A message to posters, not just on this show, but generally on WW2TV. We love your comments - we really do, but to those of you who type long responses that include criticisms and perceived corrections, please take the time to introduce yourself. Explain where your expertise comes from, please. Tell us if you teach or write about history. My guests' qualifications and expertise are obvious to all, but many people who comment use screen-names, which is fine of course. But help us to engage with you by letting us know who you are and why we should consider your corrections
Exceptional livestream, a friend of mine linked me to this video and your channel. I really dislike the fact that the 14th Army gets overlooked when we talk about the Second World War. The insight into the Chindits and what they were actually trying to achieve was very educational. I've been trying to encourage historical miniature painters to paint 14th army figures which gets more people looking into what happened in this theater. I've been focusing a lot of my attention on the Battle of Imphal & Kohima.
I have been reading about WW2 for more than 30 years and the Burma campaign seemed so complex to me to understand. 1942 was the year of the disaster for the british with the seemingly invincible japanese soldiers always outflanking and encircling the quite passive british and indians. 1943 was the year of stalemate, 1944 the year of the succesful defence of Imphal and Kohima and 1945 the year of the Allied victory. With the help of this channel this limited perception is slowly changing. The explanation about the strategic polítical context has been so helpful. Great content!
Thanks for the comment. Yes Robert manages to make the complicated situation easier to understand. If you are new to the channel please subscribe and consider becoming a member or Patron
Robert Lyman has a gift for clearly and consisely summarising South East Asia politics and actions, from his book, while getting detail across to the viewer.
This was very informative, especially about the 81 WA, the Karen guerrillas, and the Lushai Brigade. I think you could have 1 to 3 more presentations on these operations. As Dr Lyman said, these are much less well known. Let's shed much more light on them! One push back. I think the claim that upon defeating China the IJA would be redeployed to the Pacific needs to be challenged. Did the US think so? Yes. But, was it feasible for Japan to do so? Unlikely. How many more troops could minor islands like Iwo Jima and Tarawa support? Think of the logistics requirements. Already in '42 Japan's logistics problems were being revealed at New Guinea and Guadalcanal. 1943 was dreadful for the merchant marine. 1944 was a shambles. Where the Japan was very strong, the US isolated and bypassed. Truk, which was a major outpost, couldn't support a population beyond the 9k indigenous Chuukese. All the additional Japanese personnel had to be sustained from afar. And what happened when they were cut off? Starvation. Rabaul was bit more fortunate in that it once it was cut off there was land enough for the Japanese to cultivate. Still, close to 95k personnel were at semi-starvation upon surrender. Add 200k IJA personnel to each location and what's the outcome? Sooner starvation. And I haven't even accounted for all the other supplies to shelter, uniform, arm, and medicate them. To cope with meagre rations, propaganda was crafted telling the fighting men and people that less food increased their fighting spirit. How long can people subsist on cope? Where the Japanese occupied inevitably deprivation followed. A famine in northern Indochina in '44 - '45. Starvation in Java. (The Japanese introduced agricultural modernisation on Java with the intent to double rice production. The result? It decreased by 35%. The short-grain sticky rice Japan replaced the long-grain rice used by local farmers was much more labour intensive.) Shortages in Java cascaded to Timor. Military commanders ordered that the locals were to starve before the soldiers. Their water buffalos, used for rice cultivation, were taken. Their palm and papaya trees chopped down for the Japanese to eat the heart of palm and trunk of papaya. Starvation in parts of the Philippines. Food shortages in Korea. Malaya's annual rice production fell by 100,000 tons. In Burma the soldiers were told to live off the land. They foraged for wild yams and redirected streams to catch fish, thereby competing with the local population. Neutral Macao was hit by starvation. Dependent on food imports before the War, the addition of more than 250,000 Chinese, Eurasian, and Western refugees stretched a city with a population of 250,00 and having almost no agricultural land to the breaking point in