Establishment of The Burma National Army
After operations ceased in the spring of 1942, the BIA was disbanded. In its place, the Japanese created the Burma Defence Army (Burmese: ဗမာ့ကာကြယ္ေရးတပ္မေတာ္) along with civil organisations designed to guide Burma toward nominal independence. A new force of 3,000 men were recruited and trained by Japanese instructors as regular army battalions during the second half of 1942.
In August 1943, the State of Burma was granted nominal independence by Japan. Ba Maw, a politician imprisoned by the British before the war, became premier. Aung San became Minister of Defence in the new regime, and also Commander-in-Chief of the renamed Burma National Army, with the rank of Major General.
The BNA eventually consisted of seven battalions of infantry and a variety of supporting units with a strength which grew to 11,000. Most were from the majority Bamar population, but there was one battalion raised from the minority Karen people.
Although Burma was nominally self-governing, it remained under Japanese military occupation. The resulting hardships and Japanese militaristic attitudes turned the majority Burman population against the Japanese. The insensitive attitude of the Japanese Army extended to the BNA. Even the officers of the BNA were obliged to salute the lowest-ranking privates of the Imperial Japanese Army as their superiors.
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