unroll the map of this eastern half of the we do not tell

Unroll the map of this eastern half of theworld. Without it you will find it hard tounderstand the war that nobody knows. We do not tell the whole story here, it wouldbe beyond our purpose. For that would haveto recount how Japan seized in a hundred daysthe widest dominion on earth. It would haveto record the folly and failure of many people,the heroism and fortitude of so many more. Our tale begins long after the disasters ofHong Kong, Singapore and Rangoon. It leavesout the glory of Guadalcanal, New Guinea andGuam. These last were one hinge of thestruggle to halt the march of Japan. Burma,the subject of this tale, was the other. Sometimes to the folks at home, these twohave seemed to be totally separate affairs. Tothe Japanese they have always been a single,terrible war. The conquest of Australia wasJapan's objective in South West Pacific. TheInvasion of India was the task she set herself inSouth East Asia. Both these designs have beensmashed, with a completeness which toppled down General Tojo, Japan's Man of the Victories, anddestroying not only the springs of further Japanese aggression but the bases of her military survival. We, in South East Asia, know that enemy aircraft which were desperately needed to defend Saipanand Guam, vital links in Japan's Pacific island chain, had been shot down in combat over the junglesand paddy-fields of Burma. And we appreciate that crack Infantry divisions which might have reinforcedthe "March on Delhi" were trapped and are starving in the Pacific islands. We cannot tell it all here, and in any case there are chapters yet to write. In these pages we tell simplyWHAT HAPPENED THIS YEAR ON OUR SIDE OF THE HILL. In the Burma Campaign, 1944, theFourteenth Army and Eastern Air Command held and broke the enemy's advance on India, inflicting onhim the greatest land defeat suffered by the Imperial arms since Japan entered the modern age ninetyyears ago. Some future Churchill, as historian viewing in the perspective of a world convulsion this mercilessgrapple in the jungle shadows, may find in it one of the turning points of the campaign in the Far East. None will ever write of these long marches, lonely patrols, and bloody battles save with profoundadmiration for the courage, endurance and supreme devotion to duty of the troops who fought and fellhere in such numbers at the far-off post of honor.

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ADMIRAL LORD LOUISMOUNTBATTEN,

GCVO, CB, DSO, ADC.Supreme Allied Commander, South

East Asia

Though China's frontier with India stretches for 1,500 miles, the Himalaya Mountains bar all land passage; the onlyroad is through Burma.

The reconquest of Burma is essential both to build up bases and a solid front with China's armies for the final assaulton Japan.

Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's Address to the Press, August 1944

SEVEN MONTHS'BATTLE My object in this Press conference is to try to put before the Press ofthe world that every effort has been and is continuing to be put into theSouth East Asia campaign; that the Burma battle front is a single unifiedfront; that my plans are made in close consultation with my deputy,General Joseph Stilwell, and we carry them out with a common end inview. Please therefore look upon Burma as one big Allied effort, British,American and Chinese, with the help of the Dutch and the other nationsthat are with us. It is going extraordinarily well as an Allied effort. Wedo not want a lot of limelight, in fact we don't want any, but I go roundand talk to the men in the Command and what worries them is that theirwives, their mothers, their daughters, their sweethearts and their sistersdon't seem to know that the war they are fighting is important and worthwhile, which it most assuredly is. The South East Asia Command is a long way off; it is apt to be overshadowed in Europe by the climaxof the war against Germany, and in the Pacific by the advances of Admiral Nimitz and GeneralMacArthur. Therefore, a major effort by Allied forces, doing their duty in inhospitable places, has beensomewhat crowded out and the forces have not received their proportion of credit. My purpose thisafternoon is to put their achievements before you. Enemy-held territory in the South East Asia theater extends 2,500 miles southwards from the north ofBurma. The front on which we are at present fighting in Burma alone extends some 700 miles and issecond only in length to the Russian Front. It is the hard land crust which protects the Japaneseconquests in China and Indo-China. It is Japan's land route to India and, more important, the Allies'land route to China. Both offensively and defensively Japan has strained and is straining every nerve to


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hold Burma. In my appreciation of the achievements of the forces of South East Asia Command it must be borne inmind that the Japanese are fighting from interior lines. They control Burma's rivers, railways and roadsand since they are a rice-eating army they live off the fat of the land. We on the other hand, are fightingfrom the most difficult lines of communication imaginable. Before 1943 there were no roads into Burma from the north, while the lower reaches of theBrahmaputra River are unbridgeable. Assam is, in fact, a logistical nightmare. Moreover, advancing aswe are from the west, we are fighting against the grain of the country, for its steep jungle-clad mountainsand swift flowing rivers, all running north-south, constitute a barrier instead of a route between Indiaand China. In 1943 the imagination of the world was captured by a small force of British and Indian troops, underBrigadier Wingate, which made the first experiment in long range penetration and proved that we couldoutfight the Japanese in a kind of war which he had made his own, and under conditions which were tohis advantage. It was a harbinger of bigger things, but in itself, of course, the experiment was on a smallscale. At Quebec, the British and American Governments decided that the time had come to form an Alliedoperational command to take over the British Command from GHQ, India, and include the AmericanCommand in Burma and India, and be responsible for land, sea and air operations against Japan inSouth East Asia. In view of my original association with Combined Operations, a lot of people, myself included,jumped to the conclusion that large scale amphibious operations in South East Asia would at once bethe order of the day. It need now be no secret that all the landing ships and craft originally allotted hadto be withdrawn for more urgent operations in the west, and, in fact, carried the troops that assaultedthe Anzio beaches and have subsequently been taking part in the invasion of France. The order to us inBurma was to "carry on with what we had left." Our plans had to be recast on a less ambitious scale but there was one thing we could do and that wasto drive the Japanese out of the northeast corner of Burma, to improve our communications with China,and thus increase the supplies which are so badly needed to keep our Chinese Allies in the war, and toenable General Chennault to continue his effective operations with the U.S. 14th Air Force from China. A concerted plan was therefore made for the whole of the Burma Front to enable the forces in thenortheast to advance. General Stilwell, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander and the CommandingGeneral of the American forces in the China, Burma and India Theater, with great gallantry himselfcommanded the forces on the Ledo front. General Stilwell had under his command those Chinese forces which he had originally withdrawnfrom Burma into India and which had since been augmented. These forces are a good example of Alliedcollaboration, being equipped and trained by the U.S. and paid and fed by the British. "Merrill'sMarauders," of the American Rangers, contributed valiantly to the successful advance of this forcedown the Hukawng Valley to Myitkyina and Mogaung. An advance in Burma is a different affair from an advance in France or Russia, since it has largely to becarried out along the single axis of your supply line and a relatively small force can thus stop theadvance of a much larger force, however resolutely led. It thus became of the utmost importance thatthe overall plans for Burma should prevent Japanese reinforcements being able to bar the progress ofthe Chinese-American forces. There were two ways in which the Fourteenth Army could most materially help the advance of theLedo forces. Firstly by cutting the communications of the veteran Japanese 18 Division who were facingthe Ledo front, and secondly, by engaging the greater number of other Japanese divisions elsewhere inBurma. The first task, that of cutting the Japanese 18 Division's Line of Communication, was given to GeneralWingate's Long Range Penetration forces, which included a West African Brigade, and were flown intoBurma by Colonel Cochran's Air Commandos, aided by British and American transport squadrons. Thesecond task would have proved a more serious problem if it had not been that the Japanese plan was noless than an advance into India through Chittagong on the Arakan front and through Dimapur on theImphal front. This began when the advance of 15 Indian Corps was held by a Japanese encircling movement which


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cut off their Administrative troops and also the Headquarters of the 7 Indian Division. On February23rd, after a heroic 17 days' battle, the encircled troops of 7 Division, aided by the rest of 15 Corps,inflicted our first medium scale land defeat on the Japanese. The importance of the battle of the 7 Division Administrative "Box" was twofold. First it was a victoryof morale by men who refused to withdraw when their Lines of Communication were cut; the hithertosuccessful tactics of outflanking and infiltration were thus defeated. The second factor was theexploitation of air supply by American and British transport aircraft which enabled our forces in theAdmin Box to be fully supplied throughout the siege. On the 16th of March three complete Japanese divisions advanced across the river Chindwin andattacked all along the Manipur front with the avowed object of capturing the Imphal Plain and cuttingthe main rail Line of Communication to General Stilwell's forces, and the Chinese Command, andsubsequently of invading India. Their radio and propaganda never ceased to boast that they were:Marching on Delhi." Further Japanese forces were moved up in support, but British and Indian forceswere rushed to the defense of air, rail, and road communications. Although the enemy cut the main supply road from Dimapur to Imphal, British and American airtransport aircraft continued to supply the beleaguered garrisons by air, 33 Indian Corps was moved infrom reserve and the British 2 Division led the spearhead of the attack to clear the road. This Corps soseverely battered the Japanese 31 Division that the remnants were forced to retire in disorder.Meanwhile, 4 Indian Corps from Imphal were attacking to the south and eventually a major victory wassecured over the whole Japanese force. In point of numbers engaged this must have been one of the greatest land battles fought between theJapanese and British forces and I am glad to say the Japanese have now been flung out of India. The Fourteenth Army's exploits under the leadership of Lt. Gen. Sir William Slim and the overallcommand of General Sir George Giffard, were deservedly praised by Mr. Churchill in Parliament. Meanwhile, American and Chinese forces, by a great feat of arms, crossed the Naun Hykit Pass anddescended with complete surprise on the airfield at Myitkyina, thus enabling American and Chinesereinforcements to be flown in. In addition, Long Range Penetration forces, of whom Maj. Gen.Lentaigne assumed command when Wingate met his death in an air crash in the jungle, enteredMogaung from the south and were soon joined by the Chinese forces from the north. It will thus be seen that the capture of Myitkyina and Mogaung was the result of a series of closelycoordinated operations on the part of British, American, Chinese and West African troops. The 3 IndianDivision, as Long Range Penetration groups came to be known, now came under General Stilwell'scommand on this section of the front. The death of Wingate was a great disaster. He was killed at themoment of triumph and fulfillment. All these impressive results have not been secured without heavy casualties. Allied forces in 1944 havesuffered 10,000 killed; 2,000 missing, and 27,000 wounded, but these have been amply avenged by thekilling of no fewer than 50,000 Japanese. Even more deadly and persistent in inflicting casualties is the mosquito. Malaria has conqueredempires and can cripple armies. In the British campaign in the Arakan in 1943 it inflicted a particularlyheavy toll. The zeal and skill of American and British medical services have succeeded this year inreducing the ravages of malaria by no less than 40 percent; particularly effective has been thedevelopment of advance treatment centers which have virtually perfected a lightning cure. More than 90percent of the patients report fit for duty after three weeks. All the same, since the beginning of the year,Allied forces have suffered close on a quarter of a million casualties in Burma from sickness, mostlymalaria and dysentery. Parallel with the developments on land we have gained a major victory in the air. In December, specialmeasures were taken to co-ordinate the Allied air operations under Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirsethrough Eastern Air Command, which is under the direction of Maj. Gen. Stratemeyer, USAAF, who isalso second-in-command of all Allied Air Forces in South East Asia. We have practically swept theJapanese air force from the Burma skies. Between the formation of South East Asia Command inNovember, 1943, and the middle of August, 1944, American and British forces operating in Burmadestroyed or damaged more than 700 Japanese aircraft with a further 100 "probables." These simplestatistics mean that the Japanese air force in Burma is greatly depleted and rarely ventures out either forattack or defense.


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I mentioned air supply earlier. Since May alone we have carried by air just on 70,000 tons and 93,000men, including 25,500 casualties. These figures exclude the great air supply with China and have beenaccomplished under the worst flying conditions possible. By sea also we have not been idle. The Eastern Fleet under Admiral Sir James Somerville, nowsucceeded by Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, had been increasing their pressure to see whether they couldentice the Japanese fleet into action or else to contain part of them in the Malacca Straits and thus keepthem from interfering with the American operations in the Pacific. Our fleet's first move was an air strikefrom the sea in April on Sabang which proved highly successful and left the Allied Eastern Fleetunscathed. Their next move took them further afield and with the aid of a U.S. aircraft carrier, whichhad also been in the first Sabang operations, they made a very successful strike on Sourabaya, followedby a strike against the Andaman Islands. In the knowledge that we had complete command of the Indian Ocean and the Japanese had reducedtheir air defenses to a low level we decided not only to strike from the air but to ride in and bombardwith all types of surface craft from battleships to cruisers and destroyers. Sabang was again selected as atarget of strategic importance to the Japanese. The Royal Navy has received valuable help from the Royal Indian Navy and various American andDutch naval units. The RIN has helped to maintain the bases for the Eastern Fleet to operate from andprovided a very valuable addition to convoy escorts. I should like to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to the Government of India and the IndiaCommand. The importance of India as a base from which operations are launched in South East Asiacannot be over-emphasized. I would like to stress in particular the personal help and support I have received from Lord Wavell andGeneral Auchinleck, also from my deputy, General Stilwell, whose long experience of the east has beenof signal assistance to me in our common task. I am glad to have had this opportunity of endeavoring to explain the significance of the 1944 Burmacampaign. I am proud of the gallant fighting which has taken place on all fronts and I hope that mystatement may make the people who read it proud of the achievements of their own countrymen andgrateful to their Allies who helped them in these achievements.


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Southward, from the towering mountain mass of Central Asia that men have called the Roof of theWorld sprawl the ranges of Burma. For 50 centuries they have been part of the defense of India,guarding the eastern frontier. Invasion across these tangled jungle hills is an operation brimful withperil. India's conquerors have nearly always come in by the narrow gateways of the North West Passesfrom Afghanistan. The Japs poured into Burma from the south, and flooding up to the head of the valleys, establishedtheir forward units on the eastern bank of the Upper Chindwin. Thus they came to within strikingdistance of the last great mountain barrier of the frontier itself. Running laterally across their rear theyhad river and road communication and Burma's one big railway. In this they were much better servedthan the British on the other side of these ranges. The British also had a railway which ran roughly parallel with the front, but so far away from it that itcould only be tapped effectively at one point, Dimapur, itself a hundred miles distant from the combatzone. From this point to its advance outposts on the India-Burma border the British had to constructmetalled roads through virgin forest, around precipices, winding 8,000 feet into the clouds, andcontinuing along the full length of the Central Front. These solid roads, built largely by hand, remainmarvels of military engineering. No roads, however, run back towards India from this front. Between the army on the Assam-Burmaborder and their main bases in Bengal (and lying exactly athwart the direct line of communication) arescores more ridges and streams. If the Supreme Commander had not been already versed in the three-dimensional operations, and only too eager to seize on all its possibilities, the development of airtransport to supply this far-off front would have been forced upon him as military necessity. For shorterhaul were 50,000 motor vehicles, the mule, the ox-wagon, the elephant, hordes of coolies and theeternal, indomitable infantryman humping his own pack. The Japs had also threaded their way from Rangoon up the coastal belt to Arakan, where they had setup a line north of Akyab. From the Allied point of view communications on this Southern Front wererather better. From the north there were both rail and road links with Chittagong, which also had itsport. But the railway died 18 miles south, at Dohazari, and the road shortly afterwards. The lasthundred miles to the front via Bawli Bazar was mere track. The sappers were summoned again. Arakan itself is a country of mountain, jungle and paddy fields with a few scrubby foothills and a


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General Sir William SlimCommander, Fourteenth Army

General Sir George GiffardCommander, Eleventh Army

Group

network of tidal chaungs. There are few places whereartillery can be easily deployed, and fewer still wheretanks can maneuver. Between the Central Front and the Southern Front liesthe huge mountain jungle area of the Chin Hills, LushaiHills and Arakan Tracts (see maps below). No formalline has ever been drawn across this wilderness. Forclose on two hundred miles long, and about as deep ithas remained No Man's Land, where roving groups ofboth armies patrol, ambush and vanish again. The third sector of the Burma Front is the Northern,which is based on Ledo. Here was the chiefconcentration of the American power. Even in the worstdays the Japs never tried to climb into India over thewall of the Ledo mountains. The Allies, however,proposed to climb back into Burma over this wall. Fortwo years the Americans steadily built up along theUpper Brahmaputra a chain of airfields to service their Flying Bridge over the Hump to China. In theface of every obstacle they hacked their famous Ledo Road out of the mountain, and by the end of 1943General "Uncle Joe" Stilwell, with his U.S.-trained Chinese divisions, was already embattled on theBurma side and preparing to march up the Hukawng Valley on his drive to Myitkyina and the oldBurma Road. With the exception of the comparatively low-lying Arakan sector most of the Burma fighting tookplace on mountains or in valleys nearly as high. The guns duels on 9,000-foot Kennedy Peak, betweenTiddim and Fort White, were for long one of the most famous "front line noises." Nine-tenths of the faceof the entire land is covered with the matted beard of the jungle. Such is the Burma Front. From thecorner of the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal it measures 700 miles of the wildest and most impenetratetracts in the world. The Supreme Commander's directives to the Fourteenth Army for the 1944 Campaign were to hold theCentral and Southern Fronts, and on the Northern Front to advance to the line Mogaung-Myitkyina.These orders were fulfilled to the letter. Two major Japanese attempts to invade India were smashed.Five Japanese divisions were annihilated in the process, and our own objectives were reached ahead ofschedule. The advance continues.

