Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 6 minutes ago
The Kohima Educational Trust is delighted to welcome our trustee Dr Robert Lyman MBE and our guest speaker Dr Nigel Warwick, an Australian academic and author who is also the Corps Historian of the RAF Regiment. In this webinar, Dr Warwick discusses the role of the RAF Regiment in Burma between 1942 and 1946.
Never before had a major land force ever depended so completely upon air power and effective air/land cooperation. Viscount Slim said that without the Air Force, XIVth Army could never have defeated the Japanese in Burma. The RAF commanders considered that air power might not have remained viable without its own force protection, provided mainly by the RAF Regiment.
A dedicated and specialist ground force for active defence of airfields, the Regiment played a vital part in the success of the Burma campaign. Formed in February 1942, as dispersed flights, they were drawn together during 1943 at the RAF Regiment Depot, Secunderabad, and established as field squadrons and anti-aircraft flights (later light AA squadrons): deploying to forward airfields in Bengal, the Arakan, Assam, and most importantly Imphal.
In March 1945, the Regiment participated in the masterstroke of the campaign; the thrust for, and capture of Meiktila. The new Corps earned acclaim in the defence of Meiktila airfield which is considered to be the most important battle it has ever fought to this day.
By the fall of Rangoon in May 1945, the Regiment numbered thirty-one squadrons, more than 3000 gunners. By September, it was deployed across South-East Asia, taking the surrender of Japanese forces and providing force protection against developing nationalist insurgencies.
That the Regiment was able to carry out its tasks so effectively despite outdated equipment, often with significant proportions of its units debilitated with tropical ailments, is a tribute to the diligence, tenacity and professionalism of its officers and airmen.
The Kohima Educational Trust is delighted to welcome our trustee Dr Robert Lyman MBE and our guest speaker Dr Nigel Warwick, an Australian academic and author who is also the Corps Historian of the RAF Regiment. In this webinar, Dr Warwick discusses the role of the RAF Regiment in Burma between 1942 and 1946.
Never before had a major land force ever depended so completely upon air power and effective air/land cooperation. Viscount Slim said that without the Air Force, XIVth Army could never have defeated the Japanese in Burma. The RAF commanders considered that air power might not have remained viable without its own force protection, provided mainly by the RAF Regiment.
A dedicated and specialist ground force for active defence of airfields, the Regiment played a vital part in the success of the Burma campaign. Formed in February 1942, as dispersed flights, they were drawn together during 1943 at the RAF Regiment Depot, Secunderabad, and established as field squadrons and anti-aircraft flights (later light AA squadrons): deploying to forward airfields in Bengal, the Arakan, Assam, and most importantly Imphal.
In March 1945, the Regiment participated in the masterstroke of the campaign; the thrust for, and capture of Meiktila. The new Corps earned acclaim in the defence of Meiktila airfield which is considered to be the most important battle it has ever fought to this day.
By the fall of Rangoon in May 1945, the Regiment numbered thirty-one squadrons, more than 3000 gunners. By September, it was deployed across South-East Asia, taking the surrender of Japanese forces and providing force protection against developing nationalist insurgencies.
That the Regiment was able to carry out its tasks so effectively despite outdated equipment, often with significant proportions of its units debilitated with tropical ailments, is a tribute to the diligence, tenacity and professionalism of its officers and airmen.
