Burma National Army - Allied Cooperation

Allied Cooperation

Force 136 had issued Aung San along with others a safe pass, and on 15 May, he met with Lieutenant General William Slim commanding the British Fourteenth Army in Burma. Thakin Soe and Aung San hoped for the BNA to be accepted as allied forces and the Anti-Fascist Organisation to be acknowledged as the provisional government of Burma. Slim refused to accept the AFO as a government and insisted that the BNA submit to being disarmed by British forces in areas where the fighting was over. The AFO agreed to this in return for recognition as a political movement and promises that the officers and men of the BNA would be incorporated into the new Burma Army. The BNA was renamed the Patriotic Burmese Forces (Burmese: မ်ဳိးခ်စ္ဗမာ့တပ္မေတာ္), and cooperated in driving the Japanese from Southern Burma.

Eventually, the AFPFL (political party successor to the AFO) was brought into the Civil Government of Burma. The PBF was disarmed after much negotiation and its personnel were recruited to form the basis for three new battalions of the reconstituted postwar Burma Army. Other ex-BPF/BNA soldiers were formed into Aung San's PVO party militia organisation.

SEAC saw the alternative to cooperation with the AFPFL to be a difficult counterinsurgency campaign in Burma at a time when British troops were being withdrawn from Asia, and the Indian Army could no longer be counted on to impose British rule in places like Burma. The structures they put in place allowed the British a graceful exit from Burma but set the stage for insurgencies in 1947 and then a full civil war in Burma in 1949.