8709 Field Marshal William Joseph SLIM, KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO, MC, KStJ, MiD***

Dr. Robert Lyman's latest post is a review of Slim, as a commander and an author: Bill Slim: a soldier-writer par excellence

He ends with details of the three volume set of Slim's pre-WW2 anonymous writing now published:

To order use:

1. The General Wondered Why https://amzn.eu/d/45gHfOH

2. The English Colonel https://amzn.eu/d/ahZJY67

3. A Close Shave https://amzn.eu/d/9exEf3A (I checked that this does work)

 

When we were living in Hamilton New Zealand, our neighbours son went to the Pan Pacific Scout Jamboree Cornwall Park, Auckland in January 1959. They invited us to go with them to the open day. We drove up to the open day and it was the same day that the Governor General of Australia Field Marshal Slim visited.
When he drove past in the back of an open top landrover, my father called out something about Burma. Slim instructed his driver to stop and he alighted from the landrover and came over and shook my father’s hand. I was very embarrassed (I was only 8 years old) but my father was really chuffed that he finally got to meet Slim on the other side of the world and so long after the retreat from Burma.
My father had served with 2 RTR during the retreat.

 

J Kubra,

New Zealand was probably the last place Slim expected to hear and meet a Burma veteran.

 

Dr Robert Lyman's latest article on Slim, it is about the offensive to Meiktila, March 1945. Too many threads feature the place name, so added here.
Link: Meiktila, March 1945

 

Dr Lyman once more and this time reproducing Slim's message of the day 8/4/1945, before the Mandalay offensive. See: ORDER OF THE DAY BY Lt-Gen Sir William Slim, K.CB., C.B.E., D.S.O., M.C., General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Fourteenth Army.

 

Yes, Dr. Lyman once more:

Then citing this is how the young, hard bitten and cynical Lance Corporal George Macdonald Fraser of the Border Regiment – later to reach fame as a writer and journalist – recalled him:

From: Bill Slim's 'Courage and Other Broadcasts'

 

Yes, by Robert Lyman:

From: Britain's Greatest General

 

My father (Lt B.J.B. Galvin) was in the 3rd Battalion 1st Gurkhas. I am searching for information about Field Marshal Slim. My father (who died recently) had a story in his memoirs that he really wanted verified with fact. Do you know where Slim was in the months just before the bombs were dropped in Japan? How did he know to pause the planned offensive just prior to the bombing of Japan?

 

BVD,

I suggest your question would get more attention in a new thread in this area: Burma & India or Historiography The question is a wider than General Slim.

 

Has anyone here read any of these volumes and, if so, would you be willing to offer a small review please? I am tempted to just take a chance on the first in the series as I very much enjoyed his Unofficial Histories!!
Many Thanks,
Col

 

A quite long article by Dr. Robert Lyman: 'Bill Slim and the reasons for victory in India (1944) and Burma (1945); which IMHO is a good read, with any good points, anyway judge for yourself.
See: Bill Slim and the reasons for victory in India (1944) and Burma (1945)

The only book he links is a new book, published 27/6/25: 'Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945: The greatest combined arms manoeuvre battle of WW2' by Jack Bowsher. It features in other posts and threads here. See: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1916556...esting=C&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack

 

Now Dr. Lyman's review (text and video) of 'Thunder Run' by Jack Bowsher: Thunder Run!