One speaker short for this panel. Dr. Raymond callahan due to circumstances beyond his control could not be with us today so were sorry that we are missing him today, but, you know, his friends here in new orleans are certainly thinking about him. To lead this session, we have called on one of the most distinguished military historians that were very fortunate to have right up the road here at the university of new orleans, dr. Allan millett. His career has not only filled he hasokshelves, but also fill the ranks of military history phds by overseeing the most doctoral candidates of anyone in the country. Its hard not to find one of his students around. To talk about one of the most important battles in june of 1944 and the war as a whole, its my pleasure to call on dr. Dr. Alan millett and Hiroyuki Shindo to discuss the battle in the chinaburmaindia theater. With that, allan, its all yours. [applause] prof. Millett im a pale substitute for ray callahan, i can assure you, when i wrote about the berma campaign in the the Burma Campaign in the book a war to be won which is on sale, right out here. I can assure you that i went to ray to critique it and did a superb job. The level of anticipation in the the level of american participation in the Burma Campaign is more considerable than you might imagine, in a historical sense, we think about Clint Corcoran and his daredevil special forces air force, meryls marauders. But thats a very small part of the picture. What characterizes the campaign in burma was in fact it was several wars, the United States interests was fundamentally and openly some kind of route of, from india to china to supply the Chinese Armed forces and the Expeditionary Air force that we put in china. That was the still well war aided and abetted by the chinese nationalists, some saving themselves for the campaign with the communists after the war ended. There is another war which is the wingatechindit war. It catches peoples imagination because the robust and flawed assumption about how one operates or does not operate in a very hostile physical environment. Burma is not a great place to wage war. I have not been there, but i have been to thailand, there certainly are some similarities. If ray were here, he would talk about the cohema and Fall Campaign as the birth of the modern indian army which is what his book is really about. I certainly recommend it for you who are interested. There are longer works on some official history by lewis allen, another somewhat shorter account by Major General julian popson sponsored by the imperial war museum, my function, however, is to, at least when the q a starts to kind of handle the allied side, but the real important part of this presentation is Hiroyuki Shindos account of the japanese side of the campaign. However, i think its probably part of my role to make sure that he doesnt get too far from [laughter] prof. Millett an allied point of view. Whether youre curious or not, i dont know, this is native to maple leaves, burqa, and the blade is made from sheffield steel, which had once had had once been railroads in nepal. They have taken the Railroad Tracks and turned them into knives for tourists. Hiro, yough note, have it. [applause] shindo good morning, everybody. I would like to thank the organizers of this conference for what is turning out to be a very, i think a very successful conference and a very rewarding experience and since we dont have a lot of time, i would like to get into my talk right away. I will be talking about the operation, but i will just say impal operation from the japanese perspective. And the operation lasted from march 8 to july 2, 1944. And it really stands out among the Japanese Armys operations because almost half of the 60,000 to 80,000 men committed died before the end of operation and most of these died because of disease and or starvation. And in the japanese literature, its been called the clearest example or maybe the worst example of a rash or a reckless or an imprudent operation because most of the problems that they ran into during the operation had been foreseen. There was a lot of objection to it before it even got underway and yet it was carried out anyway. So in my talk, i would like to talk about how this operation came to happen and then ill talk about the operation itself. The inpal operation began, took place in 1944. But to look at its genesis or its roots, you have to look back to 1942 when the pacific war began. Strategy in army the burma area was defensive. In other words, they wanted the 15th army to capture burma in order to protect the rear of the 25th army which is driving down the Malay Peninsula toward singapore. So burma, the burma offensive started with the start of the war and by early may, they had occupied most of burma and completed their mission. And by occupying burma, what they also did was they cut the burma route that they call the burma route of supplies from the allies that went from northern burma into southern china. And so after this route was cut, the allies began flying air supplies over the him layas, the the himalayas, the the famous hump route. And anyway, after the 15th army finished its occupation of burma, the japanese switched to the Strategic Defensive not only in burma, but also for the entire Southeast Asia area. And after they had done this, they were making this transition, while they were making this transition, the Southern Expeditionary Army command which was in charge of all of the army units in Southeast Asia