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Reginald Dorman-Smith

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Rt Hon Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, [GBE]

Colonel Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman-Smith, GBE (10 March 1899[1] – 20 March 1977)[2] was an Anglo-Irish diplomat, soldier and politician in the British Empire.

Early life and politics

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Dorman-Smith was educated at Harrow School and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. After serving in the army, he continued his career with a strong interest in agriculture, becoming president of the National Farmers Union (the NFU) at the age of 32, and then later Minister of Agriculture. He was first elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Petersfield in the 1935 general election as one of a handful of MPs sponsored by the NFU and served as the Union's president for the following few years. As a MP, Dorman-Smith was a member of the English Mistery and its successor, English Array.[3] English Misery was a mystical "back-to-the-land" movement that sought to discover the "lost secrets" of the English as way as bringing about some sort of neo-feudal political and social order.[3]

In the late 1930s, the British Government's agricultural policy came in for heavy criticism from the NFU, Parliament and the Press and in January 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain took the bold step of appointing Dorman-Smith as Minister of Agriculture. In October 1939, Dorman-Smith instigated the Government's Dig for Victory campaign, aimed at increasing food production from allotments. However, when Chamberlain fell, Dorman-Smith was not included in the government of his successor, Winston Churchill.

Dorman-Smith was referred to in the book "Guilty Men" by Michael Foot, Frank Owen and Peter Howard (writing under the pseudonym 'Cato'), published in 1940 as an attack on public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany.[4]

Governor of Burma

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Dorman-Smith was appointed Governor of Burma from 6 May 1941 to 31 August 1946, and was therefore in office at the time of the Japanese invasion - and was expelled from the country by the Japanese. Burma was a turbulent colony as the Bamar had never really accepted the British conquest of Burma and the Great Depression by collapsing the price of rice had devastated Burma's economy.[5] The thesis beyond British rule in Burma was an implicit social contract under which the Burmese economy would grow in exchange for the acceptance of colonial rule; most Bamar took the viewpoint that the Great Depression had put an contract to the social contract, a viewpoint not shared by the British.[5] The British historian Michael Leigh wrote: "Dorman-Smith was complicated. Urbane, thoughtful, and fair, he was prepared to defend the underdog and could be intensely loyal to his friends".[6]

Dorman-Smith had a strong liking for the Burmese prime minister, U Saw (like most Bamar U Saw had only one name).[7] He complained most of the Burmese politicians were corrupt, petty men who preached a highly chauvinistic version of Bamar nationalism.[8] Dorman-Smith called U Saw a "true patriot" and a "likeable rogue" whose private army, the Galon, could be used for the defense of Burma.[9] In October 1941, Dorman-Smith arranged for U Saw to go to London to discuss Dominion status for Burma with Leo Amery, the India Secretary, and Winston Churchill, the prime minister.[7] The talks were inconclusive as Churchill met U Saw only once and while Amery told U Saw that nothing could be done about granting Burma Dominion status until after the war.[7] On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the British empire.[10] On his way home in December 1941, U Saw stopped by the Japanese embassy in Lisbon to offer his support for Burma joining the Greater East Co-prosperity Sphere.[9] The British had broken the Japanese diplomatic code and were aware of U Saw's offer, leading for Amery to send a telegram to Dorman-Smith saying that U Saw had just committed "a treacherous act" and was to be arrested immediately upon his return to Burma.[11]

