From ibiblio.org
India-Burma
2 April 1942–28 January 1945“We got a hell of a beating,” Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell told the crowd of reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi. It was May 1942, and the American general, who had only recently arrived in the Far East to assume the position of chief of staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, was chafing at failure in his first command in the field. Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, the Japanese had won victory after victory, extending their empire from Wake Island in the Pacific to Malaya and Singapore in Southeast Asia. When Stilwell had arrived in the embattled Chinese capital of Chungking in March, the Japanese were already driving into Burma, capturing the capital of Rangoon on 6 March. The American general took command of two Chinese divisions and, in cooperation with the British and Indians, tried to stem the Japanese onslaught. Defeated, he and his staff endured a rugged, 140-mile hike over jungle-covered mountains to India. By occupying Burma, the Japanese had not only gained access to vast resources of teak and rubber, but they had dosed the Burma Road, 700 miles of dirt highway that represented China’s last overland link with the outside world. The reopening of an overland route to China would be the major American goal, indeed obsession, in the theater throughout the campaign.
A colleague at work bought some currency from pre-colonial India. His Dad (an American Soldier-not related to the extract above) had been in India during the second world war, stationed as an aircraft spotter around the time when Japan was officially into Burma – which was also a British colony.
Here are some pictures of what I saw today would like to share -
Uber Coin
Pre-colonial Indian currency (flip side of above pic)
Burmese Rupee in 1942, issued by the Japanese.
The language on the coins is fascinating, I can identify Hindi, Urdu and Telugu (apart from English) on the coins – the fourth is somewhat confusing for me, could be Gujarati or Punjabi. Some of the shapes, the four sided 1/2 anna and the wavy circle shaped 1 anna are very similar to 5 paisa and 10 paisa coins that I was used to in late 80’s. They soon lost any real monetary value and I haven’t seen them in a long long time. The donut shaped 1 pice is a unique shape though.Also growing up, the terms like charana (char-4 anna ~ 25 paisa), attana (aat-8 anna ~ 50 paisa) and barana (barah-12 anna ~75paisa) were quite common, when that amount of currency actually could get you something, like a bunch of fresh cilantro, or a couple of pani puris on the road side.
Almost all coins are either King George V or VI, a more detailed history of King George V and King George VI coins can be found here and here, for the numismatists among you.
And here is the Rupee, just after the amount of silver in the alloy used to make it was reduced (source: from links above)
One Rupee in 1944
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