On the afternoon of the 1st May, a great misfortune befell 4 Corps. Pegu was in our hands and the advance resumed, when a torrential storm burst over the whole area, followed throughout the night by continuous heavy rain. The monsoon was on us—a fortnight before its time! By morning much of the country was waterlogged, airstrips going out of action, and the Pegu River rising ominously. As a precautionary measure, all 4 Corps was immediately placed on half rations.
The troops slipped, splashed, and skidded forward, but all streams were in spate and all bridges down. On the evening of the 2nd, when news of the successful landing south of Rangoon and of the Japanese evacuation had been received, the 17th Division was halted in drenching rain forty-one miles by road from its goal. More heavy rain during the night swept away approaches to bridges already built, and a whole brigade found itself marooned on what had suddenly become an island. The leading infantry, soaked, hungry, but still full of ardour, wading and often swimming, tried to push on. They were delayed by two miles of heavily mined road, while the side tracks were often submerged and, like the road, mined. They were still struggling to reach Hlegu, when, late on the 3rd May, they heard 15 Corps had occupied Rangoon.
In spite of their disappointment at losing the race, the 17th Division, having lifted the mines, pushed on with determination. On the 4th, a battalion, having long ago left all transport behind, swam and rafted itself across a wide and rapidly flowing chaung to reach Hlegu, twenty-eight miles from Rangoon. It was here, on the 6th May, that a small column of the 26th Division from Rangoon linked up with 4 Corps, meeting the 1/7th Gurkha Rifles who, in January 1942, had fired the first shots of the Burma War.
The landing south of Rangoon on the 2nd May had gone smoothly. I had always wanted it to be a little later, but naval advice was unanimous—and as it proved right—that the 2nd was the latest date the weather would allow. It had been a great achievement by Rear-Admiral Martin, Lieut.-General Christison, and Air Vice-Marshal the Earl of Bandon, the responsible commanders, to have had all ready for D Day. The Assault Force, mounted at Akyab and Ramree Islands, sailed in six convoys, slowest first, between the 27th and 30th April. It was covered on passage by 224 Group fighters and a naval carrier force of four escort carriers. Twelve bomber squadrons, British and American from Strategic Air Force, were allotted to the operation. The naval covering force of one British and one French battleship, two escort carriers, two British and one Dutch cruiser, and six destroyers put to sea from Trincomalee in Ceylon on the 30th April. Its duty was to prevent any interference by Japanese naval forces, and it cruised south of Rangoon and east of the Andamans, filling in time by bombarding those islands and Car Nicobar. A destroyer force was also in position south of Rangoon and, on the 30th April, it intercepted eleven enemy craft, escaping with about a thousand troops from Rangoon to Moulmein, and sank nine of them.
The overture to the landing was on D—1 Day, the 1st May, when a heavy bombing attack was delivered on all located defences on both sides of the Rangoon River. Some hours later, a battalion of the 50th Indian Parachute Brigade dropped at Elephant Point. A party of about thirty Japanese, either left for observation or just forgotten, offered resistance to the Gurkha paratroops. One wounded Japanese survived. Early on the same morning a pilot, flying over Rangoon, saw written in large letters on the gaol roof the words, ‘Japs gone. Exdigitate’. The R.A.F. slang was not only evidence of the genuineness of the message, but a gentle hint to speed up operations. However, it was determined, wisely I think, to continue according to plan. Early on the 2nd, the weather became worse and there was some doubt whether the small landing craft could face the sea. However, it was decided to risk it and by skilful seamanship all reached and entered Rangoon River. A brigade of the 26th Division, under Major-General Chambers, was landed on each bank and the advance began. Within a few hours a deluge of rain descended making all movement arduous. Nevertheless the troops advanced several miles, and by nightfall the eastern brigade was within twelve miles of Rangoon.
