Viscount slim biography for kids

Not long afterwards, Major-General Fraser, commanding Indian 10th Infantry Division, fell ill and was relieved of his command, and Slim was promoted to take his place on 15 May with the acting rank of major-general. He was twice mentioned in despatches during Slim was made acting lieutenant general on 8 May The corps was under attack in Burma by the Japanese and, heavily outclassed by the more mobile and flexible Japanese, was soon forced to withdraw to India.

His command covered the coastal approaches from Burma to India, east of Chittagong. He had a series of disputes with Noel Irwin, commander of Eastern Army and, as a result, Irwin although an army commander took personal control of the initial advance by XV Corps into the Arakan Peninsula. The operations ended in disaster, during which Slim was restored to command of XV Corps, albeit too late to salvage the situation.

Slim quickly got on with the task of training his new army to take the fight to the enemy. His basic premise was that off-road mobility was paramount: much heavy equipment was exchanged for mule- or air-transported equipment, and motor transport was kept to a minimum and restricted to vehicles that could cope with some of the worst combat terrain on Earth.

The new doctrine dictated that if the Japanese had cut the lines of communication, then they too were surrounded. All units were to form defensive 'boxes', to be resupplied by air and assisted by integrated viscount slim biography for kids air support and armour. The boxes were designed as an effective response to the tactics of infiltration practised by the Japanese in the war.

Slim also supported increased offensive patrolling and night training, to encourage his soldiers to lose both their fear of the jungle and their belief that Japanese soldiers were better jungle fighters. He also instructed them to hold their positions once outflanked. The Chin Hills formed a natural defensive barrier into Burma, which Slim would have preferred to outflank by an amphibious operation by landing further down the coast of Burma, but demands of the war in Europe meant the necessary landing craft were not available, forcing Slim to devise plans for advancing into Burma overland through the Chin hills.

At the same time, the Japanese 15th Army, which formed the main striking force of the Burma Area Army, had grown from four divisions at the beginning of to eight divisions by the end of as the Japanese made preparations for invading India, which increased the difficulties of an overland advance into Burma. Bythe Burma Railway, which cost the lives of thousands of prisoners of war who built it, was finished; this allowed the Japanese to reinforce the Burma Area Army, and made invading India barely possible.

As Slim went about training his men for the rigours of jungle warfare, he clashed with Brigadier Orde Wingatewho took away some of Slim's best Gurkha, British and African units for his Chindit raiding group. Slim argued against the loss of his better units to Wingate, and maintained that though Wingate had a successful career in Palestine and Ethiopia he would discover that the Japanese were a considerably tougher foe than the Palestinians and the Italians that Wingate had hitherto been fighting.

However, Slim did approve of Wingate's plans for aid to the hill tribes of Burma. The various hill peoples of Burma such as the Kachins, Karens, Chin, Nagas and the Shan collectively amounted to about 7 million of Burma's 17 million people, and unlike the Bamars, who had welcomed the Japanese as liberators, had stayed loyal to the British when the Japanese invaded.

The hill peoples of Burma had suffered under Japanese rule, and were more than willing to wage guerrilla warfare against them. Slim approved of the plans of the SOE and OSS to provide arms and training to the hill tribes as a way to tie down Japanese forces that would otherwise be deployed against him. At the start ofSlim held the official rank of colonel with a war-time rank of major-general and the temporary rank of lieutenant-general.

The 7th Indian Division's defence was based largely on the " Admin Box " formed initially from drivers, cooks and suppliers. They were supplied by air, thus negating the importance of their lost supply lines. The Japanese forces were able to halt the offensive into Arakan but were unable to decisively defeat the allied forces or advance beyond the surrounded formations.

The two operations in India and China were closely linked given that American supplies for China were flown over " the Hump " of the Himalayas and the Japanese wanted to take the Indian province of Assam in part to close the American air bases in India that sustained China at the same time that they were launching Operation Ichi-Go, the biggest Japanese offensive of all time, involving 2 million men.

The Japanese knew that they lacked the logistics to invade India, and the plans for U-Go were based on the assumption that the British Fourteenth Army would just collapse, allowing the Japanese 15th Army to capture enough food to prevent its men from starving to death. The Japanese believed that the mere presence of Bose in India would inspire the men of the Indian Army to mutiny and murder their British officers, and set off an anti-British revolution that would allow the Japanese 15th Army to take all of India.

On 12 March the Japanese launched an invasion of India aimed at Imphal, hundreds of miles to the north. Slim knew from signals intelligence that the Japanese were going to invade in Marchbut as Murray and Millet wrote " However, the Japanese advanced more swiftly than Slim had expected up the mud roads of Burma into India, leading to a period of crisis as the fate of India hung in the balance.

Slim airlifted two entire veteran divisions 5th and 7th Indian from battle in the Arakan, straight into battle in the north. Slim ordered his men to hold their ground, forbade any retreat, and informed his men who were surrounded by the Japanese that supplies would be flown in from the air to allow them to hold out. Slim decided to send the IV Corps to relieve Imphal while gambling that the 5th Indian Division could hold out at Kohima, though Slim knew that if Kohima fell, then the Japanese could be able to sever the Assam railroad at Dimapur, which could cut off the British Fourteenth Army from its main supply line.

As late as 1 JuneField Marshal Alan Brookethe Chief of the Imperial General Staff, wrote in his diary that he saw "disaster staring us in the face" in Assam, but Slim was more confident, believing he could smash the Japanese attempt to take India. While the Japanese were able to advance and encircle the formations of British Fourteenth Army, they were unable to defeat those same forces or break out of the jungles along the Indian frontier.

