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X: SECRETARY OF STATE FOR BURMA UNTIL INDEPENDENCE: 1947–1948

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2019

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Extract

The Japanese had given Burma ‘independence’ in August 1943 and appointed Ba Maw as Head of State, U Nu as Foreign Secretary, and General Aung San as Minister of Defence; after releasing them from jail where they had been put after the Japanese invasion in 1942. However, the Burmese resented the Japanese as much as the British and Aung San was biding his time before turning his Burmese National Army [BNA] against the Japanese.

Type
Primary source material
Information
Royal Historical Society Camden Fifth Series , Volume 57: THE RISE OF LABOUR AND THE FALL OF EMPIRE: THE MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM HARE, FIFTH EARL OF LISTOWEL , July 2019 , pp. 139 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2019 

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References

447 Ba Maw (1893–1977), Burmese political leader who served as chief minister of Burma under British colonial rule, 1937–1939, and, under the Japanese, was head of state, 1943–1945.

448 U Nu (1907–1995), sometimes called Thakin Nu, Burmese political leader who served as the first prime minister of independent Burma, 1948–1956, and later in 1957–1958 and 1960–1962.

449 Aung San (1915–1947), Burmese political leader, president of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League, 1945–1947 and chief minister of Burma, 1946–1947; assassinated July 1947.

450 Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith (1899–1977), Conservative MP; governor of Burma, 1941–1946. Between 1942–1945 he was in exile, mainly in Simla, due to the Japanese occupation.

451 Field Marshal Sir William Slim, later 1st Viscount Slim (1891–1970), army officer and official; GOC of the Fourteenth Army, 1943–1945 (sometimes referred to as the ‘Forgotten Army’), made up of numerous troops from across the Empire-Commonwealth, mainly concentrated on task of retaking Burma; chief of the Imperial General Staff, 1948–1952 and governor general of Australia, 1953–1960.

452 Reference to the South African Afrikaner Field Marshal Jan Smuts who, despite not being British, was later, after the Boer War, a strong ally of Britain and its Empire.

453 Major-General (later Sir) Charles F.B. Pearce (1892–1964), officer and colonial administrator; served in various roles in colonial Burma including finance secretary and secretary to the governor.

454 Major-General Sir Hubert Rance (1898–1974), officer and colonial administrator, director of civil affairs in Burma in 1945, after the Japanese withdrawal; later last governor of Burma, 1946–1948, and governor of Trinidad and Tobago, 1950–1955.

455 Attlee still Chairman of India and Burma Cabinet Committee followed Mountbatten's advice when it conflicted with Dorman-Smith's, the Governor's.

456 Note the turning point of a peaceful transition for Burma with the appointment of Rance as governor.

457 Christopher Mayhew (1915–1997), later Lord Mayhew, Labour (and later Liberal) MP and junior minister; under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, 1946–1950.

458 Arthur Bottomley, later Lord Bottomley (1907–1997), Labour MP and minister; under-secretary of state for Dominion Affairs, 1946–1947 and last secretary of state for Commonwealth Relations, 1964–1966.

459 Thakin Ba Sein, Burmese Socialist politician.

460 U Saw (1900–1948), Burmese politician, prime minister of British Burma, 1940–1942; implicated in the assassination of Aung San and consequently executed in 1948.

461 Tin Tut (1895–1948), Burmese civil servant and AFPFL politician; first minister of foreign affairs in Burma, 1948; assassinated the same year.

462 Only a Burmese leader could have united the frontier areas and British Burma.

463 More usually known as Panglong. This conference in February 1947 and the agreement that followed saw key ethnic groups accept a united Burma in return for significant autonomy in the regions.

464 Aung San had no personal objections to the Crown but realised that even titular British sovereignty would break his party and let in the Communists.

465 It was successfully hidden from the press and the public that British officers in the Ordnance Depot had been bribed to hand over the weapons used in the murder. How many people still know the truth? A judicial enquiry then would have meant disaster.

466 Maung Maung (1925–1994), Burmese politician and writer.

467 In 1857.

468 Mahn Ba Khaing (1903–1947), Burmese and Karen politician; minister of industry, among those assassinated in July 1947 with Aung San.

469 George Washington (1732–1799), leading commander of the American forces who later served as the first president of the United States of America, 1789–1797.

470 The spirit of Aung San lives on in his daughter, Aung San Sui Kyi. Aung San Suu Kyi (b.1945), Burmese politician; released from house arrest in 2010; minister of foreign affairs and state counsellor of Myanmar since 2016; author of Aung San of Burma: A Biographical Portrait by his Daughter (1984).

471 U Nu of Burma by Butwell published by Stanford University Press (1963), quoted on page 90.

472 Randolph Churchill (1911–1968), Conservative MP, journalist and son of Winston Churchill.

473 Grandfather.

474 Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895), Conservative MP and minister; secretary of state for India, 1885–1886, under whom Burma was annexed to British India in late 1885; father of Winston Churchill.

475 Ronald Harris (1913–1995), later Sir Ronald Harris, civil servant at the India Office, 1944–1947.

476 Khin Kyi (1912–1988). She later served as Burma's Ambassador to India, 1960–1967.

477 I passed this casket to the Burma Office for its archives when I returned to London.

478 More usually spelled as Shwedagon.

479 John Freeman (1915–2014), Labour MP and junior minister at the War Office, 1947; later high commissioner to India, 1965–1968.

480 U Nu however stated in his autobiography that he was sceptical of astrology, and denied that it had played any part in his political decisions. He asserted that he was offered two dates for independence and he chose the earlier date.

481 Butler was under-secretary of state for India, 1932–1937.

482 Sir Harcourt Butler (1869–1938), colonial civil servant and administrator; served in India; governor of Burma, 1923–1927.

483 1st Viscount Samuel (1870–1963), formerly Sir Herbert Samuel, Liberal MP and peer, minister and colonial administrator; leader of the Liberal Party, 1931–1935; home secretary, 1931–1932, and Liberal leader in the House of Lords, 1944–1955.

484 Roy Hattersley, (b.1932), later Lord Hattersley, Labour MP and writer.