Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  Some hard things were said by the angry soldiery when the Air Force disappeared, especially about the speed and disorder of the abandonment of Magwe. But they would have done well to remember that this same small Anglo-American air force had already destroyed 233 Japanese machines in the air and 58 on the ground, of which the A.V.G. accounted for 217 and the R.A.F. 74 at a cost to us of 46 in the air and 51 on the ground, or a ratio in the air of five-to-one in our favour. Even on the ground, with all the odds of range and warning against them, they had destroyed plane for plane.

  From then onwards my corps was totally without air reconnaissance, defence, or support. Any aircraft we saw in the sky was hostile—and we were to see many. We were even blinder than before, forced more and more to move at night, and by day to greater dispersion. Buildings became death-traps to be avoided; we took increasingly to the jungle. The actual casualties to fighting troops inflicted by the Japanese air force, even after it had absolute freedom of the skies, were surprisingly small. The effect on morale, while not as great as might have been expected, at first was serious, but later the troops seemed in some way to become accustomed to constant air attack and to adjust themselves to it.

  Now great wedges of silver bombers droned across the sky, and one after another the cities of Burma spurted with flame and vanished in roaring holocausts. Prome, Meiktila, Mandalay, Thazi, Pyinmana, Maymyo, Lashio, Taunggyi, largely wooden towns, all of them crumbled and burned. The Japanese used pattern bombing, coming over in faultless formation, giving themselves a leisurely dummy run or two, and then letting all their bombs go in one shattering crump. They were very accurate. We always said they had in each formation only one leader capable of aiming, and all took the time from him. It was certainly effective, but I personally preferred it to the methods of the Italians when they also had no air opposition. They had cruised round, dropping a few sticks at a time, and keeping one in suspense. With the Japanese it was all over quickly; you had either had it or were alive till next time. Whatever the method, it was effective enough with the civil population. The police, hospital staffs, air-raid precaution units, public services, and railways collapsed. Labour vanished into the jungle; towns were evacuated. Only a few devoted British, Anglo-Burmans, and Burmese carried nobly on.

  We were told that occasionally bombers from Calcutta or elsewhere in India had attacked Rangoon, but that only raised in the troops what stage directions call a ‘bitter laugh’. General Wavell had decided that the only sound course was to retain in India such air forces as he could scrape together, so as to build up something capable of defending that country when the time came. To commit his pathetically meagre resources on the Burma front, without a warning organization and against overwhelmingly superior strength, would inevitably be to destroy them. The Army in Burma must struggle on without an air force. There is no doubt that this was a right decision. But it was cold comfort to us—and it made our chances of taking the initiative by counterattack much more slender.

  With the news of the disappearance of our air force came further disturbing tidings which were to affect not only the plans of Burma Corps but the whole campaign. The Chinese 200th Division of their V Army in Toungoo, which up to the present had scored several minor successes, was on the 24th March suddenly cut off by the Japanese 55th Division and other troops. The nearest regiment of the Chinese 22nd Division, which was following up the 200th Division, was then at Pyinmana, sixty miles away; the rest of the division was in Lashio, over three hundred miles distant. The third division, the 96th of V Army, was only just approaching the Burmese frontier. The single road, difficulty in passing through VI Army en route, and other troubles had delayed V Army’s move south. The Chinese in Toungoo resisted stoutly, while the 22nd Division pressed on to relieve them. The situation was critical. On 28th March, General Alexander, urged by the Generalissimo, ordered me to take the offensive at once in order to relieve pressure on the Chinese. Two of Stilwell’s staff came to see me, also, with a message stressing his need.

  It was quite contrary to the whole idea on which our local intentions were based thus to attack before the corps was concentrated. It was doubtful, too, if anything we could do at such short notice would really divert forces already engaged against the Chinese, although it might possibly keep additional troops from being sent to their front. However, General Alexander was in a much better position to judge the effects than I was, and it was up to us to do all we could to help our ally.

