Kyaw Zaw - Freedom Fighter

Freedom Fighter

When the strike came to an end, a disappointed Kyaw Zaw joined the Dobama Asiayone and became Thakin Shwe before he returned to Thonze to become a schoolteacher but still active in the political struggle for independence and involved in organising and training the local militia. Here he met his future wife Ma Than Sein, but he still had his mind set on learning English, and so at the beginning of 1941 Kyaw Zaw found himself back in Rangoon. He was however soon to be recruited by the Thakin leaders for military training as the struggle for national liberation gathered momentum, and in April 1941 Kyaw Zaw, aged 21, joined a group of young men who would go down in history as the Thirty Comrades and left Burma secretly smuggled aboard a ship bound for Yokohama, Japan. They were then flown to Hainan Island, China where they received military training before they returned to Burma as the Burma Independence Army (BIA) led by Aung San with the invading Japanese Army in December 1941. Thakin Shwe was now known by a nom de guerre Bo Kyaw Zaw (Commander Fame).