early '42. When the Americans landed in Mindanao, Japanese soldiers and civilians retreated to the mountains. After battles, the civilians would sneak away to search the dead for food secreted in their uniforms. By July 1945 caloric intake _in Japan_ had been reduced to an average of 1800 calories per day. Japan's total rice imports between November 1939 and October 1940 came to 1,675,000 tons, while those between November 1944 and October 1945 amounted to 236,000. Keep in mind Korea was the principal exporter, this was a short transport route (Busan to Fukuoka is 780km by ship), yet Japan could barely sustain that. Korea is an interesting case. No battles fought there. Some insurgents. A population of about 25 million. Yet almost 240k IJA and IJN personnel were based there upon Japan's surrender. Why? To keep the place under control and defend the 650k Japanese civilians. Formosa had 170k IJA & IJN personnel at surrender - and the Japanese there for the most part were liked by the locals. China's population in 1945 was estimated at 525 million. Given the number of Japanese forces based in Korea and Formosa and China's enormous population (twenty-one times larger than Korea), it's reasonable to conclude a defeated China would have required an occupied China. If you look at Ming and Qing history, some of the world's largest and bloodiest civilian uprisings occurred in China. Given how much the Chinese despised the Japanese from 1937 (if not earlier) onwards, it seems very likely an occupied China would have been a very restive China. And let's not ignore the large Kwangtung Army in Manchuria. It was based there chiefly to guard against a Soviet invasion even though the Soviets were fighting the Germans in the west. China shared a very long border with the USSR and Soviet-allied Mongolia. That Japan was sufficiently concerned by the Soviets bordering Manchuria, it seems likely the same concern would have existed for China.
Opening the Ledo road appears to be the only rational reason to attack in Burma. Retaking Singapore is going AWAY from Japan. By that time Allied submarines had already cut off the “”Southern Resource Area”. It looks like an attempt by Great Britain regain it’s former colonial possessions and after the catastrophe- the loss of Singapore and with the “Quit India” movement British colonialism looks illusionary. Also the short route for the war material from the US is across the Pacific via Australia not around the Cape. The British Empire was actually quite unpopular with the indigenous people, especially the elites, despite the numerous benefits they received. They liked the railroads, telegraphy, rule of law, industry etc. but seem to blame the Brits for the fact they-the indigenous elites didn’t invent them. Go figure.
Excellent broadcast. I live in Thailand about 2 hours east of Mae Sot which is the border for Myanmar. So interesting to hear about the success of Operation Character as I read in Frederick Forsythe's newspaper column that the British promised the Karen people autonomy from Burma in return for helping fight the Japanese and this promise was abandoned with Burma's independence. If true that is quite disgraceful. I've seen interviews with very elderly Veteran Karen soldiers who still surprisingly still support the British but have to hide their memorabilia from the Myanmar authorities for fear of reprisals.
My farther was a commando Sargent major in Burma got ambushed and just him and his mate got away and survived 3 months in the jungle sleeping under banana leafs ,cought malaria and TB at the same time
Guy with a military history degree here. Not that that means much. IMO, Wingate was a terrible officer. Bigoted, narcissistic, anti-scientific, vitriolic, racist, a poor strategist and even poorer tactician. His greatest contribution to allied victory was to die in a plane crash.
Wonderful presentation by Robert as usual and as usual i learned a lot today, Would love to learn more about Operation Character, the Lushai Brigade and the Kaladan Valley. Many thanks
Interesting comparison to arnhem. Indeed a bridge too far and in the movie the planners stated that they couldn't afford to lose a single aircraft. I wonder how much pressure there was from especially from the air corps to keep airborne operations within reason? Apparently some of the ground forces weren't in the cowboy mood either.
Howdy folks. Another outstanding presentation by Dr Lyman on Burma. He has a great grasp on the situation on the ground and of the Indian Army. Very persuasive. I’m going to buy The War of Empires tomorrow. Thanks Woody.
Missed the live broadcast, work and houseguests got in the way, but enjoying the replay with my History Rage "Only 10% of the Army in Burma was British" mug.
