, 1941–45. London: Phoenix, 2002.
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Allen’s bulky monograph is a comprehensive account of the Burma campaign. Originally published in 1984 (London: J. M. Dent).
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Arakawa, Kenichi. “Japanese War Leadership in the Burma Theatre: The Imphal Operation.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 105–122. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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The Imphal offensive, born out of desperation due to continuous defeats in the Pacific, lacked enough logistical and air support to succeed.
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Dunlop, Graham. “British Tactical Command and Leadership in the Burma Campaign, 1941–1945.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 88–104. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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An analytical piece which shows that from platoon to corps level, British tactics and leadership improved considerably in 1944.
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Dunlop, Graham. Military Economics, Culture and Logistics in the Burma Campaign, 1942–45. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009.
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Victory in Burma was possible, concludes Dunlop, owing to the emergence of an effective and elaborate logistical infrastructure in India.
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Keane, Fergal. Road of Bones: The Siege of Kohima 1944—The Epic Story of the Last Great Stand of Empire. London: Harper, 2010.
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Keane portrays the siege with accounts of both the British and Japanese soldiers who were at the “hell hole” of Imphal.
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Latimer, Jon. Burma: The Forgotten War. London: John Murray, 2004.
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Latimer’s running narrative emphasizing small unit actions gives due importance to the Indians who constituted largest component of the Commonwealth force during the retreat and reconquest of Burma.
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Lyman, Robert. Japan’s Last Bid for Victory: The Invasion of India 1944. Barnsley, UK: Praetorian, 2011.
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Despite the title of the monograph, the author narrates the limited aim of the 1944 Japanese offensive along the India-Burma border.
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Slim, William Joseph. Defeat into Victory. London: Pan, 2009.
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One of the best accounts of the retreat and subsequent reconquest of Burma. Field-Marshal Viscount Slim never overemphasizes his own role and takes into account generalship and logistics while explaining the Japanese debacle. Originally published in 1956 (London: Cassell).
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Warren, Alan. Burma 1942: The Road from Rangoon to Mandalay. London: Continuum, 2011.
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Interesting narrative account showing how the IJA outfought the British and Indian soldiers during its advance from the Thailand-Burma border to central Burma in the first half of 1942.
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China and Stilwell

While British historians are scathing about General Joseph W. Stilwell (nicknamed “Vinegar Joe”), American historians are more sympathetic toward him. Stilwell was sent by General Marshall to protect the supply route to China. Goods were offloaded to the Rangoon docks and then carried to Lashio. From there the Burma Road stretched for seven hundred miles through the jungle-clad mountains to Kunming, the capital of Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime. Once Lashio was captured (29 June 1942), the Americans started building a new Burma-China road from Dimapur to Ledo to Kunming. Until the road was ready, American cargo aircraft flew over the Himalaya to Kunming. Webster 2004 elaborates on Stilwell’s role in building and protecting the new Burma-China road. Stilwell’s confrontation with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek was over the issue of the release of Chinese troops for fighting the Japanese in north Burma. The unwillingness of Chiang to mobilize fully against the Japanese in Burma was due to the presence of his Communist rivals and the Japanese in the north. Tuchman 1972 attempts to put US policy and its agent on the spot, posing Stilwell against the Chinese backdrop. Both the Nationalists and the Communists believed in the role of military force for achieving political goals. Such an ideological climate, claims McCord 1996, aided the emergence of the warlords. Young 2007 asserts that China was at the heart of Japanese strategy during World War II. British and American military officers during World War II assumed that the Japanese failure to win in China before 1939 reflected low combat effectiveness of the IJA. It never crossed their minds that the KMT (Nationalist) forces might have improved their combat effectiveness during the 1930s. By 1939, Japan had about 800,000 soldiers in China. Yamaguchi 2012 argues that the Japanese units in China failed to address the dual challenge of conventional war and unconventional threat posed by the KMT and the Red Chinese forces. MacKinnon 1996 proves this point by making a case study of the battle of Wuhan (January–October 1938). The IJA suffered so heavily that it decided not to pursue the Nationalist forces but instead turned toward Mongolia, which set the stage for the battle of Khalkhin-Gol (Nomonhan for the Japanese). About 600,000 Soviet soldiers were deployed in the Far East. While the Soviets, according to Sella 1983, had 2,500 aircraft in the Far East, the Kwantung army had a mere 180 machines. The battle lasted from 20 August to 16 September 1939 and resulted in the death of 25,000 Japanese and 10,000 Soviet soldiers. Drea 2005 provides a worm’s-eye view of the confrontation through the records of 2/28th Infantry of the IJA. Boyd 1981 argues that when, in the wake of Operation Typhoon, Joachim von Ribbentrop encouraged Japan to attack the Soviet Union in the Far East, the IJA remembered Khalkhin-Gol. Tokyo chose instead the Southern Strategy, an advance into Southeast Asia. Even after the beginning of the Pacific War, the China front (like Germany’s Eastern Front) continued to tie up large numbers of IJA’s ground units. The best study for this aspect remains Peattie, et al. 2011.