While the 26th Division was thus plodding forward, the pilot of a Mosquito aircraft of 221 Group, flying low over Rangoon and seeing no signs of enemy, decided to land on Mingaladon airfield at the Cantonment, about eight miles north of the city. The strip was in bad repair and he crashed his aircraft in landing, but, undismayed, he walked into Rangoon, visited our prisoners at the gaol, and assured himself that the Japanese had really gone. In the evening, commandeering a sampan, he sailed down the river and met the advancing 26th Division. We were rather pleased about this in Fourteenth Army. If we could not get to Rangoon first ourselves, the next best thing was for someone from 221 Group, which we regarded in all comradeship as part of the Fourteenth Army, to do it. On this confirmation of the Japanese flight, further bombing was called off and the build-up by sea, that was to follow the landing of the 26th Division, was cancelled.
It was not until the evening of the 3rd May that the brigade on the east bank, struggling through waterlogged country, appeared on the Hlaing River, immediately south of Rangoon. It was ferried over and entered the town. The population in thousands welcomed our men with a relief and a joy they made no attempt to restrain. We were back!
CHAPTER XXII
THE LAST BATTLE
ABURMAN once told me that the name Rangoon means ‘The End of the War’. Whether that is so or not, it certainly was not its end for us. Fresh problems rolled in. To begin with, Burma was by no means clear of the Japanese; our intelligence staffs estimated that there were still between sixty and seventy thousand west of the Salween, to say nothing of large forces in Siam and Indo-China which could be used to reinforce them. Although the complete expulsion of all enemy from Burma thus threatened to be a considerable operation, it now took second place in our thoughts. The major task, in which we were at once plunged, was planning, re-equipping and regrouping for the imminent invasion of Malaya and the capture of Singapore. Already Fourteenth Army divisions had been withdrawn to India to prepare for this, others were to follow, and of those left in Burma, some would soon have to be taken out of the fighting so as to be ready to sail from Rangoon with the invading force. We pursued the two projects—the clearing of Burma and the preparation of the Malayan invasion—simultaneously, finding at times one antagonistic to the other, but, when that happened, giving preference to the new campaign.
The tactical situation in Burma was unusual. Kimura’s armies had been broken and scattered over a wide area, so that there was hardly a district south of Meiktila where Japanese groups of various sizes and in varying degrees of disorganization did not roam. My map showed blue Japanese and red British formations interspersed and intermingled as if they were coloured counters spilt haphazard over the sheet. Our double dash for Rangoon had cut through the enemy, leaving two long gashes across his body. Our 4 Corps advance, the easterly of these gashes, formed what has been described, justly, I think, as the longest and narrowest salient in history. It was over three hundred miles long, with an average width of less than a couple of miles, and often not more than a few hundred yards on each side of the road. In the Irrawaddy Valley, 33 Corps had driven a similar though much broader salient for over two hundred miles. Both these slender strips were true salients, for they projected into enemy territory with hostile forces on both sides of them, and, as we required to use the roads through them, they had to be held throughout their lengths. It was, of course, quite impossible to stretch unbroken lines oftroops for such distances; detachments were stationed at intervals along the routes, and the gaps between patrolled, while columns thrust out and tracked down Japanese parties in the country on each side. In the sweltering, soaking monsoon weather, it was a strenuous and exhausting role for troops. In addition to these two long north to south corridors from Toungoo to Pegu and from Yenangyaung to well south of Prome, the 19th Division was driving two west to east corridors along the Meiktila–Taunggyi and the Toungoo–Mawchi roads. The newly landed 26th Division, in and around Rangoon, had gained touch with 4 Corps and was abou
t to do so with 33 Corps, thus completing the incisions which severed the Japanese from north to south.
The Japanese, as far as we could judge at this time, were in, or trying to collect in, four main groups:
(i) In the Irrawaddy Valley, where on both banks of the river, the Japanese Twenty-eighth Army had, north of Prome, the 54th Division with units from the 49th and 55th Divisions, what was left of 72 Independent Brigade and the 2nd Indian National Army Division. Farther south, and mainly in the hills of the Pegu Yomas, were parts of the 55th Division and a considerable body of line of communication troops. We estimated their total strength in the Irrawaddy Valley at about fifteen thousand men, all engaged in trekking east to cross the Meiktila–Rangoon road and join forces with the enemy east of the Sittang.
(ii) In the Shan Hills east of Meiktila, the 56th Division and what was left of one regiment (brigade) from each of the 15th, 18th, and 53rd Divisions, about six thousand in all, were making their way south.