Another fantastic presentation. Like with, perhaps, the Phantom Major, this was a story that needed telling - leading in to the important discussion at the end about the requirement for scholars to focus more on the variety of ethnicities that fought with (or indeed against) the Allies.
Robert Lyman, you know better. On the initial map of Burma, you described the amount of American aid going to China as large. American supply to China was never large. More than half of what the US sent arrived only in 1945. The Soviet aid to China in 1938 as part of operation Zet was larger than all of the American aid from 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 combined. The impression of mountains of supplies reaching the Chinese, who, judging by their difficulties, "obviously" squandered it, is a pernicious myth. The larger point about the Burma road being important and the Japanese wanting to cut it off is correct, but you missed the part where they were actually successful. The Japanese did cut the road in early 42 and thus the trickle of US supplies the Chinese had been receiving was cut off entirely. What the Japanese feared was a flood of supplies over the road as China was connected to the firehose of US industrial production. And that didn't happen because Japan successfully took Burma.
@@WW2TV He is an expert, no doubt. But he does have blind spots. Notice at the start when he talked about the loss of Burma. He talks about the British Burma army and them getting run out of the country. Which is good, this is very important to the story. Strangely, he fails to mention that China also was run out of Burma in 1942. This is odd, as China put twice as many troops into Burma in 1942 as the British did. The fact that he didn't mention them... AT ALL... was very strange. If you were to do a story about D-day, and say "The Americans landed on the beaches at Normandy," you might wonder "Hey, what about the Canadians and the British?" This struck me as being a very similar case. Further on. when he talks about the "American" drive to reopen the Ledo Road, he doesn't mention that the Chinese troops doing it are the remains of Chinese divisions who fled into India after the initial loss of Burma in 1942. Instead, he describes the troops as flying back from China over the Hump, (which a lot of them did, the divisions were brought up to full strength from often very low levels) but that seems like another "blind spot."
@porksterbob I think you are judging a 75 minute presentation by Rob on this subject too harshly. Have you read A War of Empires? The audio book is 25 hours! Of course, many points in today's show could have been expanded on, but this show was an examination of a set of specific Allied operations, it was not about the Chinese participation in the overall Burma campaign. I think you should be more grateful that Rob gives his time freely and that I host these shows at all. Basically I think you are mistaking subjects that were not the focus of this presentation for "blind spots" Regarding your comment ""The Americans landed on the beaches at Normandy," you might wonder "Hey, what about the Canadians and the British?" My reaction is this:, if this was part of a lecture about the Americans in Normandy, then no I would not question why there was no mention of the British and Canadians. Neither in the show description of Rob's introduction did we indicate that this would cover the Chinese role. I agree that it's a fascinating subject and one for the future, but it wasn't the subject of this presentation, so any reference to the Chinese were bonuses.
@@WW2TV I love that you host these shows. I love that you get all of these experts on these shows. I don't mean to judge him harshly. I have not read War of Empires. I was essentially expecting variations on a few sentences. None of these would put China as the prime mover, just to give context. "The Burma Road was China's only link to the outside world not under Japan's easy control. Some supplies had been going over already. Japan feared that it could be used to send a lot more. "In 1942, the Japanese were much more successful in their conquest of Burma than they expected. The British troops already in country as well the Chinese divisions sent to help were forced to flee." "The American idea for the Ledo road was to build a road from Ledo, through North Burma into China. They would use American engineers who would be protected by Chinese troops who had been forced to flee into India in 1942, later brought up to full strength by troops flying to India from China over the Hump." As you can see, this is at the level of saying, "There were five beaches on D-day, Utah and Omaha were the American ones, Sword and Gold were British, Juno was Canadian." If the rest of the presentation is about travails of the US 1st infantry division, that's fine.
