Quotulatiousness

November 7, 2024

Forgotten War Ep4 – Rise of the Chindits

Filed under: Britain, History, India, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

HardThrasher
Published 4 Nov 2024

Please consider donations of any size to the Burma Star Memorial Fund who aim to ensure remembrance of those who fought with, in and against 14th Army 1941–1945 — https://burmastarmemorial.org/
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September 23, 2024

Forgotten War Ep3 – Death in the Arakan

Filed under: Australia, Britain, China, History, India, Japan, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:10

HardThrasher
Published 18 Sept 2024

Please consider donations of any size to the Burma Star Memorial Fund who aim to ensure remembrance of those who fought with, in and against 14th Army 1941–1945 — https://burmastarmemorial.org/
(more…)

August 31, 2024

Forgotten War Ep2 – You Walk, You Walk Or You Die Mate

Filed under: Asia, Britain, China, India, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

HardThrasher
Published 30 Aug 2024

Please consider donations of any size to the Burma Star Memorial Fund who aim to ensure remembrance of those who fought with, in and against 14th Army 1941–1945 – https://burmastarmemorial.org/
(more…)

August 17, 2024

Forgotten War Ep1 – Witness the Rising Sun

Filed under: Asia, Britain, China, History, India, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

HardThrasher
Published Aug 14, 2024

In January 1942 the Japanese Army poured over the border with Burma, and pushed back the Indian and British Armies to the border with Burma. Today we look at how that disaster came about, why and the first phase of the campaign
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August 11, 2024

The US drops two atomic bombs on Japan – WW2 – Week 311 – August 10, 1945

World War Two
Published 10 Aug 2024

This week atomic bombs are for the first time in history dropped on cities — Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The bombs kill over 100,000 people and flatten large parts of the urban area. The Japanese government is actually meeting while the second bomb is dropped to consider their response to the first and to the demands for unconditional surrender. The response is not just to that first bomb, though, for on the 8th the Soviets tell the Japanese not only that they will not help them negotiate some sort of settled peace with the other Allies, they too are declaring war on Japan, and indeed invade Manchuria. With two atomic bombs and an invasion instead of mediating help, Japanese Emperor Hirohito cuts off any debate and says that Japan will surrender. This could happen next week.

00:00 Intro
00:17 Recap
00:44 Hiroshima Bombing
02:35 The Bombing Mission
04:19 Descriptions Of The Blast
06:38 The Nagasaki Bomb
07:37 The Tactics
08:31 The Japanese Response
12:55 Soviets Invade Manchuria
16:18 Splitting Korea
18:07 Operation Zipper
19:31 End Notes
20:08 Summary
20:30 Conclusion
(more…)

August 4, 2024

Mokusatsu! – WW2 – Week 310 – August 3, 1945

World War Two
Published 3 Aug 2024

The Japanese reaction to the Allied ultimatum for unconditional surrender is … mokusatsu. This can be translated several ways, but all involve not giving a response. Meanwhile, materials for atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan are delivered to Tinian, though the ship making the delivery is sunk by a Japanese submarine days afterward. The active war continues in Burma and China, and the Potsdam Conference ends in Germany with the map of Poland very much re-drawn.

00:00 Intro
00:56 Mokusatsu
05:47 Delivering Atomic Material
07:22 Sinking The Indianapolis
09:26 Bombing Japan
12:22 The War In Burma And China
14:07 Potsdam Confernece Ends
17:02 Conclusion
(more…)

July 27, 2024

Cancelling Orwell (again)

Filed under: Books, Britain, Education, History, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

In The Daily Sceptic, Paul Sutton recounts a recent discussion with some Oxford graduate students where the topic of George Orwell came up:

The students maintained that the important thing is quality of writing but, paradoxically, this can only be judged by a strict contemporary “evaluation” of any Right-wing or outdated views. Inevitably, this contextualisation then reveals that said writers are “problematic” and “not as good as XYZ” – usually some figure who fits their sensibilities, and coincidentally one who’s almost always female – or at least better suited to the diversity required by these commissars.