The forces defending Burma were inadequate with the 17th Indian Division-which had been assigned to defend Burma-being considered one of the worse divisions in the Indian Army.[10] Despite the fact that Thailand had allowed Japanese forces transit rights, British planners had assumed wrongly that the jungles on the Burmese-Thai border were "impenetrable", hence the decision to assign one Indian Army division and a particularly bad one at that to defend Burma.[10] Burma had some of the most productive rice fields in Asia and was rich in oil, rubber and other raw materials, which led the Japanese to make the conquest of Burma a priority.[10] Furthermore, one of the central Japanese objectives to sever the Burma road which linked India to China, and by 1940 was the only route by which arms had reached China.[10] The Japanese saw the conquest of Burma as the means to finally win the war against China which they had been fighting since 1937; by contrast British military planners in London did not seem to understand the Japanese obsession with severing the Burma Road and assumed the Japanese would not attempt an invasion of Burma from Thailand.[10] Finally, reflecting the "Germany First" grand strategy, the Royal Air Force aircraft assigned to Burma were all obsolete, leading for the Japanese to have complete air superiority.[10] Only the aircraft and pilots of the American Volunteer Group under the command of General Claire Lee Chennault which on their way to China when the Japanese invaded were the only force capable of defending the skies above Burma, but even then the American Volunteer Group was heavily outnumbered.[12] On 23 December 1941 the Japanese bombed Rangoon for the first time and returned for a second time on 25 December 1941.[12] The bombing of Rangoon was deeply demoralising to British officials.[12] The bombing of Rangoon started a mass flight out of Burma, which was to hamper the defense of Burma and caused much suffering..[13] During the invasion, relations between British civil and military officials in Burma were often strained, though Dorman-Smith had cordial relations with General Thomas Jacomb Hutton and General Archibald Wavell.[12] Dorman-Smith to appoint a "civil defense expert" to manage the refugee problem strained relations with the British officers, and many officers complained that refugees on the roads hindered their ability to move troops and supplies..[14] On 20 January 1942, the Fifty-fifth division of the Imperial Japanese Army based in Thailand invaded Burma and proved adept at using jungle trails to bypass the Indian troops.[15]

Burma was a highly multicultural and diverse colony. The business and commercial life of Burma was dominated by Indian and Chinese merchants who were extremely unpopular with the Bamar majority who resented the economic success of the Chinese and Indian merchants.[16] When the Japanese invaded Burma in January 1942, the Indian merchants were the victims of attacks by the Bamar who looted their homes and stores while "roughing up" the Indians.[16] A delegation of the most wealthy Indian merchants visited Dorman-Smith to ask for his help in arranging protection for the Indian community, only to be there was little that could be done as the police forces had collapsed.[17] More out of fear of the Bamar than the Japanese, as the British retreated from Burma there was an exodus of the Indian merchants and their families into India.[18] The flight of the Indians took place amid much suffering, and Indian newspapers frequently featured stories about the British placing the evacuation of British families ahead of the Indians, and that the British colonial authorities were generally indifferent to the plight of the Indians.[19]

As Governor, Dorman-Smith was forced to join the retreat out of Burma. Dorman-Smith wrote in the third person when he heard of the fall of Singapore in February 1942 that his "Mistery training stood him in good stead throughout the crisis and gave him the strength to carry on".[3] On 1 March 1942, Dorman-Smith and his family fled the Government House in Rangoon to escape the advancing Japanese, and thereafter lived on the run on what Dorman-Smith called the "inglorious retreat" from Burma.[20] Dorman-Smith later wrote that most people in Britain did not understand what it felt to be invaded, and that "only those who been the victims of an invasion can realise what it means to have a rutheless enemy ever pressing forward".[21]

On 30 April 1942, Dorman-Smith sent a telegram to Churchill asking him "to scrounge up a few more aeroplanes" to fly him and his family out of the jungle in Burma where they were staying to the safety of India.[22] On 1 May 1942, Dorman-Smith received a telegram from the India Secretary, Leo Amery, saying that the News Chronicle had run a story saying the British colonial authorities had prevented Indians from boarding flights out of Burma and refused to allow Indian refugees to cross into India.[18] Amery was due to face hostile questions about the News Chronicle in the House of Commons on 7 May 1942, and he demanded Dorman-Smith either confirm or rebut the story.[22] As Dorman-Smith was in the jungle with no records waiting impatiently to be flown out of Burma, he send Amery a confusing telegram noted for its grammatical errors that did not answer his questions.[22] On 9 May 1942, Amery sent another telegram to Dorman-Smith demanding answers to four "simple questions", namely what arrangements had Dorman-Smith made for the evacuation of the Indians from Burma; how many Indians had been evacuated since January; how were the Indians treated in the refugee camps along the India-Burma border; and what had happened to the Indian refugees who walked along the Tamu route to India?[22] Dorman-Smith did not answer this telegram, and instead the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow replied on his behalf, to say that 40, 000 Indian refugees had been received since January.[22] In his hideaway in the Burmese jungle, Dorman-Smith was haunted by a sense of guilt over the chaotic and badly managed evacuation of Burma.[23] General Harold Alexander, the GOC of the British forces in Burma asked that Dorman-Smith leave Burma at once before he captured by the Japanese as he stated he did not want the governor's capture "to add to my anxieties".[23]