@@WW2TV in reference to your other comment, I am an American with a masters in Asia Pacific studies from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. My wife is a professor of political geography with a special focus on the border between Burma, India, and China. (She specializes in the modern era, but the footprint of the Burma campaign on the modern politics of Myanmar's borders has been massive, so we have had to learn a lot about it. For example, there is a straight line from the special forces efforts with the Karens in 1945 to the modern Karen National Union who is fighting against the Burmese coup. You had a show with Edith mirante about detachment 101 that talked about something similar. The modern Kachin Independence Army draws inspiration from the WW2 experience.)
Check out Never So Few. Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen. It's about O.S.S. and the Kachin guerillas. The ending illuminates the darker side of politics in the C.B.I. Might be why, despite being a decent war flick, it's not so well known. And no, Sinatra doesn't sing in it. Then of course, there's Merrill's Marauders. Y'all have a GOODN.
Great presentation by Robert Lyman. I liked the way in which he tied up the various operations with an analysis of their effect on strategy. Another book I'm going to have to purchase soon.
A message to posters, not just on this show, but generally on WW2TV. We love your comments - we really do, but to those of you who type long responses that include criticisms and perceived corrections, please take the time to introduce yourself. Explain where your expertise comes from, please. Tell us if you teach or write about history. My guests' qualifications and expertise are obvious to all, but many people who comment use screen-names, which is fine of course. But help us to engage with you by letting us know who you are and why we should consider your corrections
Thanks for mentioning 1st Air Commando.
I just found out my great grandpa was in the 475th fighting in burma forrest m bass from Oklahoma sgt ww2
Great presentation. Thanks so much for expanding my understanding of this aspect of the Asia-Pacific Theater.
Exceptional livestream, a friend of mine linked me to this video and your channel. I really dislike the fact that the 14th Army gets overlooked when we talk about the Second World War. The insight into the Chindits and what they were actually trying to achieve was very educational. I've been trying to encourage historical miniature painters to paint 14th army figures which gets more people looking into what happened in this theater. I've been focusing a lot of my attention on the Battle of Imphal & Kohima.
Excellent presentation as usual. I'm vey interested in hearing more aboyt the Burma campaign.............
Woody/Robert. Thank you for such an interesting presentation. Learnt a lot today. Bob
I have been reading about WW2 for more than 30 years and the Burma campaign seemed so complex to me to understand.
1942 was the year of the disaster for the british with the seemingly invincible japanese soldiers always outflanking and encircling the quite passive british and indians. 1943 was the year of stalemate, 1944 the year of the succesful defence of Imphal and Kohima and 1945 the year of the Allied victory. With the help of this channel this limited perception is slowly changing. The explanation about the strategic polítical context has been so helpful.
Great content!
Thanks for the comment. Yes Robert manages to make the complicated situation easier to understand. If you are new to the channel please subscribe and consider becoming a member or Patron
My grandad fought in Burma
Robert Lyman has a gift for clearly and consisely summarising South East Asia politics and actions, from his book, while getting detail across to the viewer.
Yes definitely
This was very informative, especially about the 81 WA, the Karen guerrillas, and the Lushai Brigade. I think you could have 1 to 3 more presentations on these operations. As Dr Lyman said, these are much less well known. Let's shed much more light on them!
One push back. I think the claim that upon defeating China the IJA would be redeployed to the Pacific needs to be challenged. Did the US think so? Yes. But, was it feasible for Japan to do so? Unlikely. How many more troops could minor islands like Iwo Jima and Tarawa support? Think of the logistics requirements. Already in '42 Japan's logistics problems were being revealed at New Guinea and Guadalcanal. 1943 was dreadful for the merchant marine. 1944 was a shambles.
Where the Japan was very strong, the US isolated and bypassed. Truk, which was a major outpost, couldn't support a population beyond the 9k indigenous Chuukese. All the additional Japanese personnel had to be sustained from afar. And what happened when they were cut off? Starvation. Rabaul was bit more fortunate in that it once it was cut off there was land enough for the Japanese to cultivate. Still, close to 95k personnel were at semi-starvation upon surrender. Add 200k IJA personnel to each location and what's the outcome? Sooner starvation. And I haven't even accounted for all the other supplies to shelter, uniform, arm, and medicate them. To cope with meagre rations, propaganda was crafted telling the fighting men and people that less food increased their fighting spirit. How long can people subsist on cope?
