The Rhine had been crossed, and was crossed again further west, on the night of 23-24 March 1945. The LVTs, making 100 yards a minute for the four-minute passage, carried over ‘No.46(RM)’, 6 Commando crossing in storm-boats just before a heavy raid by Lancaster bombers on the city of Wesel. The Commandos, supported by a machine-gun battalion of the Cheshires, won control of the city and linked up with the US 17 Airborne Division who had dropped north of Wesel as the Commandos crossed the river. This was one of several major river crossings the commandos and rangers undertook as the Allied armies crossed Germany, and on this occasion 1 Commando Brigade’s Rhine crossing had spearhead an army of 80,000 45(RM) Commando crossed the Weser against fierce resistance before being joined by the rest of 1 Brigade in the bridgehead which was held with a battalion of the Rifle Brigade. From there they marched to the Aller, a river only 50 yards (45m) wide but one of the toughest crossings the Brigade experienced. It was crossed by the 11 Armoured Division west of Winsen, on 15 April and near here they found 40,000 starving men, women, and childrens, plus 10,000 unburied dead, in Belsen concentration camp. The same day, 1 Commando Brigade spearheaded the crossing at Rethem, 30 miles further west of Winsen. The road bridge of Essel was intact when 3 Commando rushed the railway bridge a mile downstream, getting a bridgehead established, although one span of this bridge was blown. They held German counter-attacks next morning, having secured the east bank of the road bridge with the help of 6 and 46(RM) Commandos. ‘No.45’ and ‘46(RM)’ then passed through the bridghead and into some woods where a battalion of German marines held the advance for several days although 53 Division moved around the town, crossing the river and moving on to high ground above it.
Jim Moulton now commanded 4 Commando Brigade, whose last action was by 48(RM) Commando in April, when this Commando’s new colonel sent two Troops in daylight across the Maas river into the waterways of the Biesbosch to rescue a lost patrol. When they were safely across Jim Moulton thought the whole Brigade might follow and push up to the river Waal, but this was not allowed for—as he has written ‘the end was very near and those of us in responsible positions had to remember that a man could still be killed just as dead as on 6 June, but with infinitely less justification’.
Long before this stage in the war, however, when an enemy saw green berets opposing him, he usually took care to leave them in peace because of their reputation for ferocity.
BURMA AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA, 1941 TO 1945
Swift Japanese victories in 1941-42 brought them to the gates of India when British and Indian troops fell back to the Assam hills north-west of Burma. The Chinese were fighting 25 Japanese divisions, and to aid their ally, the Americans, with British help, were flying in supplies over the Yunnan mountains (the Hump).
The British and Indian army had been repulsed in their first Arakan offensive of 1943, and they were harassed by Indian objectors to British rule who cut road and rail supply lines. But in February 1943, a special force marched 1,500 miles (2,400km) behind Japanese lines, cutting railways, making friends among the Burmese, and destroying the myth of Japanese invincibility. These Chindits—British, Gurkha, and Burmese troops—may have inspired the Japanese attempt to restore their reputation after setbacks in the Pacific, but their attacks north up the Arakan were held, in part through Allied air superiority ensuring safe air delivery of supplies.
A second Chindit force successfully cut Japanese communications in the early summer of 1944. Over 100 miles to the east of their operations, the American 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)—Merrill’s Marauders—fought five major and many minor actions.
Commonwealth forces, including the Fourteenth Army—British, Indian, and African troops—fought on three parallel fronts during their campaigns in Burma: on the west (Arakan) coast; in central Burma; and alongside the Chinese in the north.
On 1–2 March 1945, the Japanese Fifteenth and Twenty-third Armies were trapped at Meiktila on the central front, cutting off their retreat to Rangoon. Other Japanese were surprised north of this pocket on 8 March at Mandalay, and by the end of the month the Japanese had been driven from central Burma. Early in April, the Fourteenth Army was struggling to cross the Pegu river after heavy rain had flooded airfields, and at the same time an amphibious landing against Ragoon was being mounted. This was hastened by a message painted on the Rangoon prison roof ‘Japs gone, extract digit’, and the port was taken in an unopposed landing on 3 May.
In Japan, the government had resigned on 4 April as their cities faced intensified incediary attack, and the Americans’ offensive, which had occupied Iwo Jima the previous February surged nearer.
CHAPTER 12
Burma And The
Small Operations
Group
Some success on land against the Japanese in 1942 and early 1943 did much to reduce the Allied soldiers’ initial fears of this enemy as the supposed natural fighter among the jungles of Asia. The Japanese owed their early victories to good discipline and what might be called a light diet, for the men landing in Malaya came ashore in December 1941 with a mouth’s supply of ammunition but only a week’s rations: they were expected to gather the rest of their food off the country.