The Enemy Strikes from theArakan

In Burma, by January 1944, the Japs had consolidated their grip up to the perimeter of their '42 and'43 conquests. The war in Europe had not at that time turned in flood against Germany, for the mainAllied forces had still to make their landing on the continent. But while they were not yet in that battlethey might safely be counted out of this one. This year, therefore, was for Japan, the Now or Never. TheJap High Command decided to carry the war into India and to break up the base where powerful armiesand air and sea fleets were building up for the coming Allied general assault on Japan. The Allies, meanwhile, suffered a change of plans. Before Teheran these had included immediateamphibious operations somewhere in South East Asia, but at that conference, South East AsiaCommand's landing craft were allocated to European waters, and as the Supreme Commander hasdisclosed, were actually employed to force the Anzio bridgehead. Accepting this service deprivation,Lord Louis Mountbatten still resolved to place the most aggressive interpretation on the instruction to"defend the frontiers." The Fourteenth Army Commander, Lieutenant General Sir William Slim, KCB,


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Lt. Gen. Sir Philip ChristisonCommander, 15 Indian Corps.

CB, DSO, MC, was ordered to clear the Akyab peninsula as far south as possible so as to command themouth of the River Naff for sea supply and secure the Maingdaw-Buthidaung road. The available troopswere 15 Indian Corps., commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Philip Christison, KEE, CB, MC. A glance at the map below shows how the Arakan campaign of '44 was dominated by the outstandingfeature known as the Mayu Range. This range physically split the front: the plan of the enemy was touse it tactically to split the army which occupied it. A captured enemy Order of the Day signed byColonel Tanahashi says of it: "The Mayu Range is a fortress given us by Heaven, to furnish use withdefenses, obstructions and concealments, with water, with quarters, with supplies of buildingmaterials unlimited. Indeed a thing of immense value. Its mountains and rivers will shortly becomean unforgettable new battleground." East of the Mayu Range lies the Kalapanzin Valley. Bearing in mind the lesson of the Arakancampaign of 1943 (when the Japs struck up this valley, crossed the Range and fell upon the Line ofCommunication of our troops attacking Akyab along the coastal belt), General Slim proposed toadvance not only down the Kalapanzin as well as the coast, bit also to throw out a further, flank screenin the distant valley beyond the next mass of hills, namely the Kaladin Valley. The 81 West AfricanDivision were assigned this important task. They not only guarded the Kaladin but their presence therecompelled the enemy to divert troops towards it which he urgently needed for his plan to "InvadeIndia." The first appearance of these magnificent-looking warriors in the Arakan had an unexpected andmost uplifting effect upon their British comrades in the line. There is evidence that it had acorrespondingly depressing effect upon the enemy. To link the two main forces in the coastal belt and Kalapanzin Valley it was necessary to makesomething more than the trails which ran through the passes of the Mayu Range. There were two, theGoppe Pass, a mule track, and the other more famous Ngakyedauk Pass, then unfit even for mules.Ngakyedauk has since entered into the immortality of soldiers' language as the "Okeydoke." As itthreads its way from Wensleydale to Swaledale, to a Scot from Inverness withthe KOSB's it resembled his beloved Glen Shiel. Gunners who ranged on"Okeydoke" and infantrymen who slogged it out there with rifle and bayonetand grenade, found something homely of their own there. It was an illusion, forthe Arakan bears no likeness to Britain, but it comforted men in lonely anddesperate hours. The sappers and miners of 7 Indian Division, equipped with bulldozers andpneumatic drills, graded its slopes, widened its rock ledges and smoothed out itselbow bends, making the pack road capable of bearing the armor, guns, andsupply columns of an invading army. As the engineers and road-builders reached the banks of the Kalapanzin riverthe dusty battalions of British and Indian infantry, followed by long columns ofmotor transport, begun threading their way up the steep slopes at the westernentrance. Corps Commander Christison was building up his two-fisted attack. His plan was to force the enemy to fight on as broad a front as possible. Hehad 5 Indian Division west of the Range and 7 Indian Division east of it. Theyshared the crest, which, running parallel as it does to the British main Line ofCommunication from north to south, was the axis of advance. Pressing equally all along the front, 15Corps now began their steady forward movement. They had to fight hard and learned to match theircunning against the enemy's before they came up against his main positions. These covered the 15-mileMaungdaw-Buthidaung road which tunnels the Mayu Ridge and provides the third great artery betweenone side of the mountain and the other. The tunnel area was especially strongly fortified. Maundaw fell to the British on 8 January, but Razabil was a harder nut. This is a natural fortress in thefoothills between the Mayu Range and the sea, commanding the road. Bombers of the Strategic AirForce from the newly-created and integrated Eastern Air Command (Maj. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer)pounded this bastion with concentrated weight, medium artillery shelled it and "General Lee" tanks,deployed for the first time in Arakan, lent their support. Much of the fortress area fell and Jap casualtieswere considerable, but the central position held. The Corps Commander decided to switch the mainweight of his assault to Buthidaung in the Kalapanzin sector, while maintaining strong local attacks onRazabil. He was able to do this with comparative ease because his foresight had provided him with that


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invaluable lateral communication, "Okeydoke Pass." But somebody else had plans. Enter Lt. Gen. Hanaya, Jap Commander in the Arakan. He proposed toinvade India, and had a meticulously worked-out timetable for that design. The British pressure on hisfront now compelled him to accelerate his movements. In charge of his striking force he placed ColonelTanahashi, victor of the Arakan, 1943. The Jap plan was both to break up the British-Indian advanceand to split the entire front, sealing off the eastern half not only from its western partner but from itsown Lines of Communication. The seizure of "Okeydoke" would achieve both these objects. On thenight of 3-4 February Tarahashi struck. So confident was he that his blitzkrieg would succeed that he threw in almost all his available forces,leaving only one battalion in reserve. When heavy losses fell upon him, therefore, he had noreplacements at his command. He even brought up gunners, without their guns, reckoning to captureours. The Jap troops had orders not to destroy our vehicles, which would be required for the march onIndia. A few days before the enemy struck, seaborne patrols had captured documents in a raid behind theenemy's lines, which warned us of recently arrived reinforcements from the Solomons. From this andother signs Christison sensed trouble. The tanks (25 Dragoons) had been withdrawn from Razabil formaintenance. That same afternoon Christison ordered them over the "Okeydoke." To deceive the Japsinto believing that our armor was still concentrated west of Mayu the Corps Commander sent up asquadron of reserve tanks to continue operations at Razabil. At the same time one brigade of 7 Divisionwas placed in reserve for the coming offensive. Both next day went into action to meet the new threat.The tanks came as a complete surprise to the Japs who did not know they were even in the valley. Flooding over Taung Bazar by a 30-mile forced march, the Japs swept on to the heights of the MayuRange north of the so-call 7 Division Admin Box at Sinzweya. This had a few days earlier become aCorps Administrative area supporting 7 Division, a brigade of 5 Division (who were the link betweenthe two sectors of the front) and a large number of Corps troops, including a couple of artilleryregiments, ack-ack and anti-tank batteries and the tank unit. There were thus encamped there nearly8,000 administrative troops, pioneers, sappers, signalers, ordnance and medical units, mule companies,and native road builders, together with a considerable amount of equipment. Protection was organizedto resist any interference up to a large scale raid. What now struck the Admin area, however, was atornado of six thousand men. A further four thousand formed an outer ring. A few hours before dawn on 6 February the Japs attacked 7 Division H.Q. Division Commander Maj.Gen. F. W. Messervy, CB, DSO, with his staff, narrowly escaped capture - or, more probable, massacre.Grenade in hand he led a party along the bed of a chaung to the Admin area, where he re-formed hisH.Q. Fresh parties kept coming in for several days, and throughout this period a Soldiers' Battle raged.Signalers, sappers, cooks, clerks, all seized the rifle and fought like veteran infantry. Gradually theenemy was halted, though not before he had practiced appalling atrocities against our wounded. Tanahashi pressed on round the flank and rear, towards the Goppe Pass. He did not in fact reachGoppe; a little short of it he ran into 18 Mule Company, who stood their ground resolutely and engagedhim. Tanahashi, believing that Goppe Pass must be strongly held, and urgent to capture Bawli Bazar (15Corps HQ) and cut the Bawli-Maungdaw road, decided to storm straight over the 2,000-foot Rangebetween Goppe and "Okeydoke." He burst through a large concentration of British rear echelons on thewestern slopes of the Mayu where he was again fiercely challenged. But driving on with barbaricenergy, he reached the road where he blew up bridges, set fire to dumps, way-laid convoys, and finallydug-in in the nearby jungle from where he kept traffic under continual fire. In the end his raiders had tobe liquidated to the last man. The Japs success in interfering with our Lines of Communication was lessthan they had hoped, for much of the supply of the troops on the western side of the Mayu continued topour in by sea. However Tanahashi scored when he detached a force to double back along the crest of the Range tocut "Okeydoke" Pass, linking up with another Jap column which had pushed through from thesoutheast. The wedge had been driven between 5 Division and 7 Division, and the latter's supply routesevered. Tokyo went to town on the news. The giant presses roared, showering the East with their headlinedtriumphs. Victory! Victory! Annihilation! The British Are Trapped! The British In Full Flight! Night andday the Jap radio blared "The March On Delhi Has Begun," "Tanahashi, Victor of Arakan, will be at


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Chittagong within a Week," "New British 14th Army Destroyed in One Thrust," Traitors drew upproclamations for parades under the walls of the Red Fort and Tokyo Rose crooned persuasively to theAllied troops in the Pacific "why not go home? It's all over in Burma." It really appeared to the Japanesethat everything was in the bag, and so it was. Unfortunately for Tanahashi the neck of the bag was stillopen. He had forgotten the AIR. Through the air would pour the stores and supplies which were denied land passage. The troops thus"trapped" instead of yielding their ground, ditching their equipment and seeking to escape across thehills, would hold fast and hold on with sheer guts, certain that within measurable time the power wouldbe brought them to drive the enemy from his encircling lines. Meantime, on General Slim's orders, boththe supplies to sustain such "encircled" troops and the aircraft and air crews to carry them had beenassembled and were ready to go in. Ten days' rations for 40,000 men had already been packed anddumped against exactly such an emergency by Fourteenth Army's "grocer," Maj. Gen. Alf Snelling; thefirst of the series of similar services which this remarkable organizer was able to do the army in this yearof continuous fighting. Nor on the combat side was the Army Commander caught napping by Tanahashi's violent recoil to hisinitial offensive. General Slim had placed 26 Indian Division (Maj. Gen. C. E. N. Lomax, CB, DSO,MC) at Chittagong to cover the road to India. This officer in particular had deserved well of the armyfor his conspicuous work in building up the morale of his division unit by unit in patrol work during thelong, disheartening period after the Arakan failure of '43. Still further back, in Calcutta, another divisionwas brigaded and ready to move forward on requirement. Such dispositions are not completedovernight, and they are a sufficient answer to the ignorant jibe that Arakan 1944 was one more exampleof "waiting for something to hit us." Meantime in the Admin area none sat down to wring his hands over his fate but all set to work likemen to shape it. Maj. Gen. Messervy brought in the West Yorks, who were later reinforced by acompany of KOSB's and a battalion of 2 Punjabs. With tanks and artillery a formidable protected "box"was very rapidly built up. Tanks and guns formed a protection for HQ, hospitals and soft vehicles. Laterthe "box" was ringed with barbed wire. Every man was told bluntly what the situation was and of thefurther steps being taken by the Corps Commander to meet it. From Supreme Commander Lord LouisMountbatten came a heartening message telling them that he had directed powerful reinforcementstowards them.


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In their attempt to invade India from the south in February '44, the Japs made a forced march of 30 miles from theirbases around Bathidaung and succeeded in capturing Taung Bazar and the Ngakyedauk Pass. In one bold strokethey drove a wedge between 5 Div and 7 Div, situated on separate sides of the Mayu Range, and also encircled 8,000Administrative troops at Sinzweya. Drawing by Booker Cooke.

