Suzuki and Aung San flew to Tokyo. After discussions at the Imperial General Headquarters, it was decided in February 1941 to form an organisation named Minami Kikan, which was to support Burmese resistance groups and to close the Burma Road to China. In pursuing those goals, it would recruit potential independence fighters in Burma and train them in Japans ally Thailand or Japanese occupied China. Aung San and 29 others, the future officers and core of the Burma Independence Army, known as the Thirty Comrades, left Burma in April 1941 and were trained on Hainan Island in leadership, espionage, guerrilla warfare and political tactics. Colonel Suzuki assumed the Burmese name "Bo Mo Gyo" (Commander Thunderbolt), for his work with Minami Kikan. Formation and action of the Burma Independence Army On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and Britain. On 28 December, at a ceremony in Bangkok, the Burma Independence Army (BIA) was officially formed. The Thirty Comrades, as well as Colonel Suzuki, had their blood drawn from their arms in syringes, then poured into a silver bowl and mixed with liquor from which each of them drank – thway thauk in time-honoured Burmese military tradition – pledging "eternal loyalty" among themselves and to the cause of Burmese independence. The BIA initially numbered 227 Burmese and 74 Japanese. Some of the Burmese soldiers were second-generation residents in Thailand, who could not speak Burmese. The BIA formed was broken into six units which were assigned to participate in the invasion of Burma in January 1942, initially as intelligence-gatherers, saboteurs and foragers. The leader of the Burma Independence Army were declared with Keiji Suzuki as Commander-in-Chief, with Aung San as Senior Staff Officer. When the army entered into Burma it was made up of 2,300 men and organised in the following way. As the Japanese and the BIA entered Burma, the BIA gained a lot of support from the civilian population and were bolstered by many Bamar volunteers. This caused their numbers to grow to such a level that by the time the Japanese forces reached Rangoon on 8 March, the BIA numbered 10,000-12,000, and eventually expanded to between 18,000 and 23,000. Many of the volunteers who joined the BIA were however not officially recruited, but rather officials or even criminal gangs who took to calling themselves BIA to further their own activities. The Japanese provided few weapons to the BIA,