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Chindit column, Operation Longcloth.jpg
Active 1942–1945
Country India
Branch Army of India
Type Special forces
Role Asymmetric warfare
Size 9,000 to 12,000
Garrison/HQ Jhansi, India
Engagements Burma Campaign of World War II
Decorations Four members awarded the Victoria Cross
Orde Wingate,
"Joe" Lentaigne

The Chindits were a British India 'Special Force' that served in Burma and India in 1943 and 1944 during the Burma Campaign in World War II. They were formed to put into effect Orde Wingate's newly developed guerrilla warfare tactic of long-range penetration. The Chindits were trained to operate deep behind Japanese lines. Their operations were marked by prolonged marches through extremely difficult terrain by underfed troops weakened by diseases such as malaria and dysentery. There is controversy over the extremely high casualty rate and the debatable military value of the achievements of the Chindits.


The Chindits were the creation of the British Army Brigadier Orde Charles Wingate, then serving under General Archibald Wavell, the Commander-in- Chief of India Command. The name was suggested by Captain Aung Thin (DSO) of the Burma Army. Chindit is a corrupted form of the Burmese mythical beast Chinthé or Chinthay, statues of which guarded Buddhist temples.[1]

In the East African Campaign of 1940–41, Wingate had begun to explore the ideas that he later used with the Chindits, when he created and commanded a mixed group of regular Sudanese and Ethiopian units together with Abyssinian partisans. Known as Gideon Force, they disrupted Italian supply lines and provided intelligence to British forces. As Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Command in 1940, Wavell had given permission for Gideon Force for political reasons, because he had thought Wingate's idea to be militarily too unorthodox.

After the disbandment of Gideon Force, Wavell requested Wingate for service in Burma in 1942, where it was intended that he raise irregular forces to operate behind the Japanese lines, in a manner similar to Gideon Force.[2] Wingate arrived in Burma in March 1942, barely two months before the final Allied collapse and the Japanese conquest of Burma. Rather than organise irregular forces, Wingate spent his time touring the country and developing his theory of long-range penetration on paper. During the final stages of the British retreat from Burma, Wingate had himself specially flown back to India while the rest of the army walked out. Once in Delhi, he presented his proposals to Wavell.

Organisation and training


Wingate trained this force as long-range penetration units that were to be supplied by stores parachuted or dropped from transport aircraft, and were to use close air support as a substitute for heavy artillery.[3] They would penetrate the jungle on foot, essentially relying on surprise through mobility to target enemy lines of communication (a tactic that the Japanese had previously used in 1942 to great effect against British forces in Singapore and Burma).[1]

The standard brigade and battalion structures were abandoned. The force was instead formed into eight columns, each of which was organised as: an infantry rifle company (with nine Bren light machine guns and three 2-inch mortars); a support group with the heavy weapons (four Boys anti-tank rifles, two medium Vickers machine guns and two light anti-aircraft guns); a reconnaissance platoon from the Burma Rifles; and a sabotage group from 142 Commando Company. Small detachments from the Royal Air Force (equipped with radios to call in air support), Royal Corps of Signals and Royal Army Medical Corps were attached to the column headquarters.[4] The heavy weapons, radios, reserve ammunition and rations and other stores were carried on mules, which would also provide an emergency source of food once their loads had been depleted.[1] With 57 mule handlers, each British column numbered 306 men (the Gurkha columns were slightly stronger, with 369 men).[4]



Operation Longcloth

Brigadier Orde Wingate







By the end of April, after a three-month mission, the majority of the surviving Chindits had crossed the Chindwin river, having marched between 750–1,000 miles.[6] Of the 3,000 men that had begun the operation, a third (818 men) had been killed, taken prisoner or died of disease, and of the 2,182 men who returned, about 600 were too debilitated from their wounds or disease to return to active service.[2][6] Of the remaining men, Wingate practically hand picked those few he would retain, while the rest were put back under the normal army command structure as part of their original battalions.