In the early months of 1942, some hundred Royal Marines of Force Viper, with Burma Commando II, formed a patrol on the Irrawaddy river and later a rearguard for General Slim’s Burma Corps, who were withdrawing north from Burma over the high mountains to Imphal and Dimapur in Assam. The USMC Raider Battalions were fighting in the Solomons that summer, when liaison between the American and the British amphibious forces was developing with exchanges of experience between the Pacific and European theatres. On the formation of the Ranger Battalions, the US Army was directly concerned in these exchanges, although no Rangers fought in the Pacific until the 6th Ranger Battalion landed ahead of the American Sixth Army in the Philippines during mid-October 1944.
A body of advisers on amphibious operations, including a number of officers who had served in Combined Operations Headquarters, were established in India during 1942, setting up the Combined Training Centre on Lake Kharakvasia, 2,000 feet (610m) up in the hills near Poona. However, there were no landing craft for major operations, for at the time Lord Mountbatten came to India in the summer of 1943—as Supreme Commander in South-East—landing craft and ships intended for operations in Burma were held in the Mediterranean for the Anzio operations, among others. Plans to land on the Andaman Islands and on the Mayu peninsula running south from the Naf river, were therefore abandoned.
No.7 COPP, Geoff Hall (later Admiral G. Hall, DSC) and his number one Ruari McLean, arrived in India in the autumn of 1943, and within the next 12 months were joined by other reconnaissance and raiding units. Eventually on 12 June 1944, they formed the Small Operations Group (SOG, Appendix 7) ‘to provide small parties of uniformed troops trained and equipped to operate against enemy coastal, river and lake areas … trained in reconnaissance of enemy beaches’ seaward approaches … small-scale attacks … provision of guides for assaults … landing agents … providing diversions … seizing intelligence data and enemy equipment’. They would carry out some 170 operations, in which not only COPP teams and the Special Boat Section were used but also the Sea Reconnaissance Unit and Royal Marine Detachment 385 (for organisation see Appendix 2).
No.7 COPP did a reconnaissance in the Arakan, the strip of jungle-covered hills on the Burmese coast lying along the Bay of Bengal, with the yellow Irrawaddy forming its eastern boundary. By this stage in the war the COPPist was a skilled navigator and canoeist, carrying ‘the vectory triangles in the back of his head’. Consequently a rough note on the navigator’s lap-board sufficed to show the compass course to steer when making a true course across an inshore current for a pin-point landing. In measuring distances the paddler counted his strokes, from which the navigator-swimmer could tell when they had reached 2,000 yards or whatever the calculated distance along a course to the rendezvous. COPPists could also use their personal buoyancy, ‘trimming d
own to chin level’, in calm waters or inflating their life-jackets to carry their heads high when the sea was rough. In the steamy heat ashore, many did not like to wear their tropical swimsuit with its flapping kapok lining, and at least one swimmer from Detachment 385 landed without a life-jacket.
They were all good swimmers, but few could equal the men of the Sea Reconnaissance Units who were trained to swim many miles on their paddleboards before landing through surf. Other equipment of the SOG was designed for use in these rough waters on exposed beaches, where even with special gear they needed every ounce of skill and some luck to survive. Landing in surf one night, Goeff Hall became entangled in the line he was using to measure a beach’s incline. The heavy waves tumbled him over as the line wound round his legs, and when Ruari McLean came in to look for him, Geoff Hall was under water his torch lit, but semi-conscious. Good training and flicker of a torch brought Ruari McLean near his skipper. At other times, COPPs, brought to the mouth of a tidal chaung (river), would paddle through the murky waters, taking soundings or looking for suitable beaches where a couple of landing craft might touch down on a raid against the Japanese lines of communication. Both Ruari McLean and Geoff Hall were awarded the DSC for their part in these reconnaissances in Burma that paved the way for later Commando raids.
3 Commando Brigade had been formed in November 1943 to spearhead these landings in force, 1 Commando, after their actions in North Africa, 5 Commando, who had fought in Madagascar, and 42(RM) with 44(RM) Commando, made up the brigade but they would not be all together in India until September 1944, although they sailed together from Scotland in November 1943.
South-East Asia—principal raids and areas of operations by Special Forces in World War II.
Location of some operations of Special Forces in south-east Asia, showing large forces’ actions in capitals (date and code name) in alphabetical order by year. Numbered locations run from north to south or where appropriate follow stretches of coast line.
1941
Irrawaddy patrols (Feb/Mar, Force Viper)
13
Myanaung (17 Mar, Burma II Cdo)
14
1943
Singapore (26/7 Sept, Jaywick)
30
1944
ALETHANGYAW
4
Elizabeth Isl (Nov, COPP & others)
6
INDAW AREA (Feb/June, Chindits) 145 miles north-west of Lashio—not on map
Irrawaddy crossings (Nov/Dec, SBS)
9
Law’s Isl (Dec, SBS)
11
MAUNGDAW (Mar, 5 Cdo)
3
Pente Radja (17/23 Aug, Frippery)—approx.
24
Pente Radja (11 Sept, Sprat Able)—approx.
24
Peudada River (17/23 Aug, Frippery)—approx
25
Peudada River (11 Sept, Sprat Able)—approx.