came up with a proposal to continue the offensive into india, into northeast india. The purpose of this operation to be to cut that airlift, to interdict the airlift that was going over the himalayas and do this while the japanese still had the initiative. This proposal offensive out of burma into india was proposed by the army general staff. And the reason they opposed it was basically the army after they had completed what they called the Southern Operations or the occupation of Southeast Asia, the army general staff wanted to shift to Strategic Defensive for the entire area, draw some of their forces down and refocus on the on going war in china and get back to their preparations for war against the soviet union, which was their traditional hypothetical enemy. So they were against any kind of continuation of the offensive into india. However, they couldnt completely rule it out either, and so although the general staff was reluctant about the idea, they did in august 1942 authorize Southern Expeditionary Army to study the issues and make preparations and continue to make plans for an operation. However, they said they would need the express approval of the general staff to actually carry out the operation, which they tentatively scheduled for maybe late october 1942. And they gave it the name operation number 21. Now, this proposal which of an offensive into india by Southern Expeditionary Army was opposed not only by the general staff but also by the combat advancement that would have to carry it out, the 15th army and the Division Commanders underneath it. The main reason they opposed it has to do with the geography of the area. And i dont know how familiar you are with a map of the area, but on the border between burma and india runs northsouth and also the major rivers and Mountain Ranges run essentially in a northsouth direction. As you can kind of picture, the japanese are in burma on the east and they have to cross over the river and this Mountain Range into india on the west. And the Mountain Range, its called the arakan Mountain Range. Akan. R it has high mountains, steep sides reaching up to 10,000 feet and equally steep and deep canyons. Its a really its a really large physical geographical obstacle to any offensive into india. And so the 15th army and the Division Commanders are all opposed to this operation. First of all, they say we dont have enough forces to do this. The Southern Expeditionary Army were thinking of doing this with about maybe four divisions and the 15th army and the Division Commanders say that is not enough. And even more importantly, they say you cannot pass that kind of force over the arakan mountains. And the next, even if you did get them over the mountains, you cant supply them with a line of communications through the mountains because there is almost virtually no developed road network crossing the mountains. Now, at this time one of the Division Commanders who opposed this especially strongly was a guy by the name of, let me see, Major General renya mutaguchi. He was the commander of the 18th division at the time. And he opposed the offensive into india for the reason i explained. Basically, you cant cross the Mountain Range and you cant supply them even if they did get across. Now, what happens to this operation 21, its postponed by the general staff after the japanese fail in their october offensive in guadalcanal to take henderson field. The situation in the South Pacific is much worse than they had imagined. So they postponed any offensive into india. However, they do say you may continue preparations and planning for it. Now, in march, 1943, the japanese reorganize the command structure in burma and sorry to keep going back and forth, but this is a very simple organizational chart of the new organization and what the japanese did in march 1943 was they inserted a Burma Area Army command between 15th army and Southern Expeditionary Army. I hope you can read it. The japanese did not have a core structure in their army, so their army command is actually about the same size of a corps in the u. S. Army and their area army is im getting that right, i have it written down. So they dont have a corps structure. We army corps is equal to an corpsan core the army is equal to an american corps, and the Burma Area Army is not as grand as it sounds. They set up this new command structure. And at the same time another change they made was they promoted mutaguchi to commander of 15th army. Now, about the time mutaguchi was promoted to commander of 15th army, he did an absolute about face and he began to promote very strongly and forcefully and repeatedly the idea of an invasion into india. And mutaguchi was hoping to invade india and then go through nepal and maybe go all the way to the state of asam. I guess you cant see the laser pointer, im not going to try. Asam is kind of in the upper lefthand corner of this map just below the himalaya mountains. Which are the very lefthand, the upper lefthand corner of the map. Its fairly deep into india. Mutaguchi began promoting this idea of a major offensive all the way to assam. One of the big questions, why would iguchi why mut aguchi, a few months when he was Division Commander opposed this kind of idea, why he suddenly when he became army commander, why did he suddenly began calling, advocating for such a major offensive into india, not just in nepal but beyond to the state of a ssam . The first reason is that he, after he opposed operation 21, he came to regret his opposition. He