Defeat Into Victory

by Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

  Considering the state of his communications after two and a half years of Allied bombing and that our practically complete command of the air compelled him to make most moves by night, Kimura carried out this large-scale regrouping by road, rail, and river with surprising speed. I did not, of course, at this time, know the full extent of these transfers, but I soon began to get indications of it from many sources and to realize that the odds against me would be heavier than I had calculated.

  It will be remembered that I had originally based my plan for the battle of Central Burma on the three assumptions that:

  (i) The Japanese would fight in the Shwebo plain north of Mandalay.

  (ii) My allotted air transport lift would not be reduced, and

  (iii) Pressure on the other Burma fronts and the threat of seaborne landings would prevent the Japanese from seriously reinforcing their formations opposing my army.

  The first of these, the Japanese had disposed of by withdrawing behind the Irrawaddy; the second, the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington and London had shattered by sending a substantial part of my American squadrons to China; and now the third had gone after the other two. War is like that.

  I did what I could about it. I urged that everything should be done to increase the pressure on the other Burma fronts, especially that 15 Corps should thrust with the greatest maintainable strength from Taungup towards Prome. I was even willing to give up sixty tons a day of my precious air-lift to help with this. I also asked that the 36th British Division should be returned to Fourteenth Army, but only if its American air maintenance could come with it. Both Admiral Mountbatten and General Leese were sympathetic to this request, but it would naturally take some time to return the division and its removal must interfere with Sultan’s operations. The only positive action I could take was to bring in my last division, the 5th Indian, now at Jorhat. I had always meant to have it for the battle. It was being reorganized, like the 17th Division, on an airborne and mechanical transport establishment to take part in the dash for Meiktila and the subsequent advance—which would indeed be another dash—on Rangoon. I had intended, if it were forced upon me by the supply situation, to hold back or even return to India another division so that I could use the 5th with its special mobility. Now, when it looked as if the five divisions I had would be faced with considerably more than that number of Japanese, it became imperative to have the 5th Division, in addition, to make at least six.

  This, on paper, seemed to be one of those demands for a miracle that even a month’s warning would not make possible. Our supply services were already strained; our transport aircrews had for some weeks been flying at intensive rates, that, according to all experience, could not be demanded for more than a few days. There was a limit to human endurance and they must be near it. Yet I had to have the 5th Division. It was again a question of which risk I took—the tactical one of losing my battle through lack of troops, or the administrative one of having the troops and the battle collapsing because I was unable to supply them. I decided to accept the administrative risk because, if I had the additional division, I felt sure, in spite of developments, that I could win the battle of Central Burma and, if I won that, I believed I could get to Rangoon. I was strengthened in this decision by the fact that, thanks to the efforts of Admiral Mountbatten, our deficiency in aircraft was being slowly made up mainly from British sources outside Burma. Besides, Hasted’s boats, built in the Chindwin shipyard, promised to give us a good lift as soon as we could secure an Irrawaddy port, and we might hope as we advanced to make some use of the Japanese railways.

  Snelling’s staff and that of Combat Cargo Task Force were splendid. As was their duty, they pointed out the dangers, but they knew the need, and once the decision had been made they worked the miracle. Throughout the battle we were never without acute anxiety on the supply and transport side. Almost daily there was a crisis of some kind. The reserves of some basic ration would fall frighteningly low, guns would be silent for want of ammunition, river craft out of action for want of spares, wounded collecting in some hard-pressed spot with no means of evacuating them. Petrol was always desperately short. Yet we got over all these difficulties and a thousand others, by juggling between formations with the limited transport available and by cruelly overworking the men who drove, flew, sailed, and maintained our transport of all kinds. Time and again, and just in time, the bare essentials for their operations reached those who so critically needed them. Very rarely had any formation more than its basic needs. If it had, it meant that some officer in it, with the understandable but selfish desire to be able to say, ‘Thanks to me, our chaps are better off than other troops,’ had somehow got hold of more than his fair share, while his neighbours, or more probably those ahead of him, went short. It was a natural failing, and the Army staff soon came to know who were the greedy ones, individuals and formations.