Immediate evidence of his resources was what the garrison saw with their own eyes in the sky abovethem. Jap Zeros had at one time been a fairly common sight in Arakan. The recent arrival of theSpitfires over the front had changed that. These Spitfires were the first startling innovation in Burmaproduced by the new South East Asia Command. But on the eve of Tanahashi's thrust the Zerosreturned to the scene. Jap documents revealed that the Jap air command believed that if the RAFfighters could be "drawn" into combat they could be wiped out. Though the Japs did not give close airsupport to their ground troops they appeared over the battle area many squadrons at a time, looking fortrouble with our fighters. They did not return home disappointed. The Allied fighters of Third Tactical Air Force, thencommanded by Air marshal Sir John Baldwin, KBE, CB, DSO, rushed at them. The air was filled withdogfights. Ten days after their first challenge the Jap fighters broke it off. Three Spitfires had been lost.Third TAF claimed 65 Jap fighters destroyed, probably destroyed, or damaged. Thereafter the Alliedfighters flew in close support, solitary strafing, or recce as they pleased and practically unimpeded.During the height of the aerial battle the huge, and mostly defenseless aircraft of Troop CarrierCommand flew between the sky fights and the roof of the jungle to deliver vital stores of war to thetroops fighting it out in the salvage hand-to-hand battles on the ground. These supply operations were under the direct command of U.S. Brig. Gen. William D. Old, pioneer ofthe China "Hump" route, and none could have desired or chosen a more energetic and intrepid leader.When the first flight of heavily laden Dakotas was driven back, General Old stepped up to the pilot'sseat of the next flight and led them in himself. The planes were attacked, gunned, and some of the crewshit, but the goods got through. The job grew. By night as well as by day the supply aircraft rose from the Allied airfields. The crewssimply turned their aircraft around and flew again. They slept barely 5 hours in 24. The ground crewsserviced them, the RIASC supplied them, all round-the-clock. Many boarded the loaded planes thenand flew, sometimes unescorted, over the Jap lines to help the supply droppers heave out their vitalcargo onto the narrow target areas of the besieged "boxes." It was magnificent "Combined Ops." The


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Not every time can supplies begathered into the 'Box' as easily ashere. An unfavorable wind will carrythe parachutes nearer to the enemylines and a fight then follows forpossession of the precious parcels.

pilots of the supply crews were themselves "combined." British,American, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African andIndian. Five hundred sorties carried 1,500 tons into battle. With food,ammunition, and weapon replacements, came cigarettes, kit, oil,petrol and "Jane" floating down in SEAC daily newspaper from theskies, even beer (and one thrice-blessed unit got a wholeformation's ration). Tanks, waiting for fuel, watched drums of itcascading down on parachutes. Before the aircraft left the tankswere moving into action. The huge twin-engined aircraft were sitting birds for enemyfighters and ground fire. But only one was lost, and she, too,delivered her goods. In such circumstances "encirclement" becamea technical phrase. Arakan, indeed, carried forward logically, and demonstrated in thefire of battle, the soundness of that revolutionary technique ofland-air war which so seized Wingate's audacious mind. Castingabout always to find a means to overcome the advantage the Japheld in his jungle mobility. Wingate had said "the vulnerable arteryis the Line of Communication winding through the jungle. Haveno Line of Communication on the jungle floor. Bring in thegoods, like Father Christmas, down the chimney." Manyconsidered this crazy but not the men at the head of the South EastAsia Command, who shared with him these ideas concerning themobility not merely of raiding columns but of entire jungle armycorps. The RAF had never once failed during Wingate's firstfootslogging march into Burma in 1943 to find their supply dropsite and to deliver their loads. Upon this basis Fourteenth Armywere now building a completely new concept of jungle logistics.Arakan was its first vindication. But meantime, down in the bowl of the Admin Box, under theguns of the enemy on the surrounding hills, men were onlyconscious of the fact that a most desperate battle called for everyounce of guts and endurance that the British and Indian soldiercould pull out. All day long thick clouds of smoke rose from the "box" and the sound of explosionsreverberated round the hills as first one then another ammunition or petrol dump blew up. Three timesstocks of ammunition were reduced to a dangerously low level. Luckily, the Japs did not realize it andthe tireless airmen quickly replaced each loss. But the enemy continued also to pour in an increasingtorrent of mortar bombs, grenades and shells of every caliber. Snipers roped to trees and even "built"into tree trunks, took pot-shots at regular intervals, but each shot brought forth such a volley of firefrom the "box" that very few enemy snipers lived long enough to do much harm. The casualty stations overflowed while a depleted medical staff labored like demons - or shall we saylike angels with demoniac energy - to cope with the growing number of dysentery and malaria patients,as well as the wounded. The devotion of the doctors and their orderlies was truly moving. Some of them paid the final, terribleprice of duty. It was impossible to hold every point in strength, and one night in pitch darkness, theenemy overran the medical dressing station on the edge of the "box." They burst in upon the place,shouting and howling like dervishes. But their savagery was not that engendered by battle. Forty-eighthours after occupying the dressing station a senior Jap officer entered and ordered all wounded to bemassacred. Orderlies and patients tried to escape by crawling out on their bellies in the darknessthrough a deep nullah. Some of the patients were too weak, and others too severely wounded even tostir on their stretchers. The Japs went from bed to bed bayoneting every man that showed the least signof life. Their heartrending cries and groans were heard by their comrades beyond the nullah, helpless torescue them.


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The doctors fared no better. The Japs lined up six and in cold blood shot every one dead with a bulletthrough his ear. One Medical Officer, who was carrying out an operation in a dug-out at the time, oweshis life and that of his patient to the fact that he had so efficiently "blacked-out" his undergroundsurgery that Tanahashi's tribesmen passed by without noticing it. Another had the presence of mind tofake death when he saw what was happening, by falling flat on his face and daubing himself with blood.In the "box," whenever the account of these horrors was repeated, a hush would fall over the company.Among those who listened were men whose best pals had been with the 80-odd wounded whomTanahashi butchered. Night was the cover the Japs sought to work under, darkness their chief ally. Regularly as the sun fellover the Range these sub-humans donned yet more hideous face-masks and came slithering through therank grass, whining weird animal calls to keep touch with each other. Then, the bravest defender had tosteel himself at his post and remember the Night of the Massacre. Spirits sank with the sun, and roseagain as it rose. Men who had never seen the inside of a church since their choir days invoked God'smercy and His strength. Many scribbled their home addresses on scraps of paper for their mates to dropa line home to the "missus" or "My girl" or "the old folk just in case anything should happen." In the "box" everything was shared. One officer, handy with a needle and thread, gave all his sparetime to stitching buttons on shirts and slacks for anyone that asked the service from Lieutenant Colonelsto Lance Corporals. Many shared more - their thoughts with lonely comrades. Some would get tothinking that folks at home might miss their letters and imagine the worst, and they would beginworrying. They had to be cheered up, and they were. Then there was sometimes the thought that thoughthe air supply had not failed yet, perhaps . . . ? Men sick to death of biscuits and bully would put a bitaside in their kit as though it were manna. Sleep was safest at the bottom of a slit trench with the rats. By day the Japs were less formidable. One suicide squad came in against a post in traditional Imperialsacrifice style. Within two minutes only one remained alive, and he was too terror-stricken to move.They displayed the usual Japanese lack of resilience. They tried to use a chaung as a rendezvous simplybecause it was marked as such in their Operation orders. A British infantry unit had captured it but asthis was NOT in the orders, the Jap NCO's still came to use it for their rendezvous. Not a single onelived to pass on his instructions. But the time for the counter-stroke was now at hand, and Tanahashi's troops were tiring. Ten days hadbeen set for their task, and ten days' rations issued for it. They had carried out the plan - and the Britishhad not fled, had not even withdrawn anywhere, from the Admin Box, from their forward positions inKalapanzin Valley or from their line on the western side of the Range. On the contrary, the British were fighting back with growing violence, and had re-occupied TaungBazar; what was worse, fresh troops were coming up from the north. This was not in HonorableOperations Orders, either. The forward brigades of 7 Division had stood firm the whole of the time and inflicted heavy casualtieson the enemy as well as denied him opportunity to supply his assault troops or return southwards withcasualties. Like the troops in the Admin Box these front-line forces were also supplied entirely by air. Onebrigade constructed an airstrip on the banks of the Kalapanzin from which the wounded were flown outof the battle area by light Allied aircraft under the protection of riflemen and machine-gunners whokept the enemy at bay. General Christison's plan to complete the destruction of Tanahashi's enterprise fell into two parts.Phase I was to clear the main Allied Line of Communication (the Bawli-Maungdaw road). Phase II wasto clear "Okeydoke" and crush the now thoroughly mauled Jap striking force to pieces against the anvilof the intact British positions in the Kalapanzin Valley. The hammer was Maj. Gen. Lomax's "Tiger-heads" (26 Division) now advancing from Chittagong. It included those Arakan veterans, the Lincolnsand the Wiltshires. Indeed, within a very short time of the original "encirclement" the advance elementsof this force were already at grips with the most northerly force of the enemy. The Japs fought it out resolutely but the "Tiger-heads" broke all resistance along the road, destroyingor driving the invaders back over the crest of Mayu Range into the Kalapanzin Valley. A battalion of the18 Royal Garhwal Rifles were the first to arrive, and they took post at the western end of "Okeydoke" toblock any further Jap irruption on to 5 Division's positions. They played a notable part in the finalclearing of the Pass in the last battle at Point 1070. Meanwhile, the 8 Gurkhas and a battalion of 16


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Punjabs steadily swept the spine of the Range clean of Japs, killing scores and herding the remainderdown into the Kalapanzin for dispatch there by troops defending the Admin Box. For this purpose General Lomax had been laboriously building up his forces in the valley. His onlyLine of Communication was the Goppe mule track. But in due course both his own 26 Division andalso 36 Indian Division (Maj. Gen. F. W. Festing, DSO) were fully mustered for the final settlement. TheJaps generally were in a wretched state by this time. The defenders of the Admin Box had taken savagetoll of them - a preliminary count revealed that more than 1,100 had been buried in this area alone.Two forward brigades of 7 Division, which, with a brigade of 5 Division, had never relinquished theirpositions and had also already exacted their price, now blocked the retreat of the enemy. Trapped themselves now, and with no transport planes to feed and munition them the Japanese beganto suffer the full pains of siege. Heavy bombers dived on their bunkers and fighters gunned theirfoxholes. When the planes went home for fresh bomb-loads the artillerymen relived them, and whenthey in turn paused, the tank gunners opened up. The diary of a Japanese Intelligence Officer which fellinto our hands recorded that Tanahashi's Brigade Group had gone seven days without rations and hadexisted on wild yams and water. Another entry noted that the owner himself had gone 10 days withoutfood, though even at the end of that time he had reported himself as able to dig bunkers. The enemy, ofcourse, looted what he could from the villages, but he was elsewhere described as being so short offood that he was eating monkeys. The British attack was pressed home relentlessly by a pincer movement from both sides of the Range.Between them, they left very little of the "March on Delhi," or on Chittagong either. The Admin Boxbattle ended when Major Ferguson Hoey led the assault of the Lincolns on Point 315 overlooking it. Hefell as it was captured, gaining the VC. The three weeks' siege was raised. The breaking of the enemy's strangle-hold on "Okeydoke" followedshortly after the capture of Hill 1070. It required 10 days' fighting with tank and artillery support toliquidate the deep Jap bunkers in this knife-edge feature with its conical peak. Even after it was thoughtcleared a landslide caused by the bombing and shelling unearthed another score of the enemy. Then at last the convoys loaded with food rolled once more down the slopes of "Okeydoke" to therelieved army. At the head rode Maj. Gen. H. R. Briggs, DSO, OBE, Commander of 5 Division, comingto congratulate his fellow divisional commander Maj. Gen. Messervy on his magnificent stand. TheBattle of Arakan was virtually over, and the Fourteenth Army stood triumphant on its first greatbattlefield. They had smashed No. I Japanese invasion of India, scored the first major British-Indian victory overthe arrogant enemy, killed 4,500 of his finest troops (the figure later rose to nearly 7,000). Even morevital the British and Indian soldier had set up a man to man superiority over the Japanese soldier in thefield. The strategy of the Jap High Command had been completely frustrated. Our troops on the SouthernFront had been neither driven out nor annihilated, the road to India had not been forced; the reservedivisions covering the Central Front had not been sucked into the struggle and used-up. They remainedintact ready to deal with Part II of the Japanese Invasion for which strong enemy forces were alreadymassing along the Chindwin. Above all the Allies had demonstrated their mastery of a new way of jungle warfare - the land-airtechnique of combat and supply. In the coming battles on the Central Front entire divisions (5 Divisionand 7 Division) would be transported by air from Arakan to Assam to reinforce the troops alreadymeeting and breaking the new Japanese offensive. Thus Arakan, itself a great defensive victory, directlypaved the way towards another and far greater defensive operation which developed into a triumphantAllied offensive along all three fronts. The enemy was not allowed to rest in Arakan. No victory is complete without pursuit, and Christisonpressed fiercely upon the beaten enemy. To Messervy went orders to destroy the remnants of theinvading forces. With what grim satisfaction did the commander and troops of the "encircled andannihilated 7 Division" execute this order. By the time the monsoons broke on the Southern Front in June we had taken the fortress of Razabil aswell as the commanding heights around Buthidaung and the strategic tunnels linking either side ofMayu Range. Our ships sailed unimpeded up the Naff River. Lt. Gen. Christison this established aforward line which could be held with a minimum of troops throughout the malarial season while the


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RAF, operating from all-weather airstrips, continually harried the Jap monsoon quarters. "The enemy has been challenged and beaten in jungle warfare," said the Prime Minister in a specialmessage to Supreme Commander Lord Louis Mountbatten and the Fourteenth Army on the morrow ofthis great victory "His boastfulness has received a most salutary exposure."


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Slim's armor and infantry move into battle. The nature of the terrain compels tanks to keep to road or track andattack frontally; infantry may thrust out to the flanks.

Mahratta troops attack through a dense bamboo forest. It's Nature's "wire."

Mules can go places where even jeeps get stuck. They carry two hundredweight apiece.


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Heavy artillery play a key part. It has to be man-handled.

"Signals" are half the jungle battle.

Camouflaged Chinese troops ford mountain torrent onSalween Front.

Wingate's Skytroops Land in Burma The late Major General Charles Orde Wingate was an unusual man. He commanded the confidence ofunusual men, too. Wavell believed in him, and gave him his head on two occasions, in Abyssinia, 1940,


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The late Maj. Gen. Charles O.Wingate

Leader of Chindit Forces

and in Burma, 1943. Churchill was fascinated by his daring and powerfulmind, so well attuned to his own sense of challenge. Mountbatten took himto his heart, encouraged him, and backed him to the limit, even whenWingate was being temperamentally awkward. Wingate, it must be allowed, was one who did not joyfully sufferopposition. He drew down the lightning on his own head, alas, in the final,tragic scene, for he was killed in his hour of triumph, flying withcharacteristic defiance through an electric storm. When he fell, his friendand commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Bill Slim, Commander of FourteenthArmy, wrote a penetrating tribute to him in which he analyzed his quality asa leader. "Wingate had clear vision" wrote Slim, "He could also imparthis belief to others. Above all, he could adapt to his own purpose theideas, practices, and techniques of others once he was satisfied of theirsoundness." Wingate himself considered that "the chief difference between

a good and bad commander is an accurate imagination." Was his 1943 Expedition a success or not? Some critics held that it achieved very little at high cost.Others pointed out that when the Chindit columns had been withdrawn again across the ChindwinRiver the Japs took toll of all who had disclosed themselves as our friends in Burma. If this latterargument is pushed to its logical end, however, it means that we must never abandon a Burmese village,though its strategic value has become nil. Surely the proper way to assess Wingate's achievements in1943 is to ask: Did it make possible his achievements in 1944? For the Chindit operations in 1944, withtheir vital bearing upon the general campaign were of unquestioned value. Judge by this test Wingate'spioneer venture was completely justified. He had marched then minus a landward Line of Communication, moving without trace upon theenemy's rear. He now improved on this idea: He proposed not even to march most of his fightingcolumns in, but to travel by air. The objective was as before - to cut the enemy's Lines ofCommunication. Wingate acted on General Sherman's classic dictum, "The enemy's rear is there toplay hell with." In Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia, he found a chief oflike ideas who had already for two years led Britain's commandos in Europe. At Quebec on the day ofhis appointment, Mountbatten had pressed the project of the Air Commando for jungle warfare. The plan now on hand was to put five brigades 150 miles behind the Jap lines, roughly in the triangleKatha-Mogaung-Bhamo (see map), there they would be within striking range of the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway and the road system which served the entire rear of the Jap armies operating againstGeneral Stilwell's American-trained Chinese divisions. These were now advancing steadily from thenorth through the Hukawng Valley, hauling their Ledo Road along with them. To carry through the audacious operation it was decided that one force under Brigadier Ferguson,DSO, should march down from the north, parallel with Stilwell's advance but through the mountains tothe west of it. It involved these Chindits marching by a hundred-mile trek, to pass across the UpperChindwin River, their rubber dinghies for the ferrying being dropped by aircraft. Four other brigadeswere to be flown in by gliders and set down on clearings which aerial recce photographs had revealedmight bear an initial landing. Most of these clearings had been earmarked by Wingate during his '43 Expedition. They had not,however, been closely reconnoitered on foot since then. They were marked on a map as open spaces.That was all. Three landing grounds were selected for this initial hazardous "Operation Thursday." They werenamed "Broadway," "Chowringhee," and "Piccadilly." But on the evening of the fly-in a last reccerevealed that logs had been felled and laid across the runway of "Piccadilly," and this station wasthereupon abandoned fifteen minutes before take-off. Later, a fourth strip, "Aberdeen," named after thehome of Wingate's wife, was built. The plan was that the first wave of troop-carrying gliders should go in, firing a red flare if the enemywere found to be in unexpected possession (except that the man who has that flare has put it in a verydeep pocket and doesn't think he'll ever find it). Once the gliders had cast off their nylon silk tow-ropesof course, they had to go in - and once in they had to stay in. The tow-ships, stripped bare to haul the