So far, so well known and wearily familiar. The absolute impossibility of literature under such a mindset – one enthusiastically endorsed by graduate students who professed to live for literature – is utterly depressing. We’re in effect dealing with its cancellation.

I made a perfunctory effort in observing their complete inconsistency, but things got more interesting when Orwell was discussed. Of course, Orwell famously wrote against their stand, not least in his brilliant defence of Kipling’s literary merit and his refusal to allow orthodoxy to dictate his aesthetic preferences, in “Benefit of Clergy“.

Unfortunately, Orwell’s stint in the Burmese Imperial Police made him a despicable figure to the students, little better than a Waffen SS or Gestapo officer. True, he’d belatedly retrieved himself by his “eventual writing” in the 1940s, but he’d spent many years performing the dirty work of the British Empire. His famous essay, “A Hanging“, showed him enthusiastically hands on at it.

I’d honestly never heard such a narrow and limited view, and was intrigued. As a preposterous misrepresentation, it needs little rebuttal. “A Hanging” is indeed a brilliantly disturbing account of an Indian murderer being hanged, a man who’d have been executed at that time in any country. The essay explores the deep unease Orwell felt about his role, so it’s a lie to claim it shows him uncritically doing his job, let alone revelling in his exertion of British authority.

Such an interpretation shows a shocking lack of understanding. As does the idea that Orwell only recanted any pro-Imperial views in the 1940s; his underrated Burmese Days was published in 1934 and he wrote extensively about his disgust for the job he did in the late 20s and 1930s. Of course, he didn’t only feel disgust, nor would he pretend that the British brought only misery and were unique as imperial exploiters.
What I’m most interested in is how an alternative Orwell was then offered up, a writer who’d accepted the British Empire was “problematic” yet offered a nice comforting view of how nice and comforting life can be – if you agree with the progressives, that is.

Step forward Jan Morris and his trilogy Pax Britannica. Now, I haven’t read this non-fictional account of the British Empire but from background knowledge, it’s not in any way a replacement for Orwell or even remotely comparable. It’s an exhaustive historical work, not a personal creative one. But this trilogy was extolled by the students as what Orwell should have done when discussing empire. There was the implication that Orwell could now be – somewhat thankfully – ignored.

Bizarrely, the Englishman then introduced Joyce, first saying that the man was a lifelong sponger who’d have probably fleeced him, but as a writer was the very model of a pan-European, liberal and open to all cultures. Again, the grubby contradictions and sheer banality of such a perspective are eye-popping – from a DPhil student in perhaps the country’s finest university.

And I’ve a nagging feeling that Jan Morris – a famous case of gender realignment (he “transitioned” to female in 1972) – was picked for the “acceptable author” reasons. That’s the problem with “author context” vetting – as with “diversity hires”. Much as I’ve enjoyed Morris’s travel writing, especially Oxford, it’s staggering for this author to be proposed as some alternative to Orwell! Not only in terms of obvious lesser importance, but they’re not remotely comparable in terms of genre or aims. How could any serious reader – let alone one at a leading university – talk such gibberish?

July 21, 2024

The Atomic Age Begins! – WW2 – Week 308 – July 20, 1945

World War Two
Published 20 Jul 2024

This week the Americans explode a nuclear bomb at the Trinity Test in New Mexico. The plan is to possibly use more such bombs against targets in Japan. US President Harry Truman is meanwhile in Germany for the Potsdam Conference with other Allied leaders to hammer out some details of the postwar global order. The active war continues, of course, in Burma, Borneo, the Philippines, and China, with the Japanese being defeated everywhere.

