Roberts’s 23rd Division was deployed on a twenty-mile front across the main Tamu road, facing Yamamoto’s force of about two Japanese regiments (brigades) made up from the 33rd and 15th Divisions, supported by a very depressed I.N.A. Division. The main enemy strength was entrenched in the hills covering the road. The weather was appalling; continuous heavy rain, low clouds shrouding the hill-tops, and every little stream a torrent. In such conditions, although constant pressure by patrols and minor probing attacks forced the enemy to withdraw from several features, preparations for the real advance were slow. To speed matters up and give weight to the push, Stopford reinforced the 23rd Division with a brigade (5) of the 2nd Division and 268 Indian Brigade.
Roberts’s plan was a heavy assault by a brigade (37) in the centre, covered by all available corps artillery and some tanks, combined with an attack by another brigade (1) which was intended to roll up the enemy from the right and strike the road behind him. Meanwhile a third brigade (49) on the left was to carry out a wide turning movement through the hills to cut in on the main road about ten miles behind the Japanese positions. The attack on the centre was timed for the 24th July, but the left flank column, starting earlier, was well behind the enemy and had reached its objective on die road by the night of the 22nd/23rd July. Next day it found the Lokchao bridge position, a Japanese tank and artillery harbour, heavily defended. The attack on the centre made good progress against stiff resistance throughout the 24th and 25th, while that from the left also pushed on against less opposition. By the 27th the right flank brigade had completed its turning movement and made contact with the left at the Lokchao bridge, from which the enemy withdrew. He had suffered considerable losses in men, guns, vehicles, and some tanks and tractors.
I visited the 23rd Division on this day and reached the forward troops, by jeep and on foot, only with difficulty. Whole sections of the road had vanished in landslides; the troops, soaked and filthy, were struggling forward across steep slopes through mud with the consistency of porridge half-way up to their knees. It was campaigning at its hardest, but everyone was cheerful. The litter of the Japanese rout was everywhere; their corpses shapeless lumps in the mud. Luckily, our casualties had not been heavy and devoted efforts were being made to get them back by bearers or jeep ambulances where the road was possible. Their sufferings from wet, cold, and jolting during these interminable journeys were grim, but those I spoke to all assured me in their various languages that they were all right, when quite obviously several of them were, alas, far from it. It struck me then, as so often, that I had very brave soldiers. So had the enemy. A Japanese officer with a horribly shattered leg was brought back roughly bandaged in a jeep ambulance. A British officer was shocked to see the wounded man’s hands were bound. He stopped the jeep, and ordered the Indian guards to untie him. They explained that the prisoner had several times torn the bandages from his leg. Even now, with his hands tied, he had attempted to rip them off with his teeth. The Japanese soldier, even in disaster, retained his one supreme quality—he chose death rather than surrender.
After their obstinate defence astride the road, the surviving Japanese, abandoning much equipment, escaped by jungle paths, and a brigade (5) of the 2nd Division passed through to occupy Tamu without opposition.
It was always a disappointment in the Burma campaign to enter a town that had been a name on the map and a goal for which men fought and died. There was for the victors none of the thrill of marching through streets which, even if battered, were those of a great, perhaps historic, city—a Paris or a Rome. There were no liberated crowds to greet the troops. Instead, my soldiers walked warily, alert for booby traps and snipers, through a tangle of burnt beams, twisted corrugated iron, with here and there, rising among the squalid ruins, the massive chipped and stained pagodas and chinthis of a Buddhist temple. A few frightened Burmans, clad in rags, might peer at them and even wave a shy welcome, but at the best it was not a very inspiring business and more than one conquering warrior, regarding the prize of weeks of effort, spat contemptuously.