Where the Japanese occupied inevitably deprivation followed. A famine in northern Indochina in '44 - '45. Starvation in Java. (The Japanese introduced agricultural modernisation on Java with the intent to double rice production. The result? It decreased by 35%. The short-grain sticky rice Japan replaced the long-grain rice used by local farmers was much more labour intensive.) Shortages in Java cascaded to Timor. Military commanders ordered that the locals were to starve before the soldiers. Their water buffalos, used for rice cultivation, were taken. Their palm and papaya trees chopped down for the Japanese to eat the heart of palm and trunk of papaya. Starvation in parts of the Philippines. Food shortages in Korea. Malaya's annual rice production fell by 100,000 tons. In Burma the soldiers were told to live off the land. They foraged for wild yams and redirected streams to catch fish, thereby competing with the local population. Neutral Macao was hit by starvation. Dependent on food imports before the War, the addition of more than 250,000 Chinese, Eurasian, and Western refugees stretched a city with a population of 250,00 and having almost no agricultural land to the breaking point in early '42. When the Americans landed in Mindanao, Japanese soldiers and civilians retreated to the mountains. After battles, the civilians would sneak away to search the dead for food secreted in their uniforms. By July 1945 caloric intake _in Japan_ had been reduced to an average of 1800 calories per day. Japan's total rice imports between November 1939 and October 1940 came to 1,675,000 tons, while those between November 1944 and October 1945 amounted to 236,000. Keep in mind Korea was the principal exporter, this was a short transport route (Busan to Fukuoka is 780km by ship), yet Japan could barely sustain that.
Korea is an interesting case. No battles fought there. Some insurgents. A population of about 25 million. Yet almost 240k IJA and IJN personnel were based there upon Japan's surrender. Why? To keep the place under control and defend the 650k Japanese civilians. Formosa had 170k IJA & IJN personnel at surrender - and the Japanese there for the most part were liked by the locals. China's population in 1945 was estimated at 525 million.
Given the number of Japanese forces based in Korea and Formosa and China's enormous population (twenty-one times larger than Korea), it's reasonable to conclude a defeated China would have required an occupied China. If you look at Ming and Qing history, some of the world's largest and bloodiest civilian uprisings occurred in China. Given how much the Chinese despised the Japanese from 1937 (if not earlier) onwards, it seems very likely an occupied China would have been a very restive China. And let's not ignore the large Kwangtung Army in Manchuria. It was based there chiefly to guard against a Soviet invasion even though the Soviets were fighting the Germans in the west. China shared a very long border with the USSR and Soviet-allied Mongolia. That Japan was sufficiently concerned by the Soviets bordering Manchuria, it seems likely the same concern would have existed for China.
I’m learning so much about this campaign from these episodes! Great stuff, thank you.
Opening the Ledo road appears to be the only rational reason to attack in Burma. Retaking Singapore is going AWAY from Japan. By that time Allied submarines had already cut off the “”Southern Resource Area”. It looks like an attempt by Great Britain regain it’s former colonial possessions and after the catastrophe- the loss of Singapore and with the “Quit India” movement British colonialism looks illusionary. Also the short route for the war material from the US is across the Pacific via Australia not around the Cape. The British Empire was actually quite unpopular with the indigenous people, especially the elites, despite the numerous benefits they received. They liked the railroads, telegraphy, rule of law, industry etc. but seem to blame the Brits for the fact they-the indigenous elites didn’t invent them. Go figure.
