The War in Burma is all too frequently forgotten as a source of relevant military experience. Admittedly it did not have the strategic importance of other theatres such as the Pacific or North West Europe, but it did witness some of the hardest and most bitter fighting of the War. Because of the nature of the terrain, limited allied resources and the type of dispersed operations conducted by the enemy, Allied forces were forced to adapt a new method of warfighting to counter these difficulties. The aircraft and the radio revolutionised the way that the campaign was to be conducted. It was discovered for the first time that formations could be dispersed across the battlespace and could fight independently of a ground line of communication. The first formation to prove that this approach was possible was the 77th Brigade, later to earn the title of Chindits and commanded by Brigadier Orde Wingate. Employing Wingate's theories of Long Range Penetration for the first time, the Chindits travelled hundreds of miles behind the enemy's forward positions and attacked his rear areas and lines of communication. Throughout the operation, they received all their supply requirements from transport aircraft and were never in physical contact with friendly forces. The Chindits conducted a truly joint, mobile, nonlinear and noncontiguous operation. Within a year, conventional brigades, divisions and corps of the British Fourteenth Army and the American/Chinese forces in northern Burma were conducting similar operations, this time supported by many more aircraft for both logistic sustainment and fires. Field Marshall William Slim called it a new way of fighting and suggested that four elements contributed to the new concept: joint operations, the use of mission command, the reduction of the logistic footprint of the force to increase tempo, and the conduct of operations by dispersed forces which are tactically independent but focused on operational-level objectives. Although they are not new, nonlinear and noncontiguous operations have only recently become a part of US Joint and Army Doctrine, appearing in FM 3-0 for the first time in 2001. Two examples of nonlinear, noncontiguous warfighting operations are provided in FM 3-0; Operation JUST CAUSE in 1989 and the last 36 hours of the ground campaign of Operation DESERT SHIELD in 1991. A brief study of these operations suggests that they are not ideal examples for modern commanders and planners, nor do they comply fully with the description of nonlinear, noncontiguous operations provided in FM 3-0. Both JUST CAUSE and DESERT SHIELD were concluded very quickly against exceptionally weak opposition. Neither operation employed large-scale aerial resupply operations. More importantly, the forces employed in these operations did not undergo any radical alterations in their organisation, concepts or logistic support structures. The research revealed that the Burma campaign provides a more relevant example for commanders and planners of a mobile, joint, nonlinear, noncontiguous operation.

ADA 415799 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)