Tank Tracks to Rangoon

by Bryan Perrett

  In fact, the tanks did arrive as promised, but this was by no means the end of the story. In July 1943, the Lees were withdrawn from the medium squadron, which conformed to the rest of the regiment by drawing Stuarts, but no sooner had this been done than it was decided that the Carabiniers would after all become a medium tank regiment, so all the Stuarts were handed in and Lees drawn in their place. This at last ended this very sorry tale.

  In the midst of all this the regiment had been called upon to play the major role in raising a further British armoured regiment in India, to be called 25th Dragoons, and 12 officers and 102 other ranks were despatched to that end.

  Coming as they did straight from a regular regiment of the British line, they were not unreservedly delighted to meet their new comrades, almost all of whom arrived as drafts from infantry battalions. Some were obviously good men who had volunteered, others showed a useful mechanical aptitude, and a fair number would settle down in time, but it was all too obvious that in many cases their parent battalions had resorted to the traditional device of unloading on somebody else their problem children, their hard cases, drunkards, no-hopers and stumblebums. Many of the men were due for repatriation to the United Kingdom, and the problem was largely solved by sending home about 200 of them in exchange for a large draft of trained men. Thereafter, 25th Dragoons began to take shape.

  In the meantime, Lt-General William Slim, commanding the newly formed 14th Army, was forming plans for a further offensive in the Arakan. When the Japanese had evicted 14th Indian Division earlier in 1943, they had halted their advance along the line Maungdaw/Buthidaung, two towns on either side of the Mayu range, connected by the only metalled all-weather road in the area. This road ran along the track-bed of a disused narrow gauge railway, which, at the summit of the line, ran through two tunnels, and the Japanese had spared no pains in fortifying the position. The capture of this road, together with Maungdaw and Buthidaung, was the primary objective of Slim’s offensive, for without possession of it troops east of the Mayu range could only be supplied with difficulty, along a winding fair weather track that ran through the hills several miles to the north. The route this track followed was called the Ngakyedauk Pass, but as this placed an unnatural strain on British and Indian vocal equipment, it was referred to generally as Okeydoke. It represented only a temporary solution, and further operations in the Arakan were only envisaged after the capture of the Tunnels road and its termini.

  For the task Slim had Lt-General A. F. P. Christison’s 15th Corps, comprising the veteran 5th Indian Division under Major-General H. R. Briggs, with a long list of hard fought actions in Eritrea and the Western Desert to its credit; the comparatively inexperienced 7th Indian Division, under Major-General F. W. Messervy, who had also served in the Desert; two brigades from Major-General C. G. Woolner’s 81st West African Division; and 25th Dragoons, commanded by Lt-Colonel H. R. C. Frink, who would supply armoured support for the Corps’ operations as required.

  5th Division would advance down the coast on Maungdaw, whilst 7th Division moved on a parallel axis on the other side of the range, and the West Africans operated well inland, guarding the left flank.

  Maungdaw fell on 9th January 1944, but further progress to the south was denied 5th Division by an extremely strong enemy position at Razabil, and 25th Dragoons were called forward.

  The regiment was at its forward base area at Reju Khal on the Teknaf Peninsula, and was ferried across the wide Naf River in barges to its final assembly area at Chamba. The move was made in secrecy, as it was not desirable to alert the enemy to the presence of armour, and with a view to preserving the element of surprise, no attack was launched with the tanks until the whole regiment was concentrated.

  On 26th January C Squadron, under Major O. C. Home, carried out an attack on a feature known as Tortoise Hill in company with 161 Brigade. A preparatory air strike by Vengeance fighter-bombers went into the target satisfactorily, but a follow-up by Liberator bombers fell short amongst the tanks, damaging three and causing some casualties amongst the crews. The remainder pressed on, plastering the position with 75 and 37-mm fire, destroying bunkers and lacing the feature with machine guns.

  The Japanese, however, were canny fighters, and retired to the reverse slopes whenever the British artillery and tanks opened up, only to rush back and hurl showers of grenades at the advancing 4/7th Rajput infantry whenever the fire support lifted. By nightfall the position remained untaken.

