Rating: 
Summary: Slim - Second to None
Review: William Slim is virtually unknown today - even among the history buff circles, he is a rate footnote. Yet, among those who have studied World War Two - and those few remaining who had direct experience beyond a limited theater view - Slim is regarded as one of the finest army commanders to have served on any front during the course of that war. Slim was among the few that endured defeat in the war's beginning - the agonizing, protracted withdrawal of Burma Corps over a thousand miles of jungle, mountain, swamp and river terrain in Burma and India in 1942 - and survived and had the opportunity to lead revitalized forces to victory in the end (British 14th Army). Revenge was sweet. Slim's memoirs are a treasure - full of criticism and praise in fair measure - with intelligent and honest commentary throughout. His assessments of the critical elements of a successful campaign are worthy of textbook study. Not only did Slim's men have to fight a fanatical, relentless foe in the Japanese - he had to contend with debilitating tropical disease, lack of air and land transport, non-existent infratstructure, shortages of all types of food and supplies, as well as neglect from his own country and army. Burma was in many ways the forgotten theater. Controversial figures such as the American Stilwell and the British Wingate are men that Slim knew well in Burma - and he does not shrink from giving his candid assessment of these figures - strengths and weaknesses. Above all, Slim's book is a testament to the courage, intelligence and fortitude of the fighting men - soldiers, airmen and sailors - of all nationalities (majority of the fighting on the Allied side in the Burma-India theater was by Indians). His comments on the nationalist movements of the Burmese, Indians and Chinese are also of interest, in view of post-war events in these countries, including the expulsion of British rule. Slim was a rare figure - an Army Commander bent on winning for all the right reasons - while always maintaining his touch with the front line solider. He was eager to assign glory to those that deserved it - those that did the fighting as well as those that toiled anonymously behind the lines to keep the forward troops supported. He was also rare in that he was ready and willing to admit mistakes were made, and how those mistakes were overcome. With so many critical decisions to be made in such desperate circumstances with such limited information - it is a wonder that any informed directives could be issued at the command level in that environment. His perspective on the Japanese is also worthy of further study. Slim had a distinguished war record prior to World War Two - he had served in several operations in World War One, in the Middle East between wars - he was familiar with how soldiers fought and died all over the world. His contempt for the Japanese - the atrocities they committed on a routine basis against not only captured, wounded soldiers but civilians held helpless in conquered territory, and the unconscionable treatment of prisoners by Japanese - was thoroughly justified by his experiences. His willingness to continue to fight and kill Japanese and his refusal to treat defeated Japanese with anything other than contempt (he ignored MacArthur's accommodating gestures after the surrender) were measured responses - a reading of this book communicates that point very well. Slim understood his assigned was role was not just to retake Japanese held territory, but to kill Japanese soldiers - destroy Japanese armies. He was the man for the job.
Rating: 
Summary: Slim pickings into rich harvests-Slime Slim exposed as liar
Review: With an outsized ego and a block head to match, Slim has managed to spin his own meagre victories into what're supposedly the most brilliant ones in the anals of the British Army.
What is one to make of the fact that Slim, his soldiers outnumbering their opponents by ten to one, was liberally motorised and armoured, with complete air, naval, logistical, airlanding, amphibious operatiuonal supremacies, needed 4 years to beat back some half starving, foot slogging Japs of the Armies of Burma and the South? And he didn't exactly recaptured Rangoon, the Japs just left without him knowing anything!
What takes him so long ? Poor generalship, gross stupidity and mental imbecility perhaps.
But in this rubbish all you can read is Slim's scorn for his fellow Brit and American generals, and liberal self serving praises of his own, meagre and dubious achievements.
Slim, like Montgomery, has been spun by post war British historiography into all victorious demi gods, when they were just some incompetent, pompous old queers that are the mainstay of the rotten British Army (Douglas Haig comes to mind).
To get real, read Louis Allen's book, Burma, the Longest War.
Rating:
Summary: Modest, Honest journal of a great military commander.
Review: Written with a skill that rivals his generalship, Slim's account of the war in Burma is certainly one of the finest accounts of battle from a army commander ever written (and the only good one written by a WWII field commander).A pleasure to read -- makes one think this general might have been a person worth knowing personally. While he wrote in the preface that "it is good fun commanding a division anywhere", it was certainly good fun reading about it.
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