Excellent broadcast. I live in Thailand about 2 hours east of Mae Sot which is the border for Myanmar. So interesting to hear about the success of Operation Character as I read in Frederick Forsythe's newspaper column that the British promised the Karen people autonomy from Burma in return for helping fight the Japanese and this promise was abandoned with Burma's independence. If true that is quite disgraceful. I've seen interviews with very elderly Veteran Karen soldiers who still surprisingly still support the British but have to hide their memorabilia from the Myanmar authorities for fear of reprisals.
I really appreciated this great talk. This shows great cooperation between the US and British forces.
Excellent! I watch most of these and this was amongst my favorite. Riveting presentation.
My farther was a commando Sargent major in Burma got ambushed and just him and his mate got away and survived 3 months in the jungle sleeping under banana leafs ,cought malaria and TB at the same time
Guy with a military history degree here. Not that that means much.
IMO, Wingate was a terrible officer. Bigoted, narcissistic, anti-scientific, vitriolic, racist, a poor strategist and even poorer tactician.
His greatest contribution to allied victory was to die in a plane crash.
Hard to disagree with that, and Robert Lyman said as much in his show with us about Wingate and Slim
Wonderful presentation by Robert as usual and as usual i learned a lot today, Would love to learn more about Operation Character, the Lushai Brigade and the Kaladan Valley. Many thanks
Maybe we will revisit those subjects with dedicated shows one day
Exceptional. Simply exceptional.
I’m from Burma and I’m going to special force selection and I hope I make it
Good luck
First class presentation. Actual History again as usual.
Interesting comparison to arnhem. Indeed a bridge too far and in the movie the planners stated that they couldn't afford to lose a single aircraft. I wonder how much pressure there was from especially from the air corps to keep airborne operations within reason? Apparently some of the ground forces weren't in the cowboy mood either.
Howdy folks. Another outstanding presentation by Dr Lyman on Burma. He has a great grasp on the situation on the ground and of the Indian Army. Very persuasive. I’m going to buy The War of Empires tomorrow. Thanks Woody.
Missed the live broadcast, work and houseguests got in the way, but enjoying the replay with my History Rage "Only 10% of the Army in Burma was British" mug.
Damn, missed it!!! Catch up time 🙂
I missed it live @Markloop, but am so glad I got to see it in the end.
Another fantastic presentation. Like with, perhaps, the Phantom Major, this was a story that needed telling - leading in to the important discussion at the end about the requirement for scholars to focus more on the variety of ethnicities that fought with (or indeed against) the Allies.
Thanks for another outstanding Burma show. Loving the CBI theater content!
I really like these detailed videos on not so well known subjects :) One does learn a lot.
Superb analysis as usual from Dr. Lyman. Great show yet again Woody..........!
Yep Robert is the master
Kicking ass as usual. Thank you from California.
Robert Lyman, you know better.
On the initial map of Burma, you described the amount of American aid going to China as large. American supply to China was never large. More than half of what the US sent arrived only in 1945.
The Soviet aid to China in 1938 as part of operation Zet was larger than all of the American aid from 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 combined.
The impression of mountains of supplies reaching the Chinese, who, judging by their difficulties, "obviously" squandered it, is a pernicious myth.
The larger point about the Burma road being important and the Japanese wanting to cut it off is correct, but you missed the part where they were actually successful. The Japanese did cut the road in early 42 and thus the trickle of US supplies the Chinese had been receiving was cut off entirely.
What the Japanese feared was a flood of supplies over the road as China was connected to the firehose of US industrial production.
And that didn't happen because Japan successfully took Burma.
It takes a brave person to question Robert Lyman's expertise in this area
@@WW2TV He is an expert, no doubt. But he does have blind spots.
Notice at the start when he talked about the loss of Burma.
He talks about the British Burma army and them getting run out of the country. Which is good, this is very important to the story. Strangely, he fails to mention that China also was run out of Burma in 1942. This is odd, as China put twice as many troops into Burma in 1942 as the British did.
The fact that he didn't mention them... AT ALL... was very strange. If you were to do a story about D-day, and say "The Americans landed on the beaches at Normandy," you might wonder "Hey, what about the Canadians and the British?" This struck me as being a very similar case.