  The following day C Squadron and the Rajputs tried again, without success, but were now adapting their gunnery techniques to the particular requirements of the battle, firing HE ahead of the infantry with gradual lifts until the target bunker was hit, when a change was made to AP shot. At this point, the infantry’s mortars would open up on the crest and reverse slopes, compelling the enemy to keep their heads tucked in.

  On the 28th it was B Squadron’s turn to support the Rajputs, whilst A Squadron worked with 4th Royal West Kents. Casualties were inflicted on the enemy, and several anti-tank guns knocked out, but progress was painfully slow, and the Japanese were now being reinforced faster than they could be killed. The tanks’ movements were inhibited by soft ground and chaungs which ran between banks twenty feet in height, and the battle tailed off to a position of stalemate by the end of the month, although the Dragoons had succeeded in bringing their bunker-busting techniques to a fine art in co-operation with the infantry.

  At the beginning of February, 25th Dragoons were ordered to cross the Mayu range by way of the Ngakyedauk Pass, and assist 7th Division in its capture of Buthidaung. However, before proceeding further it is necessary to examine what was happening in the enemy’s camp.

  To the Japanese, the Arakan represented a vulnerable flank which they were prepared to defend at all costs; they were, moreover, on the point of mounting a major offensive on the Central front against the British in the Imphal area, and they reasoned that the more troops Slim was forced to divert to the Arakan, the better their chances of success on the Central front would be. Therefore, a counter-offensive in the Arakan, isolating and mauling the two Indian divisions in the old manner could well win them the war in Burma.

  They called their offensive Ha-Go, and its execution was entrusted to General Hanaya, the commander of the formidable 55th Division. Hanaya’s plans called for his main body, under Major-General Sakurai, to infiltrate the gap between 7th Indian and 81st West African Divisions, and capture Taung Bazar, in the rear of the former. Then, a force under Colonel Kubo would cross the range and cut off supplies to 5th Indian Division, whilst another force under the thrusting Tanahashi swung south and severed the Ngakyedauk Pass. It was Hanaya’s confident hope that both Indian divisions would panic on finding themselves cut off, try to fight their way out, and be destroyed piecemeal. 81st Division, a helpless spectator to the disaster, would withdraw to save itself, and an advance could be made across the frontier to Chittagong, forcing Slim to strip his Central front to retrieve the situation.

  It was a bold plan, and it would certainly have worked six months earlier. However, wars are not fought on the ground alone, and General Hanaya probably did not pay too much attention to an air battle on New Year’s Eve 1943 when some newly arrived Spitfires shot down thirteen Japanese bombers and fighters. Until then, the fast, manoeuvrable Zeros had had it all their own way with the few Hurricanes available, and their pilots had become cocky and complacent. The arrival of the Spitfires changed the position radically, and in a second encounter over the Arakan on 14th January, all sense of smug superiority disappeared when sixteen of their fighters were massacred in full view of jubilant British and Indian troops. Since then, the Imperial Japanese Air Force had flown but little over the Arakan, whilst the RAF and USAAF had flown a great deal. This, as we shall see, had a profound effect upon the conduct of subsequent operations.

  Late in January air reconnaissance and local subsequent reports from ‘V’ Force (a small group of exceedingly brave officers and men who undertook special oper
ations along the Arakan coast) indicated a build up of Japanese forces in the Arakan. A small party was landed on the coast, and was told by local villagers, who confirmed that a new force was moving up from Akyab. It became clear that the enemy was likely to be reinforced on the Buthidaung side of the range, and might even be going to launch a counter-offensive to bring our operations to a halt. It was therefore vital to get the tanks across the range and onto the Buthidaung plain in time, and General Christison ordered all available sappers to turn the Ngakyedauk trail into a track capable of use by tanks and lorries.

