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 ( Jingpo: ''Ga Hkyeng'', ; , ), more precisely the Kachin Wunpong (Jingpo: ''Jinghpaw Wunpawng'', "The Kachin Confederation") or simply Wunpong ("The Confederation"), are a confederation of ethnic groups who inhabit the Kachin ...
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 Anthropologi ...
set up the Levies at
Fort Hertz
Fort Hertz was a remote British Military outpost in northeastern Burma in the district of Putao in what is now the Kachin State near the present town of Putao. It was named after William Axel Hertz. Hertz led the first expeditions into the fa ...
, and they were initially placed under the command of Colonel Gamble, a retired Australian
Burma Military Police officer.
[Stanley J. Tambiah ''Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life'' Cambridge University Press, 2002 ]
p.44
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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 t ...
References
Kachin people
Military units and formations of Burma in World War II
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