Boyd, Carl. “The Berlin-Tokyo Axis and Japanese Military Initiative.” Modern Asian Studies 15 (1981): 311–338.
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Boyd argues that between 1936 and 1941, Nazi Germany’s foreign policy crucially shaped Japanese moves.
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Drea, Edward J. Nomonhan: Japanese-Soviet Tactical Combat 1939. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005.
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Drea shows the incapability of the IJA’s force structure and doctrine to confront the Soviet armored juggernaut in the wide-open plains of Mongolia. Originally published in 1981 (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute).
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MacKinnon, Stephen. “The Tragedy of Wuhan, 1938.” Modern Asian Studies 30 (1996): 931–943.
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This article brings into perspective the great land battle that occurred between the Japanese and Chiang’s force. The KMT army was no paper tiger.
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McCord, Edward. “Warlords against Warlordism: The Politics of Anti-Militarism in Early Twentieth-Century China.” Modern Asian Studies 30 (1996): 795–827.
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00016802Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
McCord emphasizes the ideological consensus among all the political groups about the necessity of maintaining warlords for achieving political goals.
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Peattie, Mark, Edward Drea, and Hans Van De Ven, eds. The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
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The twenty essays here provide a detailed analysis of the tactical, technical, and operational aspects of Japanese campaigns in China. Definitely the best volume on IJA’s China campaign.
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Sella, Amnon. “Khalkhin-Gol: The Forgotten War.” Journal of Contemporary History 18 (1983): 651–687.
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A concise account, giving an idea of the organization of the Soviet and Kwantung armies and the tactics they employed.
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Tuchman, Barbara. Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911–1945. New York: Bantam, 1972.
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Though a bit dated, this bulky volume is still worth reading for its placing of Stilwell in the Chinese context.
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Webster, Donovan. The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theatre in World War II. New York: Perennial, 2004.
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Donovan claims that Stilwell did all the fighting, and Claire Lee Chennault (commander of the China Air Task Force) engaged in political intrigues in league with Chiang Kai-Shek.
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Yamaguchi, Noburu. “An Unexpected Encounter with Hybrid Warfare: The Japanese Experience in North China, 1937–1945.” In Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present. Edited by Williamson Murray and Peter R. Mansoor, 225–253. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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The Japanese Army focused only on brute force but, writes Yamaguchi, failed to address the issue of ideological war in order to win the “hearts and minds” of the Chinese.
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Young, Louise. “Japan’s Wartime Empire in China.” In The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919–39. Edited by Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, 327–345. Cambridge: German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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Young claims that Japan’s central objective during World War II was to establish a colonial empire in China.
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Wingate and the Chindits

In 1943, after the stalemate at Arakan, the British looked for a savior on the Burma front. For many, the savior came in the form of “onion-eating” Major-General Orde Wingate (b. 1903–d. 1944). Initially, he was pushed by Wavell. Later Wingate caught Churchill’s fancy. Wingate was the creator of the Chindits (derived from the Burmese word chinthe, which refers to the lion statues at the gates of Burma’s Buddhist temples). The Chindits were designed to function deep within Japanese territory in Burma. Even now, the soldiers who fought in Burma and the historians are arguing about the significance of Wingate. One group (Slim 2009, cited in Retreat and Reconquest of Burma; Bidwell 1979) claims that Wingate was a sociopath and achieved nothing. The Long Range Penetration Group (LRPG) did not pose any serious challenge to Renya Mutaguchi’s three divisions, which launched the critical U-Go offensive in March–April 1944. Rather, Wingate’s LRPG consumed precious air assets and trained infantry that could have been used with greater effect in the Imphal-Kohima campaigns. From the opposite pole, Wingate’s supporters (Rooney 2000, Rooney 1997, Anglim 2006) assert that Wingate introduced a new concept of fighting. The LRPG concept emerged slowly from Wingate’s training Jewish guerrillas in Palestine during 1936–1939 and during the Ethiopian campaign against the Italians in 1941. During 1943–1944, large bands of soldiers were dropped behind Japanese lines and were supported by airpower. These bands, by conducting hit-and-run attacks, dislocated enemy communications and logistical infrastructure. To sum up, Wingate’s supporters overemphasize his contribution. Nevertheless, the First Chindit Operation (February–April 1943), especially after the fiasco in Arakan, raised the morale of the Commonwealth forces stationed in India. Both the admirers and Wingate’s critics accept that he was a maverick. For the former group, Wingate was a genius and for the latter group he was a “false prophet.” Anglim 2010 contextualizes Wingate’s Chindit operations within the British Army’s “small war” discourse that had evolved from late 19th-century tactics.

Anglim, Simon. “Orde Wingate, ‘Guerilla Warfare’ and Long Range Penetration, 1940–44.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 17 (2006): 241–262.
DOI: 10.1080/09592310600671588Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The LRPG of Wingate, writes Anglim, was a mix of local guerrilla irregulars, regular troops with specialized training, and committed air support for creating strategic deadlock deep inside enemy territory.
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Anglim, Simon. Orde Wingate and the British Army, 1922–1944. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2010.
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The breakthrough book on Wingate’s Chindits. For Anglim, the tussle between Wingate and his opponents was actually a struggle between the “small war” tradition with colonial roots versus decisive battles with main force approach of the Continental school within the British Army.
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Bidwell, Shelford. The Chindit War: The Campaign in Burma, 1944. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979.
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Bidwell, the most moderate of Wingate’s critics, concludes that the Chindits achieved little.
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Rooney, David. “Command and Leadership in the Chindit Campaigns.” In Leadership and Command: The Anglo-American Military Experience since 1861. Edited by G. D. Sheffield, 141–157. London: Brassey’s, 1997.
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Wingate, writes Rooney, transformed the Chindits into a cohesive force.
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Rooney, David. Wingate and the Chindits: Redressing the Balance. London: Cassell, 2000.
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A Wingate supporter hints at a behind-the-scenes conspiracy by the deskbound Major-General Kirby, the official historian and his team, to belittle Wingate. Rooney claims that even Slim became jealous of the “Prophet.” Originally published in 1994 (London: Arms and Armour).
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Air and Naval Battles