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heavy loads, had hardly petrol enough after release to get themselves back over the hostile jungle. Thefirst wave would land, seize the clearing, fan-out and screen it while the second wave arrived. Thiswould comprise more troops, bulldozers, graders, jeeps, mules and ponies, also, combat engineers tobuild an airport between dawn and dusk, so that the next night the giant C-47 troop carrier aircraftcould bring in an army with its guns and wagons. The initial fly-in was entrusted to a special U.S. Air Commando, provided at the direct instance ofGeneral Arnold, Commanding General of the USAAF, on request of Lord Louis Mountbatten. The planfor this had been worked out by 33-year-old Colonel Philip Cochran and his deputy Colonel RobertAlison, and concerted with Wingate. Cochran had trained, and now commanded the Air Commando.His fighter-bombers had already cleared a wide aerial "fire-belt" round his landing grounds, driving backthe Jap aircraft bases by continuous attack. Cochran's P-51's loaded 1,000-lb rockets under each wing.Totally, in these initial strafes, and in their constant close support of the Chindits after the Air Invasionhad gone in, they discharged 1,590,000 lbs of explosives on the enemy and destroyed a hundred Japaircraft. "The night of the Party" had come. On the strip to see the most audacious air armada yet createddepart on its high adventure were gathered some of the most famous leaders in South East Asia,Stratemeyer, Slim, Baldwin, Old, Davidson, Cochran and Wingate himself. More indeed, even than thesuccess of this mission was at stake. The Burma Air Invasion was the test (and became the model) of thegreat airborne assault on Fortress Europe three months later. It was the night of Sunday, 5 March and the moon rose bright and clear as the troops piled into thegliders. They wore green battledress and full field kit, and were armed to the teeth with rifles, tommyguns, pistols, knives and grenades. Many were bearded. Now the gliders towed in pairs, were harnessed. The tow-ships engines roared up and cast loose, andthen bouncing, swaying and straining, the aerial train rushed down the strip in a cloud of dust, hauleditself up over the trees, and headed for the heart of enemy Burma 150 miles beyond the 7,000-footmountains. Many of the troops had never even flown before. No fighters escorted the Air Invasion,which traveled without lights and had been ordered to land by no other illumination than the moon. Alldepended on surprise. Over the target, the gliders circled once to pick out the dark strip between the trees, cast off and wentin. Fifty-four flew. Unluckily, the Control Glider made a forced landing along the Chindwin River, andso no guiding power directed the ordered procession of arrival on the strip. Many of the gliders crashedon landing, some disastrously, and of course, as they piled up others coming in with no control, exceptgravity, smashed into them. On the ground men heaved frantically and tore their muscles, dragging thewrecks clear. Then the cry would rise, terrible in its urgency, "Gliders!" The next wave were alreadydiving in. One hurtled straight into its immediate predecessor, welding two machines into one ball of fiery scrap.Another, loaded with a bulldozer and other heavy machinery, whipped over sharply to avoid a wreckand plowed into the wall of the jungle at 60 mph. On either side the trees tore off its wings, the fuselagerushed on with its load now wrenched loose from its moorings. When the fuselage halted at last, themachinery continued - at 60 mph. By some miracle it flung the pilot and co=pilot up into the air whileit flew out beneath them. They landed back unhurt. "I planned it just that way," said the Yank pilot. But there were grim scenes, too, where the surgeons amputated by light of the moon, and there weregliders that crashed far beyond in the dark jungle with a frightful cry - and then silence fell while menhunted frantically for their dying comrades. But the enemy kept off. And considering the risks the casualties were small. Of the 54 gliders whichset forth, 37 arrived in "Broadway." Eight landed west of the Chindwin in friendly territory. Anothernine came down in the enemy zone, two within a hundred yards of a Japanese HQ, though the crews gotaway with it. Several flew safely through Jap ack-ack fire. The sappers began at first light to build thestrip. Thirteen hours later the troop transports were landing safely, bringing reinforcements andevacuating the injured. Two days later, 3,000 men of Brigadier "Mad Mike" Calvert's brigade haddisembarked in "Broadway." Three nights after the first fly-in there was a second landing at "Chowringhee." Again, a couple ofdays, and four columns of Brigadier Lentaigne's brigade with their HQ were safely landed. Totally12,000 men and about 1,200 animals were brought in at a casualty cost of 121 men. Four days after the


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landings the columns were marching off into the jungle to start business on Jap communications."Operation Thursday" was over, the Chindits had written a dazzling new page of military history. Nor asyet had the Japs even located them, firmly planted as they were, in Wingate's phrase "in the very guts ofthe enemy. It was his last, as it was his finest exploit. Flying towards India after a tour of his forward positions hisplane was lost in a storm. That night, 24 March, an American pilot reported a fire blazing on amountainside. With Wingate perished the entire crew and two British war correspondents, StuartEmeny of the News-Chronicle and Stanley Wills of the Daily Herald. Wingate's Command was takenover by Maj. Gen. W. D. A. Lentaigne, DSO, one of the column commander in the 1943 thousand-milemarch into Burma. Where the Chindits marched and what they did is a story not yet fully disclosed. In broad outline,Calvert's brigade went westward to cut the roads and railway immediately behind the Japanese whowere opposing General Stilwell's advance towards Mogaung-Myitkyina. Lentaigne's brigade operatedfurther south, also attacking communications. Ferguson's brigade came marching all the way in a wideflanking drive from Ledo towards "Aberdeen." At the same time a mixed British and Kachin force struckeastward to the Chinese frontier to cut the Bhamo-Myitkyina road. They actually entered China at onepoint, later closing in to complete the encirclement of Myitkyina. Some British place-names will be forever associated with these exploits. There was the road-rail blockof "White City," which perhaps had been better named "Red City" from the blood that flowed there. Itwas imperative for the Japs to remove this block, which was throttling the life out of their troops in theMogaung Valley. They brought up tanks to support their infantry. Our gunners replied with 25-poundersand Bofors. A ferocious hand-to-hand battle followed. Men of the South Staffs and Lancashire Fusilierswaded in with bayonet and rifle butt. The Gurkhas and West Africans engaged with their native knives,the Japs with their two handed swords. An incessant rain of grenades burst over the heads of the fightersand among the groups inextricably mixed-up in personal combat. Calvert, with fixed bayonet, led hismen forward a dozen times. The battle continued through the night, while overhead the air transportswent on steadily delivering supplies. At dawn in was seen that the Japs were digging themselves in on a hill overlooking "White City."Immediately an assault was launched to dislodge them. The cost was high. When the general Alliedcounter-attack was unleashed the enemy fled, leaving his wounded, equipment and weapons on theground. But he came back, time and again, striving furiously to break our grip on his Line of Communication.An eyewitness describes how the Japs rushed blindly into our minefields and over our booby-traps, andwere blown to pieces or else mown down like autumn corn by our riflemen and machine-gunners. Waveafter wave of them came on, howling like hyenas. They piled up on to our wire, which by morning wasfestooned with bodies, many of them stripped naked by the explosions from mortars and grenades.Scores were killed by their own Bangalore Torpedoes, which they carried to blow gaps in ourbarricades. At a crisis of the battle, Cochran's Air Commandos planted a huge load of high explosiveson Jap concentrations preparing to move up. The pilots had been reluctant; so short was the distanceseparating the forces that they feared to hit our own men. But urged by the ground troops, theyunloaded on the enemy everything they had, bombing with deadly precision and destroying hundreds."White City" was never taken by the Japs, though we abandoned it later. "Blackpool" was another jungle Tobruk. This was the most famous stomping ground of Lentaigne's oldbrigade: the "Ghost Force." They included men of two Gurkha units, the Cameronians, the King's OwnRoyal Regiment and the RA. This brigade had been flown in to "Chowringhee," but the Japs haddiscovered the strip and concentrated against it a few days later. They bombed and finally occupied it,but by that time Lentaigne's brigade were blocking the Jap Line of Communications northward. Theysaw to it that no reinforcements got up from the south. Then they turned their attention to the enemybranch lines from Indaw to Homalin. With road block and ambush they stopped all traffic. It was now decided to move nearer to Stilwell, who was already investing Kamaing. By an 80-milemarch over the mountain jungle the brigade descended on Hopin, 30 miles southwest of Mogaung, andon the Myitkyina-Mandalay railway. It was here "Blackpool" came into being. The Japs reacted violently against this new challenge. For two weeks they flung strong forcescontinuously against the post. In the final assault, which began on May 23, they brought up 105mm and


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75mm artillery. During one bombardment 300 shells fell inside the perimeter within an hour. The garrison gave up its airstrip and prepared to fight it out. It meant sacrificing the service mostvalued of all by the troops (and most uplifting to them) - the flying-out of their wounded in Cochran'slight L-5 recce planes. The hard decision had to be made. As it was, with superior strength, both in menand arms the Japanese broke through the perimeter of the fortified position and contested the possessionof the commanding hill features. But fighting prolonged engagements is not Long Range Penetrationtroops' role. They fight with the equipment they carry on their backs, and so, with their ammunitionlow, and the foul weather precluding further airborne supplies, the brigade walked out of "Blackpool."They bore their wounded on their shoulders, slashing a path through the undergrowth and man-highelephant grass, hacking footholds up and down precipices of mud. Their line of march lay up the valley of the Indaw Chaung, towards the hills around Mogaung. Thevalley had become a morass and it was hard going for men dog-tired with 20 days and nights almostunceasing fighting. It was now, indeed, that they proved that they were indeed among the "toughest ofthe tough." They attacked and drove in the enemy outpost positions in the hills west and southwest of Mogaung.They fought another bitter battle for the possession of Point 2171, and they held this feature againstnight-and-day artillery bombardment by the Japs until relieved by fresh troops. This flanking thrustconsiderably expedited the final withdrawal of the Japanese from these hills, and the subsequentcapture of Taungni. Most important of all, they demonstrated once more that British and Indian troops can fight back longafter the Jap considers that they have had enough. It is then, in fact, that our men have shownthemselves at their finest in this unrelenting warfare. But by this time the whole campaign on the Northern Front was moving towards its climax. Stilwell'sflying column of Marauders had seized the airstrip at Myitkyina, and were half-way into the town. Hismain forces were moving on Mogaung, Japan's great base in North Burma.


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CLICK ON MAP TO VIEW ENLARGED IN A NEW WINDOW

Contour map above shows what the Fourteenth Army's 700-mile front of forests, mountains, swampsand jungle looks like from the air. The areas where the main fighting took place are picked out by whitelines. Calcutta, main Allied base for the whole front, is 200 miles west of Comilla - quite off this map. Note how each battle area, though separated by huge ranges, remains an integral part of a vast, unified


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NORTHERN FRONT CENTRAL FRONT

front. Enemy documents captured in the Arakan reveal that the Japanese High Command confidentlyexpected their offensive on the Southern Front to suck-in Allied reserves from the Central Front. Similarly, one of the main aims of the enemy offensive on the Central Front was to cut the life-linefeeding General Stilwell's troops advancing towards Myitkyina along the Northern Front. This life-lineis the Bengal-Assam railway which runs in a wide arc from Calcutta and up the Brahmaputra Valley toDimapur (Fourteenth Army railhead) then along to Ledo where Stilwell began his Road. The Allies also linked the Central and Northern Fronts in one plan - flying in Wingate's Invasionforces from behind the Imphal mountains into the land between the main Jap bases for both fronts. The advantages enjoyed by the enemy on these two fronts in having superior road, rail and rivercommunications between the forward areas and their main bases at Shwebo, Mandalay and theirsouthern port at Rangoon, are obvious. Compare them with the solitary overland over-worked routeserving the Allied front from Dimapur. This handicap was overcome by development of air transport ona scale which, at the time, was greater than had ever previously been attempted on any of the world'sbattlefronts and served as a pattern for many of the major air operations in Europe.

SOUTHERN FRONT

CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL MAP TO VIEW ENLARGED IN A NEW WINDOW WITH ADDITIONAL DETAILS

Stilwell Advances from Ledo Now we must turn to the primary objective of all these operations, the Supreme Allied Commander'sdirective to the Fourteenth Army - to clear North Burma and advance to the line Mogaung-Myitkyina.This brings us to the remarkable soldier, U.S. General Joseph W. Stilwell, Deputy Supreme Commanderunder Lord Louis Mountbatten, who bore the main part in this enterprise. General Stilwell is a West Pointer who fought in World War I, and thereafter spent many years ofservice in the Philippines and China. He is 61 years old, shrewd, caustic and as craggy as they come. Hecan march 30 miles a day, as he very frequently has, urging his officers and troops forward with


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General Joseph W. StilwellDeputy Supreme Allied

Commander

picturesque adjurations and many stratagems. As Stilwell closed his 60th yearhe gave up chain-smoking. He had scaled a one-in-two gradient in theMogaung Valley, and paused for breath half-way up. Stilwell is known to theworld as "Vinegar Joe," though his troops call him "Uncle Joe" and equallymean it. There are scores of stories about him, not suited to this chronicle. In early 1942 Stilwell was in China, charged with the mission of improvingthe training and combat methods of twenty Chinese divisions. An AmericanLt. General, he held the appointment of Chief of Staff to GeneralissimoChiang Kai-shek. Before he could start work his task had already changed.The Japanese had changed it. Driving westward across the mouth of theSalween River they captured Rangoon, closing the great port of the BurmaRoad. They streamed up the valley towards Mandalay and beyond, seizingthe Road itself. General Alexander's outnumbered forces withdrew, fighting along rearguard battle. With them went the Chinese divisions under Stilwell which had been hurried into try and stem the invasion. "We were dammed well licked," said Stilwell, "the Japs ran us out ofBurma." The withdrawal became a retreat, redeemed from disaster by the fortitude and courage of the Alliedsoldier. Most of the Chinese troops in Alexander's command pulled back across the Salween. HisBritish forces he brought back into India. Lt. Gen. Slim commanded the Burma Corps in this longretreat. It included the 17 and 39 Indian Divisions, and, for a time, the 38 Chinese Division. They werein rags, hungry, short of weapons and ammunition, sick of malaria and dysentery, dog-tired, but still ontheir feet and fighting. From this indomitable rearguard arose the conquering host of the FourteenthArmy. Stilwell could have flown out. He marched by the soldiers' road. "Many of you will think I am a b--before we get out," he told his party of men and women of five nationalities, "but you will all get outalive." So they did, climbing the Chin Hills as the last lap. Of those who continued northward andsought escape by the dreaded Hukawng Valley, thousands perished by the roadside. For Stilwell three big jobs waited: (i) to re-build into an army the Chinese troops who had beenevacuated into India; (ii) to create a chain of airfields in northeast India to supply the Chinese Army inChina, and keep her in the war. This called for cooperation of a high order, and it was freely given. Sothe soldiers of one nation were trained by the officers of a second nation, within the frontiers of a third.With the aid of the British and Indian Army and civilians, and the labor of the Assam tea-planters andthe Nepalese, Naga and Kachin hillfolk, the airfields were constructed, and aerial traffic over theperilous Hump to Kunming raised until it exceeded the total military tonnage ever shipped along theBurma Road. Third, came the greatest project of all, the building of the Ledo Road. This is the "impossible" highwaywhich starting from Ledo at the railhead of the Bengal-Assam railway, climbs the 5,000-foot ranges ofPatkai Bum and emerges at Shingbwiyang. From there it crosses the broad bowl of the Upper Chindwin,mounts the Hukawng Valley to its watershed and descends again into the Mogaung Valley. This roadwas the axis of Stilwell's advance. No drum-beats heralded the start of the giant project of the Ledo Road. though it has not lackedrecognition since, it was long before security permitted the mention of it. What existed previously was apath for mules, the historic refugee trail along which the exodus from Burma had stumbled two yearsearlier. The Yanks would make of it a 30-foot, standard double-tracked highway, metalled, trenched,banked, bridged and inclined. Bulldozers, power-shovels, cranes, steamrollers, trucks would roll inmassive mechanized procession from the American production lines, 15,000 miles away, across twooceans and past three continents to the wild Naga Hills. Thousands of men would drive the road andbridge the fords, pushing through forests of solid bamboo, scaling cliffs, edging along precipices. Underthe blazing sun, in the choking dust, in mud, mist, monsoon and blizzard, building by the moon and bysearchlight's beam. The Road demanded much, some said it demanded all. Yet the concept of its engineering did notdictate the strategy of the campaign. They interacted, or if you prefer it, merged. In jungle war the grandcampaigns, at any rate, still move along the narrow spearheads of the Lines of Communications. Theadjacent wilderness is commanded by the possession of the milestones. There is, as we have seen, one


