by Frank McLynn
Having to his own satisfaction masked the operation by 4 Corps, Slim then had to solve the details of getting his troops and tanks across ‘impossible’ country. Major General Bill Hasted, 14th Army’s chief engineer, estimated that he could build a road along the Kabaw and Myittha valleys using bithess, extensively used for aircraft runways. Bithess was hessian in rolls 50 yards long and one yard wide, treated with bitumen to look like a long carpet of oilcloth. Strips were laid to overlap by eight inches and the road, levelled and packed tight, was cambered by laying the two outside strips first and then building the road up from edge to centre.17 Hugely expensive, the process used up a gallon of petrol and a gallon of diesel for every yard of road laid, and to build 100 miles of bithess road took 1,000 vehicles a day. At first, Hasted estimated the road would take a day for every mile built, but Slim dismissed this as impossibly slow. The two men took a flight to examine the terrain, but even after flying low over the jungle, Hasted still had no real idea and plucked the figure of 42 days out of the air. Slim replied: ‘God help you, Bill, if it takes more than fifty.’18 Even so, no one knew for certain whether such a road would stand up to the wear and tear of tanks and heavy vehicles. Since Slim had always been a great proponent of tanks as the strike weapon in land warfare and was almost obsessive in his concern for their reliability in difficult terrain, he inspected 255 Brigade shortly before the jump-off towards Meiktila. He quizzed the brigade major about his Sherman tanks and was irritated by the bland replies he received. ‘The most important thing is reliability,’ he snapped. ‘Mechanical failure could make them a liability. How reliable are those Shermans?’ ‘Very, sir,’ was the reply. ‘Given sufficient fuel, some essential spares and some time at night to do maintenance on them.’ Slim seemed unconvinced. ‘You had better be right,’ he growled.19 When it came to efficiency, the otherwise affable ‘Uncle Bill’ could be a hard driver. He told Hasted at the start of the operation that he wanted 500 tons of supplies delivered down the Chindwin in two months’ time. Hasted produced a familiar 14th Army cliche: ‘The difficult we will do at once; the impossible will take a little longer … For these miracles we like a month’s notice.’ ‘You’re lucky,’ Slim replied. ‘You’ve got two.’20 Hasted, as ever, performed brilliantly. Cutting down teak, using elephants to haul logs to the riverside and using a variety of boatmaking skills, by May 1945 he had built 541 new rafts. This was important, as in the latter stages of the march on Meiktila, 4 Corps was to be supplied by river from Myingyan, near Pakkoku and at the confluence of the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy.
Messervy took some time assembling his corps for the secret march, since when Slim told him about EXTENDED CAPITAL on 18 December, almost none of his regiments was at the jump-off zone – with the Africans at Imphal and 7 Indian Division at Kohima. Finally the great trek south began on 19 January. The campaign that followed to seize both Meiktila and Mandalay had three stages for each corps: the operations en route to the Irrawaddy; the crossing of the mighty river; and the two great battles that followed on either front. It will be convenient to follow the fortunes of 33 Corps (2, 19 and 20 Divisions) first, since on their sustained and continuous aggression the success or failure of Slim’s great bluff would depend. The first steps were taken on 3 December when a brigade of 20 Division crossed the Chindwin with little opposition – perhaps surprisingly, since the east bank of the river was thick jungle covering steep hills and ridges. On 19 December 2 Division relieved the brigade and began the push towards Shwebo, the initial target, 40 miles north-west of Mandalay. Major General ‘Pete’ Reese commanding 19 Division meanwhile left the Sittang bridgehead, aiming for Pinlebu and Pinbon; it was this division’s rapid progress in the first few days that convinced Slim the enemy had no intention of fighting on the Shwebo plain.21 After taking Wuntho on 19 December, 19 Division clocked up an amazing 200-mile advance in 20 days through difficult terrain from the Chindwin by 23 March. Both 2 and 20 Division were also accelerating as they converged on Yeu and Monywa. Their advance was from Mawlaik and Kalewa, through an undefended Pyingaing on 23 December, sweeping aside a Japanese rearguard at the end of the month and then sending a mechanised column to secure the Kabu weir on the Shwebo plain, which the Japanese had planned to blow up. On 2 January 2 Division reached Yeu and crossed the Mu river; engineers then built a bridge so that other detachments, especially 268 Tank Brigade, could follow.22 Now 2 Division and 19 Division raced each other for Shwebo. Advance patrols were in the outskirts by 7 January. As they proceeded, each division built airstrips at 50-mile intervals, to land supplies and evacuate the wounded. Constant bridge-building was also a feature; between January and April it is estimated that 14th Army built 145 bridges.23 Finally 19 Division narrowly won the race for Shwebo, with a disappointed 2 Division trooping in on 9 January. Japanese opposition here was light; only 58 enemy dead and ten prisoners were recorded.24