By 1925, according to Gordon 1994, it became clear that in case of a European crisis, the Royal Navy would be unable to send the Main Fleet to Singapore. The British assumption was that Japan would not attack unless it had European support. Thus, it made no sense to divide the Royal Navy and weaken Britain’s position in Europe, which in turn would encourage Japan to make aggressive moves in the Far East. In 1941, maintaining naval and air units in Mediterranean was more important for Churchill than strengthening the British position in the Far East. Churchill and the Admiralty decided to contain the Japanese by “bluff and bluster” rather than by sending adequate air and naval assets to the Far East. On 10 December 1941, two British capital ships, Prince of Wales and Repulse, were sunk by the Japanese torpedo bombers in the Gulf of Siam. Middlebrook and Mahoney 1979 in a lucid narrative shows the hopelessness of Admiral Tom Phillip’s position. Sumida 2001 emphasizes the lack of fire control computers for controlling the movement of the anti-aircraft guns as a serious shortcoming in the armament of the British ships. After this disaster, the British did not dare to challenge Japanese supremacy in the eastern and central sectors of the Indian Ocean. Later, the demands in the Atlantic and Mediterranean prevented the Admiralty from sending any capital ships and aircraft carriers to Southeast Asia. The Indian Ocean, compared to the Pacific and the Atlantic, became a backwater. After the bombing of Ceylon (5–9 April 1942), the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) never entered the Indian Ocean in strength. The IJN, writes Mark R. Peattie, was suited for a “thunderbolt strike” and not attritional warfare (Peattie 2001). And after Midway, the IJN went into a terminal decline. Till 1996 shows that before the onset of World War II, the American, British, and the Japanese focused on battleships. Only after Midway did the US and Japanese navies accept the supremacy of the aircraft carriers. Quick victory in the Malaya-Singapore campaign was partly possible because of Japanese control of airspace. Yokoyama 2004 claims that air supremacy was possible because of doctrinal innovations within Imperial Army Aviation. The IJA wanted the aircraft to function as eyes and ears first, and then as flying artillery. However, Army Aviation implemented “aerial extermination” missions. Aggressive counter-air operations destroyed the RAF, and then the Japanese aircraft turned to ground support missions. The disintegration of the RAF in the Far East owing to ignorance and neglect by the British high command is recounted clearly by Probert 1995.

Gordon, Andrew. “The Admiralty and Imperial Overstretch, 1902–41.” Journal of Strategic Studies 17 (1994): 63–85.
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Gordon claims that Britain depended on strategic bluff to deter the Japanese. From the late 1920s, Britain depended on the United States to contain Japan, but it did not work out smoothly.
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Middlebrook, Martin, and Patrick Mahoney. Battleship: The Loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. London: Penguin, 1979.
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Middlebrook and Mahoney blame Churchill and the Admiralty rather than the man on the spot, Tom Phillip, for the fiasco.
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Peattie, Mark R. “Japanese Naval Construction, 1919–41.” In Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Edited by Phillips Payson O’Brien, 93–108. London: Frank Cass, 2001.
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Peattie’s analytical article shows the strength and technical limitations of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
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Probert, Henry. The Forgotten Air Force: The Royal Air Force in the War against Japan, 1941–45. London: Brassey’s, 1995.
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The single best available account of the fall and rise of the RAF in the Far East.
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Sumida, Jon T. “British Naval Procurement and Technological Change, 1919–39.” In Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Edited by Phillips Payson O’Brien, 128–147. London: Frank Cass, 2001.
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Sumida points out the financial limitations and technological shortcomings of the British naval procurement program.
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Till, Geoffrey. “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier: The British, American and the Japanese Case Studies.” In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. Edited by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, 191–226. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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Till shows that the navies of the major combatants were initially hesitant about the effectiveness of the aircraft carriers. The primacy of battleship mentality among the major navies disintegrated only under the heat of combat.
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Yokoyama, Hisayuki. “Air Operational Leadership in the Southern Front: Imperial Army Aviation Trial to be an ‘Air Force’ in the Malaya Offensive Air Operation.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 134–150. Oxford: Frank Cass, 2004.
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This essay examines the doctrinal evolution of the Japanese Air Force. The air force in the Japanese military establishment was established in the 1920s for aerial reconnaissance, became a ground-support weapon in the 1930s, and in 1941 it gained an independent role by launching counter-air operations.
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Military Leadership