The Japanese advance stalled. The Japanese, who had a contempt for British and Indian troops based on their performance in —42refused to viscount slim biography for kids up even after the monsoon started and large parts of their army were wrecked by conducting operations in impossible conditions. The initial Japanese plan was to capture Allied stocks of food, medicine and fuel to sustain their advance, but they failed to capture any stockpiles.

As a result, their units took unsupportable casualties and were finally forced to retreat in total disorder in Julyleaving behind many dead from hunger and disease as well as their injured. Of theJapanese soldiers who invaded India in Marchalmost all of them were dead by July as Slim had inflicted the largest defeats that the Japanese had suffered up to this point in the war.

Unlike the Japanese, who killed their wounded, Slim went out of his way to ensure good medical care for his wounded and to evacuate his wounded by air to hospitals in India.

Viscount slim biography for kids: He served as governor-general of

Slim knew his men would fight better if they knew that they would receive the best possible medical care under the conditions if they were wounded. In Decemberduring a ceremony at Imphal in front of the Scottish, Gurkha and Punjabi regiments, Slim and three of his corps commanders Christison, Scoones and Stopford were knighted by the viceroy Lord Wavell and invested with honours.

As he advanced into Burma, Slim discovered gruesome evidence of the nature of Japanese rule in Burma, finding in village after village, Burmese peasants who had been tied to trees and bayoneted to death as the Japanese preferred bayonet practice with people rather than sandbags as normally is the case. Rangoon was eventually taken by a combined attack from the land Slim's armythe air parachute operations south of the city and a seaborne invasion.

However, by the time he took up the post, having taken some leave, the war was at an end. Slim had an excellent relationship with his troops — the " Forgotten Army ", as they called themselves. Slim had a close rapport with the officers and soldiers under his command, and always trusted his officers to make the correct decisions without referring to him.

As Slim later wrote: "I was, like other generals before me, to be saved In the aftermath of Kohima and Imphal, Slim inspected the battlefields, seeing the bodies of wounded Japanese soldiers who had been killed by their comrades as under the code of Bushidowhich graphically showed to Slim how far the Japanese were willing to take Bushido.

That led him to the conclusion that it was better to outflank and bypass the Japanese positions as much as possible, leaving the Japanese to starve to death rather than engaging them in combat. But Slim believed that with superior mobility backed by proper supply line, he could defeat the Japanese, whose logistics were poor. Slim estimated that for every man killed under his command, the Japanese lost a hundred men.

Slim did not blame his medics for this problem, but placed the responsibility on his officers. He wrote: "Good doctors are no use without good discipline. More than half the battle against disease is fought not by the doctors, but by the regimental officers. The combat effectiveness of his army was thus greatly enhanced. This physical and mental turnaround in the army under him was a contributing factor to the eventual defeat of the Japanese in Burma.

Novelist George MacDonald Fraserthen a nineteen-year-old lance corporal, recalled:. But the biggest boost to morale was the burly man who came to talk to the assembled battalion Slim was like that: the only man I've ever seen who had a force that came out of him British soldiers don't love their commanders much less worship them; Fourteenth Army trusted Slim and thought of him as one of themselves, and perhaps his real secret was that the feeling was mutual.

I see him clear, with that robber-baron face under that Gurkha hat, and his carbine slung, looking like a rather scruffy private with a general's tabs, which of course is what he was. At the end of Slim returned to the UK. On 2 Januaryhe was appointed a Knight of the Order of St. John KStJ. In he was able to viscount slim biography for kids Queen Elizabeth II on the first visit by a reigning monarch to Australia.

His Official Secretary throughout his term was Murray Tyrrell. InSlim retired and returned to Britain, where he published his memoirs, Unofficial History. He had already published his personal narrative of the Burma Campaign, Defeat into Victoryinwhich has never been out of print, and in which he candidly talked about his mistakes and the lessons he learned.

After a successful further career on the boards of major UK companies, he was appointed Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle on 18 June George's Chapel, Windsor and was afterwards cremated. It was 47 years later and 37 years after Slim's death that three former child migrants alleged that Slim assaulted them during visits to Fairbridge Farm.

Somehow or another, I was sat on his [Slim's] knee and, ah In a major road was renamed due to the allegations. The book has never been out of print. Kiszely has described Slim as "perhaps the Greatest Commander of the 20th Century" and has commenting on Slim's "self-deprecating style" [ ] Military historian Max Hastings stated:. In contrast to almost every other outstanding commander of the war, Slim was a disarmingly normal human being, possessed of notable self-knowledge.

He was without pretension, devoted to his wife, Aileen, their family and the Indian Army. His calm, robust style of leadership and concern for the interests of his men won the admiration of all who served under him His blunt honesty, lack of bombast and unwillingness to play courtier did him few favours in the corridors of power. Only his soldiers never wavered in their devotion.

The spirit of comradeship Slim created within Fourteenth Army lived on after the war in the Burma Star Associationof which Slim was a co-founder and first President. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history.

Viscount slim biography for kids: Field Marshal William Slim is best

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Viscount slim biography for kids: Bill Slim was a British

British Army field marshal — Field Marshal The Right Honourable. Slim c. Aileen Robertson. Early years [ edit ]. First World War [ edit ]. Interwar career [ edit ]. Second World War [ edit ]. East African Campaign [ edit ]. Middle East [ edit ]. Burma campaign [ edit ]. Relations with troops [ edit ]. Post-war career [ edit ]. Initial retirement from the army [ edit ].

Return to the army [ edit ]. Governor-General of Australia [ edit ]. Retirement [ edit ]. Allegations [ edit ]. Eponyms [ edit ]. Historical assessment [ edit ]. Arms [ edit ]. List of honours [ edit ]. Bibliography [ edit ]. Footnotes [ edit ]. Churchill Archives Centre. John Churchill was a British military and political personality. William Bligh was a British mariner, explorer, and colonial administrator.

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