The Battle of Britain, it is widely believed, changed the course of the Second World War, and remains the ‘finest hour’ in the history of the War in Britain. Several Air Force personnel from the Commonwealth participated alongside the British, most of whom remain unsung. As we mark the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in 2025 and VE Day this week, Thurein Naing tells the story of four Burmese pilots who participated in the Battle despite growing calls for independence from colonial rule at home.
This year marks the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in 1940. To borrow, twist and copy heavily from Edward Murrow’s words, in the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill, through his fiery speeches, mobilised not only the English language but also the imperial subjects of the British Empire and sent them into the skies. These imperial subjects, drawn from the far reaches of the Empire, countered the German Luftwaffe menace over Britain and delivered the ‘finest hour’ for the British people. Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians, Indians, and, last of all, Burmese fought alongside the British in the skies against the Luftwaffe’s ‘Blitz’ — the intense bombing of British cities from September 1940 to May 1941. They protected Britain and provided moral courage, and in doing so, became symbols of resistance against Nazism, which dominated the continent. Yet, this same moral courage so readily invoked in defense of the imperial metropole was often absent when demands for self-government, autonomy and independence arose from the very colonies whose men fought and died for the Empire.
The British imperial war machine had long relied on its colonial subjects. Both World Wars saw thousands of troops conscripted or enlisted from her colonies to fight Britain’s battles, often in far-flung theaters of war. The Battle of Britain was no exception. Nearly 20 per cent of the Royal Air Force (RAF)’s fighter pilots during the battle were non-British (Eastern Europeans, Indians, Burmese, and others). Despite Gandhi’s ongoing Non-Cooperation Movement, 24 Indian pilots of the famed ‘X-Squad’ joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), fighting alongside countless other Indian servicemen scattered across the world.
Burma, too, was swept by anti-colonial sentiment in the late 1930s–early 1940s. The Burmese nationalist movement had grown under leaders like Ba Maw, Thakhin Ko Daw Hmaing, U Nu, Aung San, and the growing Thakhin Movement that dreamt of a free and independent Burma. Burma had been administratively separated from India in 1937, but the colonial grip remained firm. While many Burmese viewed British rule as exploitative and resisted participation in the war effort, a handful of Burmese individuals chose a different path, joining the RAF and fighting for Britain in one of its most defining moments.
Four Burmese men joined the RAF and fought in the Battle of Britain. While the number is small, their presence symbolised Burma’s complex relationship with the Empire. Their names, now nearly forgotten, were woven into the history of the RAF’s multinational defense of Britain. These four men — Maung Hla Yi, Htin Yain Lao, Selwyn Khin, and Tommy Clift —were at first recruits of the Burma Volunteer Air Force, a hastily formed air wing of the colonial Burma Army to defend against Japanese aggression in Southeast Asia. They were later transferred to the RAF as Pilot Officers (Photo 1).
Photo 1: (Left to Right) Pilot Officer M. H. Yi of Pegu, Pilot Officer H. Y. Lau of Rangoon, Pilot Officer S. J. Khin of Rangoon, and Pilot Officer T. Clift of Shan States, 1943 © Imperial War Museum, London, IWM CH 8398, used for non-commercial, academic purposes by Author under the IWM Non-Commercial Licence.
Ironically, only four Burmese people were present in the entire Burma squadron. The Burma Squadron also adopted a Burmese language motto, ‘သေရင် မြေကြီး၊ရှင်ရင် ရွှေထီး’ (‘Thay Myay Gyee, Shin Shwe Hti; official trans., ‘Death or Glory’, lit. trans., ‘If (one) dies, it is the ground/burial, If (one) survives, it is the golden umbrella’). Golden Umbrellas were adorned by nobles and royals in Burma’s royal past, symbolising success in Burmese life. It is, in fact, a rather fitting motto for a military campaign with a high causality rate. The squadron even adopted a Burmese-style Lion (‘Chinthe’) as their unit herald (Image 1).
Image 1: Chinthe (Burmese Lion) Herald, 257 (Burma) Squadron, Royal Air Force, Awarded July 1942 © Royal Air Force Heraldry Trust; used for non-commercial, academic purposes by Author.
Among these four, Maung Hla Yi and Htin Yain Lao did not survive the war. Maung Hla Yi was killed in action during an air mission over France in 1943; Htin Yain Lao crashed his plane and died in the Netherlands due to bad weather and enemy action during an armed reconnaissance mission in 1945 (Photos 2 & 3).
Photo 2: A Brief Service Record of Htin Yain (sic) Lao © Frans Betgem; used with permission by Author.