Major-General “Tiger” Yamashita Tomoyuki on the Japanese side and Field-Marshal Slim on the British side were the star generals of Far Eastern theater. Yamashita was able to defeat the British Empire’s 130,000 soldiers in a seventy-day campaign, which culminated on 15 February 1942. Yamashita’s success was partly due to the ineffectiveness of British military leadership in Malaya. Bridge 2004 blames both the instrument (the Commonwealth force) and its handlers (the generals) for ineffective Commonwealth military performance during the Malaya-Singapore campaign. A characteristic of Yamashita, says Kyoichi Tachikawa, was to trust his subordinate commanders and allow them freedom to maneuver (Tachikawa 2004). This style of command was somewhat similar to the German Auftragstaktik (mission-oriented command system). Anderson 2003 and Lyman 2003 argue that Slim was not only adept in conducting attritional warfare (Imphal and Kohima) but was also a master of maneuver warfare (pursuit of the Japanese in central Burma). A biography of Slim, Lyman 2005 makes the tall claim that the British field-marshal’s concept of the re-conquest of Burma was responsible for the birth of modern warfare. The most recent biography of “Uncle” Slim, Miller 2013, somewhat balances Lyman’s overblown claim about Slim. Nevertheless, Miller is an admirer of Slim and emphasizes his humane personality by looking at the multiethnic soldiers under his command. Bond 2004 focuses on Slim’s emphasis on restoring the morale of the soldiers. Slim’s superior during the retreat from Burma was Field-Marshal Archibald Wavell, who was unfortunate enough to command the Commonwealth forces at the beginning of the war. His American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) folded quickly. Wavell survived in the backwater as Commander-in-Chief of India and became Viceroy of India in the spring of 1943. Like Slim and unlike Stilwell, says Ronald Lewin, Wavell was humane toward the men under him (Lewin 1980). Field-Marshal Auchinleck was another cast-out like Wavell. Both were defeated by Erwin Rommel and were sent by Churchill to India, which was a sort of penal posting. However, Auchinleck in a way was the architect of victory, because he trained and organized the Indian Army, which first stopped the IJA at Imphal-Kohima and then drove it back into central Burma. Warner 2001 remains worthwhile for assessing Auchinleck’s achievement in India. Had Auchinleck and Wavell accepted Churchill’s decision to demobilize a large part of the Indian Army, then the reconquest of Burma in 1944 would not have been possible. From 1943 onward, the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater was dominated by four larger-than-life figures: Admiral Louis Mountbatten, General Slim, General Joseph Stilwell, and General Orde Wingate. The conflicting strategies of the United States and Britain, shows McLynn 2010, muddled the planning and conduct of war in Burma.

Anderson, Duncan. “The Very Model of a Manoeuvrist General: William Slim and the Exercise of High Command in Burma.” In The Challenges of High Command: The British Experience. Edited by Gary Sheffield and Geoffrey Till, 73–87. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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Slim, claims the author, always emphasized close cooperation between the air force and the army and established a truly integrated air-land headquarters in 1944.
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Bond, Brian. “The Army Level of Command: General William Slim and Fourteenth Army in Burma.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 38–52. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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Bond emphasizes the temperament and social background of Slim, which enabled him to generate genuine human warmth toward his subordinate officers and the rank and file.
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Bridge, Carl. “Crisis of Command: Major-General Gordon Bennett and British Military Effectiveness in the Malayan Campaign, 1941–42.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 64–74. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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The British commanders, writes Bridge, had no counter to Yamashita’s technique of first probing the British position, then pinning the main force with artillery and air attack, and then sending in an outflanking force.
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Lewin, Ronald. The Chief: Field-Marshal Lord Wavell, Commander-in-Chief and Viceroy, 1939–47. London: Hutchinson, 1980.
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Lewin in this sympathetic graduate-friendly biography is able to pass the blame for the defeats suffered by Wavell’s force either to his subordinates (e.g., Percival) or to higher-ups (e.g., Churchill).
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Lyman, Robert. “The Art of Manoeuvre at the Operational Level of War: Lieutenant-General W.J. Slim and Fourteenth Army, 1944–45.” In The Challenges of High Command: The British Experience. Edited by Gary Sheffield and Geoffrey Till, 88–112. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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Lyman comments that instead of applying brute force at the point of contact, Slim followed maneuver warfare (a sort of indirect approach formulated by Liddell Hart) to weaken the enemy’s will to war.
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Lyman, Robert. Slim, Master of War: Burma and the Birth of Modern Warfare. London: Robinson, 2005.
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Slim was the best battlefield commander on either side in Southeast Asia during World War II. However, the argument by Lyman that Operation Extended Capital gave birth to the theory and praxis of modern warfare is exaggerated.
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McLynn, Frank. The Burma Campaign: Defeat into Disaster, 1942–45. London: Bodley Head, 2010.
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In this account, Slim comes through with flying colors. Mountbatten appears in a cameo role, Wingate as a nuisance, and Stilwell is depicted as unnecessarily creating difficulties for Slim.
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Miller, Russell. Uncle Bill: The Authorised Biography of Field Marshal Viscount Slim. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2013.
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Especially good for development of Slim’s command capacity during World War I and in the interwar era.
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Tachikawa, Kyoichi. “General Yamashita and His Style of Leadership: The Malaya/Singapore Campaign.” In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–45. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa, 75–87. London: Frank Cass, 2004.
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Yamashita’s plan, shows the author, was to advance boldly and capitalize on the weak morale of the Commonwealth force.
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Warner, Philip. Auchinleck: The Lonely Soldier. London: Cassell, 2001.
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This moving biography shows that the “Auk” was in love with the Indian Army, so much so that he lost his wife. Originally published in 1981 (London: Buchan & Enright).
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Espionage and Counter-Espionage