25
SHADUZUP (Mar, Merrill’s Maurauders) 250 miles north-west of Lashio—not on map
Singapore (11 Sept, Rimau)
30
WALAWBUM (24 Feb to 2 Mar, Merrill’s Maurauders 300 miles north of Lashio—not on map
1945
AKYAB (2/3 Jan, 3 Cdo Bed)
5
CHEDUBA (23 Jan, RMs from fleet)
12
Djoeli River (15 Apr, Cattle)
26
Hin Luk (8 Mar, Baboon)
19
Irrawaddy crossings & recces (Feb/May, SBS and SRU)
1
Kamorta Isl (18/9 Apr, Defraud)
20
KANGAW (Jan/Feb, 3 Cdo Bde)
8
Kaula Bahra (12 Apr, Clearance Baker)
22
Lasia (28/9 June, Slumber)
27
Mai Kha Bay (8 Mar, Baboon)
17
Maungmagan (West of, 19 Apr, Fairy)—approx.
16
MEIKTILA (Mar, RAF Svg Cdo)
10
Morib beaches (9 June, Confidence)
28
MYBEBON PEBUBSULA (12 Jan, 3 Cdo Bde)
7
Pak Meng (South of, 19 June, Graph)
21
Palau Rawi Isl (25/6 July, Subtract)
23
Phuket Isl (8 Mar, Baboon) also see above
18
Phuket Isl (9 Mar, Copyright) also see above
18
RANGOON (3 May, British & Indian infantry)
15
Sungei Klesa (near mouth, 30 May, Carpenter III)—approx
29
Note: Many operations by COPPs, SBS and Detachment 385 were made in support of local forces throughout the area and are not all included above.
Two Commandos were deployed during March to dominate a strip of coast west of the foothills of the Mayu Range. Operating south from the XV Corps’ main offensive against the Maungdaw-Buthidaug road, 44(RM) Commando landed in three flights of leaky old assault craft. They came ashore at 2330 hours on 11 March 1944 near a village of bamboo-mat huts called Alethangyaw. Despite a confused fire-fight near the beach, with Japanese riflemen lying along the limbs of mangrove trees where they were nearly impossible to see, the marines held most of the village by dawn and pushed two bridgheads across a chaung next day. A patrol moving further inland that day came under heavy fire and a wounded marine was dragged by the Japanese to an open paddy field as bait for possible rescue by his comrades. They had to leave him where he was until natives brough him in after nightfall. Throughout this and later actions the commandos and other Allied troops learnt to cope with these deceptions. They had also to be cautious in their use of radio messages. Lieutenant-Colonel F.C. Horton RM was once interrupted by a call on his 44(RM) Headquarters radio ‘to pass a short message’. The Commando’s Colonel said he had more important things to do, only to hear a ‘Thank you, I know your voice’. This might be used later in passing false orders, apparently in the CO’s voice, for the commandos’ now-reliable communications were monitored by Japanese.
That night (D + 1), the Commando moved inland north-east of the village towards a hill, the Colonel himself having given some bogus ‘we are staying in the village’ messages. They waded waist-deep up a chaung for most of the way, as this was the only route through thick jungle, and next morning they set up a box on the hill. This was common jungle practice—the Chindits used great boxes in their forays into Burma the same spring—a square being formed with pickets in a few slit-trenches at each corner of the square making a defended base for patrols. There was little that could be seen through the jungle, even on a hilltop, and patrols had to go out to find the Japanese. One, led by Captain R.M. Sturges RM, had several ‘spirited engagements in the late afternoon’ when they matched the Japanese, who called out in English, or made a noise from one direction before attacking from another through the jungle. The Commando then withdrew, hearing the Japanese attack the empty positions on the hill. The marines later re-embarked, having possibly distracted some Japanese who might otherwise have stiffened their main defence line, and were replaced by 5 Commando in the Aleltangyaw area.
Later that March both Commandos carried out similar operations on this coastal strip. They were then moved to Silchar where, with part of the IV Corps’ Indian Army troops, they blocked any possible attempt by the Japanese to break into the Bengal plain.
No. 8 COPP, Lieut Freddy Ponsonby, had joined No.7 in south-east Asia, and their third raid was to Elizabeth Island in the wide mouth of the Kaladan river and south of Chittagong, where the COPPists transferred their canoes from a destroyer to an ML. They could see village fires ashore and sentries’ huts—possibly the lavatories Japanese soldiers built at the end of small wooden jetties over the seashore. The night was bright enough for Michael Peacock to see Alex Colson clambering over the sand at the back of the beach, where he was fired on without any warning challenge—the Japanese must have known anyone on these beaches was against them if he wandered around at night. Michael Peacock who had dysent
ery swam clear of the beach but passed out, coming to while drifting across the bay with no one is sight. He struggled back ashore but three days later three islanders took no notice of the waterproofed packet of letters offering rewards for his safe conduct—although there were several versions of text in different dialects—and he was handed over to the Japanese. He was taken to Rangoon, later surviving a three-day march as the Japanese tried to evacuate 600 POWs in the retreat.
Commandos and Rangers of World War II Page 33
