MovieChat Forums > The World at War (1973) Discussion > Burma episode ignores Australia

Burma episode ignores Australia

posted 9 years ago by down_under_birdy
9 replies | jump to latest

I watched this documentary when I was a kid and now i'm watching it again as an adult. One thing that has struck me about episodes focusing on the Pacific front is the complete avoidance of mentioning Australians. In the Burma episode, almost all of the raw footage of allied soldiers depicts Australians (easily identified by their slouch hats), yet Olivier just refers to them as 'The British'. Australia was a federated country by then, not a British colony. I find it frustrating and an insult to my family members who were killed in Japanese POW camps during the Burma campaign.

[–] DBloodnok 9 years ago

There weren't any Australians fighting in NE India or Burma. The excellent Australian bush hat was adopted by British forces fighting in Burma. The Australians were fighting extremely hard in New Guinea and other parts of the SW Pacific, a theatre that was sadly barely covered in The World at War.

Interestingly, Churchill wanted one of the returning AIF divisions to be diverted to Rangoon during the initial Japanese invasion in 1942. Canberra refused.

"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."

[–] Squeeth2 9 years ago

Pity because a lot of Oz troops in Malaya in 1941/42 were abysmal. Some real soldiers would have helped a lot.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] DBloodnok 9 years ago

Fair's fair, Squeeth - some of the Australians were exceptionally good in the Malaya campaign. However, when the jig was up on Singapore Island, some Australians didn't acquit themselves well, though it was mainly base troops and men who had just arrived from Australia and who could barely hold a rifle. Some British troops performed similarly poorly. As Napoleon said, there are no bad soldiers, only bad officers, and the British generalship in Malaya and Singapore was very poor indeed. Though, perhaps more to blame was the continued parsimony in the 1920s and 1930s that left Singapore as the greatest white elephant in the world.

"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."

[–] down_under_birdy 9 years ago

Actually there were Australians fighting in Burma - they were placed in British squadrons. Over 200 died in combat and over 2000 died as POWs building the Burma-Thailand railway. The bush hats you see in the footage are Anzacs.

[–] DBloodnok 9 years ago

The POWs could well have been AIF men - as Commonwealth troops captured in Malaya / Singapore were posted to the Bangkok-Rangoon railway (and the 22nd and 27th Brigades of the 8th Australian Division certainly fought there). However, from my reading / research, no formations of the AIF were deployed in NE India / Burma from 1942-1945. The AIF's divisions by that time were split between the Middle East and PNG, with the CMF formations in Australia and PNG.

I certainly agree that Australian pilots would have served with RAF squadrons - as happened in all theatres, CW pilots deployed with the RAF. So I'm happy to correct my initial statement: no AIF formations fought in NE India / Burma, but individual Australian airmen certainly did. Naturally, if you can link to something that says otherwise, I'd be very interested to read it.

EDIT - And of course, Australian servicemen served on the Burma Railway.

I think more noteworthy in the Burma episode, if we're talking about efforts being ignored, is the face that three of the divisions serving with the 14th Army were from Imperial possessions in Africa and I don't remember a single word about this in the episode: 11th East African Division and 81st and 82nd West African Divisions.

I think a recurrent criticism that can be levelled at The World at War is that it is very British-centric. However, I still think that it's a fantastic series.

"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."

[–] Squeeth2 9 years ago

The Anglo-centrism makes it more dated every day, a failing not found in The Great War, although I'm working on Dunsterforce, one of the corners of the war. The Oz OH has a surprisingly good chapter but I really need OH Mesopotamia IV to do it justice and I've only got OH M I.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] Johndass (47) 5 years ago

‘Anglo-centrism’, well to be fair it was made in the UK for Uk viewers in a time were there was no global tv.

[–] drunkbear 9 years ago

Were you watching a rebroadcast or the latest disc set? When I recently acquired the discs, I was surprised at how much content had been removed to make the shows fit a one-hour American TV slot; I haven't gotten very far into the discs, but maybe there is more on the Australian battles and forces there than you see on a rebroadcast.

"You may have come on no bicycle, but that does not say that you know everything."

[–] moviechatterer (15583) 3 years ago

BBC makes epic documentary setting new standard and defining the art.
America butchers it fit their moronic 30% advert TV broadcasting policies.
DVD is Invented to allow hours of buy-to-own content in full advert free with extras etc.
American butchered cut is put on DVD.

Its a kick in the balls to the team who created this Documentary.