![]() The sailor has an Enfield No.4 Mk.I rifle.) (Handover of the logs of the WWII British frigate HMS Fal which became UBS Mayu, Burma’s first bluewater warship at independence. It was equipped with a variety of WWII British kit donated by the UK, not just the Enfield No.4 rifles. The Tatmadaw was small at independence, only about 26,000 men. It was agreed that the two WWII forces would unite as a new national military in preparation for independence two years later. The BIA had been a Japanese-backed puppet army which revolted in 1945 and switched sides to the Allies. He was instrumental in switching the BIA to the Allied side and then negotiating Burmese independence from the UK after WWII.) (photo via website) (A 1 Kyat banknote from 1990 showing Aung San in the insignia of an Imperial Japanese Army general. Several days after the USS Missouri ceremony which ended WWII, representatives of the British-backed colonial army and the Burmese Independence Army (BIA) met in conference at Kandy, Sri Lanka. The Tatmadaw was created before Burma even gained independence. In Myanmar, the military as a whole (army, navy, air force) is called the Tatmadaw, also a synonym for the various military dictatorships over the decades. On 4 January 1948, British rule ended and Burma became an independent nation. It spent the remainder of WWII trying to retreat towards the Malay peninsula. Now the IJA’s 28th Army was trapped inland between two Allied forces and Burma’s two main rivers. Rangoon was liberated in late April 1945. (Clipping from a 1945 issue of Yank, the US Army’s magazine, showing the land route between India and China reopened.)ĭuring 1945 the Japanese fronts collapsed. By December 1944, the Allies had pushed the frontlines back into Burma from two directions, India in the west and China in the north. (Soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 28th Army in Burma.)Īfter pushing across the border into India, Japan’s fortunes waned with the failure of the “U-Go” offensive in 1944. Japan invaded during December 1941 and by early 1942, had overrun the whole colony. ![]() Great Britain split Burma (roughly the size of Texas) from Raj India as a separate colony during 1937.īurma took a terrible pounding during WWII. (Myanmar National Police member with an Enfield No.4 rifle during 2016.) (British soldier in Bahe, Burma with Enfield No.4 rifle during WWII.) In the nation of Burma (today called Myanmar) it continues in use in the 2020s. With 4,000,000+ being made, the Enfield No.4 Mk.I is often considered the classical WWII British rifle.
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