As Slim expressed it in his memoirs, "His staff, which he brought with him... had a good deal of desert sand in its shoes, and was rather inclined to thrust Eighth Army down our throats." Leese commanded three groups: the Northern Combat Area Command under his American subordinate, Lieutenant General Dan Sultan, the Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General Sir William Slim in central Burma and further south in the Arakan, Indian XV Corps under Lieutenant General Philip Christison, his Staff College classmate. Until the end of the year, he fought a successful campaign which led to the capture of Rangoon by an amphibious landing (Operation Dracula) in early May 1945. Slim had turned the Fourteenth Army into an effective military force and had commanded a highly successful campaign from the relief of Imphal to the recapture of Rangoon and the destruction of the Japanese forces in Burma. Leese believed that Slim was very tired (he had asked for leave once Rangoon had been taken) and proposed to the Supreme Commander South East Asia, Louis Mountbatten and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, that he should be replaced by Philip Christison, who had experience in amphibious warfare and so would be well suited to leading the army in the planned seaborne landings in Malaya, leaving Slim to take over the new Twelfth Army, with the less demanding task of mopping up in Burma. Leese misread the reactions of Brooke and Mountbatten and having then met Slim to discuss the proposals, came away believing Slim had agreed to them. In fact, Slim reacted by telling his staff he had been sacked and wrote to Leese and General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief India, to say he would refuse the new post and resign from the army in protest. Once the news circulated within the Fourteenth Army, mutinies and mass resignations of officers were threatened. Leese was obliged to reinstate Slim when Mountbatten refused to support him, even though he had authorised the original proposals. Mountbatten subsequently approached Alan Brooke (who had always doubted Leese's suitability for the role) and they agreed that Leese should be removed. He was succeeded by Slim. None of the protagonists in the Slim affair show up well in retrospect. Richard Mead in "Churchill's Lions" suggests that Leese was naive, Slim petulant and Mountbatten devious. Leese's career suffered and he returned to the United Kingdom to be GOC-in-C Eastern Command, a significant downward move, having been one of only three army group commanders in the British Army.