saw that he had somehow let down his superior officers and commands by raising all of the negatives and not supporting what they wanted to do. And he vowed hence forth to be more positive and aggressive and try to realize the intentions and desires of his higher commands. And its kind of ironic because mutaguchi already had a reputation of being a very aggressive, strong, charismatic leader. Some would say he was arrogant and overly demanding. But he found that he needed to be more positive when it came to the planning and execution of operations. So that is one of the reasons that he suddenly came to favor invasion into india. And another reason is, mutaguchi had this he was overly selfconscious about his role in history. He had an exaggerated view of how he affected history and especially history of how japan came to find itself in this kind of war. And now mutaguchi in july, 1937, was commander of the first infantry regimen of the china garrison army, which is at the marco polo bridge. He was one of those that was among many that was responsible for this incident developing into something and going beyond a local resolution. And so mutaguchi came to feel that he was responsible for getting japan into the war and then he thought that he had, therefore that he had a moral responsibility to deliver a knockout blow against the british and bring and end to the war and get japan out of the war. Now, he didnt feel this because he regretted getting japan into the war. He just had this exaggerated view of his importance in all of these events. And in addition to these personal factors of why mutaguchi came to favor an offensive into india, there are also certainly military rationales. First of all was the win gate operation, the chindit operation from february to may 1943 which professor millett just mentioned. And as a result of that operation, mutaguchi, among others, drew a couple of conclusions. First of all, it convinced him that sizable ground force could be passed over the arakan mountains and could also be supplied over the mountains and second of all, mutaguchi came to feel that he had a lot of difficulty dealing with the win gate force and he came to feel that rather than fight the enemy after they had attacked japan, would be more advantageous for the japanese in burma to launch a preemptive offensive against the enemies bases of operation and deny them the chance to conduct an offensive. Now, and so mutaguchi came to favor an invasion of india for these reasons and once again, everybody above and below him opposed this idea. And first of all, i would like to look at the Division Commanders. Every one of them and they are staff opposed mutaguchis their staff opposed mutaguchis proposal to invade india. The reasons are the same. Its the geographical reasons, its the arakan mountains that you cant cross and you cant maintain lines of communications over or through them. In addition, these commanders felt there wasnt enough motor transport on the japanese side and also by late, you know this debate goes on through 1943 and by late 1943, the Japanese Air Force has lost command of the air in the burma area. Thats another reason why the Division Commanders came to oppose or oppose mutaguchis concept. And against these, mutaguchi offers rebuttals or counterarguments. First of all, the Division Commanders say we dont have enough motor transport. In all fairness to mutaguchi and the 15th army, they did ask for reinforcement of transport companies and so on, but they didnt get all of those that they wanted. And so he said, ok, then we will use cattle and other animals to transport supplies over the mountains and then once we have gotten over the mountains, they can be eaten and that will solve our food problem as well. And another reason that the commanders opposed the proposal is, as i said, the japanese had no control of the air anymore. Mutaguchi said, well, control of the air wont be such a problem. It will only be a problem when we cross the chinwin river, its the major river they have to cross before they get into the mountains. Thats the only time when control of air is a problem. Once the japanese get in the mountains, they wont be able to see us from the air. So loss of command of air wont be a problem. And as for not being able to pass enough supplies over the mountains, mutaguchi says, first of all, we will capture british supplies and use those and also he expects nepal and cohima to be occupied in three weeks, 20 days, so he says the lack of supplies wont be a problem. Our men will be able to do this with what they can carry on their backs. And finally, the commanders opposed this operation because of the concerns with the monsoon season, which lasts from about may to october every year and is characterized by very heavy torrential rains which wash out bridges and roads and they say , once we get into the monsoon season, all our problems will be multiplied. To that mutaguchi says, well, if we capture nepal and cohima before that, we can be sheltered in there. It will rather be the british who will be impeded by these heavy rains when they try to counterattack and retake nepal and cohima. So mutaguchi kind of brushes all of these objections away. And underlying his position is just a general dismissal mutaguchi looks down on the fighting abilities of the british. He only has experience fighting the british at singapore, where he was commander of the 18th division when they assaulted Singapore Island in the final stages of that campaign. So mutaguchi