William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim
[2] Despite having no other connection to the university,[2] in 1912 Slim joined the Birmingham University Officers' Training Corps, and he was thus able to be commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 22 August 1914, on the outbreak of the First World War; in later life, as a result of his modest social origins and his unpretentious manner, he was sometimes wrongly supposed to have risen from the ranks.[15] During this period, he also wrote novels, short stories, and other publications under the pen name of Anthony Mills, in order to further his literary interests, as well as to supplement his then modest army salary.[21] On 8 June 1939, he was promoted to colonel (again with temporary rank of brigadier)[22] and appointed head of the Senior Officers' School, Belgaum in India.[36] The American historians Alan Millet and Williamson Murray described Slim as: A hardened field soldier who had learned his trade on the Western Front and in the Indian Army, Slim combined troop-leading and training skills with personal and moral courage as well as charm, a sound grasp of soldiering, and a solid appreciation of Asian warfare and the excellence of the Japanese Army.[42] 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.Slim knew from signals intelligence that the Japanese were going to invade in March 1944, but as Murray and Millet wrote "...he had little choice, but to meet it with the forces on hand – the IV Corps of three Anglo-Indian divisions – or surrender his own plans to take the general offensive into Burma in 1944."[47] Slim chose to fight a defensive campaign to break the Japanese before launching his offensive into Burma, believing that superior British tanks, logistics and air power would allow him to inflict a decisive defeat on Mutaguchi.Desperate defensive actions were fought at places such as Imphal, Sangshak and Kohima, while the RAF and USAAF kept the forces supplied from the air.[47] As late as 1 June 1944, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), 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.[48] 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, who had a contempt for British and Indian troops based on their performance in 1941–42, refused to give up even after the monsoon started and large parts of their army were wrecked by conducting operations in impossible conditions.As a result, their units took unsupportable casualties and were finally forced to retreat in total disorder in July 1944, leaving behind many dead from hunger and disease as well as their injured.On 8 August 1944, Slim was promoted to lieutenant general,[50] and, on 28 September 1944, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB).[51] In December 1944, during 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.[53] In addition, there were six Chinese divisions, two regiments from the U.S. Army and various tribal militias made up of Shan, Chin, Naga, Kachin and Karen peoples raised by the OSS and the SOE fighting on the Allied side in Burma, requiring Slim to play the role of the diplomat as much as a general to hold these disparate forces made up of so many different peoples together.[53] In 1945, Slim launched an offensive into Burma, with supply lines stretching almost to the breaking point across hundreds of miles of trackless jungle.[56] The swift flowing Irrawaddy is a wider river than the Rhine, making it into a natural defensive barrier that the Japanese believed could halt the British advance.[56] Slim's plan was a masterpiece of operational art, and the capture of Meiktila left most of Japan's troops stranded in Burma without supplies.Rangoon was eventually taken by a combined attack from the land (Slim's army), the air (parachute operations south of the city) and a seaborne invasion.As the news spread, Fourteenth Army fell into turmoil and Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, furious at not having been consulted by Leese, and Claude Auchinleck, the C-in-C India who was at the time in London, brought pressure to bear.[62] The Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Theatre, Louis Mountbatten was obliged to order Leese to undo the damage.[55] Slim was painfully aware that it would be difficult to replace whatever losses his men took, and had no intention of having his army being ground down by fighting the Japanese in every single place that they were.Novelist George MacDonald Fraser, then 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... it was unforgettable.[71] He had been approached by both India and Pakistan to become C-in-C of their respective armies post independence but refused and instead became Deputy Chairman of the Railway Executive.[72] However, in November 1948 the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee rejected the proposal by Viscount Montgomery that he should be succeeded as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) by John Crocker and instead brought back Slim from retirement in the rank of field marshal in January 1949[73] with formal appointment to the Army Council from 1 January 1949.[80] Slim was a popular choice for Governor-General since he was an authentic war hero who had fought alongside Australians at Gallipoli and in the Middle East.He had already published his personal narrative of the Burma Campaign, Defeat into Victory, in 1956, which has never been out of print, and in which he candidly talked about his mistakes and the lessons he learned.Somehow or another, I was sat on his [Slim's] knee and, ah..... um..... these silky white hands were right up, because I was wearing shorts, right up my trousers and yeah, it was not..... not very nice.In 2019 a major road was renamed due to the allegations.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.Designed by Ivor Roberts-Jones, the statue is one of three British Second World War military leaders (the others being Alan Brooke and Bernard Montgomery).
Field MarshalThe Right HonourableGovernor-General of AustraliaElizabeth IIRobert MenziesSir William McKellThe Viscount DunrossilBishopston, BristolLondonSt Paul's Cathedral2nd Viscount SlimAlma materStaff College, QuettaBritish ArmyBritish Indian ArmyRoyal Warwickshire RegimentWest India Regiment6th Gurkha Rifles7th Gurkha RiflesChief of the Imperial General StaffImperial Defence CollegeAllied Land Forces South East AsiaFourteenth ArmyXV CorpsBurma Corps10th Indian Infantry Division10th Indian Infantry BrigadeSenior Officers' School, BelgaumFirst World WarGallipoli CampaignMesopotamian CampaignSecond World WarMediterranean and Middle East TheatreEast African campaignAnglo-Iraqi WarSyria-Lebanon campaignAnglo-Soviet invasion of IranBurma campaignBattle of KohimaBattle of ImphalBattle of Central BurmaKnight Companion of the Order of the GarterKnight Grand Cross of the Order of the BathKnight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St GeorgeKnight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian OrderKnight Grand Cross of the Order of the British EmpireCompanion of the Distinguished Service OrderMilitary CrossKnight of the Order of St JohnMentioned in DespatchesChief Commander of the Legion of Merit13th Governor-General of AustraliaSecond World WarsBristolSt Brendan's CollegeBirminghamSt Philip's Grammar SchoolEdgbastonKing Edward's School, BirminghamironmongerUniversity of BirminghamStewarts & LloydsBirmingham UniversityOfficers' Training Corpssecond lieutenantGallipoliMesopotamialieutenantcaptainIndian ArmyCramondEdinburghbrevetStaff College, Camberleylieutenant colonelbrigadiercolonel5th Indian Infantry DivisionEthiopiaEritreaFiat CR.42AgordatEdward QuinanFrasermajor-generalIraqforceSyria–Lebanon campaignDeir ez-Zorinvasion of PersiaMinistry of InformationSouth-East Asian Theatre of World War IIBurCorps17th Indian Infantry Division1st Burma Divisionlieutenant generalJapaneseOrder of the British EmpireChittagongNoel IrwinArakan PeninsulaIV Corps (United Kingdom)Distinguished Service OrderJapanese Armyabortive attack on the Arakanlines of communicationChin HillsJapanese 15th ArmyBurma Area ArmyBurma RailwayOrde WingateChinditKachinsKarensBamarsSecond Arakan OffensiveIndian 7th Infantry DivisionIndian 5th Infantry Division81st (West Africa) DivisionAdmin BoxHideki TojoOperation U-GoOperation Ichi-Gothe HumpIndian National ArmySubhas Chandra BoseCompanion of the Order of the Bath