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Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945 Paperback – February 9, 2000

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Field Marshal Viscount Slim (1891-1970) led shattered British forces from Burma to India in one of the lesser-known but more nightmarish retreats of World War II. He then restored his army's fighting capabilities and morale with virtually no support from home and counterattacked. His army's slaughter of Japanese troops ultimately liberated India and Burma.

The first edition of Defeat Into Victory , published in 1956, was an immediate sensation selling 20,000 copies within a few days. This is an updated version with a new introduction by David W. Hogan Jr.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

These memoirs rank with those of Ulysses S. Grant as one of the few honest testaments [of war]. ― The Readers Companion To Military History

An outstanding work in the field of war. ― The New York Times Book Review

One of the war's few great captains......a soldier who can reconstruct battles as brilliantly as he fought them. ― Time

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cooper Square Press; 1st edition (February 9, 2000)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 616 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0815410220
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0815410225
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.54 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #568,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,056 in World War II History (Books)

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4.6 304 ratings

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John McElrath

exceptional read about the other part of WWII we seldom hear about

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2024

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This is a book as much about leadership in difficult times across multiple cultures, races and languages. Slim builds an effective army even as he is retreating following the defeat with the Japanese invasion of Burma. For hundreds of miles of falling back he assesses the leadership skills of his subordinates and troops. Finally in India he rebuilds the army of African, Indian, British, American, Chinese and other organizations into a confident, victorious army.

While the stories of battle, strategies and tactics are well discussed, it’s the leadership skills that come across most clearly. Slim recognizes the strength and weaknesses of his subordinates and uses their strengths to win battles. He also recognizes his mistakes and corrects them in time.

I would recommend this to anyone seeking to understand what leadership is really about.

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Rodney J. Szasz

Best Business Book You Can Read Today

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2004

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It has become fashionable inside the business community to laud the efforts of certain military leaders and their emulation as a route towards supposed success. And so we have biographies on Patton and Schwartzkof purporting certain lessons that "business people" can learn from the greats --- though in the case above, the one a prima donna, and the latter achieving the military equivalant of a heavywieght prizefighter beating up a toddler, one wonders what we are learning.

Slim will probably never figure in a business seminar, but he certainly should. He was a person schooled in utter defeat and the lessons it teaches people. These lessons expressed in Slim's downhome, honest self-effacing style are really things that one can imbibe -- and learn a great chunk of military history to boot.

Slim was wary of theory over experience. Even in defeat he tried things first to see if they would work after making plans to implement then. During his retreat from Burma in 1942, he ran a test convoy up the roads with exactly the same wieght vehicles as he would withdraw in the future. This allowed him to see what would happen when he eventually had to retreat down the same road -- the importance of the dry run.

For Wingate fans you will find no blind adulation. Slim rightly recognised from a aerial perpective the waste of inserting men 100s of mile behind Japanese lines, rightfully insisting that they be better used and less expensively equipped as a regular fighting division. In the end he was proved right. A lesson in efficiency planning --- getting the best bang for you buck.

Slim kept a lean chain of command and did away with several levels inside his Army HQ, he refused to have a Chief-of-Staff as had recently been adopted by the British from the Americans. He was able to also cobble together chains of command that may have looked wierd on paper, but worked. His relationship with "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell the ascerbic American General who hated "limeys." Makes great reading. Slim alone in the entire British Command could handle him.

Personal courage was also not found wanting. He was frequently near the front and made it his duty to make sure that he had strong intelligence of the Japanese and a personal respect for them as fighting "insects." Noticably disturbed by Japanese attrocities against prisoners and wounded, he continually uses words of respect when describing Japanese resistance which was fantatical, yet "magnificent." Others, such a Wingate would learn this later in hard lessons.

Besides the fighting, Stillwell had to supply an Army spread over 800 miles of Jungle at the end of supply lines thousands of miles long, with virtually no roads, in some cases only jungle tracks operating as the lines of communication. He did this a large part with American help and British self-sufficiency. But is was Slim's decisions that allowed those best suited for the positions to get on with the business of supply. And where he could not purchase such equipment, they improvised, such as in rivercraft and jute parachutes.

Most importantly he recognised that one can never insist on 100% perfection in battle (nor business),both are adaptive to the situation and one perpares as best as one can, but it is more important to plan for imperfection and dealing with situations, rather than to insist on everything going to plan. Slim knew that the Japanese in Arakan and Imphal would cut off the forward British/Indian Army elements. He made no plan to hold at all places. He realised however that if British troops could pull into tough defensive positions supplied by air that mobile forces striking from the rear would eventually exhaust the Japanese offensive as they outstretched their lines of communication.

Slim has probably the ultimate recipe to maintain espirit de corps: it is well laid out and easy to understand. He identifies it as a common goal that everyone can buy into. He states that the material needs of troops for good morale are "last, important, but clearly last." He realised that fancy weapons, or fantastic incentive programmes can only supplement morale, the cannot built it.