00:00 Intro
00:22 Recap
00:51 The Trinity Test
02:46 The Potsdam Conference Begins
04:09 Bretton Woods Agreement
05:38 The Active War Continues
09:39 Summary
11:00 Conclusion
(more…)

July 7, 2024

Aussies Land on Borneo – WW2 – Week 306 – July 6, 1945

Filed under: Australia, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 6 Jul 2024

Australian forces land at Balikpapan to hopefully secure the oil facilities there; In Burma, the Japanese try a diversion to allow some troops to escape the country, but the timing is not what it should be; in the Philippines there is an American landing on Mindanao, but behind the scenes there are those wondering if they really need to push Japan for complete unconditional surrender.

00:00 Intro
00:31 Recap
00:55 Landings On Balikpapan
03:23 A Diversion In Burma
06:10 Luzon And Mindanao
07:39 Unconditional Surrender?
11:18 Polls And Polling Numbers
15:25 Notes
15:48 Conclusion
16:56 Us Army’s 11th Airborne Division Memorial
(more…)

June 20, 2024

The birth of para-rescue

Filed under: Asia, Britain, China, History, India, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

At The War Room, Dr. Robert Lyman discusses an air crash in 1943 and the innovative and daring rescue of the survivors using parachutes:

A United States Army Air Force (USAAF) C46 similar to that of Flight 12420.

The birth of para-rescue can be placed in operations across the Hump airlift in 1942 and 1943. The story of the crash of Flight 12420 was a central part of the story.

The story itself is extraordinary. In 1943 a Soviet spy inside the predecessor organization to the CIA and a proud descendant of the famous Southern leader General Robert E Lee, on his way to China to meet General Dai Li, the mysterious and secretive Kuomintang intelligence chief; a celebrated American journalist sent by President Roosevelt to ascertain the “truth about China”; and General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell’s political adviser; together with eighteen others — American and Chinese — survived a C46 air crash on the mountainous and remote border between India and Burma. It was, and remains, the largest evacuation of an aircraft by parachute, and, given the fact that even the crew had never been trained in the technique, it was a miracle that so many survived. But they fell with their crippled plane from the frying pan into the fire. On disentangling themselves from their parachutes, the twenty shocked survivors soon found that they had arrived in wild country dominated by a tribe that had an especial reason to hate white men. The Nagas of the Patkoi Hills on their remote and unsurveyed land were notorious headhunters, who continued — despite the feeble wrath of distant British imperial authority — to practice both slavery and human sacrifice. Their specialty was the removal of the heads of their enemies — often women and children — achieved with a swipe of ugly, razor-sharp daos. On two occasions in recent years their village, or parts of it, had been burned to the ground and their warriors killed in running battles with sepoys sent to teach the villagers a lesson and to exert the authority of the Raj.

Nevertheless, and against all the odds, all but one of the twenty-one passengers and crew on the doomed aircraft survived. The story of the extraordinary adventure of those men among the Nagas of Pangsha and of their rescue by the young representative of the distant imperial power, the British deputy commissioner who arrived wearing “Bombay bloomers” and stout leather walking shoes, carrying a bamboo cane, and leading an armed party of “friendly” Nagas, is told in my book Among the Headhunters. In their meeting in some of the world’s most inaccessible and previously unmapped terrain, three very different worlds collided. The young, exuberant apostles of the vast industrial democracy of the United States came face-to-face with members of an ancient mongoloid race, uncomprehending of the extent of modernity that existed beyond the remote hills in which they lived and determined to preserve their local power, based on ancient head-hunting and slaving prerogatives. Both groups met — not for the first time for the Nagas, whose village had been burned twice, in 1936 and 1939, because of persistent head-hunting — the vestiges of British authority in India, disintegrating as the Japanese tsunami washed up at its gate.

One of the reasons for the survival of the men whose aircraft fell to earth that tumultuous day was the quick thinking, rapid action and spontaneous sacrifice of a group of US servicemen at the airbase from whence the aircraft departed that morning, Chabua. One in particular needs calling out, thirty-six-year-old ATC wing surgeon Lieutenant Colonel Don Flickinger. He had been duty medical officer at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941 and in 1943 found himself stationed in the upper reaches of Assam as part of the mammoth Hump airlift to China.

