Defeat Into Victory
Page 48
I did not specify Rangoon because, while Rangoon would ultimately be necessary, I was inclined to consider Moulmein might be a better initial strategic objective. There would be plenty of time to decide later which we should attempt.
I allotted formations to corps thus:
4 Corps
7th and 17th Divisions
255 Tank Brigade (Sherman tanks)
Lushai Brigade
28 East African Brigade
33 Corps
2nd, 19th, and 20th Divisions
254 Tank Brigade (Lee-Grants and Stuart tanks)
268 Brigade
The 5th Division, reorganizing on its mechanized and airborne establishment I held in Army Reserve.
The two corps commanders accepted these changes without fuss and with the determination that, however difficult, the new plan would be made to succeed. Stopford in 33 Corps proceeded to revise his plans; Messervy in 4 Corps completely to remake his.
For success it was essential that both the blow that was being launched from Pakokku and its strength must be concealed from the enemy until the moment it fell upon him. A scheme was therefore prepared, which, it was hoped, would persuade Kimura that 4 Corps was still moving complete into the Shwebo Plain, on the left of 33 Corps, and that any movement in the Gangaw Valley was merely a demonstration to distract his attention from our attack on Mandalay from the north. To achieve this, a dummy 4 Corps Headquarters, using the same wireless channels, had to be substituted at Tamu for the real one when it moved out. All signals from 33 Corps to the 19th Division had to be passed through this dummy headquarters. The real 4 Corps was to keep wireless silence until control of operations in the Gangaw Valley necessitated breaking it; even then they were limited to simulating only the headquarters of the withdrawn 11th East African Division. ‘Indiscreet’ conversations in clear between staff officers and operators were arranged, news broadcasts made slightly inaccurate references to formations engaged, and many ingenious devices were employed to mislead the simple Japanese, while the volume of traffic was made to conform to having both corps concentrated in the Shwebo plain. Operationally this signal deception scheme was a real annoyance to corps and divisional commanders and its enforcement a test of patience and discipline, but it paid an excellent dividend. The enemy was completely deceived.
I had been tempted to make the seizure of Meiktila a wholly airborne operation in its first stages, but I had to abandon the idea, partly for lack of parachute troops, but mainly because the air-lift allotted to Fourteenth Army would barely cope with maintenance alone. It was as well I did so. At dawn on the 10th December I was awakened in my headquarters at Imphal by the roar of engines as a large number of aircraft took off in succession and passed low overhead. I knew loaded aircraft were due to leave for 33 Corps later in the morning, but I was surprised at this early start. I sent somebody to discover what it was all about. To my consternation, I learnt that, without warning, three squadrons of American Dakotas (seventy-five aircraft), allotted to Fourteenth Army maintenance, had been suddenly ordered to China, where StilwelTs prophecy had been fulfilled, and the Japanese, galled by Chennault’s air attacks on shipping, had begun to overrun the forward American airfields. Passing overhead were the first flights bound for China. The supplies in the aircraft, already loaded for Fourteenth Army, were dumped on the Imphal strip and the machines took off. The noise of their engines was the first intimation anyone in Fourteenth Army had of the administrative crisis now bursting upon us.
For it was a crisis. It meant that the second foundation—a firm allotment of air-lift—on which all our plans had been based, was swept away. The loss threatened to bring operations to a standstill. The proposed move of 4 Corps, which I was then contemplating and on which Fourteenth Army staffs were already working, was most affected; but even in 33 Corps, whose arrangements were less difficult, the build-up of supplies and stores for the advance would now be dangerously slow. What this would mean in additional anxiety and work for all administrative staffs could hardly be exaggerated. I was especially sorry for those of Fourteenth Army and 4 Corps Headquarters. They were wrestling with a complete change of plan and the diversion of half the army to Meiktila; now all the calculations of air-lift and all timings would, with the loss of seventy-five aircraft, have to be worked out again. When they tackled this problem, their resiliency, ingenuity, and refusal to be beaten by anything, filled me with admiration.