In Tamu he had other reasons for spitting. The place was a charnel house, of a macabre eeriness hard to describe. Five hundred and fifty Japanese corpses lay unburied in its streets and houses, many grouped grotesquely around stone Buddhas which looked blandly out over the sacrifices huddled at their feet. Dozens more, over a hundred, lay in indescribable filth, dying of disease and starvation, among the corpses. It was not only in Tamu itself that such evidences of the collapse of the enemy administration were found. Along all routes leading to the Chindwin, whether from Ukhrul Imphal, Tamu, or on the Tiddim road, were found such grisly reminders of the fate of a retreating army. More than once, small field hospitals were found where the patients lay on their stretchers, all dead, neatly shot through the head, killed by their comrades who had no means of evacuating them and preferred this—as no doubt the patients themselves did—to their capture. From these and other signs it was increasingly clear that the Japanese Fifteenth Army had suffered an even more disastrous defeat than we had at first realized. The likelihood of our achieving our objects by the end of the monsoon was promising.
With the capture of Tamu, the time had come to press on with the regrouping and resting of my formations, which General Giffard had wisely urged on me and which I agreed was necessary if I was to be ready for a major offensive within a few months. I was at this time anxious about the health of the troops. They had endured a great deal and showed it. The infantry especially, who as ever had borne the brunt of the fighting and the worst of the hardships, were very fined down. They were too thin to my mind, a state which was not improved by the jaundice yellow of all our complexions as a result of the daily dose of mepacrine. They were cheerful enough and pleased with themselves, as well they might be, but as fighting died down, sickness rose. I told my doctors to select several battalions, British, Indian, and Gurkha, who had come out to rest, and give them a mass examination. The results perturbed me. A very large proportion of men were suffering from malnutrition, the disease that had killed thousands of Japanese. It was not that our men had not had enough to eat. Although ration scales had at times been lowered, as at Imphal, and at others had been irregular, there had never, thanks to the efficiency of the supply and transport services and the extreme devotion of the air forces, been a serious shortage. Unavoidably, however, there had been depressing monotony in the diet and practically no fresh meat or vegetables. In addition, I was informed, the constant mental strain of fighting in the jungle had of itself reacted on the metabolism of the men’s bodies, so that often food passed through them without the normal amount of nourishment being extracted from it. Obviously rest, freedom from strain, a more varied diet, and some amenities were imperative if these formations were to be keyed up for the winter campaign; and they would have to be, for most of them would be engaged in it.
4 Corps Headquarters had been in action much longer and had had a harder time than 33 Corps. I was anxious that it should be taken right out and given a rest, so on the 31st July it closed down in Assam, and 33 Corps took over the whole Central front. During August, 4 Corps Headquarters returned to India.
General Giffard had sent me the 11th East African Division under Major-General Fowkes, which impressed me very favourably when I inspected it. I thought, like the West African Division, it had too many British Officers and N.C.O.s and I was given the same reasons why they were necessary. Again I was not convinced, but, as before, this was no time to make changes which at best could now only be long term. This division I gave to Stopford to replace the 23rd Division which was pulled out to recuperate in India. The 17th Division also gathered at Imphal en route for India. The 2nd and 7th Divisions were concentrated on the road north of Imphal and about Kohima, and the 20th Division south of Imphal, where, beyond a little mild patrolling to round up solitary, moribund Japanese, these divisions could devote themselves to recuperation. 3 Commando Brigade was returned to Arakan for projected amphibious operations. This gave 3
3 Corps five divisions, a couple of infantry brigades, and a tank brigade to command, but as only two divisions and one brigade were actively engaged the burden was mainly an administrative one. I should have liked to have got more divisions to India. That was a real change, but time and the limited railway capacity forbade it. However, most men of the remaining divisions were given leave, while the army and corps staffs, and above all the divisions themselves, did remarkably well in producing amenities and amusements out of our very limited resources. I am afraid our armies in Europe and North Africa would have smiled at what seemed not too bad to us, but the troops realized the difficulties and made the best of what we could get them. Health, appearance, and general well-being improved weekly.
On the 6th August, my fifty-third birthday, I sent orders to Stopford, now in control of all operations on the Central front:
(i) To pursue the enemy with not less than one brigade group on each of the routes:
(a) Imphal–Tiddim–Kalemyo–Kalewa.
(b) Tamu–Kalewa.
