Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  I did, however, manage to get a photograph alleged to be that of Kawabe. It showed what might have been a typical western caricature of a Japanese; the bullet head, the thick glasses, and prominent teeth were all there. To these attractions he added a ong waxed moustache, extending well beyond his cheeks. I pinned this picture to the wall of my office, opposite my desk. When I needed cheering I looked at it and assured myself that, whichever of us was the cleverer general, even I was, at any rate, the better looking.

  At the end of December I visited Stilwell’s Northern Combat Area, and his base at Ledo. I found the old man in good heart, as he had every reason to be. His advance, after some initial stickiness by the Chinese which he had overcome with characteristic vigour, had gone well. I saw a number of my old American and Chinese friends and left well satisfied with their progress and with my admiration for Stilwell’s drive and power of personal leadership confirmed.

  Then, my other fronts well under way, I turned my attention to Arakan, where I expected the first really serious clashes of the campaign to occur.

  CHAPTER XI

  PATTERN FOR VICTORY

  AS our wider visions of amphibious operations on the Arakan coast faded with the withdrawal of the resources necessary for them, we were thrown back on our original plans. These were certainly modest in their scope—a limited advance down the Mayu Peninsula to secure, first, the tiny port of Maungdaw and then the road running from it, through the central spine of the Mayu Range, to Buthidaung in the valley of the Kalapanzin River. Having got these we could, by using the Naf River and Maungdaw, supply our forward formations in Arakan largely by sea, while the road would give us the essential lateral communications to support forces on the east of the range. Thus firmly established on both its sides, we should be in a position later to stage a more formidable offensive with Akyab and beyond as its objective.

  We were careful in our plan to guard against the fatal errors of the 1943 campaign—attacks on narrow fronts and the neglect of an enemy outflanking counter-stroke. The intention was to advance with two divisions, not only on both sides of the Mayu Range, but along its spine as well, while the 81st West African Division, moving down the Kaladan Valley well to the east, would provide a flank guard and would, I hoped, be in its turn a threat to the Japanese flank and their west to east communications.

  During November, 15 Corps completed its assembly for the advance. The 26th Indian Division, which had held the front throughout the monsoon, was brought back into Army Reserve at Chittagong. Its place was taken by the 7th Indian Division under Messervy, followed by Briggs’s 5th Indian Division, both from Ranchi. The 81st West African Division, commanded by Major-General Woolner, now entered the theatre of war for the first time. The division was concentrated about Chiringa, some fifty miles south of Chittagong, and ordered to get itself into the Kaladan Valley. In a month the West Africans had built the ‘African Way’, a jeep track that ran for seventy-five miles through most difficult country to debouch at Daletme on the Kaladan River. The Africans’ first task was to build airstrips along the river bank. Adepts at bush clearing, this they did with great rapidity, and the division was launched—the first normal formation to rely completely on air supply. It was not until the 20th January that they met the Japanese when, in their opening engagement, they overran an enemy post. Thereafter, meeting stubborn resistance from small detachments, they began to push steadily down the valley for Paletwa and Kyauktaw. In these encounters the Africans showed great dash in the attack.

  Tanks, on account of the country, could not be got to the 81st West African Division, but I was determined that this time the main advance should have adequate armoured support. When all the old arguments about the impossibility of getting more than a few tanks into Arakan, or of using them when there, were again trotted out, I gave Colonel ‘Atte’ Persse, of the Indian Armoured Corps, an assignment. I told him that, whatever else happened, he was to see that a complete regiment of Lee-Grant medium tanks, the 25th Dragoons from Ranchi, with the necessary maintenance, was to be ready in November to go forward with the leading infantry. He had my permission to use my name, to send what signals he liked to whom he liked, and was to report to me only when the job was done. I knew Persse and his qualities well, having had him in command of a cavalry regiment under me. He lived up to his reputation for drive, pertinacity, and ingenuity, and also, it must be confessed, for making himself a nuisance to all and sundry until he got what he wanted. In spite of few landing-craft, bridges unable to carry a tank, tidal chaungs, swamps, quicksands, jungle, and Japanese aircraft, the tanks were there on time.

  Nor were tanks our only anxiety. In whatever way our plans developed there would be great demands on air supply. The 81st Division, Wingate’s force, and half a dozen other commitments would moreover call for a large measure of dropping, as distinct from landing, supplies. For this we should need vast numbers of parachutes. Just as the 81st Division was committed I received the unwelcome news that the dispatch of parachutes from India would be much less than we had been led to expect, and would indeed fall far short of our requirements. It was useless to hope for supplies from home. We were bottom of the priority list there, for parachutes as for everything else. The position was serious. Our plans were based on large reserves of parachutes for supply dropping; if we had not got them we risked, if not disaster, at least a drastic slowing up and modification of those plans. I went for a walk in the comparative cool of the evening and did some hard thinking.