has a very low opinion of british soldiers and he says, oh, theyre not going to be much of a problem anyway, so you dont have to worry about these other problems. And mutaguchi repeatedly tells his men, his commanders, that you only have to surround the british and fire in the air and the british will come out and surrender. And overall, thats another characteristic of mutaguchi, he had this extreme overemphasis on the value or importance of absolute faith in victory. You see this throughout the Japanese Army and also the navy. Its kind of extreme in mutaguchis case and he believes that you may have all of these other material and problems, but having an absolute faith in victory will allow you to overcome them all. And another thing, factor underlying that kind of multiplied all of these problems is mutaguchi had very poor or even bad relationships with all of his commanders. He had three divisions under his command, 31, 33 and 15 divisions. And he disliked or distrusted all of their commanders. They in turn didnt like him or did not think much of him. So they clearly had problems communicating with each other. Now, i talked about how all of his divisional commanders were against his proposal, but also all of the commands above him, area army, Southern Expeditionary Army and the general staff were opposed to mutaguchis proposal to invade india or at best, very reluctant about it. And the underlying reason is the change in strategic situation in 1943, especially in the latter half of 1943. In july, late june to early july, the americans and australians restart their offensive in the South Pacific and theyre advancing along the solomons and in new guinea. So the Japanese Army faces an increasingly serious situation there. And in september 1943, italy in europe surrenders. So southern expeditionary arm and the general staff start to be concerned about the British Naval units in the mediterranean. They think that they could now be freed to be transferred into the indian ocean where they may carry out an amphibious operation against the south on the south coast of burma. There is this opposition from above and below to his proposal. Now, the big question becomes why was he able to carry it out . Theof the reasons is japanese desire on the political level to realize indias independence. Ways the japanese wanted to in the war was to force britain to capitulate. One of the ways they thought they could do that was to detach india from the british empire. They thought some pressure against india could have that kind of effect. It is not that they had a concrete plan to bring about indias independence. They hoped that by invading could maybe they encourage independence. Maybe india would detach itself from the british. That desire, even ok. It is militar commandersr were not on the same page in terms of what the operation should be. Complex and detailed a complex and detailed issue. Is thaty what happens there is a difference between the higher commands and him over what the purpose of what the operation should be. Should it be to enhance burmas defense by pushing the frontline out . To deliver a be knockout blow against the british . They never resolved that. Him in written orders that he should do this operation to enhance the defense of burma. Until the end, he keeps thinking that he is doing this operation. And have a do that knockout blow against the british. If theyto that is, or do the operation, where they. Hould put the main weight the higher commands are in this dilemma because they feel the operation is risky. They think it might have a political effect on india. If it works, it could strengthen and enhance japans defensive position in burma. Commandsy, the higher and Southern Expeditionary Army come to the view that this operation, even though it has a lot of risks, might be ok in terms of advancing imphal and improving japans defensive position. For that and also, as i said, the higher commands are concerned about a possible amphibious invasion in the south. So Burma Area Army pro focuses, proposes, ok, if you have to do the imphal operation, how about putting the main weight on the left hook, the left side, in other words Burma Area Army proposed that mutaguchi should use two of his three divisions, the 15th and the 33rd in the bold line, its kind of hard to see, maybe, and basically they should attack imphal with two divisions and keep the 31st division in reserve. That way they could respond to an amphibious invasion in the south in that happens. If that happens. And kohima is an important road junction you have assam and kohima and thats the only good road going to imphal. The british cant send a counterattacking force. There is importance to kohima. They say they should attack kohima to hold for that purpose, four battalions should be enough for that. Mutaguchis eye is still on assam. So what mutaguchi does, he decides to commit the entire 31st division against kohima in the north and the reason he does this is because he has his eye on assam, if the opportunity presents itself, he wants the 31st division and the rest of the 15th army to follow to go on to assam. Mutaguchi proposes a right hook operation where a lot of the weight on the offensive is on the right side. And mutaguchi and his higher commands never resolve this. The higher commands suggest they should do the left hook, but never order him to. That is one of the excuses that mutaguchi used afterwards, his higher commands never ordered him, first of all, not to carry out the operation and