The issue was not the quality of intelligence acquired. Rather, asserts Best 2002, the principal factor was the lens through which the data were analyzed and conclusions passed on to the policymakers. Racial bias created the assumption that the “racially inferior” Japanese military was worse than the Italian armed forces. Neither was Japan appeased, nor did Britain strengthen its imperial defense in the Far East. The net result was the catastrophe that started unfolding from 7/8 December 1941. In 1943, the Japanese became defensive in Burma. Nevertheless, they conducted an intelligence war against the British Raj. One aspect of it was to train Indian agents who were then sent to India. Second, the Japanese launched a propaganda war to instigate rebellion among the Indians against the British. Bhargava and Gill 1988 shows that British counterespionage was geared to track down the Japanese-trained Indian agents and insulate the Indian population from “seditious lies” spread by Japan. Bhattacharya 2000 claims that the government of British India created an information management system to counter Japanese propaganda among Indian soldiers. Interestingly, the American intelligence agencies stationed in India were more interested in collecting social, political, and economic data about the British and French colonies than in battlefield intelligence on probable Japanese moves in the near future. The premier American intelligence organization in South Asia, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), was geared to study commercial opportunities for the United States that would arise once the Japanese were defeated in Southeast Asia. The British counterpart to the OSS was the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). During 1942–1944, the SIS concentrated on operational and tactical intelligence (Aldrich 1998a). Later Louis Mountbatten intervened and ordered that the SIS concentrate on political intelligence focused on the postwar period. Military intelligence was dealt with by the agency MI2C. Initially, British intelligence estimates of the IJA’s operational and tactical capabilities were tinged with ethnocentric bias, and the Japanese were underestimated. After Singapore, comments Douglas Ford (Ford 2003, Ford 2007), British intelligence estimates regarding the IJA took a 180-degree turn and Japanese soldiers were considered jungle supermen. From 1944 on, intelligence assessments of the IJA’s military effectiveness became balanced. The British commanders got details about the IJA’s defensive fortifications and realized that these could not be destroyed merely by brute firepower. Hence, innovative tactics emphasizing combined arms operations and meticulous reconnaissance evolved, and that finally gave victory to the Commonwealth forces. Washington’s policy toward Indochina was convoluted and complex. Toward the end of the war, in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mind, the policy of opposing European colonialism gained the upper hand over the policy of defeating the Axis powers (Brown 1998). Roosevelt was an avid consumer of MAGIC intelligence data. Like Hitler, Roosevelt used intelligence data selectively to support his particular worldview. When in early 1945 Japan decided to annex Indochina, Roosevelt decided not to help the Vichy regime in France. In Roosevelt’s view, aiding the Vichy government would strengthen French colonialism in the postwar era, when France and Britain would join forces against the United States to protect their colonial empires. However, as Roosevelt’s health declined, in April 1945 the State Department was able to use intelligence data much more thoroughly and initiate a policy shift regarding Indochina.

Aldrich, Richard J. “American Intelligence and the British Raj: The OSS, the SSU and India, 1942–47.” Intelligence and National Security 13 (1998a): 132–164.
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Aldrich shows that the OSS and later Strategic Services Unit functioned as the forerunner of CIA by keeping tabs on political developments and economic prospects for American corporate houses in India, Burma, and Thailand.
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Aldrich, Richard J. “Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service in Asia during the Second World War.” Modern Asian Studies 32 (1998b): 179–217.
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Aldrich argues that the SIS was unsuited to gathering battlefield intelligence; rather, it was more suited to acquiring long-term economic, social, and political data.
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Best, Antony. British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914–1942. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
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Best in this solidly researched book takes a long-term perspective and argues that ethnocentrism played an important role in British intelligence assessment of the motivation and military effectiveness of the Japanese armed forces.
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Bhargava, Moti Lal, and Americk Singh Gill. Indian National Army: Secret Service. New Delhi: Reliance, 1988.
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The Japanese, with some renegade Indian officers, set up several spy schools in Southeast Asia for training Indian prisoners of war.
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Bhattacharya, Sanjoy. “British Military Information Management Techniques and the South Asian Soldier: Eastern India during the Second World War.” Modern Asian Studies 34 (2000): 483–510.
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The British created an information management system, notes Bhattacharya, which portrayed an image of barbaric Japanese to keep the Indian soldiers in line.
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Brown, Kathryn E. “The Interplay of Information and Mind in Decision-Making: Signals Intelligence and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Policy-Shift on Indochina.” In Knowing Your Friends: Intelligence Inside Alliances and Coalitions from 1914 to the Cold War. Edited by Martin S. Alexander, 109–131. London: Frank Cass, 1998.
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Brown notes that when Roosevelt’s mental power declined, the American bureaucracy was able to utilize signal intelligence fruitfully in formulating policies.
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Ford, Douglas. “‘A Conquerable Yet Resilient Foe’: British Perceptions of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Tactics on the India-Burma Front, September 1942 to Summer 1944.” Intelligence and National Security 18 (2003): 65–90.
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Good battlefield intelligence about Japanese tactics, notes Ford, enabled the Commonwealth forces to evolve innovative tactics from 1944 onward.
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Ford, Douglas. “Strategic Culture, Intelligence Assessment, and the Conduct of the Pacific War: The British-Indian and Imperial Japanese Armies in Comparison, 1941–45.” War in History 14 (2007): 63–95.
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The strategic culture of the IJA underrated the importance of intelligence assessment of the enemy while making operational decisions. In contrast, says Ford, the Commonwealth forces developed an integrated intelligence picture of their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
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Commonwealth Armies