  There was no difficulty, apart from maintenance, about calling in the 5th Division. Throughout January it had been preparing and, at the beginning of February, I had called its commander, Warren, to my headquarters to explain as fully as I could what would be required of him. Warren had succeeded Evans, who had fallen sick during the monsoon advance on Kalemyo in the previous September. I always found it stimulating to do business with Warren. He did not waste time or words, but asked questions on essentials, nor was he one of the selfish sort. If I told him I could not give him everything he wanted, I knew that, realizing it was not there for me to give, he would, without moaning, get on without it. As I said good-bye to him when he left me to fly back to his headquarters, he had strengthened my confidence in success. I never saw him again. Somewhere, in the two hundred and fifty miles of jungle hills between his headquarters and mine, he lies with his comrades. His loss, just when his division, which had implicit trust in him, was about to undertake difficult and arduous operations was a severe blow. He was not easily to be replaced and I feared the effect on the division. Only a month before, I had appointed Bob Mansergh, the Chief Artillery Officer of the 5th Division, to command the 11th East African Division. He was an exceptionally able young officer whom I had marked for advancement and, above all, he was known in the 5th Division which he had served well. The 11th East African was not likely to be engaged in the near future, and there would still be time for them to settle down under a new commander. I therefore put Mansergh in Warrens’ place, and I do not think I could have made a better choice. I consoled the disconsolate East Africans by giving them Brigadier Dimoline from the 28th East African Brigade. He had had much experience with East African troops and was very popular with them. Orders were issued for the 5th Division, leaving behind its airborne brigade, to move up to the Pakokku area. I watched it pass through Monywa, full of ardour, but by the time that happened the battle for Meiktila was in all its fury.

  Between the 18th and the 21st February, the 17th Division and 255 Tank Brigade were brought over the river into the 7th Division bridgehead, which they expanded for their own assembly area. The advance on Meiktila began on the 21st, while the last units of the 17th Division were still crossing. 48 Brigade followed the main track east, while the tank brigade, which had left one regiment on the west bank for the Pakokku fighting, moved parallel to the south. The first resistance was soon met astride the road, but the tanks coming in from the flank, it was easily brushed aside. In the afternoon, a point some fifteen miles from the river was reached, where the road split into three; the direct continuation to the east going to Welaung, the northern fork to Kamye, and the southern to Seiktein. Reconnaissance showed that the Welaung track would be most difficult for vehicles while the other two were passable. Next day, the force therefore divided, 63 Brigade Group taking the southern route to Seiktein, while a detachment made all speed to seize some high ground eight or nine miles along the Kamye track. It was hoped that this would facilitate a pincer movement on Taungtha and perhaps, by the southern trend of the main force, give the idea that the movement was directed on the oilfields. Dur
ing the day, 63 Brigade had a brisk fight with a Japanese delaying party and destroyed it, capturing two guns. On the 23rd February this brigade, turning north along the main road to Taungtha, got within two miles of Welaung against increasing opposition, again capturing two guns. Simultaneously, the rest of the 17th Division pushed on to Kamye against little resistance, although there was an attack on the column from the air and a few vehicles were destroyed.

  All that night under cover of outposts, work went on to make passable the half-mile wide sandy chaung west of Taungtha. Bales of brushwood and stretches of wire netting were put down, and by dawn on the 24th a passage was ready. Both columns then converged on Taungtha. 48 Brigade with the tanks easily broke through from the south-west against light opposition, but 63 Brigade from the south fought all the way against tougher defences. After the town was taken, the whole division and the tanks moved across country on a wide front, overrunning scattered parties of Japanese, to an assembly place east of Taungtha on the main road and railway to Meiktila. Before the division could settle down for the night, however, the whole of what it named ‘Snipers’ Triangle’ between the Welaung and Meiktila roads had to be cleared of enemy suicide squads. Over a hundred snipers were flushed from their concealment and killed.

