South East Asia Command
South East Asia Command (SEAC) was the body set up to be in overall charge of Allied operations in the South-East Asian Theatre during World War II.
The initial supreme commander of the Far Eastern Theatre was General Sir Archibald Wavell. In October 1943 Winston Churchilll replaced Wavell with Lord louis Mountbatten as supreme allied commander of SEAC. A post he held until SEAC was disbanded in 1946. It controlled forces operating in eastern India, Burma, Siam, Malaya, Sumatra and Ceylon.
Command arrangements in SEAC were always complicated. The air forces in the region were, at first, not joined under one command. The RAF Third Tactical Air Force and the USAAF units were separate. However, by early 1944, integration was achieved. At sea, command was relatively simple, since the Royal Navy was providing almost all of the firepower in the area. Land forces were even more complicated than air forces. In theory, 11th Army Group, under SEAC itself, was to control all ground forces. However, due to the Deputy Supreme Commander, Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, American and Chinese forces serving in the theatre were not under 11th Army Group. They were instead in a separate formation, the Northern Combat Area Command or NCAC. Eleventh Army Group had the Fourteenth Army on the Burma front and the Ceylon Army in Ceylon under its command. Stilwell further complicated matters by insisting on taking direct command of NCAC and also remaining Chief of Staff to the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek.
It was not until late 1944 that matters were sorted out. Stilwell was recalled to Washington, and his job and the China Burma India Theater (CBI) was split up amongst three people. Lieutenant General Raymond Wheeler became Deputy Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia. Major General Albert Wedemeyer became Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-shek and commander of the U.S. Forces, China Theater (USFCT). Lieutenant General Daniel Sultan was premoted from deputy commander of CBI to became commander of the U.S. Forces, India-Burma Theater (USFIBT) and commander of the NCAC. 11th Army Group was redesignated Allied Land Forces South East Asia (ALFSEA), and NCAC was finally placed under this formation. As the drive to liberate Burma began in earnest however, NCAC became more and more irrelevant to operations, and it was dissolved in early 1945.
Following the liberation of most of Burma, the command began to turn its attention towards its next major operational objective: Malaya. However, the atomic bombs intervened and Japan surrendered. The problems of the command now shifted decisively from combat operations to military government and repatriation of internees and prisoners of war.
The borders of SEAC were adjusted in the aftermath of the war. Much of French Indo China was added, along with Borneo and Java. This added immensely to the problems of the command. It suddenly had to face occupation of vast extra areas of territory, much of which was potentially hostile due to native political groups.
Military government was established without problems in Burma, Malaya, Singapore and British Borneo. The Dutch part of Borneo and Sumatra also did not prove to be major headaches, except that one Japanese unit in Borneo refused to surrender until November 1945. Siam was never occupied, and the authorities there were cooperative in dealing with issues arising from the war. The real problems came in Java and French Indo China.
In both cases, British troops were sent in to facilitate the arrival of forces from the colonial power. However, the Viet Minh in Indo China and nationalist forces in Java were well armed and belligerent. In Indo China, British forces were only temporarily responsible for a small section of the colony. It was desirable not to proclaim military government both due to logistics and French sensibilities. However, in the end the commander of British forces was forced to declare de facto military government in order to stabilise the situation enough to allow the French to arrive.
Java was even worse because the Japanese forces there had armed the Javanese in contravention of the surrender terms. It proved possible to establish military government on only part of the island and internees and prisoners of war were often used as barter by the Javanese. In the end, those who needed to be evacuated were, but it was not a pleasant experience for the British.
As 1946 drew on, SEAC discharged its final tasks and was disbanded. In the postwar era, it was not longer felt that a joint command was needed in the area.
