William Joseph Slim: The greatest General of WW2?

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From the majority of facts given, Anson seems to have the best argument by far. None of the rest of you have come up with any decent facts while I understand that most,if not all the information given by Anson I can verify to be true. Everybody else seems to be writing speculation.

Slim was one of the great commanders of World War 2

Well done for bringing him up

 

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Yer but he had it easier than other Comanders at the time.

 

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Seems a rather immature thing to say that men fighting the die hard Japanese in jungle conditions had it easy. Not an intelligent comment!

 

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you are right Verity. As for that comment by Danny, it seems that already the people of today are forgetting the great bravery of the troops who fought in world war 2. I wont attack to harshly as you are probably a bit young but what a naive comment to make. You tell my grandfather he had it easy fighting the japanese threw the jungle where 70% of casultys were from disease. probably i believe the British in Asia had it as hard as any other allied force in the war. But even so ive never attacked the bravery of the troops who fought on either side, please as ive already stated come with facts or go get history lessons!

Captain anson

 

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Dont mean to be rude to anyone, but where did you all learn your history?
RCH you have made a comment which I think is totally untrue and basically wrong! The americans despair of the British? I dont think so my friend!

yes as of late 44 the British still had not been able to conduct a major successful offensive operation against the japanesse, where else where America forces were driving the japs back all over the Pacific.

The British were outnumbered and very low on morale before 'Uncle Bill' arrived (Soldiers nickname for Slim) to correct the situation. He is often unrecognised because he fought in a less glamourous part of the War, Hollywood has failed to teach you all about Slim! That is the only way I can explain the comments which i see on this forum. Maybe if you sat down with the facts in front of you like I am you would not make such dreadfully wrong sweeping statements! (Please dont be insulted its just an observation)

http://themanipurpage.tripod.com/history/wwII.html

"By early August 1944, Myitkyina was captured, and the Japanese were loosing at Imphal too. Monsoon was at its peak; heat, mosquito, shortage of food supply and ammunition caused a lack of enthusiasm and will power among the Japanese soldiers to proceed further. They were hungry, sick from malaria, and homesick fell upon them."

when suppplies were flown over the hump to china - where was the starting point for supplies?

At first he conducted the retreat of the British to Imphal. his counter offensive as i have already stated made him the ONLY general of WW2 to defeat a major japanese army on the Asian mainland and liberate a conquered territory by ground fighting alone. Thats right no air support or anything, The Japanese were much better supplied then the overstretched British counter parts.

"Despite the monsoon British and Allied forces decided to start an advance which could be largely supplied by air since the necessay technique had become highly developed and the RAF had command of the air. One line of progress would be Palel-Moreh/Tamu-Kalemyo and the other would be at Bishenpur-Moirang-Churachandpur-Tiddim. "

no air support?

well here are some facts about slim and his boys

 

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Look i know how hard they had too fight in the pacific. My Grandad was a Chindit and that is having it hard. So from lisening to his stories from his expereinces were the wounded had to be shot instead of left behind and how he ended up in a Jap POW camp near the old 'pistol Pete' i think i can safely judge how hard the fighting in the pacific was.

 

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Oh and why then did slim end up the Top British soldier on the Imperial staff. He was eventually higher than Montgomery.

so you are expecting me to defend crazy decisions by the brits? :rofl:

Also RCH the americans played little or no role in attacking the Japanese on the asian mainland. 'Vinegar Joe Stillwall' was defeated and had to retreat to India while in command of american and Chinese troops. If you think the Americans had a role to play you have been watching to many Errol Flynn movies! (if you dont know what I mean hire hius film about Stillwall, it is utter rubbish and would have you belive that the americans with 100 men won the war!)

who ever said americans played the main role on the asian mainland, I personally believe the chinese played a bigger role in asia then did the british.