  On the 25th February there was skirmishing with Japanese coming down from the north, but the division and tanks, leaving behind 48 Brigade to deal with this and to collect a supply drop, advanced fifteen miles and took Mahlaing, twenty miles from Meiktila. Next day the rest of the division, having duly collected the precious supply drop, reached Mahlaing, while the tank brigade rushed Thabutkon airstrip, ten miles farther on. As soon as it was secured, work began and was continued all night to repair damage done by the retreating Japanese. Next morning, the tank brigade was compelled to halt for a petrol drop and for maintenance, but the fly-in of 17th Division’s airborne 99 Brigade began, while 63 Brigade continued the advance along the road. Eight and a half miles from Meiktila, it encountered a well-dug and wired position astride the route. This was the strongest and most determined attempt yet made to hold us up. There was very heavy machine-gun and light automatic and considerable artillery fire; the chaung in front of the position was well mined and the bridge over it destroyed. Without delay, 63 Brigade made a wide hook to the north, and came in behind the enemy where the position was less formidable, while the replenished tank brigade arrived and delivered a simultaneous frontal assault on a wide front. The Japanese had had no experience of these massed armoured attacks and seemed quite incapable of dealing with them. The position was rapidly overrun. Its considerable garrison was hunted into the open, and there was a good killing. 63 Brigade then advanced to within five miles of Meiktila and harboured for the night. Patrols in darkness, probing the western defences of the town, reported that they were strongly held and appeared most formidable. All night, explosions could be heard and flames seen at various points over the countryside, as the enemy destroyed his supply and ammunition dumps. Cowan and his force of a division and a tank brigade had covered eighty miles over difficult tracks and against opposition. We had arrived before Meiktila; we now had to take it.

  Major-General Kasuya, commanding the Meiktila area, as senior Japanese officer, had at the first alarm taken control of all enemy troops in and around the base. These totalled some twelve thousand men, but they were scattered in several detachments, protecting dumps, airfields, and communications. In addition, he had about fifteen hundred miscellaneous base troops in Meiktila and a number of hospital patients. Kasuya had only a few days in which to prepare the defence of Meiktila, but he realized its importance and was determined to hold it to the last. He displayed the greatest energy, collecting his administrative units, improvising infantry companies from odds and ends, ceaselessly digging defences and organizing his perimeter into sectors and reserves. Every available man went into the fighting line, including any patient in hospital who could stand, even if only on one leg with crutches. The Ordnance Depots were opened and automatic weapons with ample ammunition issued to almost every man. Kasuya called in two airfield defence battalions and some antiaircraft batteries from airfields he knew he must abandon, sighting the guns for anti-tank and perimeter defence. He had one piece of luck. The bulk of a regiment of the 49th Division had just arrived in Meiktila on its forced march to join Fifteenth Army under Kimura’s redistribution plan, and Kasuya held it there.

  The actual strength return, later captured, of the Japanese in the town itself showed a total of three thousand two hundred, with a large number of guns. Dug in under houses, in the banks of lakes, in concrete and earth covered timber strong-points, sitting among its piled up rice sacks and its ammunition dumps, Meiktila’s garrison presented a formidable defence. Much more formidable in fact than that of either Myitkyina or Bhamo, smaller towns with smaller garrisons, that had taken so long to overcome. Meiktila had another great advantage for defence; its approaches from the west and south were covered by wide lakes, so that the entry roads were in effect causeways, easily closed by artillery and allowing no chance for manoeuvre. From these lakes also ran deep irrigation channels and ditches into the surrounding country, which would slow up all movement and greatly restrict that of armour.

