Field Marshal William Slim (1st Viscount Slim)

Field Marshal William Joseph Slim, 1st Viscount Slim (1891–1970), known affectionately to his multi-ethnic troops as 'Uncle Bill', was widely recognized as the finest British field commander of World War II. Beginning his service in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia in World War I, Slim was assigned to the Burma theater in 1942, leading a harrowing 900-mile fighting retreat out of Burma into India.

Appointed commander of the British Fourteenth Army—the legendary 'Forgotten Army' comprising British, Indian, Gurkha, and African divisions—Slim revolutionized jungle warfare doctrine. He eliminated the psychological fear of the jungle, cured malaria through aggressive medical hygiene, and instituted air-supplied defensive 'boxes' that held firm when encircled. In 1944, at the epic twin battles of Imphal and Kohima, Slim crushed the Japanese invasion of India, inflicting the worst land defeat in Japanese military history. He then crossed the Irrawaddy to liberate Mandalay and Rangoon.