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variation of these logistics - unlimited air supply. We had good air supply in the northern campaign, butthough it can serve emergency perfectly, it is in general the least economical method and we never had itunlimited. This was the method of the march. First went Stilwell's U.S. trained Chinese divisions. They drove theenemy before them. On either side, in flanking movements which swept deep into the hills, movedChinese patrols and Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill's Marauders, which included veteran infantry assaulttroops from Guadalcanal. These forces deceived the Jap, distracted him, cut into his rear, threw roadblocks across his retreat. On the heels of the fighters - often alongside them - came the trail-blazers,engineer recce-parties hacking a "trace" with axes across virgin jungle, working out gradients as theywent. Behind them came the first bulldozer, shoving its way forward wherever it could get, scraping outthe urgent "combat road" for immediate battle supply. Last came the main highway builders, blastingtheir track, metalling it, constructing a hundred bridges that would hold against the floods, cutting aswathe twice as wide on either side of the road to let the sun come in and dry the surface. All werearmed, for the Jap never wearied of sneak flank raids. Then men would drop the pick and seize thebayonet, or perhaps fight it out with the pick.

General Stilwell's forces battled their way from Ledo up to the watershed of the Hukawng and down through theMogaung Valley. General Wingate's skytroops landed astride the Japanese main line of communications to Mogaungand Myitkyina from the south and southeast. Drawing by Booker Cooke.

Chinese, Chins, Indians, Nepalese, Nagas slashed, hauled and piled. Negroes drove machines. Black,brown, yellow, white men toiled shoulder deep in the rushing streams, belt deep in the mud. Stilwellmoved on: The Road followed a mile a day. Down it flowed wagons, weapons carriers, guns and tanks.The maker of the road was the slow-speaking silver-haired Virginian. Brig. Gen. Lewis Pick, whodesigned the Missouri dam to irrigate a million acres. He had more water than he wanted on the LedoRoad. The aircraft supply of U.S. Tenth Air Force (Maj. Gen. Howard C. Davidson) roared in between thejungle and the ceiling of the rain clouds. Airstrips were made in 12 hours, under artillery fire. Theadvance of the army was often a maneuver of double encirclement. There was the Allied front. Thenbehind the Japs another Allied layer, more Japs, and further on still more advanced Allied units.


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Kamaing was encircled by a long flanking march and Mogaung, 16 miles beyond simultaneouslythreatened, for another Allied force was approaching from the south, where they had insertedthemselves by airborne invasion. This was the brigade of Mad Mike Calvert. Stilwell's march began towards the end of 1943. He was over the mountains by the New Year, andbuilding up his base at Shingbwiyang. He had to fight his way forward from this point. Held up by aroad block, Uncle Joe sought to strengthen his attack with armor and accordingly signaled ColonelRothwell Brown's Chinese tank unit, which was finishing its training at Ledo, "Will your outfit work?" The word came back, "Most of them can drive a bit and most can shoot a bit." The next signal was anorder. "Send them down as fast as they'll travel. If they only drive behind our lines it'll be a helluva helpto morale." The tanks came slithering over still unmetalled mountain road, driven by boys who threemonths before had never seen a train. A couple of tanks went over the khud in the storm and darkness.Others went down the steepest gradients on the road, lashed by cable to a bulldozer which dug its bladeinto the surface to act as a brake. Until they came to Shingbwiyang this unit's action had been confined to hunting water buffalo. Theywent into the jungle to rustle up the Jap patrols and crashed straight into the main base of a Jap divisionpreparing for a counter-offensive. One tank went heading through it in the night and plunged into theriver, where it was instantly swallowed by the muddy water. A second overturned, and the Japsswarmed over it like ants to butcher the crew. But the rest formed a defensive leaguer with the Chinese22 Division infantry scraping fox-holes between the tanks to complete the ring. They dragged theirwounded inside it, and the operators wirelessed to Stilwell their vital information. A few days later 22Division, reinforced by Marauders and supported by these tanks, broke the front of the Japanese 18Division, the conquerors of Singapore, at Walawbum. They collected jeeps, armored cars and trucks ofU.S. origin that the Japs had won at Rangoon and Mandalay. They also acquired a purely Japanesetrophy - the official seal of the Jap 18 Division. Stilwell shoved on up the Hukawng, his Chinese 22 Division sweeping the western slopes, 38 Divisionthe eastern. It took him nineteen weeks of hard fighting. The Road followed him like his shadow. Allwas going well. To the south, a British column had passed the Chindwin after a hundred mile march.An eyewitness who reached the area by plane and alighted on the sandy bank on the east side of theChindwin described how this LRP column emerged from the dense jungle in single-file, weary andweighted down with their full equipment. They trudged to the water's edge and as dusk fell camp firessprang up all along the fringe of the jungle. Suddenly came the drone of a multi-engined plane and at asharp order every fire was extinguished. The plane circled overhead, flashed a message to which a lampfrom the river bank sent an answer. Then petrol fires blazed up in the form of a huge letter "L." Theplane now swept low and from its dark hull dropped bundle after bundle containing bread, mail,ammunition and even spectacles and a dozen different articles for which the men had asked.Throughout the whole of the epic hundred-mile march there had been only 18 casualties in the column.After a brief rest the men crossed the Chindwin in rubber dinghies dropped by air and continued theirmarch right across the enemy's Line of Communication. Meanwhile, far away to the east one moremixed force of Gurkhas and Kachin Levies were making steady ground from Fort Hertz towardsMyitkyina. It was at this moment that the entire front (that is, both the Allies and the Japs) was galvanized by thenews of Wingate's skytroops landing in Burma, then the greatest airborne enterprise in history. On 19 March, his 61st birthday, Stilwell crossed the pass from Hukawng Valley into the MogaungValley. The same day the Gurkha-Kachin column slashed their way in a hand-to-hand battle intoSumprabum. The HQ cook produced a chocolate-iced cake which read "Happy Birthday Uncle Joe!"and Joe himself sported a smart clean uniform and even put on his badges of rank. His troops claimed atotal of 4,000 Japanese killed. Thunder on the right. The scene suddenly changed. The Japs were pouring over the Chindwin, headingtowards Dimapur and the Bengal-Assam railway that was Stilwell's Lifeline. Joe looked over hisshoulder, and he would have been crazy not to do so. He had been instructed by General Slim, underwhose command at that time he still served, to occupy the Mogaung-Myitkyina area. Should he nowhalt and detach one of his Chinese divisions to guard his Line of Communications? Slim weighed the same problem and reached two bold decisions. First he ordered Stilwell to continuehis advance, relying on the arrival of reinforcements from Arakan and India to hold the invaders in


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"Death Valley" Thousands of refugees died on thistrail from Burma. Stilwell, marching back, made it

his Ledo Road.

check. Secondly, what should be done about theChindits, who had been airborne into Burma, with thepurpose of assisting Stilwell's plans by cutting the JapLines of Communication? Slim ordered them to carry onwith their original task, which they did, immenselyfacilitating operations in the Mogaung-Myitkyina area. So, while Imphal-Kohima's commanders parried theenemy's blows, Stilwell punched him. At Shadazup andLaban his infantry cut up the Jap garrisons; at Inkangtanghe flung in heavier tanks, manned by Chinese crews, andoverran their well-entrenched gun emplacements. Someof the Allied tanks got lost in the dense jungle and theircrews would probably have been forced to abandonthem but aircraft carrying out photographicreconnaissance took photographs of the surroundingcountry, which they dropped to the tank crews to showthem the best way home to the main forces. Two years tothe day that he had been "run out of Burma," Uncle Joecame marching back. The Japs bore their reverses with less fortitude. In manya fox-hole captured during the Allied advance our troopsfound them hanging by the neck with their own belts.Others had chosen the traditional method of hari-kiri; In one place our men unwittingly interrupted apair of Japs about to cut their throats. It would not be proper to leave the Mogaung Valley campaign without a word about Stilwell's Chinesetroops. They had been marching and fighting now for six months and had acquitted themselves withvery great credit. The Chinese infantryman moves about his business in his own way and at his ownpace. His courage and endurance are exemplary. Stilwell rates their capacity high. Colonel Brown'sChinese tank column killed more than 2,000 enemy between Maingkwan and Walawbum with less than10 weeks training. Most of the troops are youthful by our standards; some were as young as 15 and fewin the ranks are older than 25. One determined adventurer who smuggled himself over the Hump in arice barrel was nine years old. The Chinese are surely the best walkers in the world. The famous Eighth Route Army walked 6,000miles across China in twelve months fighting most of the way. And "Joe Chinese" carries all hepossesses on a pole balanced on his shoulder. On 17 May, as Stilwell's main forces closed in on Kamaing came the unexpected electrifying news thatanother American-Chinese column had seized Myitkyina airfield. On reaching the watershed ofMogaung Valley, Stilwell had detached Merrill's Marauders and Chinese forces for an outflankingattack on Myitkyina, railhead of the Burma railway. They scaled the 7,000-foot Naun Hykit Pass and bya forced march of 20 days, along secret paths, appeared suddenly on the Myitkyina airstrip. TheChinese actually seized the greater part of the town by surprise assault but, in the confusion of thenight, some units came under the fire of their own machine-gunners and a withdrawal was ordered.They continued to dominate the railway station, and thus isolated Myitkyina from all communicationwith Mogaung, the next big station down the line. The besiegers were, of course, themselves cut off from all land communication. But - they had the air.Five hours after the Marauders seized the airstrip, gliders loaded with airborne engineers and theirequipment came sailing in. By next morning the strip had been shaped up well enough for transports toland with their vital cargoes of supplies and reinforcements. The enemy artillery, of course, had therange of the strip, and all day they played upon it. At night, their snipers crawled as near as they daredand fired into the main camp. In the town, which stands in a loop of the Upper Irrawaddy, the Japs had 1,500 determined fighters,deeply dug-in. They reinforced this garrison to many over its original strength before the town could beenveloped. Beyond the river, north and south, General Lentaigne's Long Range Penetration troopsoperated, cutting main Jap communication with the garrison. By night, however, the enemy managed to


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ferry fresh troops across the river. Westward, "Mad Mike" Calvert's troops stormed Mogaung, promptlyeffecting a junction there with the Chinese division which had taken Kamaing. Thus all Jap railcommunication with the south was finally severed. So worn and battle-stained had become the uniformsof all the armies fighting in this jungle that the Chinese and Chindits tied orange strips to their hats andarms to distinguish each other from the Japs. The battle for Myitkyina continued. A long, grim. foot-by-foot struggle. The garrison were prepared tofight it out to the last man in the last bunker - and to give them credit for their courage, they did. Thetask of the besiegers was to prise them out one by one, for the depth of their bunkers defied fieldartillery and all except direct hits by dive-bomber. Even flame-throwers did not shift them. They laydoggo until the barrage lifted and the assault went in. Then up rose the enemy machine gunners and didtheir deadly work. Holding their fire until almost the last moment, the Jap machine gunners indeedbehaved with very great resolution and skill. Stilwell energetically pressed the assault, throwing-incompanies of U.S. combat engineers from the Ledo Road as infantry. They acquitted themselves mostgallantly. The besiegers, however, were being rapidly reinforced while the besieged steadily diminished. Theproblem of supply became the main one. Throughout the entire action everything was borne in, or outby air. Artillery (the 75mm field pieces were Chinese-manned, the ack-ack batteries British-manned)ammunition, food, medical supplies, all were carried on to the strip in every kind of weather. Americanfliers finally crowned their previous supply efforts by transporting, in pieces, a 155mm howitzer.Transport planes landed in darkness, under fire (the enemy line was 3,000 yards away) in a cyclone ofmud created by their own propellers. They evacuated both Myitkyina and Mogaung wounded, who hadbeen flown in by light recce plane. Doc Seagrave's surgeons and nurses, stationed in a revetment just offthe runway, operated on a hundred men a day. Enemy-held Myitkyina was dive-bombed repeatedly by Davidson's planes. In return, the Japs broughtup a 150mm gun ("Pistol Pete") on the railway to shell the strip every night. But now the ring had closed round the doomed garrison. Lentaigne's troops (they had passed underthe overall command of Stilwell on 17 May, the day the airstrip had been seized) now completelybarred escape towards the eastern bank of the Irrawaddy. Parties of Japs who made the attempt by raftwere spotted and wiped out. A fresh Chinese column arrived to reinforce the final assault on Mytikyina. Brig. Gen. T. F. Wessel'sforces made no mistake; this was the pay-off and he had set his time limit. At 3:45 p.m. 3 August thelast enemy post fell, and Myitkyina was ours. The siege had lasted 78 days. Uncle Joe took his bow before a world audience. He was given his fourth star, promoting him to therank of full general. He had said "Myitkyina" and meant it when many considered it a pious hope. Hehad employed on his task some of the finest fighting material of five nations; American, British,Chinese, Indian and West African. He had been backed by all powerful Air, and an impressive park ofgiant mechanical road makers. But the dynamo that drove this massive apparatus forward had been thewill of a man - Stilwell. The strategic values of Myitkyina are considerable. It was already before the Jap war a station on theold China-India air route, avoiding the more hazardous route over the higher Hump. Its airfield iscapable of immense expansion. Already this capital town of North Burma is assuming the appearance ofa second Croydon or Halifax, 12-ton power shovels are biting into the mountainsides, crushers andsteam rollers are lengthening the runway so that even Superforts can land and take off. By the first weekin September as many as 250 planes were landing and leaving daily. Secondly, Myitkyina is a furthergiant stride along the Ledo-Burma Road to China, though the Ledo Road has yet to be carried forwardfrom the Mogaung Valley. Thirdly, Myitkyina stands on the broad Irrawaddy below where the riverrushes out from the narrow gorges of the Kachin Hills, becoming navigable for barges and rafts. Fromthis river port, as from Mogaung, stores can be shipped downstream to the Allied armies alreadymarching far southward. Finally, Mogaung-Myitkyina line may be described as the fighter-bomber startline for the attack on Central Burma. While Wessel's men mopped-up at Myitkyina, the British 36 Division under the command of Maj.Gen. F. W. Festing, DSO, arrived by air and at once took up the pursuit of the Japs down the railwaytowards Mogaung. In the nearby hills the retreating enemy linked up with the remnants of the expelledgarrison of that place. The first major engagement of 36 Division was at Hill 60. Its capture considerably


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The Japanese invader also once gazed upon "Imphal's bloody plain" - but notfor long.