  Next morning I assembled Snelling and one or two of his leading air-supply staff officers and explained the position. If we could not get proper parachutes of silk or other special cloth we must make them of what we could get. I believed it possible to make a serviceable supply-dropping parachute from either paper or jute. There are great paper nulls in Calcutta; all the jute in the world is grown in Bengal and most of it manufactured there. I despatched officers forthwith to Calcutta to explore possibilities. The paper parachute, although I still believe it quite practicable, we could not obtain, because the manufacturers could not produce the kind of paper required in the time. With jute we were more fortunate. My assignment officer visited some of the leaders of the British jute industry in Calcutta, told them our difficulty, and asked their help. He warned them that to save time I had sent him direct and that my need was my only authority. I hoped they would be paid, but when or how I could not guarantee. The answer of these Calcutta business men was, ‘Never mind about that! If the Fourteenth Army want parachutes they shall have them!’

  And have them we did. Within ten days we were experimenting with various types of ‘parajutes’ as we called them. Some fell with a sickening thud; others had a high percentage of failure. By trial and error we arrived at the most efficient shape and weave for the cloth. In a month we had a parajute that was eighty-five per cent as efficient and reliable as the most elaborate parachute. It was made entirely of jute—even the ropes—and was of the simplest design. It dispensed with the vent at the top of the normal parachute as the texture of the jute cloth was such that the right quantity of air passed through it to keep the parajute expanded and stable. Instead of having one large vent it had innumerable tiny ones. It would have been risky to drop a man in a parajute, or a particularly valuable or fragile load such as a wireless set, but for ordinary supplies it worked admirably. It had in addition another advantage. The cost of a parajute was just over £1; that of a standard parachute over £20. As we used several hundreds of thousands of parajutes we saved the British taxpayer some millions of pounds, and, more important even than that, our operations went on. My reward was a ponderous rebuke from above for not obtaining the supply through the proper channels! I replied that I never wanted to find a more proper channel for help when in need than those Calcutta jute men.

  My intelligence staff estimated in November that the Japanese had in Arakan a force amounting to just over a division. Of this two regiments (brigades) were forward of Akyab and one in or around Akyab Island
itself, with a detachment from the division, including its cavalry regiment, in the Kaladan Valley to oppose the West Africans. This estimate proved to be remarkably accurate as to strength and location; the actual force being the complete 55th Division with two extra battalions. A little later we discovered that behind the 55th Division, another, the 54th, was moving into Arakan and had its headquarters for the moment, we thought, at Prome. Thus, to deal with, at the most, two Japanese divisions we were concentrating three (less a brigade) with one in near reserve; but, apart from the fact that we should need a preponderance in strength if we were to attack, I had no intention, if I could avoid it, of pitting my army division for division against the Japanese on their own ground. I hoped that the Arakan campaign would be the first step towards building up a tradition of success, and I did not intend to take more risks than I had to at this early stage. Later we would take on twice or thrice our number in Japanese divisions—but not yet. At this time all my plans were based on ensuring a superiority in numbers and force at the decisive points.

  During the monsoon, patrols had constantly gone out to probe the Japanese defences and from them we had learned that the enemy had only outpost detachments forward, while their main positions were just north of the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road. Air reconnaissance told us little; the enemy dispositions were too well hidden under the carpet of trees.

  By the end of October, the leading division of Christison’s 15 Corps, the 7th, under Messervy, had relieved the 26th Division all along the front on both sides of the Mayu Range, and was in close contact with the enemy outposts. During November the 5th Division, under Briggs, arrived and took over the range itself, the foothills, and the narrow coastal plain which formed the western half of the front. This allowed Christison to concentrate the 7th Division to the east of the range on both banks of the Kalapanzin River. Here it was maintained over the Goppe Pass by laborious mule and porter columns and then by boat on the river. Our engineers introduced yet another form of transport by erecting a rope-way, last used in the Khyber on the North-West Frontier of India, to carry loads to the top of the pass. Creaking in every joint the old rope-way tugged valiantly away and saved the situation—another and ancient monument to the versatility of our Fourteenth Army Sappers.

  On the last night of November 1943, Christison began his advance. The 7th Division, east of the range, pushed in the Japanese outposts and broke through into the Letwedet area. On the 20th December the 5th Division in its turn punched through to the Maungdaw plain facing Razabil. Against minor opposition, which nevertheless furnished some brisk small engagements, the two divisions pushed on. As they approached the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road the pattern of the enemy defence was picked out by many a daring patrol.

  Roughly half-way between the villages the sixteen-mile-long metalled road passed literally through the Mayu Range, over a thousand feet high here, by means of two tunnels, relics of a light railway built to link Maungdaw with the rice-fields of the Kalapanzin. This line had been bought out and dismantled by a river steamer company, who much preferred trade to follow rivers rather than go burrowing from one valley to another. The road followed the formation of the old railway, and provided the only lateral communication fit for wheels until the Taungup-Prome road was reached, nearly two hundred miles to the south. The Japanese positions in the precipitous jungle hills covered the road continuously, but in three places they grew to an elaborateness and strength that justified the term fortresses. These were, first, at the tunnels themselves, and then in two great buttresses, one each side of the range at Letwedet on the east and Razabil on the west, which thrust forward to guard the approaches. All three positions were of the greatest strength. The Japanese had tunnelled far into the hills, with living accommodation, storerooms, and dug-outs twenty or thirty feet below the surface. There were innumerable mutually supporting machine-gun posts and strong-points subterraneously linked. The extent of their preparation and the extreme formidableness of the defences were not, of course, then fully known to us, but it was obvious that they would be hard nuts to crack.