On the day the C46 went down over the rugged Paktoi ranges, the dividing line between astern India and Burma in the first leg of the journey to China, a C47 sent up to see if it could find the wreckage, and found the survivors waving from a remote village high in the hills. Using ground signalling panels the C47 dropped to the survivors they indicated that at least one of the party was badly injured. When the C47 returned to Chabua with the news that survivors were seen in the sprawling village and its location pinpointed on the map, the British deputy commissioner gave the Americans the grave news that the men were likely to be in grave danger. The villagers were, unknown to the survivors, the most practised headhunters of the region, a powerful and unruly tribe who were notorious for their violence. It was unlikely that the men would survive the encounter.

May 5, 2024

Allied Victory in Berlin, Italy, and Burma! – WW2 – Week 297 – May 4, 1945

World War Two
Published 4 May 2024

So much goes on this week, and this is the longest episode of the war by like 15 minutes. But there’s so much to cover! The Battle of Berlin ends; the war in Italy ends; the war in Burma ends- well, it ends officially, though there are still tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers scattered around Burma. And there’s a whole lot more to these stores and a whole lot more stories this week in the war. You can’t miss this one.

01:27 The End of the War in Italy
03:40 Western Allied Advances
07:02 Relief Operations in the Netherlands
15:45 Hitler’s Death and the Surrender of Berlin
24:20 Walther Wenck’s Retreat
28:00 The Polish Situation
31:09 What About Prague?
32:44 The End of the Burma Campaign
36:04 THE FIGHT FOR TARAKAN ISLAND BEGINS
37:24 Okinawa
40:11 Other Notes
41:04 Summary
41:43 Conclusion
(more…)

April 29, 2024

“The disaster at Imphal was perhaps the worst of its kind yet chronicled in the annals of war”

Filed under: Asia, Britain, History, India, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Dr. Robert Lyman makes the case for the Japanese defeat at the battles of Imphal and Kohima being one of the four great turning points in the Second World War:

It is clear to me that the great twin battle of Imphal & Kohima, which raged from March through to late July 1944, was one of four great turning-point battles in the Second World War, when the tide of war changed irreversibly and dramatically against those who initially held the upper hand.

The first great turning point was arguably at Midway in June 1942 when the US Navy successfully challenged Japanese dominance in the Pacific. The second was at Stalingrad between August 1942 and January 1943 when the seemingly unstoppable German juggernaut in the Soviet Union was finally halted in the winter bloodbath of that city, where only 94,000 of the original 300,000 German, Rumanian and Hungarian troops survived. The third was at El Alamein in October 1942 when the British Commonwealth triumphed against Rommel’s Afrika Korps in North Africa and began the process that led to the German surrender in Tunisia in May 1943. The fourth was this battle, that at Kohima and Imphal between March and July 1944 when the Japanese “March on Delhi” was brought to nothing at a huge cost in human life, and the start of their retreat from Asia began. Adjectives such as “climactic” and “titanic”, struggle to give proper impact to the reality and extent of the terrible war that raged across the jungle-clad hills during these fearsome months.

That the Japanese were contemplating an offensive against India in early 1944 was a surprise to Allied planners, who had given no thought to its possibility. By this time Japan had reached the apogee of its power, having extended the violent reach of its Empire across much of Asia since it launched its first surprise attacks in late 1941. Its initial surge in 1942 into what was briefly to be Japan’s “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” was as dramatic as it was rapid and two years further on several millions of peoples across Asia laboured under its heavy yoke. But by early 1944 the tide had turned decisively in the Pacific, the American island-hopping advance reaching steadily but surely towards Japan itself, its humiliated enemies fighting back with desperation, and with every ounce of energy they could muster. They were beginning to prevail in the fight although the struggle on the landmass of Asia was a strategic sideshow in the context of a global conflict: at this time the British and American High Commands were totally occupied with Europe and the Pacific. The British and Americans were preparing for D Day. The Soviets were advancing in Ukraine. There was a stalemate in Italy at Monte Cassino. The Americans were preparing to land in the Philippines. Germany and Japan were both in retreat, but not defeated. In this global context India and Burma appeared strategically peripheral, even inconsequential. Yet in this month, at a time when on every other front the Japanese were on the strategic defensive, Japan launched a vast, audacious offensive deep into India in an attack designed to destroy for ever Britain’s ability to challenge Japan’s hegemony in Burma.