then they never ordered him in direct written orders about how he should carry it out. And one other reason that complicates all of this is his relationship with his immediate superior, Lieutenant General who is commander of Burma Area Army. That was his immediate superior at the time of the marco polo bridge incident. They really trust each other, just completely trust each other and mutaguchi says that if his immediate superior had any reservations or objections about what he was trying to do, he would have said so. And in fact, he has never said so. The reason he doesnt say so is because of the command philosophy, once you make the objective clear to your subordinate, leave it up to him how to carry it out. They are repeatedly telling him they have reservations about the proposal, he says i understand what youre saying, but mutaguchi is so confident of victory that we should just let him do as we wants to. So mutaguchi forcefully argues for this operation throughout 1943 and there are reservations, but in the end, everybody gives in. There are certain reasons, the reason that the operation could be of benefit and so the operation, when the general decides do the operation, the orders come down and in january 1944 the operation is ordered and it will be started in march. So the imphal operation is carried out. And its basically carried out according to the plan that you see on the screen. Now, we dont have a whole lot of time left, so ill just run through how the operation went. It starts on march 8 with the 33rd division in the south jumping off, they have the farthest way to go, on march 15, the two divisions in the north, the 15 division in center and the 31st in the north start their advance. The operation despite all of the problems that were raised initially goes well. By april 6, the 31st division actually occupies kohima and a little bit before that on march 28, the 15th division in the center cuts the road between kohima and imphal and cuts off the british ability to reach kohima. The 33rd division in the south gets bogged down. By early may, they are threatening a place which is an important road junction just to the south of imphal. They are threatening it from the west. From mid may, the entire operation becomes stalemated. The japanese, in order to make a quick advance through the mountains have left all of their heavy equipment behind including most of their artillery. Shortages of that began to make a difference and also the supply difficulties that had been foreseen actually start to happen from about late april into may, the shortage of ammunition, medical supplies and especially food and raises. And the japanese who carried out this attack have actually reduced their ragses from the very beginning, but from about may, this really becomes acute, they go from half raises down to a third and often down to 1 6 rations. In the question and answer part, ill tell you more of the tragic human part of the operation. As the operation, the entire operation gets stalemated, in the face of this, mutaguchi just demands an even greater effort on the part of his divisions, but they cant move any further. They just dont have the strength. And here is where it really gets interesting. Mutaguchi ends up relieving all three of his Division Commanders. The 33rd Division Commander is relieved in may for lack of aggression, lack of aggressiveness andty midity and in june, the 15th Division Commander is relieved for the same reason. On june 1, general hato, commander of the 31st division in the north unilaterally withdraws his division, the 15th army reneged on its promise to keep it supplied. We are going to redeploy to where the supplies are. Mutaguchi says he is going to court marshall. Sato welcomes it, he can prove that mutaguchi is incompetent, the Staff Officers step in and try to get it changed declaring that sato was insane. Sato says no, i want a courtmartial. In the end, he was declared insane anyway. He tries to appeal that. By then he is put on the reserve list. Nothing becomes of it and the entire matter fades away. By late may and into june, the failure of the entire operation becomes increasingly clear but nobody can end this. Nobody comes out and says so clearly, like i said at the beginning, nobody came out clearly against the operation to mutaguchi before it began and now nobody can come out and say it should be ended. There an infamous meeting on june 6 between mutaguchi and another when both sides, both men wanted to bring up the subject of terminating the operation, but the meeting ends with neither of them even mentioning it. Mutaguchi says he wanted the other to bring it up. He himself wanted to, but he couldnt bring himself to, so he wanted the other to bring it up. He said he wanted mutaguchi to bring the subject up because he didnt want to destroy mutaguchis face. The operation goes on for another month before the general staff finally calls it off. On june 2, the southern expedition army calls it off. By then the whole of the Japanese Forces there are in retreat and since there is no motor transport, many of them, most of them have to walk out on their own and, again, its just a scene of incredible human suffering. Theyre all wounded or ill and, of course, theyre starving and many of them die on the way back. There was a saying that he who cant walk out on his own shall die. So the operation was terminated in early july and the survivors trickle out and the casualties as i said, the japanese, the exact data on this is kind of hazy because