THE KACHINS' FIGHT

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28346, 3 August 1957, Page 3

THE KACHINS' FIGHT

Amiable Assassins. The Story of the Kachin ' Guerrillas of North Burma. By lan Fel-lowes-Gordon, M.C. Robert Hale. 159 pp.

This breezy tale of guerrilla warfare in a remote corner of north-west Burma can be read in an evening, and be recommended for the entertainment it, will provide, especially to those who enjoyed J. H. Denny’s unforgettable “Chindit Indiscretion.” Official historians have never attempted a survey of the activities of the Kachin Levies between 1942 and 1945, for they were sprinkled over a large slice of Burma and worked for the most part in isolated, companies which acted independently and kept no records. The author was himself one of the British officers flown secretly from India to organise the campaign, and on his return from Burma at the end of the war spent some weeks in bed writing up his notes and putting down his memories of experiences and men. This book is the result, and it will be read with especial interest by professional soldiers interested in jungle warfare.

The Kachins are a little-known Burmese tribe of hill people, who with a bare minimum of food, weapons and clothing, managed to keep a sizeable part of the Japanese Army at bay for over three years, killing great numbers of them in the process. The author spent two years with these people, first as a levy company commander, and then as second in command; and he writes with

a real affection for the little men and women who fought with amazing good humour in circumstances of great hardship. All supplies were flown in from India and dropped from the air—“noone had ever seen car or

a wheelbarrow, yet they could tell a transport from a fighter without looking up.”

The Kachins’ bravery cost them dear. “Their casualties in battle were smaller than those of normal fighting units,” says the author, “but the fact that every ablebodied male was continuously .fighting Japanese or Chinese meant that the total killed throughout the country during the three years before General Stilwell’s . Chinese and American forces joined them was very high —a sizeable proportion of the whole Kachin community.” By taking our side against the Japanese instead of sitting tactfully on the fence, they brought the Imperial Nipponese wrath down on their heads, when we were powerless to help them. As a result villages were burnt which would have escaped, crops were destroyed that would have been left, and starvation and disease played a part in making the Kachins’ lot a difficult one. After the war the R.A.F. dropped huge quantities of rice in the worst areas and the situation was gradually improved. Now the Kachins form one of the five constituent states of the Union of Burma. “Yet this is not what we promised them nor what many of them expected. Like so many of the Karens who are still bravely, hopelessly and pig-headedly fighting for it, many of them would have liked a separate, nonBurmese state in the British Commonwealth,” concludes Fel-lowes-Gordon.

This story of the Kachins’ fight for independence and freedom will thrill many a heart. The book is well illustrated with many excellent photographs, but it is a pity there is nd map. |