  Our information was not good enough to stage an offensive properly; this fighting blind was a terrible handicap. Nor was my corps yet assembled, while even the 17th Division was still trying to re-equip. The best I could do to carry out General Alexander’s directive was to order Cowan, with the strongest force he could make mobile, to:

  (i) Advance astride the main road and railway on Okpo, some sixty miles south-east of Prome.

  (ii) Establish a detachment at Zigon, fifteen miles north of Okpo to act as a lay-back and to watch the east flank.

  (iii) Secure Nyaungzaye, on the Irrawaddy, twenty-three miles south of Prome, to protect the west flank and prevent the enemy crossing the river.

  (iv) Destroy all enemy encountered in these advances and exploit any local successes.

  The only help I could give him, as he already commanded practically all fighting troops in the area, was to organize a small detachment of Marines, commandos, and Burma Frontier Force to operate on the west bank of the Irrawaddy. There had been a report of a Japanese-Burmese force at Tonbo on that side of the river some twenty-five miles south of Prome. We hoped that our detachment, plus the small armed flotilla on the river itself and the boom we had built with difficulty under air attack below Prome, would prevent hostile forces crossing behind Cowan to the east bank. There was danger of this and of our shipping being shelled from the far side, but we had few troops to spare.

  I had given Cowan rather a vague task, but he tackled it with his accustomed energy. On the day the order was issued the Gloucesters, in one of their bold strikes, had attacked and taken Paungde, a big village thirty miles south of Prome, killing a number of the enemy. As it was isolated, Cowan had recalled the battalion, but when he received the corps order, he formed a striking force of a regiment of tanks, a battery, three infantry battalions and a field company of sappers and miners, under the command of Brigadier Anstice, and directed them to reoccupy Paungde, as a preliminary to advancing on Okpo. It was an improvised force, as his division was still sorting itself out, and its battalions were each only the strength of two companies. While approaching Paungde, Anstice received a report of a Japanese detachment advancing towards the road behind him. Some of his troops were detached to deal with this threat while the remainder attacked Paungde and found it strongly held. A confused fight followed, during which our troops had a partial success, entering Paungde, and inflicting heavy casualties, but ultimately being driven out of the village again. A liaison officer returning from Anstice to divisional headquarters received a shock when he found Shwedaung, a town on the main road about ten miles south of Prome, full of Japanese, who appeared to have arrived from the south-west. Other parties also were infiltrating behind Anstice, and Cowan ordered him to withdraw. To help Anstice out he sent two Indian battalions to clear Shwedaung from the north.

  Shwedaung straggles astride the road for two miles, spreading out for about a mile on each side. It was necessary to force a way through it as there was no other road by which vehicles could go. Just after six o’clock in the evening, Anstice’s advance guard attacked a road-block at the southern end of the town, while the two battalions attacked the northern outskirts. Both attacks were held up by heavy fire from houses and bamboo groves. During the night, another attack was put in by Anstice in greater strength, but after making some progress it was stopped by the main roadblock inside the town. At seven o’clock this attack was renewed, and during the morning our troops burst through the block. Transport began to pass, but was held up by the block at the north end of the
town and vehicles jammed up along the road. Shwedaung was now burning fiercely, many trucks took fire, and to make matters worse Japanese aircraft continuously machine-gunned the column. The two battalions attacked from the north again, and then the tanks from the south crashed through the block, followed by a string of trucks and ambulances loaded with wounded, but many vehicles, disabled by air attack, burnt, or jammed by others, had to be abandoned. Several hundred Japanese and rebel Burmans were caught and killed while trying to escape from the burning town.