The largest volunteer force during World War II was the British-officered Indian Army, with 2.5 million men. During the reconquest of Burma, the Indian Army played the premier role. By 1945, 70 percent of the 14th Army’s personnel were Indians. Moreman 2005 emphasizes the Army (British units plus the British-officered Indian Army) in India’s tactical doctrine, which prepared the troops for jungle warfare and attrition warfare based on firepower. From 1944 onward, asserts Roy 2010, the Indian Army was more combat-effective than the British units stationed in the Far East. The loyalty of the jawans (Indian privates) to their white masters still intrigues historians. Except for a few small-scale rebellions, the Indian Army remained loyal and disciplined. Roy 2009 claims that the jawans’ loyalty was based on traditional Kshatriya (warrior communities, India’s martial castes and ethnic groups) ethos and tangible incentives that they gained from military service under the Raj. The combat motivation of the Indian soldiers, claims Tarak Barkawi (Barkawi 2004, Barkawi 2006), was the product of both the ethnic politics of the British imperial regime and harsh battlefield realities. One of the weaknesses of the Indian Army was that when their British officers became casualties, the jawans lost their bearings. Indianization (entry of Indians into the commissioned officer corps) could have solved the problem, but the Raj was suspicious of the political reliability of educated urban middle-class Indians. Nevertheless, wartime expansion and subsequent shortages of British officers forced the Raj to open the officer corps to those Indians. While some scholars (e.g., Barua 1999) assert that the Raj was following a long-term policy of Indianization, others (e.g., Deshpande 2005) claim that only the demands of war forced the Raj to undertake an ad hoc Indianization process. In contrast to the Indian Army, the British-controlled Burma Army proved to be a failure in combat. This was because, as Taylor 2006 shows, the Burma Army, raised from minority ethnic groups such as the Kachin and Chin, was geared to guard Burma against its majority community, the Burmans.

Barkawi, Tarak. “Peoples, Homelands, and Wars? Ethnicity, the Military, and Battle among British Imperial Forces in the War against Japan.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 46 (2004): 134–163.
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Rather than nationalism, the combat motivation of the jawans, asserts Barkawi, was the complex amalgam of caste honor, warrior masculinity, and wartime propaganda about the “barbaric” Japanese.
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Barkawi, Tarak. “Culture and Combat in the Colonies: The Indian Army in the Second World War.” Journal of Contemporary History 41 (2006): 325–355.
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Myths, images, and ideologies about the Japanese barbarism strengthened the combat ethos of the Indian soldiery.
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Barua, Pradeep. The Army Officer Corps and Military Modernisation in Later Colonial India. Hull, UK: University of Hull Press, 1999.
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Barua’s revised PhD dissertation shows that from the 1920s onward, the Indian Army developed an Indian officer corps for conducting warfare.
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Deshpande, Anirudh. British Military Policy in India, 1900–1945: Colonial Constraints and Declining Power. New Delhi: Manohar, 2005.
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Wartime expansion forced Indianization, the entry of middle-class educated Indians into the officer corps, which in turn, notes Deshpande, paved the way for decolonization.
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Moreman, T. R. The Jungle, the Japanese and the British Commonwealth Armies at War, 1941–45: Fighting Methods, Doctrine and Training for Jungle Warfare. Oxford: Frank Cass, 2005.
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Moreman emphasizes the training techniques and the curricula that enabled the Army in India from late 1943 to gain tactical and operational edge over the IJA.
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Roy, Kaushik. “Military Loyalty in the Colonial Context: A Case Study of the Indian Army during World War II.” Journal of Military History 73 (2009): 497–529.
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Roy notes the complexities of the Indian soldiers’ loyalty structure. British care for the culture of the jawans especially as regards their diet, dress, and family matters, kept the soldiers loyal. In addition, traditional rewards like jagirs (land grants) were issued to the demobilized jawans.
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Roy, Kaushik. “Discipline and Morale of the African, British and Indian Army Units in Burma and India during World War II: July 1943 to August 1945.” Modern Asian Studies 44 (2010): 1255–1282.
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Demands for repatriation and perceptions of domestic troubles, says Roy, resulted in loss of the “will to war” of British troops during late 1944. However, the morale of the African and Indian soldiers in the Fourteenth Army remained strong.
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Taylor, Robert H. “Colonial Forces in British Burma: A National Army Postponed.” In Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia. Edited by Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig, 195–209. London: Routledge, 2006.
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Ethnic politics for ensuring internal security made the British-controlled Burmese forces a liability during the war.
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Imperial Japanese Army and Japanese Satellite Armies

Drea 2009 is a monograph that provides an overview of the origins of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) from the mid-19th century till the end of World War II. Clan and territorial loyalties got fused with the modernizing drive that started with the Meiji Restoration. Drea 2003 is a collection of essays showing how the IJA as an institution tried to grapple with the tactical, technical, operational, and strategic challenges as its role expanded from Korea, to China, Mongolia, and finally to the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia. The IJA was far behind the US and British armies in terms of motorization and mechanization. Humphreys 1978 notes that the IJA was conscious even during the interwar period that it could never modernize to the level of the American and British forces. In compensation, the IJA focused on warrior spirit and the code of bushido. Coox 1988 notes the strength and limitations of the IJA. The agile, lightly equipped, mobile IJA proved effective against the road-bound, heavily laden British units in Malaya and Burma during 1941–1942. But from 1944 on, when the Army in India emphasized holding onto fortified positions backed by heavy firepower and air support, the IJA withered away. The political failure of the IJA is described in detail by Meirion and Harries 1991 in a rather bulky volume. The Japanese set up several auxiliary armies in Southeast Asia for political reasons; Lebra 1977 provides an overview. In Indonesia, the Army of Defenders of the Homeland (PETA) came into existence. In Burma, there was the BDA (Burma Defence Army) later renamed the BNA (Burma National Army). The largest was the Indian National Army (INA) also known as Azad Hind Fauj (Army of Free India). Educated nationalists were given military training by the Japanese. As regards the formation of INA and BDA/BNA, Major Fujiwara Iwaichi (who headed the Fujiwara Kikan or Fujiwara Agency) and Colonel Suzuki Keiji (who headed the Minami Kikan or Southern Agency) played important roles. Subhas Chandra Bose reached an agreement with Tokyo in 1943, notes Bhargava 1986, according to which the Japanese agreed to train Indians to fill senior posts in the INA. This was a revolutionary measure because in the British-led Indian Army, Indians were not allowed to hold senior posts.