The jeep will drive through rivers, but not under them.

accelerated the advance along the railway corridor towards Hopin and Katha. Within a few weeks of arriving on the Myitkyina front the new division had captured Pinbaw andHopin. Five hundred Japs were found dead or dying in Hopin, convincing testimony to the accuracy ofAllied bombers and artillery. As these words are written (10 October) the Allied armies of the north are fanning out as theyadvance, to weld a unified front together with General Slim's troops on the Chindwin sector to the westand the Chinese "Salween Force" moving in from Tengchung on the east. North Burma has been liberated, and the way is paved for the Ledo Road to link with the BurmaRoad.

The soldier's best friend in thejungle.

Monsoon: mud on the landing grounds, storm in the sky.


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Deep in Jap-held Burma Lentaigne's men made friends.

'Vi-Spring' Comfort athwart bamboo poles. But the rainscame.

Next step perhaps their last - elephant grass is cover forthe enemy too.

West African troops crossing a chaung. They kept theirkit dry.

Japs Invade India from theChindwin

Each of those elevations you see on the contour map represents a mountain or razor-edge ridge risingperhaps to 10,000 feet, those sinuous black lines winding along the valleys are not roads, but rivers andwater courses, formed by the melting snows of the Himalayas and the rains which pelt down in theseparts for seven out of the twelve months. There are probably not more than six motorable roads in the whole of the 25,000 square miles of theCentral Front to which our story now progresses, and only two railways (with variable gauges). Onecomes up from Calcutta in the Bay of Bengal and ends at Ledo, while the other comes up fromMandalay and serves the former Jap bases of Mogaung and Myitkyina. The first lay in Allied territory. The second was Japanese. The path of both roads and railways hasbeen hacked through thorny scrub, bamboo and elephant grass. The flooded paddy fields are the onlyother breaks in an almost solid forest mass. It seems incredible that modern mechanized war could be fought out in such surroundings. Yet it wasover these same towering ranges and through these very swamps that General Alexander conducted his


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Lt. Gen. Sir Montague StopfordCommander, 33 Indian Corps.

Lt. Gen. Sir Geoffry ScoonesCommander, 4 Indian Corps.

retreating army in May, 1942, and General Bill Slim fought the rearguard actions from Rangoon toIndia. Now, two years later, Lord Louis Mountbatten would begin the reconquest of all that had beenlost, and leading his Fourteenth Army back in triumph would go General Slim, KCB, honored by theKing for his famous victories. But meantime the monsoons saturated the mountainous terrain with its quota of more than 100 inchesand the Commands of both sides put the finishing touches to plans for securing the initiative over thisforbidding battleground. The loss of equipment in favor of the European Fronts necessitated a reshuffle in Fourteenth Armyplans. They were now thinned-down to that of engaging the Japanese Army in Burma so that theseforces would be deflected from General Stilwell's front. Alternative plans had been drawn up in casethe enemy attempted to bring off a surprise such as the offensive he tried in the Arakan. The duty ofpreparing the broad field for these land operations devolved, under the Supreme Commander, uponGeneral Sir George Giffard, GCE, DSO, ADC, C-in-C 11 Army Group, an officer distinguished for hisleadership in the East African jungle war against Germany in 1914-18. Giffard's energy and enterprisesecured for the Fourteenth Army the weapons and the tools with which they did their magnificent job.To Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, KCB, DSO, AFC, Air C-in-C in South East Asia, who directedall air operations, the RAF owed a debt equally profound. Fourteenth Army's assessment of the enemy's next move turned out to be accurate. The Japs hadplanned another surprise stroke but on much bigger and bolder lines than in the Arakan. It was no lessthan invasion of India via Imphal and Dimapur. The Jap purpose was threefold (i) To climb thewall of the mountains beyond the Chindwin andfall upon the main Allied advance base at Imphal,breaking our grip on the entire frontier, (ii)Securing the line of the Imphal-Kohima supplyroad, to sweep on into the Assam Plain and getstride the Bengal-Assam railway. Thus theywould cut the life-line of General Joe Stilwell'sadvance towards Myitkyina along the MogaungValley, and force him back on Ledo, (iii) Tooverrun the Assam airfields and disrupt theairborne traffic from them over the Hump toChina. Thus the Japs would dry up the petrol flow which kept General Chennault's 14th Air Forcebombing over occupied China and Japan, and stop all munitions supply to Chiang Kai-shek's armies. Bythese few bold strokes the Japs might sever all communication with China and force her out of the war.Glittering prizes, indeed, and the Japs unsheathed sharp swords to gain them. Success in this matterwould offset many recent failures in the Pacific. Said General Mutaguchi's Order of the Day to the Japanese invasion forces on the opening of thecampaign, "This operation will engage the attention of the whole world and is eagerly awaited by ahundred million of our countrymen. Its success will have a profound effect on the course of the war,and may even lead to its conclusion. We must therefore expend every ounce of energy and talent toachieve our purpose." Accordingly, 100,000 crack imperial troops were detailed for the task. They were well versed in junglewarfare, and rehearsed in some other matters also. One of the things impressed upon them was that anenemy remained an enemy whether he lay wounded on the ground, or on a stretcher or even in ahospital bed. In all such events the recommended method was the short thrust and twist of the bayonet:ammunition was to be conserved for battle. It was on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1944, that the first Jap column forded the Chindwinby way of Homalin. A second column made the crossing at Thaungdut, 30 miles southward. Theymarched silently and swiftly, more lightly equipped than any soldiers who had previously set forth onsuch a mission. Speed was its essence: they must reach Imphal and Kohima before Alliedreinforcements could arrive. Ahead of the main assault forces screens of patrols had been operatingacross the river for several days. For a time they deceived us as to their direction. As the Jap columns moved through the mountains towards Imphal Plain, their planes bombed the


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combat area. Sir John Baldwin's Third Tactical Air Force struck back hard at the enemy bases all alongthe Chindwin. Five days after passing the Chindwin the Jap army stood on the frontier of India, gazing down from theSomra Hills into Assam (22 March). They were engaged by British and Indian troops and had to fighttheir way forward. But the flag of the Rising Sun had been raised on Indian soil for the first time. Forthe second time since the New Year, Tokyo was all lit-up with victory. In night-and-day shifts the Japradio celebrated, boasted and threatened with more to come. Programs were broken off while excitedvoices in ghastly English reeled out to Indian listeners the list of Jap successes all along the frontier.Yes, sir: The March on Delhi had this time really begun. This ballyhoo was not without effect in India. The Supreme Allied Commander and his generals in no wise shared the widespread alarm. Laterevents showed why. The Japanese offensive was unfolding not only as expected but substantially asdesired. The enemy banked on a quick decision. In claiming that Imphal would fall by 27 March it isprobable that Tokyo radio was not ahead of High Command schedule. A third Jap column got acrossthe Chindwin and began moving up the Kabaw Valley. By now the heat was thoroughly turned on. verysoon 17 Indian Division, who manned the Allied outpost at Tiddim, 164 miles to the south, were cutoff. Jubilantly, the Japs claimed that they had got them "in the bag." Actually, even before the first Jap platoon had crossed the river, General Slim had concerted planswith the 4 Indian Corps Commander Lt. Gen. Sir Geoffry Scoones, KBE, CSI, OBE, DSO, MC, to meetthe situation. General Slim had foreseen the coming events, and the plans drawn up to meet them werethose on which the battle in the Imphal area was fought. These plans, among other things, involved awithdrawal from certain areas so as to concentrate our forces and to throw the disadvantages of longand vulnerable communications on the Japanese instead of ourselves. They provided for the holding ofthe Imphal Plain and the denial of that area and the food it contained to the Japanese. One of therequirements was that 17 Division should be withdrawn. Orders were accordingly issued to Maj. Gen.David Cowan, DSO, MC, Commander of 17 Division to evacuate his position as early as possible. Thegeneral and his men had now been fighting the Japs for two years on end. Indeed the famous "BlackCats," as these veterans of the Burma campaign of '42 were known from their division sign, were justabout the "oldest inhabitants" of the Jap war.

Five days after crossing the River Chindwin, in their second attempt to invade India, Japanese forces had scaled the


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mountain barrier guarding India's eastern frontier and were in sight of the main British base of Imphal. Simultaneously another enemy force was hitting hard at our positions around Kohima and the crack Japanese 33Division was seriously harassing the withdrawal of 17 Division from Tiddim. Drawing by Booker Cooke.

It was 12 March when Cowan received his orders, and he proposed to move at dawn on the 4th. At 3a.m. of the 13th, however, while lying in bed, Cowan decided to go that same day. He rooted out hisbrigadiers and told them to be ready to march at sunset. That evening the entire division moved off,leaving Tiddim in flames. They took with them 4,000 mules and 2,000 vehicles, and in the darknessmany units covered 40 miles of the tricky mountain road which lay athwart the enemy's line of advancefrom the Chindwin. The set task of the elite Jap 33 Division was to destroy Cowan's division before it reached Imphal.They accomplished it, indeed, several times on the radio where "only the commander and 26 menescaped to tell the tale." The Japanese actually did make the most strenuous efforts to slice up 17Division as it moved along the trail. The enemy pushed on through the jungle, emerging to erect roadblocks wherever they could jump ahead of the retiring forces. These road blocks they covered witheffective fire. Indeed 17 Division were under fire practically the whole of the way, their gunners blastingopen the Jap road blocks ahead of them and forward echelons storming and clearing them literally asthe wagons of the division lumbered up the valley at their heels. The delays caused to the withdrawal of 17 Division by enemy attacks enabled the Japs to penetratedeeply round the flanks of the division. To deal with this, Corps Commander General Scoones ordered23 Indian Division (Maj. Gen. Ouvry Roberts, DSO) to assist the withdrawal of 17 Division along its160-mile road. This placed a considerable strain on 23 Division which already had commitments in theUkhrul area, and it left no reserve in the Imphal Plain, but the task was carried out successfully and therisk entailed was justified. To discharge his new obligations it was necessary for Roberts to eject the Japforces which had dug themselves in astride the Imphal road and who denied passage to the withdrawingBritish forces. Supported by light tanks of 7 Cavalry, 23 Division attacked vigorously and after heavyfighting drove out the enemy, thus very materially assisting the continued march of 17 Division towardsImphal. Now also converging on Imphal from Tamu came Maj. Gen. Douglas Gracey's 20 Indian Division. Theyhad been guarding the shortest route to India, the Tamu-Palel road which runs across the malaria-bedknown as the Kabaw Valley. Gracey's men had long been trained in jungle conditions and they also hadmeasured the Jap. They were sure that they could hold him in whatever strength he sought to pass. Butit was no part of the main plan to fight in the Kabaw Valley longer than it suited us. Therefore, Gracyalso had been ordered to withdraw slowly. He took his men into his confidence explaining to them thebroader picture of the campaign. So 20 Division, like 17 Division, set off homeward cheerfully to fititself into the planned framework, determined at any rate to beat the slats out of all Japs who got intheir way. The Frontier Force Rifles covered the right flank of the division as it drew back towardsPalel. The Japs followed closely. One of the enemy's main objectives in this sector was Palel airfield. They fought hard for it, and whenregular attacks failed they tried tricks. One extraordinary device, apparently designed to create panic byits nature, was to march steadily forward in columns of threes. When they came within the sights of 20Division machine guns they were scythed down in rows of threes. So the ordered march of the outpost divisions continued towards Imphal. They carried out a fightingretreat which, though on a smaller scale, resembles in its mastery and resolute conduct that of Kutusovbefore Napoleon in 1812. That is they fought the whole of the way and left nothing behind them buttheir dead. They killed at least twice the number of their own losses. Said Cowan as they enteredImphal after three weeks battle fore, aft and flanking: "We are the better troops, and every man in thisdivision knows it. The moment we have the Jap on the move, we've got him." West of Tamu a swift enemy thrust, supported by armor, was sharply checked when tanks of the 3Carabiniers lay in ambush and hammered the enemy in the first armored clash on the Burma frontier.Meantime, other Jap units had reached the fringe of Imphal Plain and were less than eight miles southof the town. The Siege of Imphal had begun. The offensive was now fully unfolding along the entire frontier. Another Jap punch, further northtowards Kohima, was being driven home with extraordinary violence. Here, if one is seeking points forcriticism, occurred the only under-appreciation by Fourteenth Army HQ in a campaign waged in the


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Up to the axles in mud. Yeah, and often up to the chassis.

most opaque "fog of war" on any front. We reckoned on the Japs coming to Kohima but not in suchforce or so soon. An Assam Regiment who held the covering position to the east, were pressed backfighting stubbornly against this superior weight. The Japanese paid stiff gate-money for their entrance

into India with 2,000 dead. But their propagandaexploited the advance to the limit as evidencethat the Allies were in general retreat in India. Neither Scoones, nor Slim, nor Giffard norMountbatten himself, who was constantly on thefront in these critical days, harbored any doubt asto the outcome, as was shown by certainfar-reaching decisions taken at this moment. Butthe "flap" in areas far from the fighting line wasconsiderable. Every town in India had its "bazar-telegraph" from the front, and with no censoroperating on this line rumor flashed throughwithout cease and ran about the streets like a maddog.