the records are incomplete. Out of about 60,000 to 80,000 men committed, 30 or 40,000 of these are dead. 80 of these died from disease and or starvation rather than wounds. And for the burma area as a whole, in january 1944, the Japanese Army had about 300,000 to 310,000 men. By the end of the war, 185,000 of these are dead. Again, up to 80 of them died from disease or starvation rather than combat and only 118,000 get back to japan alive. And so i would like to end my talk here, i was probably going on a bit, longer than i would have hoped. Thank you for listening. [applause] thank you to both of our panelists. Due to dr. Callahans withdrawal, i appreciate you carrying an extra load. We have time for a few questions before the lunch break and well start in the front row to your left, gentlemen. I wonder if either of you can comment on the american involvement with the special air group and the first operational use of helicopters which was done in that theater which is kind of strange seeing with all of the other theaters that we were in. Prof. Millett there was considerable american involvement, but not by combat troup. Meryls marauders functioning in north burma with the objective of opening the land route through india. A large number of engineering troops, support troops, actually a major theater when you begin to count forces outside of the combat units and, yes, army air forces, they had a very sizable presence. First of all, to support the deployment of the first b29s in india and running the operations over the hump. There are questions of air support from slims 14th army by considerable force. The problem to some degree is the fact that the general stillwell mission to increase the chinese contribution to the war, but first maybe in burma and later, of course, in china itself. The difficulty is, the british had a much different objective, not only to retake burma, but use that as a stepping stone for the reconquest and bring the dutch east indies, quite an ambitious program. Air assets were part of the argument and slim made a decision, i think it was pretty smart which was he decided he wouldnt fight foramerican air power to support him, stillwell would get it, but at the same time he really cooped all of the r. A. F. Assets that were in the theater which he could directly control. There is no question that aerial resupply, support was very important to all of the operations because it was very difficult to get supplies to anybody except by air. Air superiority to a large degree was accomplished by the r. A. F. , not by the air command because they were mostly Running Missions up north in support of the chindits or the American Forces in north burma, but it did suggest of a potential for integrating the short takeoff aircraft including helicopters into operations. Helicopters were used for reconnaissance and casualty evacuation. And so there were people that know what happened in vietnam, fine precedence for the use of air power in vietnam was these experiments in burma. Next question to the right with connie, please. So i understand that the weather was bad, that the mountains were high and the food was short, but there were also British Commonwealth troops who had learned how to fight the japanese, having been kicked out of burma earlier, general slim and his troops, i think may have played a role in mutaguchi and what did he think about the performance of the enemy postkohima and imphal . Prof. Millett to answer your question, thats the role of the british army was one that i didnt mention. In the reformed British Indian army, it had been reformed in 1943 definited played definitely played a role. In fact, they didnt expect that opposition. That was the first problem, the british were much stronger than they had expected. I dont know much about the british army postkohima imphal, but as a result of imphal operation, a 15th army was destroyed and so that opened the way for, made it much easier for the british to advance the 14th army i believe it was, advance into central burma from late 1944 on wards. I dont know if that answers your question, but one thing is that, one staff officer at the time said that, you know, mutaguchi held, repeatedly held map exercises, the one contingency he never considered was that the british might resist. Mutaguchi had a low view of british resistance and that i think increased the problem. Gentleman in the center here, please. Part of my question was asked and answered, but who provided all of the material for the British Forces . Was this all british, was it some american, and how are the numbers, the british allies versus the japanese, how do the numbers and equipment, how do all of those numbers play out . Prof. Millett so the question is, where were the supplies coming from for the british and then is what are the comparable numbers of british versus japanese. Let me take the first one. The 14th army depended upon heavy equipment largely brought in from the middle east. I remember the timing is such that the african campaigns are winding down and so both materiel and troops that were deployed there were redeployed. We think of them going on to italy. Indian units in north africa came back and the indians participated in the Burma Campaign. Its a mix. The british troops fought with the british weapons, 25 pounders, guns, stuff that they used for a generation. I think the real issue was how rapidly the british commanders and the division and corps commanders were White British professional officers either out