As the members of the first expedition were making their way back to India, a second Long Range Penetration brigade, 111th Indian Infantry Brigade was being formed.[7] Popularly known as The Leopards,[7] the brigade was raised by General Wavell without the knowledge of Wingate, who was still in Burma and who was known to have a strong dislike for the Indian Army, its diverse troop formations, and its British officers in particular. Wavell personally selected the commander of 111th Brigade, Brigadier Joe Lentaigne.[7]



The forces for the second Chindit operation were called Special Force, officially 3rd Indian Infantry Division, or Long Range Penetration Groups, but the nickname, the Chindits, had already stuck.



The plans for the second Chindit operation went through many revisions.

The methods of the new Long Range Penetration force in 1944 differed from those of 1943. Wingate had decided on a strategy of creating fortified bases behind the Japanese lines, which would then send out raiding columns over short distances. This change was in part forced on him by strengthened Japanese patrols along the Burmese frontier, making a repeat of the successful infiltration in 1943 unlikely.[10] In an imaginative move prompted by Colonel Philip Cochran's assurance that he could transport both troops and supplies by glider,[11] Wingate arranged for the bulk of the force to enter Burma by air, greatly accelerating the force's ability to reach its target objectives.[12] Advance units would land in gliders in preselected open fields in Burma, and prepare them for large-scale landings by transport aircraft. The lavish air support provided by Colonels Cochran and Alison of the 1st Air Commando Group proved critical to the success of the operation.[13]





(i) Helping the advance of Stiwell's Ledo force on Myitkyina by cutting the communications of the Japanese 18th Division, harassing its rear, and preventing its reinforcement.
(iii) Inflicting the greatest possible damage and confusion on the enemy in North Burma.[18]

Operation Thursday








Change of command


Slim, the commander of the British Fourteenth Army, which had loose operational control over Special Force, selected Brigadier Lentaigne to be Wingate's replacement after conferring with Brigadier Derek Tulloch, Wingate's Chief of Staff. The choice was made on the grounds that Lentaigne was the most balanced and experienced commander in the force; he had been an instructor at the Staff College at Quetta, had led a Gurkha battalion with distinction during the gruelling retreat from Burma in 1942 and had commanded a Chindit Brigade in the field (albeit for only a few weeks, but none of the other Brigade commanders had more experience). As an officer of Gurkha troops, he had a similar outlook and background to Slim. The other Brigade commanders were unknown quantities, mostly without staff qualifications - some had never even commanded a battalion-sized unit in combat before 1944 - and Wingate's staff officers lacked the necessary combat experience.[21]

Slim ignored complaints inside the Chindits that Lentaigne was an outsider in Wingate's force and had been critical of Wingate's methods and techniques. In this respect, he would be opposed to several of the Brigade commanders and staff of the Chindits. Wingate had disliked him because he was selected by Wavell without Wingate's approval. (Wingate also tended to hold Indian Army officers, and Gurkha Officers in particular, in total contempt.[citation needed])

It is probably fair to say that nobody could have completely filled Wingate's shoes. Wingate had sustained his force outside normal army command through political connections that no successor would have available. The other dilemma of any successor was that they would constantly be second-guessed by those who thought they knew exactly what Wingate would have done in a particular situation. The same officers who would go to extraordinary lengths to justify even the most flawed decisions by Wingate, would attack any successor, whenever the opportunity presented itself.

The move north





Final operations

On 17 May, Slim had formally handed control of the Chindits to Stilwell. Stilwell insisted that the Chindits capture several well-defended Japanese positions. The Chindits had no support from tanks or artillery and this led to heavier casualties than before. Some have considered these operations to be abuse, but others[who?] have pointed out that, if the Chindits cannot carry out such operations, their usefulness in practice is open to question. And given Wingate's lack of concern over casualties in the first Chindit operation, it's difficult to suggest that the losses in these battles were inconsistent with his methods.





The last Chindit left Burma on 27 August 1944.



