Tank Tracks to Rangoon

by Bryan Perrett

  A moment later another Japanese came leaping through the hedge, swerved through a file of infantry with his box in his arms, as if he were a football player, and climbed onto the front of the third tank. As he did so his charge detonated, blowing his body over the turret and onto the back of the tank, without damaging the tank in any way.

  If at harvest-time I had seen a rabbit, shaken out of a corn stook, turn suddenly on its pursuers, the men with sticks, the dogs, and the farmer with his gun, I couldn’t have been more surprised than I was at the sudden appearance of these Japanese soldiers, with their anguished look of determination and despair, pitting their puny strength against such tremendous force. This desperate form of courage was something that we knew little of and saw with amazement, admiration, and pity, too.

  At last we were through the village, but the banks of the pond were still occupied, where the trees made it so difficult to see. Bernard took his squadron, with a company of infantry, round by the left flank, in order to clean it up. The infantry came under a hot fire as they approached the pond, and began to have casualties from snipers and automatic fire. The company commander was killed, Bernard was hit with a ringing crack on the steel helmet while on the ground trying to discover the positions that were holding the infantry up, and it was here that the Maharajah’s turret got its tattooing.

  The infantry, disorganized at this critical moment by the loss of their company commander, were unwilling to withdraw and yet reluctant to advance, and so continued to suffer on the ground, without being able to spot the enemy positions. The tanks moved on slowly, fearing that they were deserting their companions, but seeing no other way of helping them. They pushed their way through the trees and eventually climbed the banks of the pond and destroyed all the positions that they found. Without their eyes in this close fighting—the infantrymen who usually managed to stay so close—they must have missed some.

  As they rumbled slowly out on the far side of the trees one tank commander was killed, shot through the head, and another tank was attacked by tank hunters with explosives, but was undamaged. At the same time they saw three Japanese followed by a white dog, crawling down a ditch that led from the village. It seemed that what was left of the defenders was leaving.

  ‘A white dog?’

  ‘Yes. A white dog. He was following close behind them.’’

  How extraordinary. Was he all right?’

  ‘Yes. He was all right when we last saw him.’

  Before dark I walked back through the village. Only the tank hunters had been killed outside their foxholes. All the others were full. There they still sat. Some pocked and smashed with bullets, some with their clothes still smouldering from the tracer, some, after the brutal propaganda cartoons, surprisingly good-looking, sturdy and young. If a British regiment had fought against such odds as they had fought, the story would live forever in their history, but it was not unusual for the Japanese to fight like this, and it may be that in Japanese eyes it was just considered that they had done their duty and that no further comment was needed.

  That night, after all the heat and noise of the afternoon, the big tanks stood silent in the moonlight, wet with dew and cool to touch, in a grove of palm trees. About them the Rajputs watched, and within the square the men of both regiments worked and rested, slept and fed, close together. We had nothing but admiration for the infantry, who fought at such close range without the protection of two or three inches of armour, and they were grateful enough to us who saved them so many casualties.*

  On 24th February, Probyn’s C Squadron, under Major W. M. Arkinstall, bounced a crossing of the Sindewa Chaung in an advance guard action which went like clockwork, and as well as killing some forty of the enemy, cleared him away from what could have been a serious tank obstacle.

  The same day, the Royal Deccan Horse had taken Taungtha, the maintenance depot of the Japanese 33rd Division, in a converging attack, and that night both columns joined up close to the town.

  On the 25th, the advance on Meiktila continued, and further villages were captured. The major event of the day, however, was the despatch of a composite force, commanded by Colonel Ralph Younger and consisting of B Squadron 16th Light Cavalry and B Squadron Royal Deccan Horse, to beat up a suspected Japanese Army Headquarters at Natogi, twenty-six miles to the north-east of Taungtha.

  Before the column had gone very far, it was diverted to more urgent duties, namely the rescue of a company of 1/10th Gurkha Rifles which was surrounded and in difficulties.