  Christison’s plan, worked out in great detail, was a methodical advance up to the main positions, a complete mopping up of all enemy in front of them, the capture of both buttresses, followed by the isolation and reduction of the tunnels fortress. The 5th Indian Division was to take Razabil, while the 7th Indian Division, moving round behind Letwedet, was to take Buthidaung and then attack the eastern buttress from the rear. Meanwhile the 81st West African Division would advance down the Kaladan River, capture Kyauktaw and go on to cut the Kanzauk-Htizwe road, the enemy’s main line of communication between Kaladan and Kalapanzin Valleys.

  It now became necessary, if an attack on Letwedet was to be made, to pass vehicles, guns, and tanks across to the 7th Division. A footpath crossed the range, some five miles north of the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road, through the wild and winding Ngakyedauk Pass. It had been declared that this route could not in any conceivable circumstances be converted into a road; but a road there had to be and, poor as it was, this pass was the only hope of making one. Luckily the path was in our hands. On his first arrival, Messervy, seeking a better way than the Goppe Pass by which to move and maintain his division, had told one of his Brigadiers, Roberts, to find, if possible, an alternative. Roberts, who had an excellent eye for country, decided the Ngakyedauk was the only answer. He took measures at once to strengthen our hold on the pass, and when, soon after, the Japanese, realizing its importance, attacked, a detachment of Punjabis of his brigade were ready for them, and in an all-night fight beat them off. Had it not been for Brigadier Roberts’s initiative, the story of Ngakyedauk might have been very different. While other troops held the enemy in his positions just to the south, the 7th Divisional Engineers set about driving their road. With the exception of two or three bulldozers they had only the field equipment of divisional engineers, but in an incredibly short time, right under the snub noses of the Japanese, they built, first a jeep track, and then, before Christmas, a real road, unmetalled of course, but capable of taking tanks and medium artillery. Over this pass, christened the ‘Okey-doke’ by the British soldiery, flowed the vehicles, stores, and equipment needed for the 7th Division’s assault on Letwedet fortress. We, too, now had our lateral road connecting directly the 7th Division on the east of the range and the 5th on the crest and to the sea.

  The assault on Razabil began. The Japanese positions were in a series of low but steep hillocks grouped round a main horseshoe-shaped hill, known as Tortoise. On the last day of 1943 the artillery preparation began, but it took a week to reduce the outlying positions—a week of hard, fierce fighting. Then our troops slipped past Tortoise and took Maungdaw. I visited what was left of the village next day—a tangle of burnt beams, riddled galvanized-iron sheeting, and smashed dock equipment, the whole overgrown with grass and weeds and plentifully laced with mines and booby traps. Loofah plants had spread everywhere and there were enough of these useful bathroom adjuncts to furnish us for years. The ‘docks’, never much to boast about, looked incapable of restoration, but by the time the troops had cleared the mouth of the Naf River of Japanese snipers, the 5th Divisional Engineers, emulating their brethren in the 7th, had the ‘port’ cleared of mines, a couple of steamer berths prepared, and were ready to unload ships. Although the mouth of the river was still under long-range enemy artillery fire, the little coastal steamers crept past in the dark. Many familiar faces from the old Sunderbans flotilla of happy memory appeared, and Maungdaw sprang once more to life as much of the maintenance of 15 Corps rattled over its ramshackle wharves.

  With Maungdaw safely in the bag, Briggs and his 5th Indian Division set about the keep of Razabil fortress—the Tortoise. This was the first time we had assaulted an elaborate, carefully prepared position that the Japanese meant to hold to the last, and we expected it to be tough. It was. The attack was preceded by heavy bombing from the strategic air force and dive-bombing by R.A.F. Vengeances, directed by smoke shells from the artille
ry. After this pounding, which left the Japanese apparently unmoved, medium and field artillery took up the task and pumped shells from their accumulated dumps into the smoking, burning, spouting hill-sides. Then the guns suddenly paused and the Lee-Grant tanks roared forward, the infantry, bayonets fixed, yelling their Indian war cries, following on their tails. The Dismal Jimmies who had prophesied, one, that the tanks would never get to the line, two, that they could never climb the hills and, three, if they did the trees would so slow them up that the Japanese anti-tank guns would bump them off as sitting targets, were confounded. The tanks, lots of them—‘the more you use, the fewer you lose’—crashed up the slopes and ground over the dug-in anti-tank guns. All was going well, but as the infantry passed ahead of the armour for the final assault the guns of the tanks had to cease firing for fear of hitting our own men. In that momentary pause the Japanese machine-gunners and grenadiers remanned their slits and rat-holes. Streams of bullets swept the approaches and a cascade of bombs bounced down among our infantry.