Ok well answer this if you reckon (wrongly) that the japanese had little supplies what did you think happened on the Islands? The japanese had little or no supply on the islands and were cut off, this was not the case in Burma as it was there backyard! The Americans threw wave after wave of manpower to be slaughtered on the Islands. the british did not have this manpower and were forced to fight tactically, thus more successfully then their american counterparts.

burma is japan's backyard? need to check a globe there buddy boy. India became a creditor nation during WW II because of the war materials in supplied.

america began advancing against japan in 1942 - the japanesse losses were many times the american losses. Britian finally began adavancing in late 44, they advanced and recaptured Burma. How long did it take Japan to conquer Burma?

Slim is arguably the best British General of the war (backed up by facts above) and i believe the Best all round general of World war 2!

Captain Anson

best british general - is that something to brag about?

as for the best general of the war - everyone else seems to agree with me that he was not even close.

 

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Well dont make comments like you did then if you understand how hard it was.

As for your facts RCH very intresting but I would argue the fact about air support. Im off to complete some more research into the subject and ill get back to you later.

You are totally wrong about the americans, The British are the only nation to defeat the japanese on the mainland of Asia, far more effectively than the americans to and with less loss of life. Dont get me wrong I dont envy anyone who had to take an island from the japs but i feel in the balance of things the British were more effective.

 

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on reading your last post RCH ive come to the conclusion that you clearly have the history of an alternate reality in mind.

Dont tell me about knowing the globe when ive probvaly seen more of it than you have!

The British had better generals than the americans had in the war and have throughout modern history helped america to win wars.

If we had been in Vietnam you would have probably not been given such a beating as we always follow hearts and minds policies. The same is true of both gulf wars.

Captain Anson

 

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Look i know how hard they had too fight in the pacific. My Grandad was a Chindit and that is having it hard. So from lisening to his stories from his expereinces were the wounded had to be shot instead of left behind and how he ended up in a Jap POW camp near the old 'pistol Pete' i think i can safely judge how hard the fighting in the pacific was.

really?

my grandfather served at the phillipines and Okininwa, he almost never spoke about it before he died - he would make kids and grandkids finish their plates and would reference seeing children in the war who were starving.

My great uncles who served in Europe though in WW II, talked about it all the time, different effect on them.

 

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on reading your last post RCH ive come to the conclusion that you clearly have the history of an alternate reality in mind.

Dont tell me about knowing the globe when ive probvaly seen more of it than you have!

The British had better generals than the americans had in the war and have throughout modern history helped america to win wars.

Civil War - well you supplied the South with ships, guns, markets for goods and supported their govt.

WW I - yes you gave us your design for the 1917 enfield, (you all stole the design from MAuser just like we did with our 1903 springfield), some other more modern equipment designs, but before armstice we had 2.5 million troops in France and had been suppling britian with goods and materials throughout the whole war.

yes, britian helped the USA win WW II, providing a base for the US army to invade occupied europe. So by being close to Europe and un occupied - Britian helped the USA. The rest of it, we supplied your country with billions of dollars of equipment, started patrolling the atlantic when your country couldn't handle the u-boat menace, and how many ships did we loan or provide to britian?

If we had been in Vietnam you would have probably not been given such a beating as we always follow hearts and minds policies.

Vietnam, well we won the battles but lost the war - politically and at home.

The same is true of both gulf wars.

Captain Anson

gulf wars - nice to have you there but other than for show and tell - really didn't need you.

 

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Slim rocks.

They said, “Here is an army in full retreat. You are in charge. Go make things right. We recommend you use the Win™ Plan… and we are giving you this fancy monogrammed machete. Have fun!”

Here is a link that goes into it pretty deeply.
http://198.231.69.12/papers/amsc1/040.html

General Slim turned around a horrendous situation. He is gravely under-rated.

//AC

p.s. Dear Rest of World - please take anything the Texans say with a grain of salt. Sometimes those big cowboy hats cut off the circulation...

 

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Slim rocks.