  First to arrive on the scene were the 16th’s Humbers, who found their progress barred by a burning lorry placed across the road. The officer commanding the squadron’s leading assault troopers was killed almost at once, and the rifle section sustained further casualties, but the heavy return fire from the armoured cars destroyed the enemy’s machine guns covering the block. The arrival of the Deccan’s Shermans decided the issue, one troop swinging wide to the left to shoot up a village, whilst two further troops drove in line through the scrub, killing a number of Japanese. The Gurkhas having been relieved, the force returned to Taungtha that evening, and rejoined its parent units the following day.

  During the 26th, the Deccan continued the advance with the object of capturing the airfield of Thabutkon, fifteen miles north of Meiktila. The move was made across open country, which presented difficult going for wheeled vehicles, being traversed by numerous sandy chaungs, but the tanks towed them across. Opposition was slight, consisting of ubiquitous sniping, which imposed delays but not a check, and by 1400 hours the undefended airfield had been taken.

  Sappers at once began to make the airstrip operational, and the following day 17th Division’s third brigade, the 99th, began to arrive by air from Palel.

  Whilst the transports were landing at Thabutkon, Lts Smit and Kundal Singh Hundal of 16th Light Cavalry were probing with their troops along the Meiktila road. Smit’s troop were fired on from a position near a chaung bridge at Egyo, so found an alternative crossing some one and a half miles to the north. Their return to their centre line took them across an airfield, and here Smit’s car was penetrated by a solid anti-tank shot which entered and left the vehicle without touching the crew, who evacuated safely. Whilst running to the next car, Smit was killed by a burst of automatic fire.

  Meanwhile, Hundal’s troop had closed up to the bridge, and were engaging the defenders at point blank range. Withdrawing a little, Hundal asked for an air strike, which arrived promptly, and he was delighted to see his opponents running like a nest of disturbed ants.

  The Japanese responded by shelling Hundal’s cars, and he withdrew, as they were obviously making a point of holding the Egyo bridge, and would take some moving.

  It was decided to play the enemy at his own game, and whilst Probyn’s C Squadron attacked the block frontally with infantry support, Major B. L. Loraine-Smith’s A Squadron of the same regiment would carry out a wide left hook, and establish a block of their own two miles beyond the bridge.

  By 1345 hours A Squadron were in position, and C Squadron, deployed on both sides of the road, advanced. The bridge and the banks of the nullah on either side were extensively mined, whilst the bushes lining the banks contained numerous snipers. Eventually crossings were found on either flank, and Captain Riazul Karim Khan drove down the far bank towards the bridge, shooting up the defenders from the rear.

  With C Squadron pouring across the nullah, the enemy now took to their heels, and several smaller positions were overrun by the Shermans as they continued their advance astride the road. Eventually, the crowd of fugitives were caught in the open against the anvil of A Squadron, who shot them down. Several guns were taken during the advance.

  This minor action at Egyo bridge marked the beginning of the Japanese defence of Meiktila. Once the axis of the advance had become clear, the garrison commander, Major-General Kasuya, had done everything humanly possible to put his defences into some kind of order, but he was critically short of time, men and materials. A regiment* o
n a forced march through the town on its way to the Mandalay front was halted, and every available man was put into the firing line, including administrative personnel and hospital patients who were roused from their beds and issued with weapons. Strong points were dug under houses and into embankments, with interlocking arcs of fire, and every conceivable obstacle erected to deny access to the town, which was in any event difficult to approach, since it was bounded to the north and south by two lakes, and the country immediately to the west was broken by water courses.

  The situation demanded, and received, an application of the technique of Indirect Approach. 255 Tank Brigade would carry out a wide flanking movement to the north, and then attack from the east along the line of the railway to Thazi, while 48 Brigade attacked from the north and 63 Brigade maintained pressure from the west.

  The battle for Meiktila began on the morning of 28th February. The advance guard of 255 Brigade consisted of A and B Squadrons of the Royal Deccan Horse, commanded respectively by Major D. H. Mudie and Major G. B. Nixon, accompanied by armoured cars from PAVO and 16th Light Cavalry.

  B Squadron found themselves held up by an uncrossable nullah, but A Squadron, which was leading the left flank of the advance, had a clear run and was soon at the main airfield, which was taken at the gallop.