Further on. when he talks about the "American" drive to reopen the Ledo Road, he doesn't mention that the Chinese troops doing it are the remains of Chinese divisions who fled into India after the initial loss of Burma in 1942. Instead, he describes the troops as flying back from China over the Hump, (which a lot of them did, the divisions were brought up to full strength from often very low levels) but that seems like another "blind spot."
@porksterbob I think you are judging a 75 minute presentation by Rob on this subject too harshly. Have you read A War of Empires? The audio book is 25 hours! Of course, many points in today's show could have been expanded on, but this show was an examination of a set of specific Allied operations, it was not about the Chinese participation in the overall Burma campaign. I think you should be more grateful that Rob gives his time freely and that I host these shows at all.
Basically I think you are mistaking subjects that were not the focus of this presentation for "blind spots"
Regarding your comment ""The Americans landed on the beaches at Normandy," you might wonder "Hey, what about the Canadians and the British?" My reaction is this:, if this was part of a lecture about the Americans in Normandy, then no I would not question why there was no mention of the British and Canadians. Neither in the show description of Rob's introduction did we indicate that this would cover the Chinese role. I agree that it's a fascinating subject and one for the future, but it wasn't the subject of this presentation, so any reference to the Chinese were bonuses.
@@WW2TV I love that you host these shows. I love that you get all of these experts on these shows. I don't mean to judge him harshly. I have not read War of Empires.
I was essentially expecting variations on a few sentences. None of these would put China as the prime mover, just to give context.
"The Burma Road was China's only link to the outside world not under Japan's easy control. Some supplies had been going over already. Japan feared that it could be used to send a lot more.
"In 1942, the Japanese were much more successful in their conquest of Burma than they expected. The British troops already in country as well the Chinese divisions sent to help were forced to flee."
"The American idea for the Ledo road was to build a road from Ledo, through North Burma into China. They would use American engineers who would be protected by Chinese troops who had been forced to flee into India in 1942, later brought up to full strength by troops flying to India from China over the Hump."
As you can see, this is at the level of saying, "There were five beaches on D-day, Utah and Omaha were the American ones, Sword and Gold were British, Juno was Canadian." If the rest of the presentation is about travails of the US 1st infantry division, that's fine.
@@WW2TV in reference to your other comment, I am an American with a masters in Asia Pacific studies from National Chengchi University in Taiwan.
My wife is a professor of political geography with a special focus on the border between Burma, India, and China. (She specializes in the modern era, but the footprint of the Burma campaign on the modern politics of Myanmar's borders has been massive, so we have had to learn a lot about it. For example, there is a straight line from the special forces efforts with the Karens in 1945 to the modern Karen National Union who is fighting against the Burmese coup. You had a show with Edith mirante about detachment 101 that talked about something similar. The modern Kachin Independence Army draws inspiration from the WW2 experience.)
Great presentation, a prime example of why I love this channel. Granular analysis, tackling myths and promoting the ignored and unsung. Thank you!
Thanks Jak, I hope you will consider subscribing if you haven't already?
@WW2TV very much subscribed, and grateful for the book links provided. I've run out of shelf space!
Are there any books about the Lushai Brigade? Is there a good book on the 81st and 82 Divisions?
Well they are all covered in Robert's books
Boy, am I sorry I missed this live.
Better than the Erol Flynn film😊! Much much much better.
Check out Never So Few. Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen. It's about O.S.S. and the Kachin guerillas. The ending illuminates the darker side of politics in the C.B.I. Might be why, despite being a decent war flick, it's not so well known. And no, Sinatra doesn't sing in it. Then of course, there's Merrill's Marauders. Y'all have a GOODN.
Eye-opening analysis, fascinating: big thanks
Yep, Robert was a superb guest (as always)
Great presentation by Robert Lyman. I liked the way in which he tied up the various operations with an analysis of their effect on strategy. Another book I'm going to have to purchase soon.