The Japanese commander was General Mutaguchi Renya, a gutsy go-getter who had played a significant role in the collapse of Singapore in February 1942. His evaluation of the British position in northeast India revealed that the three key strategic targets in Assam and Manipur were Imphal; the mountain town of Kohima, and the huge supply base further back on the edge of the Brahmaputra Valley at Dimapur. If Kohima were captured, Imphal would be cut off from the rest of India by land. From the outset Mutaguchi believed that with a good wind Dimapur, in addition to Kohima, could and should be secured. He reasoned that capturing this massive depot would be a devastating, possibly terminal blow to the British ability to defend Imphal, supply the Americans in Northern Burma under Vinegar Joe Stilwell, support the Hump airlift into China and mount an offensive into Burma. It would also enable him to feed his own, conquering army, which would advance across the mountains from the Chindwin on the tightest imaginable supply chain. With Dimapur captured, the Japanese-led Indian National Army under the Bengali nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose could pour into Bengal, initiating the long-awaited anti-British uprising.

(Click to enlarge)

The essence of the battle for India in 1944 can be quickly told. Mutaguchi’s 15th Army advanced in four separate columns into Manipur. The Japanese made determined, even desperate, efforts to seize their objectives: in the north Kohima, with a scratch British and Indian garrison of 1,200 trained fighting soldiers – about two thirds of them Indian – was attacked by an entire division of about 15,000 men in early April. Surrounded and slowly forced back onto a single hill they were supplied by air until relief came on 20 April, although the battle to dislodge the Japanese from Kohima continued bloodily, in appalling weather and battlefield conditions – the annual monsoon was in full spate – through to early June. Further south the Japanese plan entailed attacking Imphal from north, east and south. The plan of the commander of the 14th Army, Lieutenant General Bill Slim, was to withdraw his forces into the hills and there to allow the Japanese to expend themselves fruitlessly against well-supplied and aggressive British bastions, equipped with tanks, artillery and supported by air. The battle for Imphal in Manipur and for Kohima to the north-west in the neighbouring Naga Hills settled down to a bloody hand-to-hand struggle as the Japanese tried to gain the foothold necessary for their survival. They travelled lightly, and reserves soon exhausted themselves and further supplies were almost non-existent. Just as the air situation was becoming critical for Slim through poor weather and shortages of aircraft the relieving division from Kohima – the British 2nd Infantry Division that had last seen action at Dunkirk – began fighting its way towards Imphal, and the four beleaguered divisions began to push out from the Imphal pocket. By 22 June the 2nd Division and the 5th Indian Division met north of Imphal and the road to the plain was open. Four weeks later the Japanese withdrawal to Burma began.

Of all the invading armies of history, it is hard to think of one that was repulsed more decisively, or more ignominiously, than the Japanese 15th Army launched against India in March 1944. Its defeat was not the fault of the Japanese soldiers, who fought courageously, tenaciously and fiercely, but of their commanders, who sacrificed the lives of their troops on the altar of their own hubris. The battle had provided the largest, most prolonged and most intense engagement with a Japanese army yet seen in the war. “It is the most important defeat the Japs have ever suffered in their military career” wrote Mountbatten exultantly to his wife on 22nd June 1944, “because the numbers involved are so much greater than any Pacific Island operation.” The extent of the disaster that befell the 15th Army is captured by a comment by Kase Toshikazu, a member of the wartime Japanese Foreign Office, who lamented: “Most of this force perished in battle or later of starvation. The disaster at Imphal was perhaps the worst of its kind yet chronicled in the annals of war.” The latter might better have included the caveat “Japanese” to avoid charges of exaggeration, but his comment captures something of the enormity of the human disaster that overwhelmed the 15th Army. It might more fairly be described as the greatest Japanese military disaster of all time. The Indian, Gurkha, African and British troops of this remarkably homogeneous organisation had also decisively removed any remaining notions of Japanese superiority on the battlefield.

