1941, Tuesday 15 July;
Wavell took his glasses off, and cleaned them with his handkerchief, giving himself a break, a moment to pause for thought, while working through the endless paperwork. If they thought moving him from the Middle East Command to India Command was going to give him a rest, then they’d been much mistaken. Despite Auchinleck’s good work, India Command had been drained of her best units, now in North Africa, East Africa, Iraq, Malaya and Burma, and with an occupation of Persia looking more and more likely, yet more would go. In addition, the Indian Government had increased the numbers of new units it would raise for the defence of the Empire.
Back in May 1940, they had agreed to raise the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th Infantry, along with the 31st Armoured, Divisions. These were joining the 4th and 5th, both of which had already been in action in Africa. Other than the 7th, all other units were already earmarked for overseas deployment or already gone. A further Division, the 11th had been raised in Malaya, by upgrading an area command to divisional status. The only other exception was the 31st Armoured Division, who had lost their best unit, the 3rd Motor Brigade to North Africa, while raising the two armoured brigades was proving problematic to say the least.
Then, this March, they had agreed to raising five more additional Infantry Divisions, namely the 14th, 17th, 19th, 20th, 34th and the two Armoured Formations 32nd Armoured Division and 50th Tank Brigade. While this was all well and good on paper, the massive expansion of units was a headache of the first degree. It could only be done by milking existing units of sizeable cadres of experience officers and men, around which new units could be built on. The acceleration of promotions for both officers and NCOs, was, at times breath taking, often moving up two, even three ranks inside of a year. There was a need for very large numbers of junior British officers to transfer to the British Indian Army to lead the new platoons and companies that made up these units. The attraction of more pay was countered by the requirement to learn Urdu, the lingua franca of the army. However, the need for more ECO’s (emergency commissioned officers) was eased somewhat by a steady increasing Indianisation of the army, with more units being officered by Indians.
The bottom line was, although he might be able to fill a new unit out with the numbers of men required, the unit’s effectiveness was, in most cases, very poor. In addition, existing units, having been heavily milked and then backfilled with raw recruits, saw their effectiveness drop alarmingly. Then you looked at the equipment, and although India could feed and clothe them, arming them was another matter, with automatic weapons, antitank guns, mortars, artillery and vehicles all in short supply and most having to be imported from Britain or North America.
As if this wasn’t enough work for him, he also had responsibility for the defence of Burma to contend with as well, which was another sorry tale. Auchinleck had been given the responsibility of Burma’s defence back in January, but hadn’t been able to do much. Although there were a considerable number of Burmese infantry battalions available on paper, quite what they were like in the field was another matter, most being just about able to undertake basic internal security roles, in any possibility of contact with an armed and trained opponent, they would probably fall apart. Again, the well-worn cry ‘we need more time to train’ was to be heard, but frankly they needed more than that, lacking many supporting units, and bereft of artillery, armoured vehicles and aircraft.
Yesterday he had made a start to improving Burma’s defence with the formation of the 1st Burma Infantry Division, under the command of newly promoted Maj Gen James Bruce Scott, coming from the 1st Burma Infantry Bde, one of its components, along with the 2nd Burma Infantry Bde, and the 13th Indian Infantry Bde, a transfer from the 7th Indian Division, to round out the division. The Burmese battalions were scattered, deployed in internal security roles, while the Indian battalions, had recently been heavily ‘milked’. He also had thoughts about replacing the GOC Burma, Maj Gen Donald McLeod, who, although a nice old gentleman, lacked the necessary drive to improve things fast enough, but he didn’t have a ready replacement.
There was good news about RAF 221 Group, which had commanded over all Burma, a newly raised fighter squadron RAF 67, equipped with Brewster Buffalos was being transferred from Singapore, joining RAF 60 Sqn, equipped with Blenheim’s as their main units. And on that point, he was being told more Buffalos would be coming, enough to equip two fighter squadrons for Indian home defence. Secondly, a radar unit, 517 COL had also arrived in May, and was being installed in Rangoon University’s grounds.
Yes, reflected Wavell, I must visit Burma soon, and reacquaint myself with what’s going on there, and he called an orderly in, to begin planning a tour, when things had hopefully calmed down here a bit.