Thanks to the great efforts of A.L.F.S.E.A. and S.A.C.S.E.A. and to drastic reductions in the air-lift for 15 Corps in Arakan, the lost tonnage was eventually restored from various sources, but not until there had been a serious retardation in our plans, which at a fair estimate was from a fortnight to three weeks. The effects were felt throughout the ensuing operations for two reasons: first, this slowing-up gave the Japanese extra time to recover and react to our moves, and, second, it left less time before the monsoon to complete our tasks.
Even before the unexpected reduction in our allotted air-lift, it had been obvious that the new plan would strain all our resources to the utmost. The administrative risks were great. First there was the move of 4 Corps from Tamu to Pakokku, a distance of three hundred and twenty-eight miles by a very rough earth road, which in rain was impassable mud and in dry weather almost impassable dust. To move a corps of two or three divisions and a tank brigade over the curves and gradients of this track, to build up resources for a major opposed river crossing at the end of it, to place all the petrol and ammunition required for the dash to Meiktila, and to do all this within two months, without the enemy being aware of it, would require no mean effort of skill and determination.
Little maintenance transport could run on the road while the actual move was in progress, and 4 Corps had, therefore, to be supplied, and its casualties evacuated, by air. This entailed the building of numerous landing strips capable of taking the heavy C46 transports, and of other airfields for the fighters that must be brought forward to give essential cover—a vast task in itself. The crucial factor was, as so often, the adequacy of our air supply. Snelling and his staffs calculated that, if all went according to plan, our reduced air-lift, allowing for a slower build-up and rate of advance, would be just enough to maintain both corps and to build up the minimum reserves of ammunition and equipment needed for the river crossings and the subsequent battle. This made no allowance for serious enemy interference with our aircraft or for weather, both factors, which, as we already knew, could completely throw out our plans. While air transport would be our main method of maintenance for the forward formations, it alone could not possibly suffice. It had to be supplemented by every other available means. Rear formations of the army would have to be placed on supply by road, rail, or river at the earliest possible moment, and divisions moving forward would have to ferry in their own transport.
As far as roads were concerned, the need for considerable engineering resources on the track by which 4 Corps was to move to the Irrawaddy, especially on the hilly section from Gangaw to Pauk, compelled us to abandon ideas of making the road from Kalewa to Ye-u up to all-weather standard. The roads to Tiddim and Sittang had already disappeared from our plans. We had to limit all-weather construction to one stretch of road only, that from Tamu to Kalewa. This alone, with the lack of road metal and of road-making machinery, would have been impossible had not Bill Hasted, my Chief Engineer, and one of the heroes of the campaign, made a revolution in road building by using ‘bithess’. The earth formation of the road was levelled and packed tight, largely by hand-labour; deep ditches, with frequent spill ways, were dug along each side, and the surface covered by overlapping strips of Hessian cloth, dipped in bitumen. As long as no holes appeared in the waterproof cover all was well, and even when, as was inevitable, they did, repairs, like patching a tyre, were quickly and easily made. For over a hundred miles this novel surface proved able to take a thousand vehicles a day when the monsoon came. All the same, I had some uncomfortable moments when I thought of what depended on this
one road.
The Japanese railways which we hoped to take over as we advanced would be badly damaged both by our own bombing and by demolitions. We should be very lucky if we got any serviceable locomotives, although we might pick up a little repairable rolling-stock. However, in spite of all our bombing efforts, the Japanese were working their railways, and if they could, we should be able to restore any lengths of line that fell into our hands. We therefore planned to concentrate on getting the lines Alon–Ava and Myingyan–Meiktila into operation at the earliest opportunity. It is not easy to fly in, or bring by road, railway locomotives, but from various sources we collected in India miscellaneous light engines which later we flew in in pieces or even brought whole on tank transporters. For the rest, the incomparablejeep, converted to rail, would have to serve.