Bhargava, Moti Lal. Indian National Army: Tokyo Cadets. New Delhi: Reliance, 1986.
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Lal shows that the Japanese trained Indians as commissioned officers in Tokyo for commanding the INA against the British.
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Coox, Alvin D. “The Effectiveness of the Japanese Military Establishment in the Second World War.” In Military Effectiveness. Vol. 3, The Second World War. Edited by Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, 1–44. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
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Coox provides an incisive assessment of the Japanese military establishment at three levels: strategic, operational, and tactical.
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Drea, Edward J. In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.
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This collection of essays by one of the foremost scholars of Japan’s Pacific War is an essential read for those who want to understand the multitasking required by the IJA in midst of total war.
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Drea, Edward J. Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853–1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.
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According to the author, doctrinal disunity and political instability, combined with lack of adequate human and financial resources, resulted in the final collapse of the IJA during the later stages of Asia-Pacific War.
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Humphreys, Leonard A. “Crisis and Reaction: The Japanese Army in the “Liberal” Twenties.” Armed Forces and Society 5 (1978): 73–92.
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Humphreys notes that the IJA was incompletely modernized, and the fractious officer corps had a tendency to intervene in domestic politics.
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Lebra, Joyce C. Japanese Trained Armies in Southeast Asia: Independence and Volunteer Forces in World War II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.
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The Japanese objective was to induct the educated middle class of Southeast Asia into an anti-Western alliance. The result was militarization and politicization of the indigenous societies.
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Meirion and Susie Harris. Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. New York: Random House, 1991.
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The fluctuating political conditions in Japan and its adverse effects on the civil-military relations of IJA are explained in detail in this volume.
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Soldier’s Voices

How did the common soldiers view the war in which they participated? The thoughts and actions of the rank and file throw light on the motivational factors and also the ground reality of warfare. Frei 2002 reflects the ambivalent attitude of the Japanese soldiers who conquered Singapore. Most of them displayed a strong sense of comradeship while facing privation and danger. Some soldiers displayed unnecessary cruelty as in cold blood they shot and bayoneted Commonwealth military personnel waiting to surrender. Tamayama and Nunneley 2001 notes that, like the British soldiers who fought in Burma, the Japanese soldiers also considered themselves as part of a “forgotten army.” Among the Commonwealth soldiers, the Gurkhas make an interesting case study. Recruited from the mountains of Nepal, the illiterate Gurkhas did not fight to restore democracy. In interviews conducted by J. P. Cross, it seems that the Gurkhas fought for two reasons (Cross and Gurung 2002): first, to achieve the status of bahadur (brave) in their local society, honorable military service was necessary; and second, loyalty to their unit strengthened their will to war.

Cross, J. P., and Buddhiman Gurung, eds. Gurkhas at War in Their Own Words: The Gurkha Experience 1939 to the Present. London: Greenhill, 2002.
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This book is a collection of interviews done by an ex-Gurkha officer. Two chapters of this volume deal with the Gurkhas’ experience in Malaya and Burma. A welcome break from the complex combat motivation theories crafted by the academicians.
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Frei, Henry P. “The Island Battle: Japanese Soldiers Remember the Conquest of Singapore.” In Sixty Years On: The Fall of Singapore Revisited. Edited by Brian Farrell and Sandy Hunter, 218–239. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2002.
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The soldiers displayed polar-opposite characteristics: sometimes barbaric and sometimes humane. While many performed heroic acts, some behaved as cowards.
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Tamayama, Kazuo, and John Nunneley, eds. Tales by Japanese Soldiers of the Burma Campaign, 1942–1945. London: Cassell, 2001.
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This collection concentrates on the Japanese soldiers in Burma between 1942 and 1945. Desire for food and drink rather than bushido was uppermost in the mind of most of the soldiers.
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Prisoners of War

The very conduct of total war made the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) atrocious. The Japanese treatment of POWs was worse than the German treatment of American and European POWs. Flower 2002 provides a functionalist interpretation of the Japanese treatment of POWs. During the Malayan campaign, mutilation and murder of British POWs was an attempt to undermine Allied morale. The Indian POWs were separated from their British officers and, initially at least, were given kid-glove treatment in order to induce them to join the anti-British colonial front. Those Indian POWs who refused to join the Japanese-sponsored INA were shipped to Indonesia and the Pacific islands as slave laborers (Crasta 1999). Many were massacred in cold blood. Douds 2004 says that the treatment of these Indian POWs was worse than that of the European and American POWs. The best-known atrocity committed by the Japanese against POWs was related to the construction of the Burma-Thailand railway between June 1942 and October 1943. However, Flower 1996, which mostly concentrates on the British POWs, notes that despite overall harshness, treatment varied in accordance with personalities and circumstances. Among the POWs, officers were treated much better than common soldiers. Some Japanese camp commandants were humane. Those Japanese noncommissioned officers who fought the brutal wars in China took a harder line with POWs. Finally, the Korean auxiliaries treated the British POWs much worse than did the Japanese guards.