The importance of this victory was overshadowed at the time, and downplayed for decades afterwards, by the massive victories in 1945 which brought World War II to an end in Europe and the Pacific. But this lack of publicity and of awareness does not remove the fact that, objectively speaking, the battles in India in 1944, epitomized in the fulcrum battle at Kohima, were an epic comparable with Thermopylae, Gallipoli, Stalingrad, and other better known confrontational battles where the arrogant invader became, in time, the ignominious loser.

April 28, 2024

The Battle of Berlin! – WW2 – Week 296 – April 27, 1945

Filed under: Britain, China, Germany, History, Italy, Japan, Military, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 27 Apr 2024

The battle for the German capital rages on all week, as the Soviets get ever closer to the Reich Chancellery, under which lies Hitler’s bunker. Berlin is surrounded, but can it be relieved? There are also Allied advances in East Prussia, Czechoslovakia, and in Western Germany, but beyond that, it looks like the Axis lines have completely collapsed in Italy. The Allies are also advancing — and quickly — in Burma toward Rangoon, though not much at all on Okinawa, and it is the Japanese who are on the move in Western Hunan. It’s a real rollercoaster of a week.

Chapters
01:10 Recap
01:43 Soviets fight their way into Berlin
07:45 Berlin surrounded
10:28 Rokossovsky advances
12:48 Göring and Himmler betray Hitler
13:57 Fighting on the Eastern Front
15:23 Allied advance in the West
15:51 German collapse in Italy
17:31 4th Corps racing through Burma
19:36 The Battle of Western Hunan
21:40 Okinawa and the Philippines
22:59 Notes
23:59 Conclusion
(more…)

April 21, 2024

300,000 Germans Surrender in the Ruhr – WW2 – Week 295 – April 20, 1945

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Italy, Japan, Military, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 20 Apr 2024

The Soviet drive on Berlin continues, but it is now very much a race between the forces of Georgy Zhukov and those of Ivan Konev. In the west, over 300,000 Germans surrender to the Allies as the Ruhr Pocket is eliminated, though there are advances by all Allied armies this week on the whole Western Front. There is even an Allied breakthrough in Italy, though on Okinawa American attacks get nowhere. The Japanese are advancing in China, and in Burma the Allied drive for Rangoon continues.
(more…)

April 14, 2024

Soviets Take Vienna and Königsberg – WW2 – Week 294 – April 13, 1945

World War Two
Published 13 Apr 2024

The prizes of Vienna and Königsberg fall to the Soviets as they continue what seems an inexorable advance. In the West the Allies advance to the Elbe River, but there they are stopped by command. The big news in their national papers this week is the death of American President Franklin Roosevelt, which provokes rejoicing in Hitler’s bunker. The Allied fighting dash for Rangoon continues in Burma, as does the American advance on Okinawa, although Japanese resistance is stiffening and they are beginning counterattacks.

Chapters
00:32 Recap
01:05 Operation Grapeshot
01:57 Roosevelt Dies
06:01 Soviet Attack Plans for Berlin
12:45 Stalin’s Suspicions
14:31 The fall of Königsberg
17:02 The fall of Vienna
18:38 Japanese Resistance on Okinawa
20:34 The War in China
21:09 Burma and the Philippines
22:38 Summary
22:57 Conclusion
25:05 Memorial
(more…)

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