several Japanese commanders. An officers' training school was established in Mingaladon and the new force of 3,000 men were recruited and trained by Japanese instructors as regular army battalions instead of a guerrilla force during the second half of 1942. After the change in leadership, Aung Sun tried to push for what he considered the true mission of the army, which was not just a military group composed of the Thakins, but an army of "true patriots irrespective of political creed or race and dedicated to national independence". Transition into the Burma National Army After a year of occupation, on 1 August 1943, the newly created State of Burma was granted nominal independence by Japan and became a member of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Its Head of State became Dr. Ba Maw, an outspoken anti-colonial politician imprisoned by the British before the war. Aung San became Minister of Defence in the new regime, with the new rank of Major General and Bo Let Ya as his Deputy. Bo Ne Win (who would much later become the dictator of Burma after World War II) became Commander-in-Chief of the expanded Burma National Army (BNA). The BNA eventually consisted of seven battalions of infantry and a variety of supporting units with a strength which grew to around 11,000-15,000 men. Most were from the majority Bamar population, but there was one battalion raised from the Karen minority. Although Burma was nominally self-governing, the power of the State of Burma to exercise its sovereignty was largely circumscribed by wartime agreements with Japan. The Imperial Japanese Army maintained a large presence and continued to act arbitrarily, despite Japan no longer having official control over Burma. The resulting hardships and Japanese militaristic attitudes turned the majority Burman population against the Japanese. The insensitive attitude of the Japanese Army extended to the BNA. Even the officers of the BNA were obliged to salute low-ranking privates of the Imperial Japanese Army as their superiors. Aung San soon became disillusioned about Japanese promises of true independence and of Japan's ability to win the war. As the British General in the Burma Campaign William Slim put it: "It was not long before Aung San found that what he meant by independence had little relation to what the Japanese were prepared to give—that he had exchanged an old master for an infinitely more tyrannical new one. As one of his