The end




London memorial


Military legacy


The views of the majority of the post-war British military establishment were made succinctly by Slim (commander of the Fourteenth Army), when he wrote "... the Chindits, gave a splendid examples of courage and hardihood. Yet I came firmly to the conclusion that such formations, trained, equipped and mentally adjusted for one kind of operation were wasteful. They did not give, militarily, a worth-while return for the resources in men, material and time that they absorbed. ... [Special forces] were usually formed by attracting the best men ... The result of these methods was undoubtedly to lower the quality of the rest of the Army." He makes several other arguments against special forces, about the danger of ordinary battalions thinking that some tasks could only be performed by special forces, and that special forces can only stay in the field for relatively short periods compared to regular battalions. He sums up that "Anything, whatever the short cuts to victory it may promise, which thus weakens the Army spirit is dangerous." To underline his point he suggests that "This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier, who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree". He does acknowledge the need for small units to stir up trouble in the enemy's rear area but does not make it clear if he is talking about V Force or the actions of Force 136.[29]




The British Army's 77th Brigade, raised in 2015 to engage in psychological warfare for the army on social media, were named in tribute to the Chindits.[32]

See also


Explanatory notes
  1. The Cairo Conference changed some of the original plans, but did not affect the plans to use the Chindits to interdict the Japanese 18th Division's supply lines.[16]
  2. Shelford Bidwell in The Chindit War speculates that Wingate had revived at short notice a plan codenamed Operation Tarzan, by which the Indian 26th Infantry Division would fly into the captured airfields, even though this division was already heavily engaged in the Arakan.[20]
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Brayley, p. 18
  2. 2.0 2.1 Thompson, p. 374
  3. Thompson, p. 375
  4. 4.0 4.1 Chinnery (2010), p.24
  5. Brayley, pp. 18-19
  6. 6.0 6.1 Brayley, p. 19
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 Masters, p. 135
  8. Callahan, p. 101
  9. "In 1944 – The Second & Last Expedition". Hermes' wings. Retrieved 27 December 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  10. Slim, p. 219
  11. Alison, John (Maj. Gen.), Phil Cochran, The Most Unforgettable Character I've Met
  12. Masters, p. 172
  13. Masters, pp. 146-147
  15. See Page 1, Operational Report of Dah Force by Captain Herring (Imperial War Museum)
  16. Slim, p. 214
  17. 17.0 17.1 Planning of Operation Thursday
    • Prasad, pp. 318-320(?)
    • Slim, p. 204.
  18. Slim, p. 259
  19. Slim, pp.257-259
  20. Bidwell p. 138.
  21. Allen, pp.348-351, summary from Tulloch
  22. Allen, p. 355
  23. Allen, p. 360
  24. Masters, pp.277-278 Text online (MS.DOC): See section: "The Dark Side of Command" on p. 47
  25. Allen, p. 375
  26. Allen, p.362
  27. Brayley, p.22
  28. Chindit Memorial, London
  29. Slim, pp. 546-549
  30. Brayley, p. 19-20
  31. 31.0 31.1 Brayley, p. 20
  32. Ewan MacAskill (31 January 2015). "British army creates team of Facebook warriors". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2015.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Allen, Louis (1984). Burma: The longest War 1941-45. J.M. Dent & Sons. ISBN 0-460-02474-4.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Brayley, Martin (2002). The British Army 1939-45 (3): The Far East. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-238-5.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Callahan, R. (1978). Wingate in Burma 1942-1945. London: Davis-Poynter.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Chinnery, Philip (2010). Wingate's lost Brigade. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-84884-054-6.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Latimer, Jon (2004). Burma: The Forgotten War. John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-6576-6.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Masters, John (2002) [1961]. The Road Past Mandalay. London: Cassel. ISBN 0-304-36157-7.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Rhodes-James, Richard (1980). Chindit. J Murray. ISBN 0-7195-3746-0.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Thompson, Robert (1989). Make for the hills : memories of Far Eastern wars. London: Leo Cooper. ISBN 0-85052-761-9.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Thompson, Peter (2008). Pacific Fury. North Sydney: Heineman. ISBN 978-1-74166-708-0.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  • Tulloch, Derek (1972). Wingate in Peace and War. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0-356-03877-7.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles> Autobiography by Wingate's Chief of Staff

External links