Slim travels through Calcutta to Akyab with Lieutenant General Morris, the chief of the general staff in India, to see the Burma situation for himself. Rangoon has fallen, and British forces are reorganizing under severe pressure on the ground and in the air. Air power dominates the theatre, but Slim argues that pre-war defense plans expected too much from it. Allied aircraft had performed better against Japanese numerical superiority than the land forces had, yet aircraft alone could not hold ground or stop an army. Over the next three years, neither side managed to halt the other's movement through air attack alone.
Notable Point · 4:17-5:16
Slim's Burma: air power cannot stop an army alone
Slim's first briefing on the deteriorating Burma front leads into a hard campaign lesson: air attack mattered greatly, but neither side could use it by itself to halt the other's movement.