of the indian army or the british army. I think they had some real doubts about the fighting effectiveness of the indian army and the real accomplishment is to figure out how to mix in burqas, white batallions and indian batallions in mixed brigades which seemed to be the best formula. The british army did not get many british white replacements in 1944 and 1945. The indian army certainly bore a larger burden on fighting as the campaigns went on. 1945, the 14th army is pro dominantly the indian army, not british or burqa troops. The british supplied themselves. They had bases in india. They had sources of supply in india. They pretty much fought the war with what they had. You see american trucks, you see american jeeps, that theyre ubiquitous throughout the theater. Some aircraft were transferred to the r. A. F. There are all kinds of sort of transfers of capability. Wingate would not take indian troops in the Long Range Penetration groups. He insisted that they were undependable and he didnt want to worry about them and so his forces which were actually a division and a half, maybe two divisions in 1944, it sucked up a lot of the british battalions and burqa battalions which certainly did not make general slim very happy. Its kind of a mixed picture and the numbers sometimes are misleading because you have lots of people, but you find out that not many of them are trigger pullers and where you have tremendous logistical problems they have in india and burma, you will certainly find a huge commitment of forces trying to keep the spear point supplied. My guess is that the allies eventually enjoyed a slide in the majority, but not much of one. Time for one quick question from the back and hopefully as equally quick answer before lunch. Ill try to make it short. The India Campaign bears some similarities to the Kokoda Campaign in terms of terrain and supply. Curious if the Japanese Army made any adjustments subsequent that might have been applied lessons to this particular campaign in india . Prof. Shindo i dont think they made any particular adjustments, no, i think, the short answer is no. [laughter] prof. Shindo if i could add one brief comment. Its connected to the previous question, one of the problems the japanese had, in every category they had less than the british, but the japanese problems are compounded because theyre losing control of the lines of communications to thailand and burma because of american sub marines, so what the japanese, what little they do have in, for example, china and the homeland cant be transported out to thai and burma and that just as to their material deficiencies in burma at this time. Prof. Millett one of the underappreciated parts of the pacific role which is the role of american submarine forces in stopping the deployment and redeployment and supply of Japanese Military forces, you talk about cutting off oil and all of these things which are clearly important, you take a look at any campaign or japanese position and the commanders are always complaining about the fact that they dont get materiel, troops, the equipment they need simply because the transports are going down sunk by american submarines in 1944. Well, thank you to this great panel. [applause] announcer this is American History tv on cspan 3 where you are watching American History tv, covering history cspan style with archival films, lectures and college classrooms. And visits to museums and historic places. All weekend, every weekend on cspan3. This sunday evening on American History tv, a perspective on the Senate Impeachment trial of bill clinton from senator robert byrd, the democrat from west virginia. In an interview recorded in 1999, two days before the impeachment trial began, we hear about impeachment history, rules and procedures. Here is a preview. This is a very serious matter. It should not depend upon political parties. Any attempt to infuse partisan politics, that is what lobbying would be, an infusion of would bepolitics wrong. The constitution and the amendments are colorblind. You have heard that. Perhaps you have not heard it but the constitution and the american amendments are party blind. Im not going to make a judgment based on Political Party. If there were a republican president , i would feel the same about it and i have said so during the time when the nixon trout was approaching. It was imminent. I took that position. Nd i have constituents why dont you do this . The president is a democrat. And i cansten to him understand that. , already as a senator to defend the constitution. I will have to take another oath as will all other senators to do impartial justice to the person impeached, according to the constitution of the laws and it has nothing to do this is nothing about political parties. I will make my judgment entirely, entirely free and aside from Political Party affiliations of the person impeached. Me,o otherwise, to me, to to do otherwise would not be doing impartial justice under the constitution. You can hear more from robert this sunday at 9 05 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Next, seth jacobs discusses Lyndon Johnson and the factors that led him to escalate the war of vietnam, following the assassination of john f. Kennedy. He argues the 1964 Residential Campaign against Barry Goldwater president ial campaign against perry goldwater influenced Barry Goldwater influenced johnsons desire to be seen as a strong, confident foreignpolicy president. Welcome. Todays subject is Lyndon Johnson. He is best