  ‘As far as I could make out,’ wrote Major Fred Joyner, second-in-command of the PAVO squadron, ‘it was everyone for himself. It was a sight I shall never forget, with everyone joining in, nothing fancy, just a straight line from A to B and get there as quick as you can. Everything joined in, tanks, armoured cars, jeeps, trucks, straight across country against fairly heavy opposition, but it was successful—maybe it was the surprise element.’

  The Deccan’s impression was that the Japanese had certainly been caught with their trousers down, for the airfield had been heavily prepared for mining, with many large aerial bombs ready to be put in position.

  10 The capture of Meiktila

  Pressing on, A Squadron stormed across the Thazi road and swung west to their final objective for the day, Point 860, a hill surmounted by a golden pagoda which overlooked the southern lake. Here the Japanese were dug in, and the infantry began to sustain casualties.

  Mudie’s squadron were ordered to proceed without the infantry, and was soon duelling with the enemy’s bunkers. Soon a deep nullah was reached, spanned by an iron bridge upon which the Japanese had placed three 40-gallon petrol drums. Finding he had sufficient room to get through, the leading troop leader, Lt I. S. Lamond, crossed safely, although the enemy ignited the barrels at once, and engaged positions in the nullah itself.

  Meanwhile, Probyn’s Horse had arrived, with two squadrons, B and C, and had come up on the right of the Deccan squadron and deployed for a regimental attack which had as its objective the canal joining the northern and southern lakes. Very soon the attack stalled as the infantry began to suffer heavily from a strong position in a nullah, and the tanks began a series of suppressive fire tasks. It was now late, and because of the growing darkness and the difficult going, both regiments withdrew and went into harbour near the airfield.

  If Meiktila had not been seized by a coup de main, at least the day’s operations had succeeded in isolating the town and now the armoured cars were out screening all approaches. One 16th Cavalry patrol under Captain Charles Rennie twice went down the Rangoon road a distance of twenty-three miles, ambushing a number of enemy vehicles, and providing vital information. Rennie was awarded an immediate MC, but was killed by a sniper several weeks later.

  Round the airfield itself, numerous Japanese were still hanging about, and Colonel Chaudhuri decided to sort them out himself. Manning a car with his adjutant as driver and Lt Hundal as gunner, he set out to eliminate bunkers along the Meiktila–Thazi railway line, accounting for a number of the enemy: if Hundal found his Colonel’s fire orders a little unfamiliar, it was because the latter had commanded his regiment’s machine-gun troop in the days when it was horsed cavalry.

  Elsewhere a PAVO patrol had destroyed a Type 95 light tank with 2-pdr. fire, and had captured a 105-mm gun, the crew of which was found sleeping around it.

  However, essential as these peripheral operations were, the burden of capturing Meiktila inevitably fell upon the two Sherman regiments. Dawn on 1st March found both, less one squadron each detached to the infantry brigades, continuing the attack. Patrol activity had disclosed that the enemy had abandoned the positions he had defended throughout the previous afternoon, so A Squadron Deccan Horse was despatched to secure Point 860, which was achieved without a shot being fired. The troops fanned outwards, firing into bunker slits without attracting return fire, and waited for the infantry, accompanied by B Squadron of Probyn’s to arrive and consolidate the position. For an hour A Squadron waited in eerie silence on Point 860, and watched the approach of Probyn’s tanks and 6/7 Rajputs. Suddenly, all hell was let loose on the unfortunate infantry as automatic fire was opened from well concealed bunkers. For the next ten minutes shot and shell criss-crossed the slopes of Point 860 as the thirty tanks hunted down their prey remorselessly, and then all was quiet again. Both squadrons then shot in attack by the Rajputs across the escape channel, Probyn’s following the infantry to engage further enemy positions on Point 799.

  The Deccan’s B Squadron had, meanwhile, been fighting its way into Meiktila town from the north-east in support of 48 Brigade. The battle raged throughout the morning, infantry and tanks gaining ground yard by yard, winkling the enemy out of their bunkers. During the afternoon there was a lull in the fighting, and Captain Sheodan Singh noticed three Japanese officers, all wearing their swords, standing in a trench about thirty yards ahead of his tank.

