Slim, William, 1st Viscount Slim (1891–1970). Soldier. Born in Bristol and brought up in Birmingham, Slim joined the army in 1914, emerging twice wounded from the war with the rank of major. He spent most of the inter-war years with the army in India and in 1940 was sent with a brigade to Eritrea to fight the Italians. In 1942 he was given a command in Burma and in October 1943 took over the 14th Army. The following year he won a great victory in repelling a major Japanese offensive and was able to launch a counter-attack to recover Burma, with a brilliant diversionary movement towards Mandalay. After the war he served as chief of the imperial general staff from 1948 and was governor-general of Australia 1953–60. He was given the Garter in 1959 and a viscountcy in 1960. Slim was a fighting general, bluff and pugnacious, ‘the finest general the Second World War produced’ according to Mountbatten, and known to his men as ‘Uncle Bill’.

J. A. Cannon

William Joseph Slim Slim, 1st Viscount, 1891–1970, British field marshal. He saw service in several campaigns, notably Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, in World War I. After the war he joined the Indian army, rising in rank to brigadier in 1940. He commanded (1940) British forces in Sudan and led (1941) a division in Iran and Iraq. He went (1942) to Myanmar as corps commander and led (1943–45) the 14th British Army in the reconquest of that country from the Japanese. He served as chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1948 to 1952 and was made field marshal in 1949. He served as governor-general of Australia from 1953 to 1960, when he was created viscount.

See his Unofficial History (1959) and Defeat into Victory (rev. ed. 1961); G. C. Evans, Slim as Military Commander (1969); biography by R. Levine (1976).