The Jungle, the Japanese and the British Commonwealth Armies at War (1941-45): Fighting Methods, Doctrine and Training for Jungle Warfare
By T.R. Moreman, Frank Cass, $135

During the Second World War, manpower and resources of the colonies were vital in ensuring an Allied victory over the Axis powers. However, due to the Eurocentric bias in history writing, the importance of the colonies in the Allied strategy was not addressed till recently. The historiographical shift of integrating the histories of the colonies with the histories of the metropolitan countries in order to understand the dynamics of global warfare occurred only in the late Nineties.

The British position in southeast Asia, east Africa and the Middle East was dependent on the military labourers and resources procured from India. Nevertheless, traditional histories of the Second World War overlook the important role played by the Indian army in maintaining the British empire.

More than 60 per cent of the Allied units deployed in Singapore, Malaysia and Burma were drawn from the Indian army. The big question, however, is why the Indian army collapsed like a house of cards against the imperial Japanese army in 1942-43, especially since the same bunch of soldiers were able to go on a successful offensive against the Japanese intruders in late 1944. In this book, T. R. Moreman attempts to answer this intriguing query.

Moreman accepts the contention that the Japanese were able to smash the Indian divisions repeatedly in Malaysia and Burma during 1942, despite their numerical inferiority and poor logistics. The British and the Indian soldiers retreated before the ?yellow men? and the myth of Japanese supremacy grew stronger.

This was because the Japanese soldiers were trained in jungle warfare. In contrast, the British and Indian divisions were trained for mobile armoured warfare. The British general staff anticipated no threat from Japan. Consequently, Indian soldiers were trained for open warfare so that they could challenge the Afrika Korps. When, in December 1941, the Japanese suddenly burst through the jungles of Thailand, these divisions had to be re-deployed to check the threat. And in the swampy terrains of south-east Asia, the trucks and jeeps of the British-Indian army proved to be useless. The Japanese soldiers riding bicycles were able to envelop, encircle and eliminate the Tommies and the sepoys.

From mid-1944, the British-Indian army, which launched an offensive in Burma, comprised 70 per cent Indian personnel. Moreman says that the intense training in jungle warfare, which was initiated by India?s commander-in-chief, Claude Auchinleck, enabled the Indian divisions to outmanoeuvre the Japanese. By 1945, when the Indian soldiers reached Rangoon, the Japanese had suffered their greatest defeat in warfare on land.

Moreman?s analytical prose, based on the file records from the Public Records Office and Oriental and India Office Collection, adds to our understanding of the dynamics of land warfare in south-east Asia. There is no doubt that the Indian army came out with flying colours in 1945. But Moreman fails to answer one crucial question. Would it have been possible for the British-Indian forces to cope with the Japanese without their massive superiority in airpower and artillery?