(c) Tamu–Sittaung.
(ii) To occupy Sittaung and deny the Chindwin to enemy shipping.
(iii) If opportunity offered, to seize Kalewa, and prepare to establish a bridgehead.
In accordance with these instructions the 11th East African Division, having relieved the 23rd Division, began a two-pronged advance from Tamu towards Sittaung on the Chindwin, thirty-six miles by road to the east, and into the Kabaw Valley on Kalemyo, some hundred miles south.
This was the East African introduction to war in Burma; they signalized it by several successes in minor encounters. On the 16th August, their leading brigade (25) crossed the Yu River, then in high flood and very rapid. On the 18th they had their first serious clash, and drove a Japanese detachment from its position. For the rest of the month they advanced slowly, partly because of the need constantly to brush aside the resistance of small rearguards, but mainly because of the difficulties of the track. On the 4th September, Sittang was occupied and found to be a second Tamu. Among some hundreds of corpses only two men were living, one Japanese and one I.N.A. sepoy. On the 10th September, a small bridgehead was formed on the east bank opposite Sittang. The enemy was too disorganized to counterattack, but many clashes took place as African patrols from this bridgehead pushed out and met enemy ones.
The main body of the East African Division entered the Kabaw Valley, of ill omen. I have heard it said that in Burma we often selected particularly disease-ridden spots in which to fight the Japanese because our scientific safeguards against malaria, scrub typhus, and other jungle ills were so much better than theirs. I certainly never deliberately did this. When we were retreating in 1942, and our men were dispirited, undernourished, and exhausted, our sickness rate was vastly higher than the enemy’s; when they in turn retreated in 1944 and their men were in that state, the position was reversed. But at most periods of the campaign, even after our anti-malaria discipline had improved and our superior remedies were available, I do not think our casualties from sickness were any lower than theirs. I always believed—and this I confirmed later by the observation of large bodies of Japanese prisoners—that both British and Indian troops were more susceptible to these diseases than were the enemy. I always acted on that belief, and, had I been able, would have fought the Japanese in the healthiest, and not the most disease-ridden, areas I could find. We entered the Kabaw Valley because it was the most practicable route for our purpose. I was therefore very interested to be told that, while East Africans are by no means immune from malaria, they are much more resistant to it than either Europeans or Indians, and that when they do develop the disease its attacks are less virulent. It was partly in the hope that this was true that I gave the East Africans to Stopford for the Kabaw Valley advance. Whether there is scientific support for this theory, I think those who held it can claim that it received considerable confirmation. The African malarial casualties were not light, but I doubt if any other of our troops would have kept them as low.
The leading brigade (26) of the 11th East African Division was approaching Htinzin in the Kabaw Valley and was thirty miles south of Tamu on the 21st August 1944. It had met with little opposition, but had picked up a great deal of abandoned enemy equipment, including lorries, several of which it put in running order, although this was only in the pious hope that when the monsoon ended they might be used on the road. The rate of advance was not fast if judged by the map, but on the ground it represented a real achievement. At this time all available air supply for the division was wanted on the Sittang axis and consequently the Kabaw road had to be made up to a jeep standard, often by corduroying it, as the troops advanced. At least two large bridges and innumerable small ones had to be built, often only to be washed away by spates. Rain fell without stopping for three weeks at an average of five inches a day. Mud, water, mosquitoes, and back-breaking labour were the order of the day.
The first serious resistance in the Kabaw Valley was encountered on the 27th September when a strong enemy position blocking the road was carried by assault, a number of the enemy killed, and the advance resumed to Yazago forty-five miles south of Htinzin.