Dorman-Smith's mood swung erratically from one option to another on a hourly basis as he declared he would stay in Burma until the Indians were evacuated; demanded that a plane be sent to fly him out; or that would walk out of Burma via the Hukawng Valley as a way of showing support for the Indians who walked via the same route.[23] Amery told him that walking out was a "crackpot" idea and Dorman-Smith was forced to concede the Hukawng Valley was "no route for obese governors".[23] Finally, Dorman-Smith decided to "clear out by air", but expressed concern that he "took up a seat that could be used by a refugee".[23] On 2 May 1942, he telegrammed Amery that "a Blenheim [bomber] in India which be used" to allow him to escape.[23] He seemed not to understand reserving an entire bomber to fly him might look worse than taking up a seat for a refugee.[23] Dorman-Smith spent all of 3 May 1942 in Myitkyina waiting anxious amid a tropical downpour for an airplane to arrive to pick him up, saying he felt "thoroughly trapped" as no plane arrived and he resigned to "capture by the Japanese" as the Imperial Japanese Army continued it's advance to Myitkyina.[23] Very late on the evening of 3 May, "two RAF types" knocked on Dorman-Smith's door to tell him that they had been sent to fly him to India..[23] The officers had with them a letter from Churchill telling he was to leave Burma at once as there was nothing for him to do.[23] On 4 May 1942, the first anniversary of Dorman-Smith being sworn in as Governor of Burma in 1941, Dorman-Smith boarded a Blenheim bomber that flew him to India.

Between May 1942 and Oct 1945, he was in exile at Simla, India. In April 1943 Dorman-Smith together with Amery met with Churchill to discuss the post-war future of Burma.[24] Churchill committed himself to the restoration of British rule together with a promise of aid to rebuilt Burma, but refused to make further commitments such as Dominion status for Burma, claiming that the time was not right.[24] Both Amery and Dorman-Smith believed that for Churchill the time would never be right and he intended Burma to be a British colony forever.[24] In October 1943, Dorman-Smith made a speech in London before the East Indian Association. His speech lamented the fact that while the British had talked for years about self-government and reform in Asia, they had delivered very little of it which had damaged their credibility. He said:

"Neither our word nor our intentions are trusted in that part of the globe ... We have fed such countries as Burma on political formulae until they are sick at the very sight and sound of a formula, which has come, as far as my experience shows, to be looked upon as a very British means of avoiding a definite course of action."

The speech said that pre-war British policy on these subjects was discredited and a new credible approach was required after the war.

Major-General Sir Hubert Rance, the British military commander, took control of the country for the military after the liberation of Rangoon, but Dorman-Smith returned as governor in 1946. Dorman-Smith considered arresting Aung San for a murder he committed in 1942. In that year, Aung San had stabbed the restrained headman of Thebyugone village to death in front of a large crowd. Dorman-Smith was convinced by his superiors not to carry out the arrest.

While Dorman-Smith was back in the UK for medical reasons he was replaced by Rance, who was supported by Lord Mountbatten of Burma and fully backed a policy of immediate unconditional independence for Burma under the leadership of the AFPFL.