  Meanwhile, the detachment of Marines, commandos, and Burma Military Police sent to secure the west bank of the Irrawaddy had occupied Padaung village. The villagers welcomed them and brought food. A patrol sent out reported no enemy for eighteen miles to the south. Actually, a Japanese force was all the time concealed in the village, and it surprised our men as they were resting. They put up a desperate but hopeless resistance. Some escaped, many were killed on the spot by the Japanese or treacherous inhabitants, but twelve British soldiers and Marines, all wounded, were kept till next day when they were tied to trees and used by the Japanese to demonstrate bayonet fighting to the admiring villagers. This was only one instance of many bestial outrages committed by the Japanese Army against helpless prisoners, British, Indian, Gurkha, and Chinese, throughout the campaign. The fate of a prisoner in the field depended largely on the caprice of the officer into whose hands he fell. He might be tortured and brutally murdered, shot or killed by the sword, or merely maltreated, starved, bound, and beaten. There were even instances when a prisoner was not seriously maltreated, but these were very rare and almost unknown with British prisoners. The Japanese conduct to prisoners in the field and in their prison camps will always remain a foul blot on their record, which those who fought against them will find it hard to forget.

  With the loss of our detachment on the west bank, the enemy began to cross the river in large numbers. Several hundreds of them were Burmans in the blue uniform of the puppet Burma National Army, organized into units under Japanese officers. At first they fought in and around Shwedaung fanatically, believing themselves to be invulnerable to bullets, but their ardour cooled as they found their error. Nevertheless they were an aggravation to the troubles of our withdrawing force. Casualties on both sides in this action at Shwedaung were heavy. We lost ten tanks, two guns, numerous vehicles, and over three hundred and fifty killed and wounded in the infantry alone. These were losses, which at our reduced strengths and without hope of replacement, we could not afford.

  Unpleasant as they were, the effects of the Shwedaung fight were nothing like as serious as the loss of Toungoo on the Sittang front which occurred at about the same time. The Chinese 200th Division, cut off in the town, put up a really stout resistance, but first two reserve regiments of the Chinese V Army and then their 22nd Division disregarded Stilwell’s orders to attack. There is little doubt this refusal cost us Toungoo, for when the efforts of the 22nd Division failed to relieve it, there was no alternative to starvation or surrender except for the garrison to cut its way out. This the 200th Division did, but it had to abandon all vehicles, guns, and most of its equipment, and suffer over three thousand casualties while the remnants in small parties made their escape. A general Chinese withdrawal towards Pyinmana followed. The loss of Toungoo was in fact a major disaster, second only to our defeat at the Sittang bridge.

  It was now a question whether we should continue to hold Prome. The eastern half of the line across Burma had gone; the town itself, stretching a couple of miles along the river bank with scrub jungle all about it, would need a big perimeter to defend it, and even then could easily be cut off. Already the Japanese were working close up to our positions and had occupied parts of the opposite west bank. The state of the town itself was desperate. It had been almost completely burnt after a particularly heavy air raid, cholera among refugees was increasing, and there had even been a few cases among the troops. Had it not been for the large dumps of stores, mainly rice, lying on the riverside quays, there would have been little object—and a good deal of danger—in hanging on. Army Headquarters appeared to think so, too, as in the last days of March we received orders to back-load all surplus stores. There was no railway out of Prome to the north, our available road transport was negligible, and so we had to rely entirely on the river. In normal times Prome handled a vast river traffic, including thousands of tons of rice, but now it was more difficult. Civilian steamer crews were not unnaturally loath to come so far south. The river was abnormally low, thus rendering night navigation dangerous, while by day the Japanese air force made it infinitely more so. Frequent air raids had dispersed all labour. However, thanks to the energy and ability of Goddard, General Alexander’s chief administrative officer, who paid us frequent visits, and of my own staff, considerable progress was made.