The situation there was tense. To an anxious Assembly in Delhi General Auchinleck, C-in-C, India,gave reassurances of his complete confidence in the Commanders and troops defending the frontiers.Reporting on the position "as made known to me by Lord Louis Mountbatten who is responsible foroperations on this front," General Auchinleck said, "Imphal is still in our hands and is strongly held.Penetrations by small parties of the enemy are always possible, but are not likely to be of a majorimportance. Our Commanders do not intend to let Imphal fall into enemy hands." Some were sensibleenough to believe him. Others preferred to listen to the undercurrent of criticism in U.S. and U.K. onthe handling of this latest menace. Americans were naturally concerned over the safety of Stilwell andhis forces in the Mogaung Valley. They were also wondering about Chennault in China. "Confusion and alarm," which the enemy Intelligence reported as raging in the Allied camp, was notapparent to observers in the various HQ's. Indeed, subsequent comment was that the Jap attack hadbeen taken too lightly. Nothing could be further from the truth - but at that time it was not possible totell all the truth. So far we have described the Japanese initiative, and the Allied counter-action. It would be cardinallywrong, however, to suppose that in the general course of the campaign the Fourteenth ArmyCommander conformed to the invader's idea. On the contrary, he had his own. He had decided to fightthe Jap, not at the end of a long British Line of Communications, but at the end of a long Jap Line ofCommunications. He did not invite the enemy assault, but he made all preparation to receive and breakit. At Imphal, the 4 Corps of Lieutenant General Scoones, already reinforced, awaited the exultantoncoming Japs. Instead of further withdrawals therefore (which the Japs confidently expected) a solidwall of resistance now rose in their path. The Army Commander had already cropped the garrison's"tail" by marching (or flying) out 50,000 non-combatants and civilians. For the remainder as tensionrose with the Japs closing every land exit, 4 Corps Commander Scoones imposed a dusk-to-dawncurfew. Fourteenth's "Grocer" (Maj. Gen. Alf Snelling, MGA) had received his orders, too, and they werelarge. He was required to stock up Imphal Plain with food, ammunition, guns and armor. The place ofthe departed non-combatants was filled with fighting men - some of the finest in South East Asia. TheJaps had cut the land routes for the second time in two months. And, for the second time in two monthsSlim outwitted them by flying in his requirements and replacements over their heads. On this occasion itwas a very greatly expanded business, for two entire divisions (5 Indian Division and 7 Indian Division)were brought up from Arakan where they had been in action a week before. Men, mules, guns andtransport - a bold, secret, and superbly executed movement. By the time the invaders approachedImphal it was not so much a fortified base in a "state of defense" as a powerful offensive springboard. Soit proved to be. The Japs came quite near enough. They reached positions both in the hills above the Imphal airfieldand northeast of the city. But prompt action by the newly arrived 5 Division, reinforced by tanks,


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Maj. General George E.Stratemeyer

Commander, Eastern AirCommand, Deputy Air

Commander, South East AsiaCommand

Air Chief Marshal Sir RichardPeirse, KCB, DSO, AFC

Air Commander-in-Chief, SouthEast Asia Command

dislodged them and prevented their guns from doing any material damage. The fall of Imphal had been officially claimed by Tokyo on March 30, that of Kohima early in April.The Jap troops certainly did their utmost to realize these anticipations. They threw into the battle, asGeneral Mutaguchi had urged, "every ounce of energy and talent" they possessed Not less energy or talent had been expended by the Imphal garrison to frustrate this purpose. Infantry,artillery armor and air forces had been assembled in adequate strength to meet any possible threat. TheJap assaults crashed like waves in a heavy sea against the fortress-walls of Imphal, but it was the wavesthat broke. As the invaders swept into the plain they were met by the cannonade of hundreds of artillery, tanks,machine guns, and the rifles and grenades of the inflexible infantry, As in Arakan the tanks inflictedvery heavy damage, climbing right up to the top Jap hillside bunkers to blast them at point-blank range.The salvoes of the artillery rolled like thunder through the valleys. The war in the air was not less devastating. In the Battle of Imphal the Japs brought up fighterformations for the first time for many weeks. They lasted a rather shorter span than they had in Arakan.Third Tactical Air Force swept them out of the Burma skies, then turned completely to close andremote target support for Fourteenth Army. They shot up and bombed enemy concentrations, dumps,transport, bridges, river craft and locomotives. The monsoon in no way diminished their activity. On thecontrary, Third TAF fighters and medium bombers stepped up their sorties to 24,000 sorties in its worstfour months, nearly six times the figure of the previous year's record. Only those who have flown into ablack monsoon know what that means. The man who survives it has looked into hell. All over enemy-held Burma ranged the medium bombers of Eastern Air Command. The "heavies" wentas far as Bangkok. In three days USAAF sweeps over the Jap air bases notched 63 enemy planes on theground. Already, by the time of Arakan they had closed Rangoon for ocean going supply. Now ourplanes swept the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin to deny the enemy his vital river traffic. The railway theynever permitted to remain in full working order. The diaries of Jap prisoners are eloquent testimony tothe horrors of rail travel in Burma. This systematic destruction of the enemy's Lines of Communicationhad decisive effects upon his campaign. Once he failed in his gigantic gamble to break into India in tendays his fate was really sealed, for his own supplycould nowhere keep pace with his requirements.The final results of this collapse of his logistics areshown today as the triumphant Allied pursuituncovers the appalling state of the retreatingJapanese army. But while Stratemeyer's combat planes harried theenemy his transport aircraft poured in supplies toour own troops in Imphal Plain. Day after day thehungry Japs on the surrounding hills saw the streamof troop carriers bearing in food, fuel, ordnance,ammunition (Wellingtons ferried in a millionpounds of bombs for the fighter-bombers), stores,men and even water. They brought out thewounded over the very gun sights of the enemy.Behind them supply units, transport men, and Lineof Communications troops sweated and slogged tokeep the dixies and the magazines filled for the menin the line. Unbelievable reports flamed round theworld of impending grief. The men of 4 Corps onduty at Imphal serenely stuck it out. Kohima was in graver state. Appearing suddenlyout of the Somra hills the Japs surged over Kohima Ridge, cut all the roads and completely isolated thetown, for there was no airstrip. The small garrison laid under a murderous barrage from the overlookinghills, which blasted every bungalow, basha and tree in the neighborhood. And who were the Garrison of Kohima? Men of the Royal West Kents, Mahratta Light Infantry,Rajputs, Burma Regiment, the Assam Regiment, Assam Rifles, and the Nepalese Regiment, together


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with a few hundreds of convalescent soldiers and civilians. This gallant mixed force of totally 3,500men stood up to the full fury of the Japanese 31 Division. For fourteen days and nights the defenders of Kohima held the bridgehead to India. They knew helpwas coming for brigades from both 5 Division and 7 Division Arakan veterans, also the British 2Division had been flown up to Assam, and were advancing on Kohima. The Royal West Kents, havingtouched-down at Dimapur, were able to force their way in before the last entrance was barred by theinvesting Japs. But though they realized the role they were expected to fulfill, many of this devotedband did not survive to know this glory they were to receive. Smashing their way into the town itself the Japs thought that at last they had overcome the garrisononly to experience, once again, the stubborn, unquenchable spirit of British and Indian troops whocontested every inch of ground. Fighting was especially murderous in the residential area situated alongthe steep Kohima Range. But none escaped the Japanese fury. The entire garrison lay always under thedominating drum-fire of the batteries on the ridges above the town. Day and night the fighting continuedwith intense and mounting ferocity. So costly did the defenders make daylight assault that the Japsabandoned all the sun's hours to the guns and only put in their infantry under the cloak of night. But the defense of Kohima was the prelude to a still bloodier struggle - its relief. Lt. Gen. SirMontague Stopford, KBE, CB, DSO, MC, was rushing his 33 Indian Corps from the far side of Indiatowards the battle. Railway Movements Staff did a man-sized job in those days. "Monty" Stopford'sorders were (i) raise the siege of Kohima, (ii) drive southward down the Imphal road to link with 4Corps. By that time it was reckoned Scoones would have cleared Imphal Plain and started up the road. Enter a division new to the Burma front, but one which was to learn, and master all the tricks inrecord time, Maj. Gen. Grover's British 2 Division. With the arrival of the remainder of 7 Division andthe brigades already engaged, Stopford's 33 Corps were now complete. They immediately set aboutbreaking the siege. No fiercer battles have been fought on any front than those which followed. The village of Kungpinearby changed hands five times, the hand-to-hand bayonet clashes taking place by moonlight as wellas by day. Kohima's ordeal had entered its third week before the first reinforcements could reach it,crawling in by the only nullah which gave access to the garrison. Later, the relieving forces drove awedge through the enemy wide enough to evacuate the most seriously wounded. Though the red crosses showed up clearly, and left no doubt as to the mission of the ambulances, theenemy kept up a steady stream of fire against them as the drivers picked their way along the brokenroad. A strange scene greeted the liberators as they entered the town. Parachutes festooned every other tree,showing how thoroughly the air supply crews had done their supply job. Indeed, they had even carriedin water in a monsoon! The besiegers had cut the garrison's pipeline, and there was no means ofconserving the water which poured from the skies. Yet this same rain, blinding the pilots either in stormor as it hung in clouds blanketing the hills, increased the difficulties of the supply-drop. Air transportshowered down waterproof sheets to serve as catchments ponds. Not a building was left undamaged, most were mere rubble or ashes. The dead lay unburied. Littlesquads of grimy and bearded riflemen stared blankly at the relieving troops; many were too dazed torealize that they were saved, and too tired to believe their sleep-starved eyes. The battle was far from finished. The Japs were still in strength enough to launch a last furious all-outeffort to capture the town. A final avalanche of shells and mortar bombs rained upon the ruins andbehind it came the Jap infantry, resolutely seeking death and not being denied it. The bungalow of District Commissioner Charles Pawsey (he was one of the heroes of the siege) wasonly one of the most famous battlefields. The lines of his tennis court separated the fighting groups.These lines could still be traced after many days of slaughter. A Lee tank was winched up a gradient ofone in three to blast a chain of deeply-dug Jap bunkers. It did the job, but its burnt-out hulk lies at thefront of the far slope as a sign of the price its crew paid. Jail Hill, the central position of the Jap front, was linked with covering fire to both GPT Ridge and DISRidge on either side. Four days after the first attempt to take the principal enemy strong point failed itwas stormed again by a battalion of the Queen's Royal Regiment who, though under fire frontally,rearward, and in the flank, dug-in, held on and again attacked. Jap artillery checked them, ranged onthem all night. A battalion of 1 Gurkhas came up in support and again our troops went into the attack.


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Air Marshal W. A. Coryton,CB, MVO, DFC

Commander, 3rd Tactical AirForce, South East Asia

Command (succeeded AirMarshal Baldwin)

Maj. General Howard C.Davidson

Commanding GeneralU.S. 10th Air Force

Formerly Commander,Strategic Air Force

The Japs still stayed, and a third day and night of bloody fighting followed before the bunker positionswere captured. On GPT Ridge, in eternal garrison, lie the dead of the Royal Norfolks. They seized the place, 5,000feet high, with bayonet and grenade assault. In the battle for Hospital Hill one platoon of the RoyalWest Kents was reduced to four men, all wounded. We cannot here name the individual heroes . . . butthese places where they fought and fell, Jail Hill, Hospital Hill, Garrison Hill, Naga Village, TreasuryRidge, Gun Spur, Aradura Spur, will be remembered whenever men speak of valor. While this costly stand-up battle was raging round Kohima, equally energetic action was going forwardon the flanks. To guard against an enveloping movement from the Naga Hills and to threaten the Japs'own Line of Communications the British 23 Infantry Brigade under Brigadier Perowne had been sentout to comb the surrounding land, which has since been described as the wildest and most trackless inthe Himalayas, which means in the entire world. Perowne's brigade had been organized in Long Rangepenetration columns for just such work, and now they performed it to some purpose. Our favorite newsbroadcaster, Tokyo Rose, was turned on to explain to hungry Jap infantrymen at Kohima that a fullBritish "mountain division" was operating across their Ukhrul-Imphal Line of Communication. The brigade were themselves supplied by the unfailing Air. They collected their rations in jungleclearings, sometimes fighting it out with the enemy for possession. They climbed cliffs, cut corridorledges along precipices, bridged chasms by single logs, hauled their pack-animals belly deep throughmud, dived into flooded rivers to retrieve precious stores swept from the mules' packs. With ambush,night march, and the Chindit version of the Indian rope trick they foxed the Japs, and took from them aten-to-one toll in casualties. One column, with 80lb. packs on their backs, scaled an 8,000-foot peak.Perowne's brigade repeated at close quarters,behind the Jap front, the equally solid destructionwrought by Lentaigne's troops further along theenemy's main Line of Communications. All of the enemy's efforts to regain Kohima hadnow been smashed, though the roads leadingsouthward from it remained under his fire forseveral more days. With the exception of the enemystrongpoints still holding out in Naga Village to theleft of the road and on Aradura Hill to the right thelast Jap was forked out of elaborate network ofbunkers on Kohima Ridge on 14 May, thus bringingto an end a 40-day-and-night, non-stop sloggingmatch which cost the enemy 4,000 dead. It tookanother six weeks of heavy fighting by Punjab andGurkha troops to clear the enemy completely. Ourown losses were not light, and included a highproportion of officers. An officer who fought in theslaughter of Hill 60 in Flanders, 1914-18, said theBattle of Kohima was more terrible. Down in Imphal Plain 4 Corps had also completed their task. The flood of fire which they hadshowered on the invaders once they left the cover of the foothills had been so shattering that theyquickly pulled back and entrenched themselves in hillside bunkers. Dive bombers, with Allied artilleryand tanks beat a ceaseless triple tattoo on these positions until the infantry closed in for the kill. Theword is true, for by the end of May not one Japanese soldier remained above ground in all the 700square miles of the Plain. The crisis of the Battle of the Central Front was past - for us. For the enemy itwas beginning. The break-out from Kohima was impressive. Armor and infantry advanced under the smoke and firescreen of guns and mortars, dive-bombers and fighters. One Jap target near Kohima received onethousand rounds at close range. Infantry rushed the position, to find the Jap defenders either dead, fledor dazed with the hellish battering. From the high ground camouflaged medium artillery piled on theirweight to the flail of fire which beat out the path down which 33 Corps were marching to keep their


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date with 4 Corps. As Stopford swept down from Kohima, Scoones finally bust wide open the Jap"encirclement" at Imphal and started northward up the road. The enemy was now everywhere on the defensive. His greatly reduced army were strewn along theImphal Road, though their grip at either end of it was being broken. What would happen next? A lessresolute commander than Slim might have hastened to appease the public criticism (that the Japanesestill occupied Indian soil) by chasing them away as fast as possible. Slim had a more thorough purpose.It was to destroy these crack Japanese divisions so that they, at any rate, would never again menaceIndia. The annihilating operation was based upon a plan agreed between the two Corps Commanders.Neither had overlooked the importance of Ukhrul, the Japs great mountain base on the west side of theChindwin. Already, indeed, Perowne's columns were moving upon Ukhrul's Line of Communication in awide hook. But before the second great bite at the enemy could be taken the first had to be completed.At noon, 22 June, the jaws of the Fourteenth Army snapped together on the Imphal-Kohima Roadwhen leading echelons of both Corps met at Milestone 109, a few miles north of Imphal. From here the two Corps Commanders set the second operation in motion. Brigades of 7 Divisiondrove eastwards to Ukhrul, while 20 Division units (which came under the command of GeneralStopford for this movement) pressed on north-eastward along the Imphal-Ukhrul axis. Perowne'scolumns had already closed in from north, east and south. Ukhrul's fate was sealed. The success of theannihilation plan may be gauged by the somber record which Ukhrul holds today as the biggest burialground for Japs in the length and breadth of Manipur. The forces which carried out these tasks, besides Perowne's columns, were regular brigades. As usualthe infantry rose to the occasion. So did the gunners. The artillery units which took part were ordinary Indian Mountain regiments. Like the tanks themountain guns proved a very great success. Their mule train of 460 animals carried the 3.7 in. guns andammunition over six mountain ranges averaging 7,000 feet high, and forded at least three sizeable rivers.The Japs were astonished to receive 20-pound shells from that height. Here were further famous marches. Often the gradients were so steep that steps had to be cut for themules, loaded with two hundredweight apiece. The going was the harder because in the morning thetrain would be climbing thousands of feet into the clouds and in the afternoon dropping down to riverlevel. Eight miles a day in such country was a hard march. By mid-July the Ukhrul area was cleared. The Allied forces continued the pursuit southwards, addingconsiderably to the mounting Jap casualties and also collecting a rich haul of booty. As British forces pressed eastwards beyond Ukhrul to the Chindwin main activity shifted to the Palelfront. Here 20 Division later relieved by 23 Division, were holding mountain positions, fighting most oftheir time in monsoon weather which blanketed the firing line like a Scotch mist. But towards the endof the month 23 Division, supported by units of 2 Division, developed a major offensive which steadilydrove the enemy beyond Tamu, and down towards the River Chindwin which the invaders had crossedwith such bounding hopes four months before. The third phase of the counter-offensive was meanwhile being fought out at Bishenpur. The JapaneseHigh Command regarded this sector as one of the most vital on the entire front and directed there someof their most experienced formations to the task of breaking through at all costs. For many days andnights bloody battles raged with no quarter on either side. For here 17 Division were fighting once moretheir ancient enemies, the Japanese 33 Division. In this fighting, British and Gurkha troops of 17Division gained three VC's. But now the British had assembled a pack of artillery more massive than any other so far seen in theentire campaign. Main target was the village of Ningthoutong Kha Khunog where the Japs were stronglyestablished. The barrage stripped every leaf from the trees, chopped and scarred the timber until thewooded heights resembled the classic pictures of the grey Flanders Plain in 1918 with their mournfuland mutilated stumps. Still the unrelenting blows fell upon the enemy. The Tiddim Road was a corridor of death. Vengeancesand Mitchells strewed the length of it with blasted and burnt-out Jap convoys. But even this perilouspathway home was now to be denied them. Marching across 100 miles of trackless mountains intorrential rain the Lushai Brigade had reached the Tiddim Road well to the rear of the Jap 33 Division.This brigade now played havoc with the retreating Jap forces, depriving them of their only serviceable