From Shwebo, 19 Division turned east to the Irrawaddy and prepared to cross at two places north-west of Mandalay, forever trying to keep a high profile so that Kimura always believed Mandalay was the British Holy Grail. Once the Anglo-Indians neared the Irrawaddy, the hostilities intensified: there was particularly bitter fighting at Kabwet on the west bank on 25 January, where 2 Royal Berkshires lost 100 men in a five-day running battle.25 To the west, 20 Division pounded both Budalin and Monywa, the last riverside port on the Chindwin, but got bogged down by tough resistance from Japanese 33 Division and had to call up rocket strikes from the air force. Two hundred planes flew three days of non-stop missions on 18–20 January before 20 Indian Division subdued the port on 22 January.26 Myinmu fell next day, but not before some bloody combat with a large party of Japanese who were trying to cross the river. After resisting stubbornly and being close to annihilation, the Japanese survivors committed suicide by walking into the river to drown.27 Opposition had been tough on the west bank of the Irrawaddy, but essentially Kimura had failed to stop the British in the Chindwin-Irrawaddy loop. He was not especially anxious, since his main effort was reserved for destroying the enemy during the river crossing or when they landed on the east bank. But first there was something of a lull, as Slim slowed 33 Corps down so as to give river transport and airlift priority to 4 Corps in the south. He had to time the two different crossings of the Irrawaddy perfectly. If 4 Corps appeared on the east bank too soon, Kimura would spot the danger and move his reserves to Meiktila; but if 4 Corps crossed too late, he might already have defeated 33 Corps with the local preponderance of force he enjoyed and prevented the diversionary attack on Mandalay.28 The progress of 4 Corps was smoother than that of 33 Corps and they encountered only light opposition. On 28 January they took Pauk and on 3 February Messervy ordered the attack on Pakkoku on the west bank, with diversions made at Chauk and Pagan – all to make the enemy think a crossing would be attempted at Pakkoku. There was another calculated piece of deception in the form of a simulated crossing at Seikpyu opposite Chauk, using 28th East African Brigade, complete with a dummy parachute drop and maps showing Yenangyaung as the objective. The Africans arrived at Seikpyu on 8 February with much fanfare and hullabaloo, drawing a counterattack as planned.29 Kimura learned of these activities, but, relying on past intelligence, assumed it was irregulars like the Lushai Brigade trying to distract him from concentrating farther north.
Slim now faced the great, and some thought insuperable task: the crossing of the Irrawaddy by two corps at different points on the river. In the north, where 33 Corps had to make the traverse, Kimura was supremely confident, with eight divisions plus one and a third divisions of Bose’s Indian National Army; even if Slim could put five divisions into the field against him, he should have the edge. Then there was the obstacle of the mighty river itself. One of the great rivers of the world, 1,300 miles long and navigable for 1,000 miles of its length, the waters were at their lowest level in January and February but would rise dramatically in March–September with the heavy rains. The current that 33 Corps would have to contend with was just 1–2 mph in stre
ngth (as against 6 mph in high season), but against this was the stark geographical fact that the river was 2,000 yards wide where they intended to cross, and 4,000 yards wide at the confluence with the Chindwin, where 4 Corps would be operating.30 The Japanese had no intention of defending all 200 miles of the river at the battle front, even if they had had the colossal manpower this would take, but sensibly concentrated on the most likely crossing spots. Though short of planes with which to devastate the enemy actually during the traverse, Kimura was confident he could destroy whatever units got across. Slim, on the other hand, suffered from a dire shortage of equipment; with so few boats, his men had to cross ‘on a couple of bamboos and a bootlace’. As he remarked: ‘I do not think any modern army has attempted the opposed crossing of a great river with so little.’31 Juggling the shortage of boats with the problem of timing, Slim decided that he should concentrate on getting 4 Corps across before landing the entire 33 Corps on the other side, as the chance of major debacles was high while 4 Corps, the vital force for the successful outcome of the campaign, remained on the west bank. He also resolved that the crossing by 4 Corps should be made in a concentrated span of time, as against the piecemeal traverse of 33 Corps.
