11th Army Group - Formation

Formation

The Army Group was activated in November 1943 to act as the land forces HQ for the newly formed South East Asia Command (SEAC). Its commander was General George Giffard, who had formerly been Commander-in-Chief West Africa Command and Commander of Eastern Army (part of GHQ India). The headquarters was first situated in New Delhi, eventually moving to Kandy, Ceylon. Its responsibilities were limited to the handling of operations against Japanese forces, while GHQ India was made responsible for the rear areas and the training of the British Indian Army, although there was often overlap between the headquarters' responsibilities and (in the first year of Eleventh Army Group's existence) conflicts between their planners.

Eleventh Army Group's main subordinate formations were British Fourteenth Army and the Ceylon Army. The Indian XXXIII Corps, training in Southern India for amphibious operations, also came under Eleventh Army Group for some purposes. It would have been logical for the Army Group to have the American-led Northern Combat Area Command, under General Joseph Stilwell, under its control also, so that the whole front in Burma would have been under a single commander. The initial idea was that as General Stilwell would be commanding several Chinese divisions which advancing from Ledo in India to Myitkyina in Burma to cover the construction of the Ledo Road and had loose control over the large but amorphous Chinese forces attacking out of Yunnan province from the East, he would be commanding a large army. If his command were placed under the Army Group at the same level as the Fourteenth Army, the attacks could then be co-ordinated at Army Group level.

Stilwell however refused to submit to control by Eleventh Army Group. He and Giffard were very different personalities and found it almost impossible to work together. Stilwell objected to taking Giffard's orders as, among other grounds, Stilwell was also Deputy Supreme Commander of SEAC and therefore Giffard's superior.

Stilwell, however bitterly resisted it,...To watch Stilwell, when hard pressed, shift his opposition from one of the several strong-points he held by virtue of his numerous Allied, American and Chinese offices, to another was a lesson in mobile offensive-defence.

At a meeting to solve the problem of command, Stilwell, under intense pressure from the Admiral Lord Mountbatten, Supreme Commander of SEAC, astonished everyone by saying "I am prepared to come under General Slim's operational control until I get to Kamaing". Rather than sack him, Mountbatten reluctantly agreed to this, but it was a dangerous compromise. It created a complicated chain of command whereby Slim theoretically had to report to two different commanders; Giffard for Fourteenth Army actions and Mountbatten for Stilwell's formations. However, Slim was able to work with Stilwell and "this illogical command set-up worked surprisingly well".

Once Stilwell's forces reached Kamaing on May 20, 1944, this arrangement ceased and Stilwell took orders only from Mountbatten, who lacked the staff (and experience) necessary to act as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Land Forces.