In our difficulties we turned our eyes hopefully to water transport. We now held a stretch of the Chindwin and hoped soon to be on the Irrawaddy. Apart from the perils of navigation, especially on the Chindwin, there was one serious obstacle to the use of these rivers as our line of communication—we had no boats. Most of the shipping on the Chindwin we had sunk ourselves during the Retreat and since by air attack; the remainder, the Japanese had destroyed or removed downstream to the Irrawaddy. One hot day at the beginning of the advance, I took Bill Hasted, my quiet-spoken Chief Engineer, a little upstream of Kalewa and said, ‘Billy, there’s the river and there are the trees,’ pointing to the great forests within half a mile of the bank ‘In two months I want five hundred tons of supplies a day down that river.’ He looked thoughtfully at the river and the trees, and then at me. ‘The difficult we will do at once; the impossible will take a little longer,’ he quoted from a saying in frequent use in the Fourteenth Army, and added with a grin, ‘For miracles we like a month’s notice!’ ‘You’re lucky,’ I answered, ‘You’ve got two!’
But it was I who was lucky, lucky to have such a Chief Engineer. A few weeks later when I revisited the site, along the river bank, humming with activity, there was a mass production boat-building yard. Hasted’s engineers, reinforced by I.W.T. construction companies flown in from India and by local Burmese labour, were turning out boats by the dozen from teak logs dragged in from the forest by ‘Elephant Bill’s’ Fourteenth Army elephant companies. The boats were not graceful craft; they looked like Noah’s Arks without the houses, but they floated and carried ten tons each. Three of these, lashed together and decked, made a very serviceable raft that would carry anything up to a Sherman tank. Building these dumb barges was no mean achievement—we launched several hundred of them—but the real problem was to provide power craft to tow them. A.L.F.S.E.A. came to our rescue by flying in outboard engines, marine petrol engines and even small motor tugs in parts which were put together on the river bank. Tank transporters, borrowed from our armoured units, went back and brought motor launches from railhead at Dimapur—a nightmare drive, described by an indignant tank commander as ‘the prostitution of transportation’. Kalewa, its quays rebuilt, was restored to its former position as a considerable river port.
Some of the most spectacular feats of our I.W.T. services were the salvaging, with most inadequate and improvised equipment, of many comparatively large vessels, Japanese landing craft, heavy steel floats, tugs, and even small steamers, from the bottom of the river. These formed a considerable proportion of the tonnage eventually available. My especial pride, however, was the warships we built for the Royal Navy in our Kalewa shipyards. They were two wooden, punt-like vessels, with lightly armoured bridges, which steamed twelve knots, and were armed with one Bofors gun, two Oerlikons, and a couple of double Browning light automatics mounted for anti-aircraft fire. I claimed to be the only general who had designed, built, christened, launched, and commissioned warships for the Royal Navy. One I called Pamela, after Admiral Mountbatten’s younger daughter, and the other Una, after our own daughter. The sequel to the double christening, which I effected with a couple of bottles of wine of doubtful quality, came in the form of a dignified rebuke from Their Lordships of the Admiralty who pointed out, more in sorrow than in anger, that only Their Lordships themselves were authorized to suggest names for His Majesty’s ships of war. I hope they forgave me, for H.M.S. Una and H.M.S. Pamela brought the White Ensign, and all it meant to us soldiers, back to the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy. The little ships and their navy crews maintained the real Nelsonian tradition of steering closer to the enemy. They were often in action and both suffered damage from enemy shot. In their day they swept the seas, or at least the rivers. It was fun to have our own navy again.
The line of communication on which Fourteenth Army operations would, apart from direct air supply, depend as soon as the monsoon began in May, was thus a varied one, and would run:
(a) By the all-weather road from railhead at Dimapur, via Imphal to Tamu—206 miles. Then by,
(b) the fair-weather road which, by expedients like ‘bithess’, we hoped to make all-weather, to Kalewa—112 miles.
(c) Across the Chindwin by Bailey bridge and a fair-weather road to Shwebo; thence by a very bad, but all-weather, road to Mandalay and 33 Corps—190 miles.
(d) The river link, with our home-built or assembled boats, from Kalewa to Myingyan—200 miles—serving 4 Corps.
(e) Finally, from Myingyan partially by all-weather road, and, it was hoped, rail to Meiktila—59 miles.