On the 11th September, a battalion had been pushed out to the east from the road to work through the hills and take Mawlaik, a small but valuable river port on the Chindwin. This battalion was held up by enemy covering the approaches to the town, and after three weeks had made no further headway towards its objective. Other units of its brigade (21) were then moved up and on the 20th October attacked the positions covering Mawlaik from the north. This attack failed, but another, next day, had more success, although, in spite of excellent air strikes, the Japanese resistance was not fully overcome, and they still clung to the tops of the vertical cliffs which are a feature of the local landscape. It was not until the ioth November, after a series of small but fiercely contested assaults in which the enemy suffered considerably, that Mawlaik was at last in our hands. Under cover of this fighting, the 1st Battalion of the Assam Regiment, from 268 Brigade on loan to the 11th Division, slipped across the Chindwin, and, by vigorous patrolling, established our second bridgehead on the east bank opposite Mawlaik. The East Africans then pushed south along the west bank from Mawlaik towards Kalewa.
Meanwhile with the help of many accurate strikes by the R.A.F., the main advance in the Kabaw Valley had, in spite of increasing opposition, by the 2nd November, reached a point on the road about twelve miles from Kalemyo. Here it struck, as expected, a strong Japanese position, much photographed from the air. The leading brigade became involved in front of this, but the next brigade by-passed it and, on the 12th, reached a point only five miles from Kalemyo. From here it shelled the routes passing through the town and next day sent out patrols which cut into the Kalemyo–Fort White road, just west of Kalemyo. Here one of these patrols made contact with a patrol from the 5th Indian Division advancing on the Tiddim road and the two, sepoys and askaris together, entered the town.
This joint entrance might at first sight appear a dramatic and fitting ending to the parallel advance of these two fine divisions, but in hard fact it would have been better had the 11th Division reached Kalemyo while the Japanese were still locked with the 5th Division on the Tiddim road. I could not, however, reproach the 11th Division for slowness, as I had seen for myself the climatic and natural obstacles that, more than the enemy, delayed them. Their advance was a great achievement, which a year before would almost universally have been proclaimed impossible.
Now to turn to the simultaneous advance of the 5th Indian Division, which had been going on in conditions equally difficult and against stronger opposition. During July, after its drive north to link up with the 2nd Division from Kohima, the 5th Division, turning about, joined the 17th Division in pushing back the enemy astride the Tiddim road south of Imphal. By the third week of July the Japanese, after determined resistance, were driven out of the last portion of the Imphal plain in which they had a footing, and began their long withdrawal. The Japane
se retreat on the Tiddim road was under better control than on any other part of the front. The rearguards of the reinforced 33rd Japanese Division which had been made up to ten battalions, a tank regiment, artillery, and engineer units, only withdrew under pressure, stubbornly contesting ridge after ridge astride the road. Although our troops inflicted serious losses on them, including the capture of most of their tanks, and the climatic condition were of the hardest, there was less evidence of disorder, such as littered the tracks of the other enemy columns. Again the 33rd Japanese Division was living up to its reputation of being the toughest division in Burma.
By the end of July the 17th Division was on its way to a well-earned rest. It had been actively engaged since December 1941, that is, for three years and eight months, and almost all that time in direct contact with the enemy. A record, I should think.
On the 18th July, the 5th Division, relieving the 17th, had taken over operations on the Tiddim road, and by the 31st its leading brigade (9) had reached a point forty-two miles south of Imphal. Many of the Japanese rearguard positions were of great natural strength and all were stubbornly defended, but our troops ejected the enemy from each in turn. The method followed a pattern. As soon as the position was located, it was shelled and strafed from the air. While this preparation was going on, a wide outflanking movement would be launched through the hills to strike behind the enemy. Then, in co-ordination with this, a frontal attack with tank support would be launched. In this way, by the 23rd August, the brigade had reached the 85th milestone from Imphal. It had advanced at an average rate of two miles a day. That alone—with the road disappearing before and behind it in landslides—would have been no mean achievement, without opposition, but it had had some hard fighting. It had counted over 300 Japanese dead, besides many graves, captured 18 prisoners, 11 tanks, 15 field guns, 19 mortars, 33 machine-guns, and over 200 lorries. All this would have been impossible without the incredibly efficient air support the division enjoyed even in the worst weather. Our troops for their part suffered the inevitable casualties of a monsoon campaign. The figures are instructive. This brigade in 26 days had only 9 killed and 85 wounded, but lost 507 from sickness.
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