There is also the combat story between the covers and Slim's personal confrontation with his inner being, failure has a way of stripping away a man's defences and forcing him to look at what he really is... and Slim was obviously on the edge at least once. But then he pulls it together and soldiers on... one is enlightened by his honesty and the plain humanity of the man, a trait almost never found in the overt ego-feeding extravaganzas of business and military biographies stocking the shelves of bookstore "Business Sections".

A great biography that entertains with majesty and adventure and teaches us something about the rigours of command and how good leaders lead, without the theory, without the ego -- just Bill Slim, simple teacher from Northern England who found himself a soldier and, through Defeat turned his forgotten Army and forgotten campaign into the western allies greatest Victory....but if the US could come close to producing leaders half as great.

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jjunior

interesting .

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2021

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the best part of this book is the after thoughts section at the end. it's an interesting read of the campaign in burma but it gets kind of tedious with the chase of the japanese army . it was published in 1956 but apparently no one in the us army bothered to read it.

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John H Wilson

Best account of Burma Campaign

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2022

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I have now read 11 books on this campaign (some more than once). Here is my summary:
The Burma campaign was the longest and most complex campaign of the whole of WW II, and it is very difficult to follow, especially since most books have poor maps which increases the difficulty. (Maps simply didn't exist for Burma; the Japs used captured British maps)

Complete accounts:
1.Defeat into Victory by General Slim. This the best and authoritative account of the whole campaign.
2. Slim as Military Commander by Geoffrey Evans. Good account of campaign with some good maps; particularly of Southern Burma.
3. Burma, The longest war by Louis Allen; with good Japanese perspectives.
Biographies:
4. Uncle Bill by Russell Miller (the authorised biography)
5. Slim the Standard Bearer by Ronald Lewin
6. Slim, Master of War by Robert Lyman
Individual Battles:
7. Triumph at Imphal-Kohima by Raymond Callahan
8. Three books in the Osprey Campaign series
a. Imphal, The Japanese invasion of India by Kemant Singh Katoch
b. Kohima, The battle that saved India by Robert Lyman
c. Meiktila 1945, The battle to liberate Burma by Edward M Young

These are all great books and well worth reading, but a few comments:
My favorite biography was Slim the Standard Bearer, by Ronald Lewin.
Burma, the longest war (by Allen) gives unique perspectives on the Japanese Army, and contains the only full account of the Breakout (the Japs really suffered).
There were, in fact (not counting the Chindit operations), 5 major battles followed by a rapid advance to Rangoon chasing the Japs all the way (the longest salient in WW II). But there was intense non-stop fighting between these battles harrying the retreating Japs so that they could not rest and establish themselves.
The overriding take-aways are four:
1. Slim's logistical genius, which is really what defeated the Japs.
2. Slims humanity
3. The surprising (to me) courage and endurance of the Indian Army (as Slim put it, they won the war)
4. The affirmation that the Ghurkha's are probably the best and bravest infantry soldiers in the world. motto: "Better to die than look a coward"
Battles:
1. First Arakan 1942
2. Second Arakan (Ngakyedauk) 1943
3. Imphal + Kohima 1944
4. Mandalay + Meiktila 1945
5. Advance to Rangoon (the longest salient in WWII)
6. The Breakout (Japs trying to get out of the Pegu Yomas hills to get to Rangoon during the monsoon)
The Osprey campaign books: Kohima and Imphal are excellent accounts of those battles with wonderful maps that improve the reading of the other books (highly recommended). You won't really understand these battles without these books. The Osprey account of Meiktila is not so good, but at least the maps are good.
My recommendation for first time readers is to start with "Triumph at Imphal-Kohima"; particularly chapters 2, which gives a good summary of the history of the Indian Army, and chapter 3 which gives a good summary of Slim. Then read Slim's masterpiece. I also recommend Allen's, the Longest War.

Finally, it seems that none of the reviewers understood Slim's objective; it was NOT to regain territory, Burmese or Indian (for the Empire), but to annihilate the Japanese Army; he succeeded.

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Kindle Customer

Incredible War Memoir

Reviewed in India on March 2, 2023

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This must be one of the great unsung feats in the history of warfare. While military history records are full of events from Europe, North Africa and even the Pacific campaign, the fighting in Burma was among the most desperate, resourceful and innovative.

Terry Saltford

Good read

Reviewed in Canada on February 15, 2021

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A good read. Little written about this Battle arena, glad I bought it. Arrived in good shape as a 'secondhand' book. Would buy from this dealer again if situation arose.

Carlos E. A. Ferreira

superou expectativas

Reviewed in Brazil on August 30, 2017

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Eu nao tinha ideia de quanto os ingleses apanharam na Asia, eu projetava a vitoria final sobre todo o calendario

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Bartholomis Tirkey

Good book to buy if willing go for it you would not regret

Reviewed in India on August 16, 2022

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The book quality is actually very good ,the page quality is also good. Quite a difficult book for those who are new to this type of literatures but you would love to read it.

Thomas

Excellent read

Reviewed in India on June 8, 2021

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For those interested in leadership and military history.
Conveys the importance of a leader spelling out his objective and intention; giving space to his subordinates to act as they see fit within this outline.

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