Photo 3: Gravestone of Flight Lieutenant H. Y. Lao, Dordrecht General Cemetery, The Netherlands © Frans Betgem; used with permission by Author.
Like their Indian counterpart, the X-Squad, the two surviving Burmese airmen of the RAF went on to become senior officers in post-war, independent Burma: Selwyn Khin became Chief of Air Staff in the Burma Air Force at the age of 29, only to die in a training exercise in 1950 (Image 2). Burmese accounts mention that it happened during a rock test fire.
Image 2: Newspaper clipping of Selwyn Khin’s death, The Straits Times, 17 June 1950 © The Straits Times; used for non-commercial, academic purposes by Author.
The longest-surviving member of the bunch, Tommy Clift, has a rather interesting, colourful and adventurous post-war life. Clift eventually got his senior position in the Burma Air Force, becoming Vice Chief of Air Staff and later, after the death of his comrade and close friend Selwyn Khin, Chief of Air Staff and Vice Chief of General Staff of the Burma Armed Forces. He oversaw the expansion of Burma Air Force which became a crucial arm in fighting the Chinese Kuomintang incursion in the 1950s, and more recently, the ethnic insurgencies (Photo 4).
Photo 4: Chief of Air Staff T. Clift, Burma Air Force, 1950s © Frans Betgem; used with permission by Author.
Brigadier General Clift went on to become a member of the Revolutionary Council after U Ne Win’s coup in 1962. After a fallout with Ne Win, he resigned from his positions and migrated to Bangkok in 1964. It was in Bangkok that Clift began his colourful life. Under the guise of a Tourist Agency (Image 3), the former Vice Chief Staff of Burma Armed Forces provided ‘Rest & Recreation’ activities for the American troops coming back from fighting in the Vietnamese jungle.
Image 3: Brochure of ‘Tommie’s Tourist Agency’, Chiang Mai, 1960s © Frans Betgem; used with permission by Author.
Clift’s enterprise, lazily named Tommie’s Tourist Agency, was one of the most well-known tourist agencies of the time, providing travel services across Thailand; he was even dubbed ‘the tourist business “king”’ (Image 4).
Image 4: Newspaper clipping announcing closure of Tommy Clift’s Tourist Agency, Bangkok Post, 7 March 1970 © Frans Betgem; used with permission by Author.
When the ousted Burmese Prime Minister U Nu joined him in Bangkok in 1969, Clift followed his side and joined U Nu’s misadventure in armed struggle, becoming the Chief of the Exchequer for the Parliamentary Democracy Party, and its armed wing, the Patriotic Liberation Army (readers of Burmese can ‘critically’ read တပ်မတော်သမိုင်း ဆဠမတွဲ (Tatmadaw Thamine, vol. 6 / The History of Tatmadaw, vol. 6, 1998). Wendy Law Yone briefly mentioned Clift’s venture in her memoir Golden Parasol: A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma (2014) on how his business and political connections in Bangkok helped U Nu’s Movement. When this misadventure in armed struggle went nowhere, Clift left his eccentric mantle and retired quietly to Australia. One could say he had a more peaceful end in life than the other three.
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To conclude, the participation of four Burmese men in the Battle of Britain thrust Burma into the front seat of global history. The Imperial entanglement that led Burmese pilots to fight in the Battle of Britain was nothing but a prelude to the larger role Burma would play in the Second World War. As Japanese invasions increased in the east, Burma became a crucial battleground where colonial soldiers, independence fighters and shifting allegiances would define the course of its future. The ensuing Battle for Burma, often dubbed the ‘forgotten war’, as globalised as the Battle of Britain, was fought by English, Chinese, Africans, Americans, Indians, Burmese, and Japanese.
In many ways, the service of Burmese pilots in the Battle of Britain was part of the Empire’s final grand act, a last hurrah before the curtain fell on British imperial dominance in the east. The war exposed the contradictions of colonial rule: subjects were called upon to defend an Empire that denied them equal rights and self-determination. For Burma, like many other colonies, the war accelerated the push for independence, making it one of the final scenes in the grand imperial play. As we commemorate the Battle of Britain, it is worth remembering not only the valour of those who fought but also the tangled, often uneasy, histories that brought them there. The four Burmese pilots, like many others from the colonies, stood at the crossroads of loyalty, duty and the yearning for independence for their own country, unwittingly shaping the twilight of an Empire that had, for centuries, dictated their fates.
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Banner image © Imperial War Museum, London, ‘Four Burmese Join the R.A.F.’, Image IWM (CH 8398), used for non-commercial, academic purposes under the IWM Non-Commercial Licence.
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