They said, “Here is an army in full retreat. You are in charge. Go make things right. We recommend you use the Win™ Plan… and we are giving you this fancy monogrammed machete. Have fun!”

Here is a link that goes into it pretty deeply.
http://198.231.69.12/papers/amsc1/040.html

General Slim turned around a horrendous situation. He is gravely under-rated.

//AC

p.s. Dear Rest of World - please take anything the Texans say with a grain of salt. Sometimes those big cowboy hats cut off the circulation...

never said he was a bad commander but definitely not top 25

as far as the cowboy hats they keep sun off our head so our brains dont bake like some of those I have seen in here and the cowboy boots allow us to wade thru all the BS in here without getting messy

 

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Tex~

Check out that link above - it is a great story. I think you might just bump him up into the top 25!

~AC

 

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The British had better generals than the americans had in the war and have throughout modern history helped america to win wars.

LOL.

 

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Slim was (i state again for people like yakman)the nly general to defeat the Japanese on the mainland by ground fighting alone!

I guees Mongolia isnt the Asian mainland.

 

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Saying that the British under Slim fought the Japanese better than anyone else, which seems to be Cap. Anson's view, is quite flawed. Zhukov fought them much better in Mongolia, and again when he ran through Manchuria in 12 days. The American Island campaign suffered much fewer casualties than the Japanese, and in generally rougher terrain than is found in Burma.

The Japanese were at the end of their chain, while the British had quite a lot of slack available. Sure, Slim was talented, and sure he fought well, and sure he was popular. But he is certainly not in the top ten, let alone the number one commander. Top 25, I don't know, but not 10.

Steele

 

[Yakman]

yakmen you are totally wrong and probably dont have any facts in front of you. Slim was (i state again for people like yakman)the only general to defeat the Japanese on the mainland by ground fighting alone!

I think this scared the Japanese, anyway i feel that you are clutching at straws to an argument you have clearly lost (look at the facts i have presented and look at your made up stuff (No offense!)

Any map will show you that Manchuria and Mongolia are both parts of the Asian Mainland. Zhukov beat the Japanese in Mongolia in 1938 and Manchuria in 1939. The Nomonhon Incident was a massive defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army. He invaded Manchuria and completely destroyed an entire Japanese division. That is a verifiable fact. Google "Nomonhon Incident" if you want to.

The fact is that the Japanese were decisively beaten by a ground army on the continent before Slim. And Zhukov did it in Japanese territory. He did have an advantage in armor, but most important was his advantage in organization and strategy. Slim was good, but not great.

p.s. what exactly did I make up? If anyone is making anything up, it's not me.

 

[Aetius]

Zhukov fought them much better in Mongolia, and again when he ran through Manchuria in 12 days.

Zhukov didn't command the Soviet forces in Manchuria in 1945, Vasilevsky did.
http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/glantz3/glantz3.asp


The British had lots of problems in Burma:
1. Horrible terrain (jungles and mountains) that was completely impassable a large part of the year
2. Naval communications were cut off by Japanese Navy
3. Collapse of their defence plan when Malaya and Singapore fell
4. Japanese allies in form of the Thais, Burmese and Indian Nationalists
5. Uprising in India which tied down their forces to maintaining order. India was hardly a reliable "ally" for the British. Especially since the Japanese had been stoking the anti-imperialist fires for a while.
6. They were also quite busy in other theatres, which means not much aid was given to the local commanders (North Africa, Middle East, East Africa...)

The Japanese could of course get supplies by sea and also from Thailand. If you look at the modern day Burma map here you can see there is nearly nothing between the rail corridor around Mandalay and the Assam border. Once the Japanese tried advancing in the area they ran into the same problems as the British.

 

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Aetius:

Thanks for pointing that out about Zhukov. I must have gotten that confused or something.

Any problems the British had were shared by the Japanese. Supplies for the British could come from India, as well as Australia, while the Japanese were left with bringing things in from Japan, or their Chinese 'adventure.'

Steele