To carry out the opposed crossing of a great river and fight a major battle at the end of such a line of communication, between five hundred and six hundred miles from railhead, would have been difficult enough had we been granted ample time, but the monsoon, to be expected in early May, meant that within five months or less we had to make this line of communication fit for bearing traffic in all weathers. If by that time we had not done so, unless we had the use of a port in South Burma, the Fourteenth Army could hardly hope to maintain itself. We were certainly going to have a busy five months.
As it emerged from the hills, 19th Division’s drive gained momentum and the enemy rearguards broke before it. On the 19th December, our men swept through Wuntho and, having turned south, by the 23rd were some twenty-five miles beyond it. This advance of nearly two hundred miles in twenty days was an astonishing feat, not so much because of the opposition overcome—although that was by no means negligible—but because of the difficulty of the country. For most of the distance there was no road; the earth track built through the hills by the Japanese for their invasion of Assam had largely disappeared during the rains. The 19th Division, with very little road-making equipment, had to cut the track anew. Most of the division went on foot, but guns and lorries had often to be winched and man-hauled up steep slopes, and in one place the only way to get the track round a cliff was to cantilever it out on timber supports. It was vastly exhilarating to fly over the division in a light aeroplane. Through gaps in the treetops that screened the hills below, I could see on every rough track files of men marching hard with a purposefulness that could be recognized from five hundred feet. Behind them gangs, stripped to the waist, were felling trees and hauling them to make rough bridges across the numberless streams and gullies that cut the route, while guns waited to move on again the moment the last log was in position. Dust rose in reddish clouds as whole companies with pick and spade dug into banks to widen the road and let the lorries pass. These men hacking out a road, dragging vehicles, pushing on with such fierce energy to get to grips with the enemy, were a heartening sight. When I came down on their hurriedly-prepared airstrips and talked to them, and to Pete Rees, who was as usual in the van, my spirits soared. The 19th Division had waited long enough to get at the enemy and nothing was going to stop it now.
Also under 4 Corps, 268 Brigade had crossed the Chindwin south of Sittang, and, advancing by jungle paths, had seized Oil Indaw, broken through the hills, and reached the Mu River which flows south into the Shwebo plain. It was now moving south on the right of the 19th Division. On the 26th December, in accordance with the new plan, I transferred both 268
Brigade and 19th Division from 4 Corps to 33 Corps*, which from that date became responsible for the tactical direction of all operations on the northern part of Fourteenth Army’s front.
While the 19th Division had been sweeping south, the eastwatd advance of the 20th and 2nd Divisions of 33 Corps from Mawlaik and Kalewa continued. The Japanese were obviously pulling out ahead of our troops along the Shwegyin-Ye-u road, leaving it blocked by mines and felled trees. These took some time to clear and it was not until the 23rd December that the leading troops of the 2nd Division passed through Pyingaing, which, contrary to our expectation, the enemy did not attempt to hold. The first resistance was met some miles to the east, where next day a Japanese rearguard was in position astride the road. It held on obstinately, but on the 22nd, a Gurkha battalion from the 20th Division, moving south-east, came in behind the Japanese position and placed road-blocks and ambushes on the road. For five days the battalion hung on and in that time accounted for the greater part of the enemy. The 2nd Division then arrived on the 27th and attacked the gorge frontally, driving what was left of the enemy rearguard on to the Gurkha bayonets. The advance was pressed on against a little opposition and a small mechanized column made a dash for the Kabo weir. This controlled the irrigation of the Shwebo plain and its destruction would have led to eventual famine over a wide area. The column arrived just in time to forestall and drive away a Japanese demolition party. It was evident that the rapidity of our advance here also was taking the enemy by surprise, and his only reaction was some abortive raids by his fighter aircraft. The leading troops of the 2nd Division seized Ye-u and its airfield on the 2nd January 1945 and during the next day and night crossed the Mu River, both north and south of the town, against slight opposition. The Sappers then began to build a bridge to replace the old trestle one destroyed by the Japanese, and by the 5th, the 2nd Division, covered by effective air support, had established a firm bridgehead. It had also, about Kabo, made touch with the approaching 19th Division.