  When 25th Dragoons began to move through the Ngakyedauk Pass on 4th February, leaving their reserve tanks and crews with 5th Indian Division as a deception, the Japanese offensive was well under way. Infiltration was taking place on a large scale from the north, and B Squadron spent the next day with 4/8th Gurkhas in an attempt to stop this. Whilst several of the enemy were killed, the remainder flowed past along the hills, cutting the pass and attacking 7th Division’s headquarters at dawn on the 6th.

  The HQ personnel, including clerks and signallers, beat off several attacks until at about 1030 it became obvious that the area could not be held, and orders were given for evacuation. Each man was to make his way to the defensive box maintained by the Division’s administrative troops at Sinzewa, where the headquarters would be re-established. Miles away, operators on the divisional wireless net heard a voice say, ‘Put a pick through that set,’ and then there was silence.

  Two squadrons of 25th Dragoons were ordered to patrol the road between the Admin Box and the old divisional HQ, and provided invaluable cover and assistance for the troops now concentrating on the box, towing the heavy 5.5-inch howitzers of 6th Medium Regiment RA out of the glutinuous mud, escorting a mule train, and recovering several vehicles which had been abandoned.

  At 1245 General Messervy and several members of his staff arrived at the Dragoons’ RHQ. Messervy was not in contact with any of his sub-units, but the regiment’s radios provided him with an immediate replacement forward control, which was maintained for the next fortnight.*

  The following day found the regiment concentrated within the Admin Box, which was almost immediately to become the scene of one of the most ferocious defensive battles in British history. Measuring on 1,500 yards from east to west and half that distance from north to south, the position was overlooked from every direction by hills varying in height from 100 to 200 feet, and was almost cut in two by a feature known as Artillery Hill. Into this space was packed tanks, transport, guns, administrative and tactical headquarters, supply dumps and a hospital, so that every shell fired by the Japanese was almost certain to find a target. Apart from 25th Dragoons and their escort of Bombay Grenadiers,* only two companies of West Yorkshires were available as a mobile reserve, and the perimeter was manned by gunners fighting as infantry, and a wide variety of administrative units including a mule company and an officers’ shop. At the outset, few could have imagined that this hotch-potch garrison could be the anvil upon which Britain’s first victory over Japan would be forged.

  In fact, for the first few days, morale in the Box was poor, and many regular officers saw an end to their war service. However, Brigadier Evans, who was responsible for the defence of the Box, from which General Messervy continued to run his division, immediately took a tight grip on the situation, and made it clear to everyone that there were only two alternatives—to fight like hell and keep the Japanese out, or capture, with the prospect of being butchered or starved. This left no doubt in anyone’s mind, and the daily competition to establish on which sector the highest total per capita of fresh Japanese corpses could be found led to a more positive approach; that this produced exaggerated claims and the sort of indignant argument in which the field bakery might claim that the officers’ shop personnel were cheating did not worry Evans, who had succeeded in his primary object of turning his mixed bag into a determined and aggressive garrison.

  Evans was a strong character who did not always get on with everyone. Unfortunately, he did not get on with Frink, and to avoid misunderstandings which could have dire consequences, Major Hugh Ley, the Dragoons’ second-in-command, was attached to Evans’s staff, as permanent armoured liaison officer. What could have been an awkward situation was thus satisfactorily resolved, with Ley being in the position of local commander of the tanks, whilst Frink retained overall command of the regiment, one squadron of which was sent out of the box, as we shall see; the reason being that there were too many tanks within the perimeter, producing an overkill situation, when they could have been better employed elsewhere.

  Such importance did Evans attach to the tanks that he shared his uncomfortable slit trench with Ley. The latter’s soldier servant, a L/Cpl Evans, had been a gentleman’s gentleman in civilian life, and did not approve at all of life in the Army, which he endured with a certain straight-faced dignity, simply replacing the military for the civilian idiom. Each morning he would bring the officers a mug of tea at stand-to, and although the night had been rent continuously by heavy firing and Japanese screams of ‘Banzai!’ he would always enquire solicitously, ‘Will you be requiring a new slit trench dug today, Sir?’ He used the same tone in which he would have asked, if it was in order to lay out his officer’s riding clothes. L/Cpl Evans probably contributed more to the defence of the Admin Box than he ever imagined.