(iii) East of the Sittang River, opposite our cordon from Toungoo to Nyaunglebin, were the remnants of the Thirty-third Army, containing a hotch-potch of units from the 2nd, 18th, 49th, 53rd, and 55th Divisions, and, farther east still in the Salween Valley, the battered 31st and 33rd Divisions, with a large number of line of communication troops. In this double group we reckoned the enemy had some twenty-five thousand men.
(iv) In the area Mokpalin–Moulmein east of the mouth of the Sittang and on the east coast of the Gulf of Martaban, Kimura had collected round him 24 Independent Brigade, the evacuated Rangoon garrison, survivors from the Pegu battle and numbers of line of communication units, a total, we thought, of about twenty-four thousand troops.
There were also, of course, the many small groups and stragglers not included in the main concentrations, who brought the enemy estimated grand total up to some sixty or seventy thousand. In actual fact, we found later that we had considerably underestimated the enemy numbers. All hostile formations were disorganized, lacking transport, supplies, and equipment, but if they could, as they evidently intended, concentrate east of die Sittang, they might again become formidable. Difficult as we might find the monsoon conditions, they would be worse for them and, in spite of the weather, the fatigue of our troops, and the demands of future Malayan operations, we must allow no respite to the enemy in Burma.
My intention, therefore, was now:
(i) To intercept and destroy as many as possible of the enemy as they attempted to reach the east bank of the Sittang.
(ii) To prevent the Japanese concentrating and reorganizing in the Moulmein area.
(iii) To advance on Moulmein and destroy the enemy who had already collected there.
To these ends I issued orders:
(a) To 4 Corps
(i) To destroy all enemy attempting to cross the Pegu Yomas from west to east.
(ii) To take Mokpalin.
(iii) To advance with the 19th Division, which now reverted to 4 Corps, as far as Thaudaung twenty miles east of Toungoo and thus secure our line of communication.
(b) To 33 Corps
(i) To destroy all enemy in the Irrawaddy Valley.
(ii) To open the road and railway from Prome to Rangoon.
(iii) To capture Bassein.
(c) To the 26th Division
(i) To secure Rangoon and its area.
(ii) To effect a junction with the 20th Division, south of Prome.
The Japanese, at this time, did not seem to be bothering so much about the east bank of the Irrawaddy, where they had only the battered remnants of the 55th Division and the 2nd Indian National Army Division, as about the west bank. There they still had a considerable part of the 54th Division, in reasonable order, and Yamamoto’s force of seven battalions and artillery, a total we estimated as still about ten thousand men. On the west bank, Sakurai appeared to have organized his troops into two groups, a northern consisting of Yamamoto’s force to hold up our 7th Division, and a southern, the 54th Division, concerned mainly in getting intact across the Irrawaddy into the Pegu Yomas. If he failed in this, the division would waste away west of the river, but if he succeeded, it might fall on the flank of our forces advancing down the Prome road on Rangoon, or, at the worst, escape east through the Yomas.
The efforts of 33 Corps to prevent the Japanese forces on the west bank from regaining the east resulted in two considerable engagements. The first, some thirty-five miles north-west of Allanmyo, lasted from the 11th to the 15th May. In it, troops of the 7th Division destroyed Yamamoto’s rearguard, and, what was perhaps more important, captured seventy-five of die enemy’s rapidly diminishing stock of lorries. The main body of Yamamoto’s force then made for Kama, a village on the river, about twenty miles above Prome, where the 54th Division had formed a bridgehead on the east bank, and were hurriedly beginning to cross. The second action, at Kama, on both sides of the river was a more serious affair. On the west bank, the two brigades of our 7th Division and 268 Brigade closed in on Kama from the north and north-east; on the other bank the third brigade of the division, with some units of the 20th Division, encircled the Japanese bridgehead on the east with two cordons, an inner and an outer.