Arriving early at the Irrawaddy because of their rapid progress through the Chindwin-Irrawaddy loop, 33 Corps spent a month getting across the Irrawaddy. In order to convince Kimura that Mandalay was his objective, Slim sent his divisions across in both a westerly and a northerly direction, indicating a pincer movement on Mandalay. Coming from the north, 19 Division began its crossing on the night of 14–15 January around Kyaukmyaung, 20 miles south of Thabeikkyin. The Japanese were slow to respond, and not until the 17th did they realise that a serious passage of the river was afoot. While they massed for the counterattack, 64 Brigade established a bridgehead, just in time to receive the first wave of a ferocious onslaught that saw vicious hand-to-hand fighting going on all night on 20–21 January. This was now to be the pattern: every single traverse of the Irrawaddy would be met with concentrated force. But Slim took comfort from the tardy Japanese response: ‘The Japanese, confused by the numerous feints and patrol crossings elsewhere, had not been quick to decide which were the real crossings, and even then they took some time to concentrate against them.’32 At first it was thought that the whole of 4 Corps was crossing, for the transfer of divisions between the two corps certainly had its obfuscating effect on the Japanese. The thrust from the north by 19 Division was also helped by a major blunder on Kimura’s part, as he read the crossings as an attempt by the division to link up with 36 Division, still operating in the north in the former Stilwell domain from Bhamo to Lashio. Even so, Kimura pressed the two brigades now on the east bank very hard with his 15th and 33rd Divisions. His attempts to destroy the bridgehead were blunted by the common Japanese error of launching their troops piecemeal as they arrived instead of building up for a single, devastating onslaught. For three weeks 19 Division withstood everything that was thrown at them – massive artillery barrages, suicide squads, infiltration forces.33 Very gradually, as the corpses of the attackers piled up, the attacks began to lose their bite, and at the beginning of February, there was a lull of two days and two nights. Sensing the pulse of the enemy attack weakening, Slim seized the moment and got his tanks across the river, ready for the breakout. After the lull, the enemy resumed their attacks, but they were no longer pressed with the same elan as before. Bit by bit the British were growing stronger and the enemy weaker. Slim visited the precarious bridgehead and found his men exhausted but in good heart. ‘The fighting had been severe, the casualties to our men considerable, and the strain of fighting in these restricted places, with their backs to the river no light one.’34
Since airpower was crucial to the successful British defence of the Kyaukmyaung bridgehead, the other divisions in 33 Corps had to an extent to mark time while 19 Division fought the enemy to a standstill. After taking Yeu and Shwebo, Stopford and 2 Division had to wait for supplies from the Dimapur railhead, since all the airdrops were going to 19 Division. But as soon as Pete Reese’s men were ready to break out (11 February), Slim ordered 20 Division across the Irrawaddy. They had reached the river at Myinmu on 22 January and paused, ready for the signal to traverse. Ordered to cross on the night of 12–13 February, they breasted 1,500 yards of river with strong currents running. Held up by partially submerged sandbanks, they landed virtually unopposed and achieved almost total surprise. Once again it took the Japanese time to react, and their real counterattack did not begin until the 15th.35 When they did move, the impact was devastating, for they struck with two weapons unusual for the Japanese: fighter planes and flame-throwers. Ferocious combat ensued, with the enemy at first trying to drive a wedge between the two brigades, but once again the Japanese made their old mistake of throwing in each new wave of reinforcements piecemeal instead of accumulating for a single devastating onslaught. The initially worrisome Zeros, strafing the eastern shore, were soon cleared away by vastly superior Allied airpower, and rocket-firing Hurricanes knocked out 13 enemy tanks in one day.36 Soon the Japanese were reduced to banzai attacks and suicide missions. Almost indescribably ferocious combat went on continuously during 21–26 February; two Japanese battalions totalling 1,200 men lost an incredible 953 killed in these five days. It was some of the hardest fighting in the entire Burma campaign. It took three weeks of bitter bloodletting before 20 Division established its bridgehead.37 The Allies now had two secure bridgeheads on the eastern shore, but Kimura still had some grounds for hope. It seemed that 14th Army were overwhelmingly concentrated in the Chindwin-Irrawaddy loop, and the two bridgeheads were still some way from Mandalay, respectively 45 miles north and 30 miles west of the city. The ‘battle of the Irrawaddy shore’ had not gone according to expectations so far, but the British seemed bogged down on the banks of the river. There was reason to hope that if he recalled his forces from all other theatres and concentrated them at Mandalay, he might still achieve a resounding eleventh-hour victory. When 2 Division crossed on the night of 24–25 February at Ngazumi, to the east of 20 Division’s bridgehead, they found their crossing bitterly contested and had a hard time of it. For a moment Slim’s optimism faltered: ‘The crossing, if not a failure, was near to becoming one.’ A strong recovery by 2 Division and a strange, faltering passivity by the enemy after the first onrush saw all of 2 Division safely across by 26 February. As Slim gleefully related: ‘Kimura was in fact pausing to regroup for a final effort on the Irrawaddy shore. He did not know it, but the real storm had not yet broken on him.’38