  ‘Two of them retreated and ran, while the third charged my tank with his sword. While he was trying to climb on the tank from the rear, a Gurkha soldier detailed to guard the tank, bayonetted him rather ineffectively. The Jap and the Gurkha faced each other momentarily, then the former struck the latter with his sword, wounding him slightly, and charged another tank of my troop. A bullet dropped him dead. It was the first sword to be collected by the regiment.’

  The tanks went into harbour with 48 Brigade and were jittered during the night by parties of the enemy who had infiltrated back into positions captured during the day.

  Probyn’s A Squadron had been similarly engaged in support of 63 Brigade, pushing into the town from the west, capturing the outlying villages of Kanna and Magyigon, clearing a hospital and gaol area, and killing some 200 Japanese.

  The following day A Squadron was detailed to support operations to clear the Kyaukpu area,

  which was strongly held and consisted of dense thorn thickets and well built stone buildings containing vehicle pits, foxholes and air raid shelters.

  The forming-up point was in the hospital compound, which now contained blazing ruins and was strewn with corpses, the result of the previous day’s battle. The axis given was at an angle to the main road, but visibility on the left was limited to fifty yards by the thorn thickets. On reaching the FUP, the infantry were pinned down by LMG fire.

  A Squadron was in support of 7/10th Baluch. The squadron was formed up ‘three-up’ with SHQ behind the left and centre troops. There was some delay through waiting for an air-strike which did not take place. A barrage was then put down by the divisional artillery but appeared to do but little damage.

  As soon as the artillery fire died down the tanks advanced, the left troop finding itself unsupported by infantry in thick scrub honeycombed by bunkers. This belt of scrub was forty yards deep and contained a few houses.

  As the tanks entered the scrub they came under a hail of small arms fire, and Jemadar Fateh Singh’s tank was assaulted by tank hunters who placed a charge on the track disabling the tank, and hurled petrol bombs onto it. Thus Japs were killed by co-ax fire from another tank (Jemadar Sarup Singh). No 4 Troop Leader’s tank (Lt Bahadur Singh) was similarly attacked, but no damage was sustained.

  The tanks continued to blast
methodically each bunker which they could see. The left troop and half SHQ advanced slowly through the scrub until it came out on the far side where it killed many Japs who were breaking and running into a nullah. They were killed in the open and in the hedgerows as they withdrew. This troop and half SHQ were then ordered to join the right half-squadron, who had been progressing steadily but slowly, destroying bunkers the whole way. The infantry here were also unable to keep up with the tanks owing to snipers and LMG fire. Several snipers were knocked out of trees by the tanks and one was brought down from a platform forty feet high.

  Resistance finally centred in one large red house which contained a deep air-raid shelter. Here the forceful action of the tanks broke the enemy’s morale and they fled from the position, being heavily engaged by No 3 Troop (Risaldar Bhag Singh) on the Kyaukpadaung road as they withdrew into the open. Numbers of the enemy withdrawing down the lakeside were engaged by No 2 Troop of C Squadron from Point 799 (taken the same day) on the opposite side of the lake. A Squadron claimed to have killed at least 300 Japs.

  The day’s fighting had left the surviving Japanese pinned in that area of the town on the peninsula that jutted out into the southern lake, bounded on the north by the railway line. It was clear that the garrison were going to fight on to the bitter end, for during the day a number of Japanese had been found in foxholes in the road, a 100-pound aerial bomb between their knees and a brick in one hand ready to strike the detonator the minute a tank passed over. All were found and shot by the infantry before they could cause any damage; strangely, not one detonated his bomb, taking his assailants with him, but then the literal obedience to orders was the essence of the Japanese disciplinary code, and they had been told to kill tanks and not infantry. One Japanese tried a variation on the theme, and emerging from a bunker some thirty yards from Captain Sheodan Singh, trotted towards the tank with his bomb. Sheodan Singh’s gunner needed no urging, and to avoid possibility of error, engaged his target with 75-mm HE!