Crasta, John Baptist. Eaten by the Japanese: The Memoir of an Unknown Indian Prisoner of War. Bangalore, India: Invisible Man, 1999.
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This is the only available account by an Indian soldier who was captured at Singapore and survived the Japanese POW camp at Rabaul.
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Douds, G. J. “The Men Who Never Were: Indian POWs in the Second World War.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 27.2 (2004): 183–216.
DOI: 10.1080/1479027042000236634Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Izzat (personal and community honor) of the jawans rather than loyalty to their British officers enabled the Indian POWs, claims Douds, to withstand Japanese propaganda and barbaric treatment intended to make them change sides and join the Japanese-sponsored INA.
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Flower, Sibylla Jane. “Captors and Captives on the Burma-Thailand Railway.” In Prisoners of War and their Captors in World War II. Edited by Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich, 227–252. Oxford: Berg, 1996.
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The Japanese treatment of POWs was harsh because, according to their code of honor, Japan never cared for its own soldiers who were captured by the enemy.
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Flower, Sibylla Jane. “Allied Prisoners of War: The Malayan Campaign, 1941–42.” In Sixty Years On: The Fall of Singapore Revisited. Edited by Brian Farrell and Sandy Hunter, 208–217. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2002.
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Political and military objectives, claims the author, shaped Japanese policy toward POWs during the Malayan campaign.
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War, Economy, and Society

While one group of scholars (e.g., Gallagher and Seal 1981, Jeffery 1982) claims that India was a burden for the British Empire, another group asserts that India contributed men, money, and materials in large quantities, which enabled the British Empire during World War II to defend both the Middle East and the Far East. Bayly and Harper 2004 shows how the Japanese advance into Southeast Asia called the British bluff. To the indigenous people it became clear that the British lion was a sick one. Mukherjee 2010 narrates how India’s contributions to the Allied war effort in the form of agricultural goods and mineral ores, in addition to feeding a million Allied soldiers, resulted in a famine in Bengal (1942–1944), which killed 3 million civilians. This in turn undermined the legitimacy of the Raj. In a case study of Japan’s conduct of war in China, Young 2005 claims that large-scale atrocities constituted a central component in the colonial empires. Even Japan suffered domestic privation. Scherer 1999 shows that the normal rice ration was inadequate and irregular. The result was a large-scale black market, that the government failed to combat efficiently and which further undermined the public distribution system. The battle of materials required Japan to raise levels of production at home. Like Hitler’s Germany, Japan was unwilling to utilize its female labor force. The Japanese state advanced the argument that women needed to stay home to maintain the traditional family system. Mathias 1999 points out that the unskilled female workers could only be integrated into standardized production procedures. However, the low level of mechanization in the Japanese industrial sector made integration of unskilled female labor problematic. This in turn relates to the broader question of the nature of Japan’s economy. The low level of development of heavy industry and dependence on imports for critical elements such as machine tools and optics, notes Hara 2000, prevented expansion and innovation in the armed forces in particular and Japan’s economic infrastructure in general.

Bayly, C., and Tim Harper. Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945. London: Penguin, 2004.
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Bayly and Harper show that the British never recovered from the psychological blow they received in 1942 from the repeated disastrous defeats they received at the hands of the Japanese. The network of social relations that propped up imperial rule in Southeast Asia was destroyed beyond repair.
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Gallagher, John, and Anil Seal. “Britain and India Between the Wars.” Modern Asian Studies 15 (1981): 387–414.
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00008647Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
India, claim the authors, was an economic and strategic burden for the British Empire.
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Hara, Akira. “Japan: Guns before Rice.” In The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison. Edited by Mark Harrison, 224–267. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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A well-researched article showing the structural limitations of Japan’s war economy.
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Jeffery, Keith. “The Eastern Arc of Empire: A Strategic View 1850–1950.” Journal of Strategic Studies 5 (1982): 531–545.
DOI: 10.1080/01402398208437133Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Jeffery argues that India was not worth retaining by Britain from a strictly economic perspective.
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Mathias, Regine. “Women and the War Economy in Japan.” In Japan’s War Economy. Edited by Erich Pauer, 65–85. London: Routledge, 1999.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203029404Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Both ideological and rational factors prevented utilization of the female work force in the Japanese war economy.
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Mukherjee, Madhusree. Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II. New York: Basic Books, 2010.
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Mukherjee’s undergraduate-friendly account shows that besides a shortage of cargo ships, Churchill’s racism toward the “natives” was also responsible for large-scale deaths from starvation in British India.
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Scherer, Anke. “Drawbacks to Controls on Food Distribution: Food Shortages, the Black Market and Economic Crime.” In Japan’s War Economy. Edited by Erich Pauer, 106–123. London: Routledge, 1999.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203029404Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Scherer’s specialized essay shows how the gradual disintegration of the rationing system resulted in widespread economic crimes, which in turn undermined public morality.
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Young, Louise. “Ideologies of Difference and the Turn to Atrocity: Japan’s War on China.” Paper presented at the fifth conference on the history of total war, held in August 2001 in Hamburg. In A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945. Edited by Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, and Bernd Greiner, 333–353. Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2005.
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The emergence of the interstate system and the nation-state that created racial and national ideologies and new techniques of combat, claims Young, made total war a reality.