The Kachin Levies were a British special force created in World War II in Burma. The Levies were made up of members of the
Kachin people
The Kachin peoples (, ; , ) are a collection of diverse ethnolinguistic groups inhabiting the Kachin Hills in northern Myanmar's Kachin State, as well as Yunnan Province in China, and the northeastern Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and As ...
under the command of British officers and they fought the Japanese in the jungle of north Burma.
Edmund Leach
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach FRAI FBA (7 November 1910 – 6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist and academic. He served as provost of King's College, Cambridge from 1966 to 1979. He was also president of the Royal Anthropolo ...
set up the Levies at
Fort Hertz
Fort Hertz was a remote British Military outpost in northeastern Burma in the Putao District, district of Putao in what is now the Kachin State near the present town of Putao Town, Kachin State, Putao. It was named after William Axel Hertz. Her ...
, and they were initially placed under the command of Colonel Gamble, a retired Australian
Burma Military Police
The Burma Military Police (BMP) was a paramilitary force of British Burma. Its main functions were the pacification of Upper Burma and the policing of the Burmese frontier. The force was made up of Indian and Burmese recruits.
Dating back to 1886 ...
officer.
[Stanley J. Tambiah ''Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life'' Cambridge University Press, 2002 ]
p.44
/ref>
See also
*V Force
V Force was a reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering and guerrilla organisation established by the British against Japanese forces during the Burma Campaign in World War II.
Establishment and organisation
In April 1942, when the Japanese drove ...
References
Kachin history
Military units and formations of Burma in World War II
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