  We had now reached the critical phase of the battle for the destruction of the Japanese army. Kimura’s great drive against 33 Corps, which he believed to be the whole Fourteenth Army, was beginning. From all sides his forces converged on the Mandalay area. Now was the time to seize Meiktila quickly, and then, when he reacted as he must to that vital threat, to launch from the 33 Corps bridgeheads an all-out offensive. Every division of Fourteenth Army was committed; all except one, the 5th, were engaged in full battle. Our expenditure of petrol and ammunition was rising with the increasing area and tempo of the struggle; our supply line lengthening and becoming more precarious. We were unavoidably, once more, putting heavier demands on our air transport squadrons, and the administrative side of the battle began to look more like a gamble than I relished. The formidable concentration of enemy strength, the struggle for Meiktila ahead of us, and the need for speed had all narrowed our margins for success.

  The administrative and tactical anxieties inseparable from a savage and fluctuating battle turned to real alarm when a completely unexpected blow fell on me. On the 23rd February, the 17th Division drive was well on the way to Meiktila and the Irrawaddy crossing of the 2nd Division just about to begin, when Marshal Chiang Kai-shek demanded the return, without delay, of all United States and Chinese forces in the N.C.A.C. They were required to take part in a projected offensive in China. He also insisted that, pending their departure, they should in no circumstances advance south of the line Lashio-Hsipaw-Kyaukme, eighty miles north-east of Mandalay. Kimura would thus be at liberty to transfer almost the whole of his troops on the N.C.A.C. front to mine, while I should, when the Chinese divisions were withdrawn, become responsible for the protection of the newly-won Burma-China road. I had relied on Sultan’s forces co-operating in the advance on Rangoon by moving parallel to me beyond my eastern flank; any hope of that was now at an end. Worst of all, I gathered it was proposed that the American transport squadrons supplying the Chinese should be used to fly them out, while the aircraft allotted to me would take on the supply of the British 36th Division and of the Chinese awaiting transfer.

  All these horrors I did not learn until some days after the strike at Meiktila had been launched. The withdrawal and halting of the Chinese forces was bad enough, but the loss of the aircraft would have been fatal to my operations. General Leese and I protested vehemently. Admiral Mountbatten flew to Chungking to argue with the Generalissimo, but to no avail. He insisted on the withdrawal, and advised Admiral Mountbatten to halt the Fourteenth Army at Mandalay. Throughout the next crucial days the threat of this disaster hung over me. I could not if I wished—and I had no intention of doing so—now call off the battle; I could only more urgently force it to a conclusion. Yet I confess that, while this uncertainty last
ed, I was hard put to it to maintain before my own staff, commanders, and troops that appearance of freedom from anxiety so essential in an army commander. Luckily, I was not kept under this strain too long. On Admiral Mountbatten’s representation, backed by the British Chiefs of Staff, the United States Chiefs of Staff agreed to leave the bulk of their transport squadrons in Burma until either we had taken Rangoon or until the 1st June, whichever was the earlier. This removed my immediate anxiety, so that, although orders for the rapid withdrawal of the Mars Brigade from N.C.A.C., to be followed later by the Chinese divisions, went out on the 11th March, I felt very much better.

  I put out of my mind the fact that if my army had approached but not taken Rangoon by the 1st June, when the monsoon would be in full blast, the withdrawal of American air squadrons would leave us in a disastrous maintenance situation. Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof!

  To revert to the 17th Division and 255 Tank Brigade, poised for the attack on Meiktila. The reports Cowan was receiving warned him that the garrison of the town would be stronger than first estimated, and that, while the outer defences extended in an oval some three miles by four and a half all round Meiktila, those on the west, where the two large lakes covered much of the front, would be the most difficult to attack. He knew, also, that considerable bodies of Japanese were roaming the neighbourhood and closing in on the town. The need to seize Meiktila and the airfield on its eastern outskirts, before the enemy could come in strength to the rescue, was urgent. He decided, therefore, to block the main approaches with detachments a few miles out, and using mobility, armour, and air support to the utmost, put in his main attacks from the north and east.