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road and compelling them to forsake their transport and heavy weapons. Forced into the pitiless hills,hundreds died from exhaustion and starvation. The condition of the enemy everywhere deteriorated. Our aircraft and LRP raiding columns had sodisrupted his Line of Communication that for whole regiments supply simply ceased. The Jap, thatlegendary soldier who was supposed to live on a handful of rice, from a little ration bag hung aroundhis neck, began in fact to have no other ration. The effect was appalling, for even Japs cannot live byrice alone. Fourteenth Army doctors reported that many who fell alive into our hands - desertion andsurrender multiplied their number tenfold - were suffering from acute beri beri. Their body cells hadlost all power to absorb water. Their skins, stretched taut as drums across the bone framework, werecovered with dermatitis sores. They crawled, dying, to the feet of the giant marble and gold leaf idols inthe Buddhist temples to end life. And, ironically, many died of starvation with full ration bags of ricearound their emaciated necks - rice which they could not eat. The last of the invaders staggered out of India on 25 August. Fourteenth Army advanced columnsreached the Chindwin River on a broad front a few days later. Sittaung and Thaungdat were occupiedon 4 September. Less than seven months after 17 Division withdrew from Tiddum troops of 5 Division,supported by 3 carabineers overcame strong enemy resistance at Chocolate Staircase and swept on tothe approaches to Tiddim itself. In the entire Burma Campaign, 1944, the Fourteenth Army and Eastern Air Command had annihilatedfive Japanese divisions and inflicted fearful losses on others, besides taking more prisoners than in anyprevious campaign. Every task set to the Supreme Commander had been fulfilled, and ahead ofschedule. India was safe, the enemy power in Burma shattered. From the air he had been banishedabsolutely, and at sea the Eastern Fleet rode the Indian Ocean unchallenged. In the House of Commons the Prime Minister paid generous public tribute to the fighting troops, theKing honored them in the awards conferred upon their leaders in the field, and the Supreme AlliedCouncil raised new and greater targets before the Command.

How Admin Troops Backed-up the Fighting Men "I have soldiered for more than 42 years," wrote Field-Marshal Lord Wavell, "and the more I have seenof war the more I realize how it all depends on administration and transportation (what our Americanallies call logistics). The operational area of the Fourteenth Army was about 100,000 square miles. or rather larger thanGreat Britain. The terrain and its roads and railway have been described. Half a million men lived andfought in this jungle; how they even lived there is one of the miracles of this war. Every dayFourteenth's famous Major-General of Administration "Alf" Snelling, had to feed 500,000 soldiers plus300,000 coolies. He planned to have his own farms, 18,000 acres of them. sited well forward. One inManipur was. so well forward that the Japs overran it. On these farms Snelling grew vegetables, ducks,pigs, and goats. He setup, a factory aiming to salt 20,000 lbs. of fish per day, and mobile breweries toslake the strengthened thirst. It was still necessary to bring-in by rail, road, air or water 1,800 tons offood each day. The different tastes, habits and religious customs of British, Indians, Gurkhas, Africansmade the ration problem more complex. Snelling and his 14th Army drivers and REME and IEME engineers kept 50,0oo vehicles, movingalong; the jungle and mountain roads through dust storm and monsoon mud. A daily Mileage of 77 wasmaintained by all trucks traveling from railhead to the forward areas during the worst weather month ofthe year. They averaged 13,942 miles per accident though you would never believe it as you racedaround those ledge-roads above thousand-foot precipices. Air was a great ally of administration as it had been of operations. During the great battles of Imphal-Kohima 30,000 non-combat troops were flown out of Imphal and 30,000 casualties. Two-and-a halfdivisions with all their equipment were flown in, and almost as many more replacements, as well as50.000 tons of supply. During the siege of Imphal, of course, every pound of man or material that wentin to 4th Corps was airborne. though triumph crowned this remarkable development of air supply itmust not be supposed that it solved the entire logistical problem. It created its own train of problems,


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Convoy covered by 'umbrella' of kiteballoons.

ADMIRAL SIR BRUCEFRASER

C-in-C, Eastern Fleet

Divine Service aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth

for aircraft must be fueled, maintained and serviced. We had mules from India, Africa and USA. We had little South African donkeys (they had huge heads,bigger than horses and all their bridles had to be enlarged). We had elephants, though unlike the Japswe rarely used them for transport, chiefly employing them on bridging. An elephant can lay a plankwith the precision of a Carpenter. He can also lay off work with the same precision. There wereelephants, who would "down trunks" dead at 5 p.m., winter or summer, so that the fading light hadnothing to do with their decision. The hospital problem was staggering. Wounded men were borne, sometime ten miles, by stretcherthrough jungle, over mountains, across torrents. They were carried out to forward hospitals by mule,jeep, sampan, barge, hospital ship, truck, train and aircraft. Sunderland flying boats took Chinditcasualties from Indawgi Lake, in the heart of Jap-held Burma, to the Brahmaputra River. No. singleaccident marred those wonderful air services. In the end our forward hospitals were all re-grouped nearairfields. The wounded had to be made fit enough to stand these arduous journeys. Field ambulances treateddesperate cases close behind the forward line, and mobile surgical units operated under fire. At Kohima,a hospital unit crawled through the Jap front to succor the beleaguered wounded of the little British-Indian garrison. The miracles of blood transfusion, penicillin treatment, neuro-surgical operationsbelong to a fuller story. Here we record that all along this terrible, merciless front the doctors, dentists,nurses, staffs and "ladies in blue" (Indian Hospital Welfare Workers) earned the admiration of all ranksand the undying gratitude of the wounded whom they served. But if we had 27,000 wounded at the time of the great battles, we had ten times that number ofmalaria and dysentery cases during the campaign. The curse was cut in half by building up "malaria-discipline" by draining the malarial swamps, and by prompt medical treatment. So a great army overcame the vast spaces, the dark dense treacherous jungle that filled that space; theevil beasts, and insects; and snakes, that dwelt therein, and carried death to men; the leeches, lice, andticks; the sun's high blaze, and the night's dew, and its lonely terror; rain, mist, and mud. Theyconquered all, and the foulest of all - the Japanese enemy. Yes, it was an Army, this Fourteenth, none more devoted or indomitable in all the chronicle of wars.

The Eastern Fleet Rules the IndianOcean

The Allied Eastern Fleet rules over five and a half million square miles of ocean. There are no lines of defense in this dominion, and no strongpoints other than the bases linked by the


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great sea roads. Once at sea, a fleet, or a convoy, or a single ship must be self-supporting until itsjourney's end. Today this vast area is held as securely as if it were occupied by an army on the ground.Two and a half years ago this was not so. Two and a half years ago the Japs came riding up out of the China Seas, mighty with victory. They hadsunk the battleship Repulse and Prince of Wales, taken Singapore, Java and Sumatra, and occupied theAndamans and Nicobars as forward air bases. From here they struck at Columbo and Trincomalee,sinking the aircraft carrier Hermes and the cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire. It was considered wise tomove the weakened Eastern Fleet to East Africa to prepare for the next phase. Even there no dockfacilities comparable with Singapore existed. Madagascar was still in the hands of the Vichy French,prisoners of the enemy. There was a grave danger that they might let the Japanese enemy in, as they haddone in Indo-China. Why did the Japs not advance, as they expected, at least on Ceylon and Southern India? Had theyreached the perimeter of their conquest plan? Did they hesitate as Hitler did after Dunkirk, and losingimpetus, lose urge? Did they see the danger signal from the East in the developing might of U.S.A., andturn to deal with this threat to their rear? We know only that they did not come. They attacked the Ceylon ports. Indeed, by air but their plan of surprise was forestalled and theyfound the fighters already in the sky awaiting them. Our pilots exacted very heavy toll for the intrusion.The situation was further stabilized in the Indian Ocean when a brilliant Combined Operation seizedMadagascar, substantially securing the shipping route to the Middle East and making possible thecoming victories from El Alamein to Tunis. But the battle of supply extended far beyond the confines of the Middle Eastern campaign, and evenof that threatened invasion which still hung as a fearful thundercloud along the Burma border. TheArmy of India was crying out, indeed, for modern armaments of every kind. So, too, and even more wasChina, still fighting our common enemy, Japan, after five years and still almost with bare hands. Butnow mighty Russia bended before the Teutonic fury though she never broke. The tide of the barbariansrolled to the foothills of the Caucasus, and beat upon Stalingrad. Russian valor and martial skill wonthat day, but Britain, too, may take pride that her factories cast so many of the victors' weapons and herfaithful fleets carried them to Russia through the icy Arctic and the sweltering Persian Gulf. Theheaviest part of this task was borne by the Merchant Navy, but each ship required escort through IndianOcean waters, now infested with Jap and German U-Boats. To the RN and RAF fell the duty of seeingthe ships safe. Even now there are U-Boats in the Indian Ocean, but the same technique of air-sea co-operation whichgained the Battle of the Atlantic is winning the Battle of the Indian Ocean. With the threat to theMiddle East and Russia long past, and with the war in Europe marching inexorably to its close, theentire massive production strength of the Allies can be switched to South East Asia. Meanwhile, thecarcasses of U-Boats are piling up on the ocean bed of these waters. The Japanese did not escape the liabilities of their far flung conquests. For them, too, supply becamethe overriding military problem - without the corresponding capacity of their opponents to meet it. InBurma this defect was, by 1944, decisive. In Burma, under pressure by South East Asia Command, the Japs maintained a formidable army of 10to 12 large divisions. To keep it supplied with arms and ammunition and transport strained the capacityof the Bangkok-Rangoon railway to its limits, and beyond. The Japs had the best of the road lay-out inBurma, but even so it was inadequate, for road transport develops its own appetites. Petrol and machineparts must also be brought in. Every use, therefore, had to be made of sea routes. Since Pearl Harborthe Americans had sunk 750 cargo ships, so that by 1944 the Japs had fallen back on ferry boats,coasters, junks and sampans. Lumped together in grotesque partnership these motley armadas creptdown the China coasts and through the Malacca Straits towards Burma. USN and RN submarinespicked them off as they came, sometimes at the harbor gates where they had loaded. Above Rangoon the situation was no better. As the roads became impassable in the monsoon - and theJaps lacked mechanical road repair such as bulldozers - transport was driven back to the sea. But now itwas within range both of British submarines and shore-based aircraft. From Ceylon, Sunderlands,Catalinas and Liberators ceaselessly patrolled the Bay of Bengal and far southward while bomberswhile fighters scoured the coasts and creeks. If now and again a ship or a junk slipped through,unloading its cargo into the smaller craft which creep under the cover of night up the Arakan shores into


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New navy 'Seafire' flying over HMS Indomitable (left),Sabang after raid by aircraft of the Eastern Fleet (right).

the rivers, another danger lurked. Operating from secret bases, light coastal forces of the Royal Navyand the Royal Indian Navy swooped on the unarmed or lightly armed craft and sank them under thenose of the Jap shore positions. The enemy could not replace his 700-odd sunken ocean-going cargo ships but he might hope to keep awooden coastal fleet in being. The Andaman islands were ordered to produce the vessels. Royal Navy

carrier-borne planes attackedthe sawmills at Port Blair andleft them in blazing chaos. While all these troubles ofsupply were piling up, theEastern Fleet which had longbeen missing in the IndianOcean, moved over to theoffensive. From a fleet in beingit became a fleet in action. InApril a powerful task force ofbattleships, cruisers, destroyersand submarines, accompaniedby both British and Americanaircraft carriers, bombardedand bombed the Jap harborbase at Sabang. Dockyards,hangars, powerhouses andworkshops were assailed: 30aircraft were destroyed on theground. In May anothercomposite fleet struckSourabaya, main Jap base onJava, steaming 1500 miles intowaters nominally commandedby the Japanese Navy. Thebombing of the dry dock broke

up the enemy ship repair program, the demolition of the engineering works, the sinking of 35,000 tonsof shipping, and the blasting of his oil supply cut short all hopes of an improved sea supply for theBurma armies. Then Sabang caught it again, the Eastern Fleet sailing straight into the harbor andsmashing up its installations with 15-inch shells. When the shore batteries replied they wereimmediately silenced by a saucy little force of a Dutch cruiser and three British destroyers whichsteamed in to fire at point blank range. The blows continued. The Indaroeng Cement Works near Padang in Sumatra which were supplyingcement for pillboxes and tank traps against the threatened Allied invasion, were laid in ruins by theEastern Fleet. The railway repair depot at Sigli was smashed. Parallel with this physical destruction ofhis bases was the psychological destruction of the Jap's boast of invulnerability in the East Indies. Northward, things were in no happier shape for the enemy. His troops in the Burma jungle, short ofsupplies, and faced with armies growing in strength each day, were in retreat. Eastward, thedeterioration was still more rapid as the Americans stepped with 700-league boots across the Pacificislands, marching on the Philippines. A well co-ordinated strategy of air-sea power had given Japan inrecord time an Empire richer and more extensive than any ever before erected in the world. A morethorough, and infinitely more powerful air-sea combination was now tearing it apart. And what of the men of the Eastern Fleet who through the years endured heat and hardship,separation and routine and with little public recognition? It is not possible to single out its commandersand heroes. We can name only its old leader who, in his genial and gallant person for so long reflectedthe magnificent spirit of the Fleet, Sir James Somerville conformed in every particular to what Englandexpects of her admirals. He saw his little fleet of the gallant old Warspite, four other 'unrejuvenated'battleships ("my old ladies") and a few cruisers grow into a huge armada of modern battleships, aircraft


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carriers and what Mr. Churchill described to the House of Commons as "an immense fleet train,comprising many vessels, large and medium, fitted as repair ships, recreational ships for personnel,munitions and provision ships, and many modern variants in order that our fleet may have a degree ofmobility which for several months together will make them largely independent of the main shorebases." To this magnificent Command Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser now succeeds, bearing the laurels of his twoyears' triumphs with the Home Fleet against the Germans in Arctic waters. He is here to carry the flagsof South East Asia Command into Tokyo Bay.

Edited and published for the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia, by FRANK OWEN. Printed byAMULLYA DHONE BOSE in the office of THE STATESMAN, Calcutta, who provided free facilities as a generouswar gift. Adapted for the Internet by CARL WEIDENBURNER.

Original issue shared by CBI veteran Roger Cook, Past Commander, Tampa Bay Basha, CBIVA

Copyright © 2008 Carl Warren Weidenburner 01/18/2016 08:27:49

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