Simla Conference 1944

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As the Governor of Burma, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith met with Anglo-Burmese leaders in Simla in 1944, to discuss the future of the Anglo-Burmese community after the war.

The Anglo-Burmese delegates were:

One result of the conference was an assurance to the Anglo-Burmese community that they would be allowed to preserve their freedom of worship and allowed to teach their own religion, freedom to continue their own customs, and maintain their own language of English.

After leaving Burma, Dorman-Smith continued to take an interest in its affairs. He believed that if London had not intervened, he could have influenced the course of events in Burma so as to prevent the country from leaving the British Commonwealth.

Family

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Dorman-Smith was born to a Protestant Anglo-Irish father and an Irish Catholic mother at Bellamont House, Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland, and was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. He served briefly in the British Indian Army before being invalided out, then joined a volunteer battalion of the Queen's Royal Regiment.

One of Dorman-Smith's two brothers, Eric Dorman-Smith, was a major-general in the British Army in the Second World War. After falling out with the British establishment, he became an Irish republican sympathiser and changed his name to Eric Dorman O'Gowan. His other brother, Victor Dorman-Smith, was a Royal Navy captain who served as a member of Combined Operations HQ during World War One.

His daughter Patricia married the novelist Gwyn Griffin in 1950.[25]

References

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  1. ^ "Smith, Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman- (1899–1977), politician and colonial governor - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58640. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ Spuler, Bertold; Allen, Charles Geoffry (14 February 1977). Rulers and Governments of the World. Bowker. ISBN 9780859350563.
  3. ^ a b c Griffiths 1980, p. 318.
  4. ^ Cato (1940). Guilty men. London: V. Gollancz. OCLC 301463537.
  5. ^ a b Leigh 2014, p. 3.
  6. ^ Leigh 2014, p. 51.
  7. ^ a b c Bayly & Harper 2004, p. 102.
  8. ^ Bayly & Harper 2004, p. 102-103.
  9. ^ a b Bayly & Harper 2004, p. 103.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Leigh 2014, p. 5.
  11. ^ Bayly & Harper 2004, p. 104.
  12. ^ a b c d Leigh 2014, p. 6.
  13. ^ Leigh, 2014 & p11.
  14. ^ Leigh 2014, p. 11.
  15. ^ Leigh 2014, p. 7.
  16. ^ a b Leigh 2014, p. 61.
  17. ^ Leigh 2014, p. 61-62.
  18. ^ a b Leigh 2014, p. 62-63.
  19. ^ Leigh 2014, p. 62.
  20. ^ Leigh 2014, p. 2.
  21. ^ Leigh 2014, p. 4.
  22. ^ a b c d e Leigh 2014, p. 63.
  23. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Leigh 2014, p. 173.
  24. ^ a b c Tarling 1982, p. 310.
  25. ^ "Gwyn Griffin, 42, novelist, is dead". The New York Times. 14 October 1967. p. 27.

Further reading

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  • Bayly, Christopher Alan; Harper, Norman (2004). Forgotten Armies The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945. Cambridge: Belknap Press. ISBN 9780674017481.
  • Griffiths, Richard G (1980). Fellow Travellers of the Right British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-9. London: Constable. ISBN 0571271324.
  • Leigh, Michael (2014). The Evacuation of Civilians from Burma Analysing the 1942 Colonial Disaster. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781441163943.
  • Tarling, Nicholas (September 1982). ""An Empire Gem": British Wartime Planning for Post-War Burma, 1943-44". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies,. 13 (2): 310–348.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Taylor, Robert H. 'Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith'. In Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia from Angkor Wat to  East Timor. Santa Barbara, Ca.: ABC-Clio, 2004.
  • Woods, Philip. Reporting the Retreat: War Correspondents in Burma, 1942. London: Hurst & Co, 2016, esp. chs. 2 & 9.
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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Petersfield
1935–1941 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Agriculture
1939–1940 		Succeeded by
Government offices
Preceded by Governor of British Crown Colony of Burma
1941–1946 		Succeeded by
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