  Every morning, Ley would leave Box HQ and go over to the Dragoons’ Regimental HQ for the daily conference and orders group. He travelled in his tank, and the route took him over the shallow saddle between Artillery and Ammunition Hills. The saddle was in the sights of an enemy anti-tank gun, and after one or two near misses, Ley solved the problem by deception. The tank would gather speed approaching the saddle, towing the usual cloud of dust behind, and then stop dead. The dust cloud would roll over the vehicle, onto the saddle, the Japanese would fire into it, and before they could reload, Ley was himself over the saddle, and into dead ground. The Japanese never worked out what was happening, and the ritual continued throughout the siege. The return journey was less complicated, as the tank was screened throughout its journey by dust.

  During the night of 7th February the Japanese committed a deed which, even by their unexacting standards, was as evil as it was unnecessary. A party, accompanied by Jifs;* succeeded in penetrating the perimeter and reached the Main Dressing Station. After wiping out the few West Yorkshires protecting the MDS, they broke in, killed the doctors and orderlies, and bayoneted the British and some Indian patients, where they lay. Then they dug in amongst the shambles, and were not ejected until two days later, when a West Yorkshire company fought its way through the position with the support of a troop of Lees. Fifty Japanese were killed, including an officer on whose body was found the entire plans for the Ha-Go offensive.

  When the details of the massacre at the MDS became common knowledge throughout the army, the reaction was violent and long lasting. Neither British nor Indian troops fought with any personal feelings of hatred towards their enemies, and were often given to a bluff sympathy towards their prisoners, providing them with cigarettes and looking at their family photos. In an instant, this was changed, and the Japanese were regarded with a deep loathing; instead of thinking of them as soldiers, 14th Army regarded them as one regards dangerous insects—something to be stamped on and destroyed without feeling. From now on, there would be little mercy for the Japanese, and since they did not seek it, it was just as well.†

  During the afternoon of the 8th, the garrison almost suffered an irreparable disaster. A flight of Zeros arrived, skip-bombing, and one bomb landed in the main ammunition dump on Ammunition Hill, starting a major fire. Amidst desperate efforts to move the dump, shells continued to explode and vehicles to burn, until the heavy night dew doused the blaze in the early hours of the following morning.

  The garrison was not, however, taking all this quietly, and daily attacks were taking place, with direct fire support from the tanks, to clear the enemy off the surround
ing hills. On the 9th, ten tanks from A Squadron left the box to join 33 Indian Brigade in their own box, which they reached safely.

  For their part, the Japanese attacked almost continuously, but their attacks were unco-ordinated, and were thrown back by the defenders and the point-blank fire of the Lees. During the night, when the tanks could not be used to full effect, the enemy was able to close with the garrison, and innumerable deadly little personal battles were fought. The Japanese began to lose heavily without gaining ground, and the garrison began to gain confidence. On 11th February, supplies were dropped by air for the first time, and continued to be dropped regularly throughout the siege.

  On the same day, the enemy secured a lodgement on Artillery Hill. It was absolutely essential that he should be thrown out, since he overlooked the water point, ammunition dump and main headquarters, and an attack was mounted by two West Yorkshire platoons and two troops from C Squadron.

  The tanks began by firing instantaneous fuse high explosive to clear the scrub off the top of the hill, and then switched to delayed fuse HE to engage the bunkers so revealed, finally firing a continuous barrage of armour-piercing shot into the bunkers until the infantry had closed right up to them. The West Yorkshires reached the top, but a number of snipers remained concealed in dense scrub about half way up, and it took two further days before the feature was completely cleared.

  On the 13th came heartening news from outside. 5th Indian Division was pushing one of its brigades through the Ngakyedauk Pass, although progress was slow. Lt Johnson’s troop was sent out towards the pass, but was forced to return after encountering a road block at the foot of the pass, and being ambushed on the way. During the day, the Zeros landed another bomb in the ammunition dump, causing fires and explosions. Two days later the same dump was hit again, this time by shellfire, but air drops continued to make good the losses.