¹ This article was first published as a Working Paper by the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. It draws from research being conducted in collaboration with Garry Woodard on Australia's bilateral relations with Burma since 1945. The article reflects the author's own views, and draws entirely on public sources. It has no official status or endorsement.

² File ‘Report on A Force’, Australian War Memorial AWM 54, 554/2/4.Google Scholar See also Wigmore, Lionel, The Japanese Thrust (Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1968), pp. 541–61.Google Scholar

³ See Slim, William, Defeat Into Victory (Cassell, London, 1956).Google Scholar

⁴ See Allen, Louis, Burma: The Longest War, 1941–1945 (Dent and Sons, London, 1984).Google Scholar

⁵ Ashton, William, ‘Burma–still struggling for peace and stability’, Pacific Defence Reporter 16:3 (09 1989), 18. These cemeteries are at Thanbyuzayat (south of Moulmein), Htaukkyan (north of Rangoon) and in Rangoon itself.Google Scholar

⁶ See, for example, Thompson, Robert, Revolutionary War in World Strategy, 1945–1969 (Secker and Warburg, London, 1970), 62–3Google Scholar; and Booker, Malcolm, The Last Domino: Aspects of Australia's Foreign Relations (Collins, Sydney, 1976), 189.Google Scholar

⁷ ‘Australian Foreign Policy’, Statement by the Minister for External Affairs, Spender, P. C., 9 March 1950, Current Notes on International Affairs 21:2 (02 1950), 158.Google Scholar

⁸ With independence, the new Burmese government inherited two rebellions, one by the Trotskyist Communist Party (Burma) (known as the ‘Red Flags’), and another by the (Muslim) Mujahids in the Arakan region. It also faced growing problems with the People's Volunteer Organization (later the People's Comrades Party), made up of disaffected remnants of Burma's wartime independence army. The most serious challenge to government authority, however, came from the Karen National Defence Organization (KNDO). These groups were later joined by the Maoist Burma Communist Party (‘White Flags’), the Kachin Independence Army and Mon National Defence Organization (among others). Almost every ethnic group in Burma has taken up arms against the central government at some time.Google Scholar

⁹ ‘Australian Foreign Policy’, Statement by the Minister for External Affairs, P. C. Spender, 9 March 1950.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Millar, T. B. (ed.), Australian Foreign Minister: The Diaries of R. G. Casey, 1951–1960 (Collins, London, 1972), 36. Between 1946 and 1949, Thailand (then Siam) produced 26.6 per cent of the world's rice.Google Scholar While well below pre-war levels, Burma provided 30.4 per cent. See Tinker, Hugh, The Union of Burma: A Study of the First Years of Independence (Oxford University Press, London, 1967), p. 256.Google Scholar

¹¹ Millar, , Australian Foreign Minister, 37–8.Google Scholar

¹² The Anzam nations were Australia, New Zealand and Malaya.Google Scholar

¹³ Report by Joint Planning Committee 40/1953, 17 July 1953. File: ‘Supply of Military Equipment to Burma’, Australian Archives A5799, 147/1953.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Booker, , The Last Domino, 183.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Spender, Percy, Exercises in Diplomacy: The ANZUS Treaty and the Colombo Plan (Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1969), 206–7.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Millar, , Australian Foreign Minister, 37.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ne Win was appointed Chief of Staff in 1949.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Millar, , Australian Foreign Minister, 37.Google Scholar

²⁰ This date has been cited incorrectly as 4 January 1951 in some official Australian publications. See, for example, ‘Burma,’ Current Notes on International Affairs 26:8 (1955), 555–6.Google Scholar

²¹ Ibid.

²² ‘Status of Australian Mission’, Statement by the Minister for External Affairs, Casey, R. G., 17 April 1956, Current Notes on International Affairs 27:4 (04 1956), 244–5.Google Scholar

²³ File: ‘Service Attache at Rangoon’, Australian Archives A5954/1, Box 93/14.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid., and File: ‘Appointment of Australian Service Attaches to Thailand and Burma’, Australian Archives A5954/1, Box 93/14.

²⁵ Millar, T.B., Australia's Foreign Policy (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1968), 107.Google Scholar

²⁶ In 1953 and 1954 Australia strongly supported Burmese demands in the United Nations for these KMT remnants to be removed, even to the point of criticizing the United States, from whom they received covert military assistance.Google Scholar

²⁷ UK High Commission to the Secretary, Prime Minister's Department, 18 April 1952. File: ‘War and Defence—Miscellaneous, Facilities for Members of the Burma Armed Forces in Australia Training Establishments’, Australian Archives A462, 439/4/13.Google Scholar

²⁸ Lawrence McIntyre to Secretary, Prime Minister's Department, 5 May 1952, ibid.

²⁹ This officer was Kyi Win, who rose to become a Colonel in the Burma Army.Google Scholar

³⁰ Harry, Ralph to Secretary, Department of the Army. 6 November 1952, File: ‘War and Defence—Miscellaneous, Facilities for Members of the Burma Armed Forces in Australia Training Establishments’.Google Scholar

³¹ The Australian Government later stated in public, however, that the offer was made through the Australian Legation in Rangoon. See ‘Training of Burmese Army Officers in Australia’, Statement by the Minister for External Affairs, Casey, R. G., 2 December 1952, Current Notes on International Affairs 23:12 (12 1952).Google Scholar

³² Tinker, , The Union of Burma, 332.Google Scholar

³³ Serong to the author, 26 April 1990. Serong also maintained a personal correspondence with Colonel Maung Maung from that date.Google Scholar

