Victory in Burma
On 14th June 1945 the 14th Army conducted a victory parade in Rangoon having captured the city with barely a shot fired in anger. Meanwhile the final elements of the Imperial Japanese Army were in full retreat from Burma into Malaya and Siam. Starving, dressed in rags and riddled with tropical diseases, this was no longer the Japanese Army which had so resoundingly defeated the Indian and British Army three years earlier. The fall of Singapore and the terrible retreat had been the British Army’s greatest defeat, yet these soldiers had been transformed into a victorious army. As the 14th Army, they were now able to defeat the most brutal of enemies, in the most testing of climates and in the most difficult of terrain. This talk will consider why and how each army conducted warfare, and why the Forgotten Army was transformed into a devastating fighting force.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Tickner
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Tickner is a retired Regular Army officer with a long-term interest in the British Army in India and particularly the Far East campaigns and the North West Frontier. He regularly gives talks to military and civilian groups, clubs and museums and writes the occasional article. He has led battlefield studies to India and South-East Asia, most recently to Singapore. Having spent many rainy nights on the North German plain and Salisbury Plain, he has also served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Light refreshments are included in the ticket price, as well as the opportunity to explore the museum after dark before the talk begins.