The crossing of the Irrawaddy by 4 Corps far to the south was even more of a saga. One of the intrinsic problems was that, like most large rivers, the Irrawaddy bore little resemblance to the blue waterway shown on maps. Each monsoon altered the channel and sandbanks, and accurate information about the river at any given point could be obtained only by divers and thus would risk alerting the enemy across the water. Even so, frogmen and SBS specialists were used to chart the only practicable channels.39 The shortage of river craft and their inherent unreliability compounded the difficulty. Outboard engines on the boats proved only about 50 per cent reliable, and the shortage of boats meant that assault crossings had to be timed precisely, so that craft could be switched from one crossing site to another.40 For all these reasons 7 Division would now have to make the longest river crossing in any theatre anywhere in World War II. Because of the sandbanks, the traverse would have to be oblique, and the crossing was therefore almost 2,000 yards long. After a hard fight for Pakkoku by 114 Brigade, which lasted for a week until 10 February (and was meant to convince the enemy that Slim intended to cross there), the various units made their way to the river by three different routes. The entire operation by 4 Corps was planned in four phases: first would be the assault crossing by 7 Division on the night of 13–14 February and in silence, with landfall just above Nyaungu, where four beaches and the surrounding cliffs would be seized; then some battalions of 33 Brigade and some tank
s would be ferried over ready for the assault on Meiktila; next would be a rapid advance from the bridgehead to take Nyaungu itself; and finally a new bridgehead at Nyaungu to take 17 Division across by the direct route.41 The initial landfall would be three miles upstream from Pagan, the ancient capital of Burma, with its 1,200 red, white and gleaming gold pagodas and temples.
Unfortunately phase one badly miscarried, possibly because Messervy had grown overconfident.42 His boats proved inadequate to deal with the strong current, and an enemy machine gun opened up on the first men across, causing panic. A company of South Lancashires got across, but in the confusion the crossing was aborted and the Lancashires were left high and dry on the far side.43 As the British contemplated the inevitable massacre of their comrades, a boat arrived from the holy city of Pagan with two of Bose’s INA men, or ‘Jiffs’ as they were known to the Allies. Brandishing a white flag, the Jiffs told the British that the Japanese had abandoned their positions on the other side. When it was discovered that the Lancashires had not been attacked, the commanders recovered their wits and decided to reinforce them. A battalion of Punjabis crossed unopposed, and then another two,44 while 33 Brigade dug in and improvised a bridgehead, expecting imminent enemy attack, but none came. On the 15th, therefore, there were more crossings, and by the 16th the bridgehead had linked up with the Sikhs detailed to take Pagan. To general stupefaction, the surprise had been total; Japanese intelligence, as usual, had proved atrocious, and the feints at Pakkoku and Chauk completely successful.45 On 16–17 February, 17 Division crossed, ready for the strike at Meiktila. Only on the 17th did the Japanese launch savage counterattacks on the bridgehead at Nyaungu, as they finally realised that the troop movements reported around Pagan were not quasi-touristic irregulars but two entire divisions. Beaten back by superior numbers, the Japanese dug in at Nyaungu town in a labyrinthine network of tunnels and catacombs. When repeated air strikes, rockets and even napalm could not shift these doughty defenders, the British solved the problem in a ruthless but effective way by sealing up the tunnels and burying them alive.46 Pagan, defended only by the feckless INA, surrendered without a fight. Victorious on all fronts, Slim on one of his flying visits was able to revel in the beauty of Burma’s ancient capital: ‘Its 1200 temples, madder red or ghostly white, rise, some like fantastic pyramids or turreted fairy castles, others in tapering pagoda spires, from the sage green mass of trees against the changing pastel blues, reds and golds of sunrise. As a foreground flows the still dark yet living sweep of moving water.’47