³⁴ ‘Burmese Officers Training in Australia’, Statement by the Minister for the Army, Francis, J., 13 August 1954, Current Notes on International Affairs 25:8 (08 1954), 583–4.Google Scholar

³⁵ Secretary, Department of External Affairs to Secretary, Department of Air, 25 May 1955. File: ‘Training of Burmese Air Force Personnel in Australia’, Australian Archives A705/1, 208/1/2555. See also Tinker, , The Union of Burma, 332.Google Scholar

³⁶ Salisbury to the Minister, Australian Embassy, Rangoon, 28 June 1955. File: ‘Training of Burmese Air Force Personnel in Australia’.Google Scholar

³⁷ Millar, , Australian Foreign Minister, 220.Google Scholar

³⁸ ‘Burma’, Current Notes on International Affairs 28:5 (05 1957), 395.Google Scholar

³⁹ File: ‘Proposed Appointment of Burmese Military Attache in Australia’, Australian Archives A5954/1, Box 93.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Writing later about Serong's part in the Vietnam War, the Australian journalist Denis Warner described him as ‘brave, brilliant, patronizing and well informed, with a matching ego’. See Warner, Denis, Certain Victory: How Hanoi Won The War (Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Kansas, 1978), 13.Google Scholar

⁴² During the Vietnam War, many competent Americans came to consider Serong ‘the greatest counter-insurgent expert in the world’, Geoffrey Fairbairn, ‘ Two Faces of Courage’, Bulletin, 8 January 1966. See also Serong, F. P., An Australian View of Revolutionary War, Conflict Studies 16 (Institute for the Study of Conflict, London, 1971).Google Scholar

⁴³ Moodie, C. T. to the Department of External Affairs, Canberra, 18 February 1957. File: ‘Burmese Request for Senior Australian Army Officer to Lecture on Jungle Warfare’, Australian Archives A816, 44/301/29.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Australian Embassy in Rangoon to the Department of External Affairs, 11 February 1957, ibid.

⁴⁵ Secretary, Department of External Affairs, to the Secretary, Department of the Army, 18 February 1957. See also Secretary, Department of Defence, to the Minister for Defence, 4 March 1957, ibid.

⁴⁶ F. P. Serong, ‘Report on Visit to Burma, June–August 1957’ File: ‘Burma, 1957–59’, Australian Archives A4311/1, Box 579/10. After prolonged negotiations, a border agreement with China was signed in January 1960. See The Sino-Burmese Border Question (Research Backgrounder, Hong Kong, 1960).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The lessons of the Korean War and the French experience in Indochina were standard material in Australian infantry and military intelligence training courses at the time. Serong was under instructions, however, not to reveal information with a security classification higher than Confidential, the level accorded Burmese trainees in Australia.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Serong, , ‘Report on Visit to Burma, June-August 1957’.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Australian Embassy, Rangoon, to the Department of External Affairs, 28 October 1959. File: ‘Request for Services of an Australian Army Officer (Col. Serong) by Burma Army’, Australian Archives A1945/1, 248/2/4.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Col Maung Maung, Director of Military Training, to Australian Embassy, Rangoon, 26 October 1959, ibid.

⁵² Serong has repeatedly described himself as a ‘strategic adviser’ during this period a title also used by Fogarty, Michael in his biographical article ‘Ted Serong: An Army Career’, Australian Defence Force Journal 56 (01/02 1986), 8. The official citation for Serong's OBE in 1962, however, accords with the Burmese description of him as a ‘Tactical Adviser’.Google Scholar

⁵³ Serong to the author, 26 April 1990.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Maung Maung was Burma's ambassador to Australia from May 1972 to August 1975. In between these appointments he was Burmese Ambassador to Yugoslavia and Indonesia.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Serong, F. P., Allies (film transcript) 1983, roll 108 p. 1., and roll 109 p. 4. See also Serong to author, 26 April 1990.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Fogarty, , ‘Ted Scrong’, 8.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The British provided the Burmese with a wide range of military equipment, including aircraft, artillery and small arms.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ File: ‘Trade with Burma’, Australian Archives A461, C323/1/3.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ File: ‘Burma: Top Secret Documents Relating to British Commonwealth Discussions on Burma Situation’, Australian Archives A6537/T2, SEATS 4/1Google Scholar

⁶⁰ On 28 June 1950, in its decision on ‘Export of Arms and Warlike Stores from Australia in Time of Peace’, Cabinet laid down the conditions under which such sales might be made.Google Scholar

⁶¹ File: ‘Supply of Military Equipment to Burma’.Google Scholar

⁶² Launched in May 1944, the UBS Mayu was the former HMS Fal.Google Scholar

⁶³ ‘1952 Policy Statement by US on Goals in Southeast Asia’, Key Document No. 2, The Pentagon Papers (Bantam Books, Toronto, 1971), 28.Google Scholar See also McCoy, A. W., The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (Harper Colophon, New York. 1972), 126–35.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ashton, , ‘Burma’ (see n. 5), 18.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Toohey, Brian and Pinwill, William, Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (William Heinemann, Melbourne, 1989), 114–15.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid., 115–16.

⁶⁷ Ibid.

⁶⁸ Ibid., 116.

⁶⁹ Jeffrey Richelson and Des Ball have claimed that an ASIS station in Rangoon was closed down in 1974.Google Scholar See Richelson, J. T. and Ball, Desmond, The Ties That Bind; Intelligence Cooperation between the UKUSA Countries—the United Kingdon, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Allen and Unwin, Boston, 1985), 44–5.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ibid., and Oyster, 117.

⁷¹ Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, Annual Report 1975 (Australian Government Printing Service, Canberra, 1976), 49.Google Scholar