  My headquarters moved to Allanmyo on the river, some thirty-five miles north, as Prome was now obviously too much in the front line. At Allanmyo on the 1st April I had a visit from Generals Wavell and Alexander. After a review of the whole situation, General Wavell decided that a further withdrawal was necessary. I was ordered to speed up the back-loading of stores and to concentrate the corps in the area Allanmyo-Kyaukpadaung-Thayetmyo, to defend the oilfields and Upper Burma. I was glad the decision had been taken. Apart from being nervous about the 17th Division’s position, I did not think that, even when the corps was concentrated, we should have as good a chance of staging a counter-offensive from Prome as we should from Allanmyo. The 1st Burma Division was coming in as fast as Scott could urge it, but it was unavoidably arriving in bits and pieces which had to be put together. I was horrified at its low scale of equipment. It had never been up to even the standard of the 17th Division in this respect—the whole division, for instance, could only muster one improvised carrier platoon, instead of one per battalion. It was shockingly short of artillery. A considerable proportion of its infantry and administrative units was Burmese. Although the division had acquitted itself well, there had already been numerous desertions, and, in spite of many good British and Burmese officers, things were not getting better. As the enemy threat on the west bank was increasing, it was necessary to split the division, a thing I disliked doing very much, by sending 2 Burma Brigade over the river to hold south of Thayetmyo, the town opposite Allanmyo.

  On the evening of the day of General Wavell’s conference at Allanmyo, the 1st April, the Japanese made their contribution to the question whether we should hold Prome. The 17th Division was disposed in three brigade groups, one (63) in the town and south of it; another (48) about Hmawza, four miles to the east; a third (16) around Tamagauk, five miles north. The first Japanese attack was delivered against the Indian battalion holding south of the town. It was repulsed. A second followed, and during it numbers of enemy infiltrated between our positions into the town. Finding itself apparently surrounded in the dark, the battalion fell back into the town, where among the houses it lost cohesion. Attacks on other sectors of the brigade had failed, but the gap to the south was used by the Japanese to pour into the town and take the other defenders in rear. After confused fighting, the whole 63 Brigade pulled out of the town and fell back towards 16 Brigade at Tamagauk. Meanwhile 48 Brigade had been heavily attacked, but had bloodily repulsed its assailants.

  The enemy pushed through Prome and pressed on, while another strong force was apparently now trying to pass round to the east of Hmawza. 48 Brigade caught this force in flank and inflicted heavy losses on it, but shortly afterwards Cowan ordered the brigade to move across to the main road to stop the enemy advancing from Prome. 7 Armoured Brigade and 16 Brigade were sent forward to cover 63 Brigade and the divisional transport as they fell back on Tamagauk. At 1030 hours that morning Cowan rang me up from his headquarters in the Reserve Forest on the Prome-Allanmyo road, to say that he had received reliable reports of a strong enemy force moving round his left on Dayindabo, sixteen miles north behind him, which would cut him off. Was he to hold on where he was or to fall back
on Allanmyo? I had not a great deal of time in which to think, but if a Japanese force got in between Cowan and me there was nothing to stop it going on to Yenangyaung, except the two weak brigades of the 1st Burma Division. My object still was to concentrate the corps; Japanese between its two divisions would not help. I knew the area where Cowan was and there was little to be said for holding it either from the point of view of ease of defence or value, and I had already been directed to bring back the corps to Allanmyo. Accordingly I ordered him to continue the retirement to that place and sent 1 Burma Brigade to Dayindabo to hold it if threatened and to help the 17th Division through. The brigade was in position by the late afternoon, the 2nd April.

  Cowan’s men had a trying march. They had been fighting all night and much of the day. It was very hot, very dusty, and there was no water on the route. In addition, the Japanese air force gave them no respite, strafing and bombing them constantly. In spite of this, they passed under the wing of the 1st Burma Division on the 3rd April, complete and in not too bad shape. We were lucky the exhausted Japanese had not pressed the pursuit. In spite of the eyewitness statement of an officer’s patrol, it later appeared that no Japanese force had threatened Dayindabo. No great damage was done by my acceptance of the report, but it was one of many instances when the total lack of air reconnaissance made it impossible to check rapidly such information.