West of the river, our troops in severe fighting destroyed most of what was left of Yamamoto’s battalions. On the east bank, from the 21st to the 30th May, the enemy 54th Division made constant and reckless efforts to break out from the bridgehead. Our inner cordon was holding in thickjungle, and although almost all attacks on its positions were repulsed, the enemy was able to infiltrate between our posts, and, in spite of considerable casualties, to assemble between the two cordons. Evans, commanding the 7th Division, then brought troops from the west to the east bank to thicken up the outer cordon, attacks on which had begun on the night of the 27th/28th May. These attacks were continued on the following nights. The Japanese, with fanatical courage, repeated their methods against the inner cordon, assaulting simultaneously several of our positions while other parties tried to slip between them and make for the hills. Many of these groups were intercepted and badly knocked about, but considerable numbers of the 54th Division, in small parties, did reach the cover of the Pegu Yomas. Fourteen hundred Japanese bodies were counted, many more lay unseen in the jungle, and seventy-four prisoners were taken—a further sign that enemy morale was not what it had been. The 54th Division after this action, having lost all its transport and most of its guns, was no longer capable of serious counter-attack and concentrated on escape to the east. The dispersal of the Japanese forces in the Irrawaddy Valley, which amounted to two-thirds of the Twenty-eighth Army, by 33 Corps was a brilliant piece of major tactics by Stopford, his commanders, and their troops.
In addition to operations against the Japanese, we had in Burma other problems that demanded rapid solution. As the monsoon grew in intensity, so did the difficulties of our maintenance by air and road increase. Apart from the weather, we were rapidly losing our American transport squadrons, and our own R.A.F. ones were terribly in need of rest and maintenance before they would be required over Malaya. It was essential, therefore, for supply reasons alone, to reopen the port of Rangoon at the earliest possible moment. This would also be required very soon for the reception and loading of ships for the Malayan expedition. All available engineers and labour were, therefore, at once turned on to restore the docks which had suffered very severely from our bombing. This was a tremendous task as it included, not only the rehabilitation of the wharves, but the construction or repair of the innumerable facilities of a modern port—railway sidings, warehouses, power stations, cranes and road approaches. The three least damaged berths were ready to receive ships almost at once, the river was swept of mines by the 8th May, and a few days later more berths were in action. In six weeks, we had three thousand tons of stores coming over the wharves daily, and the maintenance crisis was past. Considering the shambles the docks had been when we took them and the paucity of our resources for their repair, this was a splendid achievement by our Engineer and Embarkation Uni
ts. No less splendid, and even more arduous, was the feat of our transport staff and units in keeping up a constant flow of supplies by road, rail and river from railhead at Dimapur, nine hundred miles away, to augment air-lift, until the docks were open. The roads, hundreds of miles of which were unmetalled, were falling to pieces under the battering of thousands of lorries, tank-transporters and guns, and, above all, under the ceaseless downpour of rain of projectile force. Such short lengths of railway as we had been able to bring into use were ramshackle in the extreme, and almost devoid of rolling stock. For river craft we still depended on the products of our own Kalewa shipyards and the wrecks we had been able to salvage. Officers and men, who through such difficulties brought us our rations and supplies, would deserve gratitude. Add to that the fact that on the line of communication for a great part of its length convoys were liable to run into parties of desperate Japanese making east across the road or lurking beside it, then no tribute to their determination, skill, and courage could be too high. Their achievements were only possible because they had developed the same high spirit as reigned in the combat units of the army.
Another problem which, with startling suddenness, loomed upon us was that of the care and administration of the civil population. We had, almost overnight, acquired most of Burma, and with it eighty per cent of its inhabitants—some thirteen millions of them. There was no civil government for us to take over; it had completely disappeared. Insecurity and dacoity were rife. Great acreages had gone out of cultivation, while trade had vanished with the breakdown of communications and the loss of security. The almost complete absence of consumer goods had spun the Japanese paper currency into wild inflation. The whole population was short of clothing, necessities, and above all of food. Indeed, large sections of it were on the verge of starvation. Towns had been burnt and many were deserted, their inhabitants having taken to the jungle where they lived hazardously in miserable destitution. The Japanese throughout their occupation had done little or nothing to meet the essential needs of the civil population. Even where bombs and battles had spared them, public utilities, water supplies, and roads had, through Japanese indifference, deteriorated to a shocking degree.
Defeat Into Victory Page 61
