arakan victory

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Arakan victory

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THE ENEMY STRIKES FROM THE ARAKAN

IN Burma by January 1944, the Japs had consolidated

their grip up to the perimeter of their 42 and 43

conquests.

The war in Europe had not at that time turned in floodagainst Germany, for the main Allied forces had still to

make their landing on the continent. But while they were

not yet in that battle they might safely be counted out of

this one. This year, therefore, was for Japan the Now or

Never. The Jap High Command decided to carry the war

into India, and to break up the base where powerful

armies and air and sea fleets were building up for the

coming Allied general assault on Japan.

The Allies, meanwhile, suffered a change of plans.

Before Teheran these had included immediate amphi

bious operations somewhere in South East Asia, but at

that conference SE Asia Commands landing craft were

allocated to European waters and as the Supreme

Commander has disclosed, were actually employed to

force the Anzio bridgehead.

Accepting this severe deprivation, Lord Louis

Mountbatten still resolved to place the most aggressive

interpretation on the instruction to defend the frontiers.

The Fourteenth Army Commander, Lieut-General Sir

William Slim, KCB, CB, DSO. MC., was ordered to

clear the Akyab peninsula as far south as possible so as

to command the mouth of the River Naff for sea supply

and secure the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road. The

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Arakan victory

available troops were 15 Indian Corps, commanded by

Lieut General Sir Philip Christison, KBE, CB. MC.

A glance at the map shows how the Arakan campaign of

44 was dominated by the outstanding feature known as

the Mayu Range. This range physically split the front;

the plan of the enemy was to use it tactically to split thearmy which occupied it. A captured enemy Order of the

Day signed by Colonel Tanahashi says of it: The Mayu

Range is a fortress given to us by Heaven, to furnish us

with defences, obstructions and concealments, with

water, with quarters, with supplies of building materials

unlimited. Indeed a thing of immense value. Its

mountains and rivers will shortly become an

unforgettable new battleground.

East of the Mayu Range lies the Kalapazin Valley.

Bearing in mind the lesson of the Arakan campaign of

1943, (when the Japs struck up this valley, crossed the

Range and fell upon the L of C of our troops attacking

Akyab along the coastal belt) General Slim proposed to

advance not only down the Kalapanzin us well as the

coast but also to throw out a further flank screen in the

distant valley beyond the next mass of hills, namely; theKaladan Valley. The 81 West African Division were

assigned this important task. They not only guarded the

Kaladan but their presence there compelled the enemy to

divert troops towards it which he urgently needed for his

plan to Invade India. The first appearance of these

magnificent-looking warriors in the Arakan had an

unexpected and most uplifting effect upon their British

comrades in the line. There is evidence that it had a

correspondingly, depressing effect upon the enemy.

To link the two main forces in the coastal belt and

Kalapanzin Valley it was necessary to make something

more than the trails which ran through the passes of the

Mayu Range. There were two; the Goppe Pass. a mule

track. and that other more famous Ngakyedauk Pass,

then unfit even for mules, Ngakyedauk has since entered



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into the immortality of soldiers language as the

Okeydoke To a Bradford lad in the West Yorks

Okeydoke recalled beautiful Buttertubs Pass as it

threads its way from Wensleydale to Swaledale; to a

Scot from Inverness with the KOSBs it resembled his

beloved Glen Shiel. Gunners who ranged on

Okeydoke, and infantrymen who slogged it out there

with rifle and bayonet and grenade, found somethinghomely of their own there. It was an illusion, for the

Arakan bears no likeness to Britain, but it comforted men

in lonely and desperate hours.

The sappers and miners of 7 Indian Div. equipped with

bull-dozers and pneumatic drills, graded its slopes,

widened its rock ledges and smoothed out its elbow

bends, making the pack-road capable of bearing thearmour, guns, and supply columns of an invading army.

As the engineers and road-builders reached the banks of

the Kalapanzin river the dusty battalions of British and

Indian infantry, followed by long columns of motor

transport, began threading their way up the steep slopes

at the western entrance. Corps Commander Christison

was building up his two-fisted attack.

His plan was to force the enemy to fight on as broad a

front as possible. He had 5 Indian Div west of the Range

and 7 Indian Div east of it. They shared the crest, which,

running parallel as it dees to the British main L of C

from north to south, was the axis of advance. Pressing

equally all along the front, 15 Corps now began their

steady forward movement. They had to fight hard, and

learned to match their cunning against the enemys

before they came up against his main positions. These

covered the 15-mile Maungdaw-Buthidaung road which

tunnels the Mayu Ridge and provides the third great

artery between one side of the mountain and the other.

The tunnel area was especially strongly fortified.

Maungdaw fell to the British on 8 Jan, but Razabil was a



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harder net. This is a natural fortress in the foothills

between the Mayu Range and the sea, commanding the

road. Bombers of the Strategic Air Force from the

newly-created and integrated Eastern Air Command

(Maj-General George E. Stratemeyer) pounded this

bastion with concentrated weight, medium artillery

shelled it and General Lee tanks, deployed for the first

time in Arakan, lent their support. Much of the fortressarea fell and Jap casualties were considerable, but the

central position held. The Corps Commander decided to

switch the main weight of his assault to Buthidaung in

the Kalapanzin sector, while maintaining strong local

attacks on Razabil. He was able to do this with

comparative ease because his foresight had provided him

with that invaluable lateral communication, Okeydoke

Pass

But somebody else had plans. Enter Lieut-General

Hanaya, Jap Commander in the Arakan. He proposed to

invade India, and had a meticulously worked-out time-

table for that design. The British pressure on his front

now compelled him to accelerate his movements. In

charge of his striking force he placed Colonel Tanahashi,

victor of Arakan, l943. The Jap plan was both to break

up the British-Indian advance and to split the entire front,

sealing off the eastern half not only from its western

partner but from its own L. of C. The seizure of

Okeydoke would achieve both these objects. On the

night of February Taniahashi struck.

So confident was he that his blitz krieg would succeed

that he threw in almost all his available forces. leaving

only one battalion in reserve. When heavy losses fell

upon him therefore, he had no replacements at his

command. He even brought up gunners without their

guns reckoning to capture ours. The Jap troops had

orders not to destroy our vehicles, which would be

required for the march on India.

. -

A few days before the enemy struck seaborne patrols had



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captured documents in a raid behind the enemys lines

which warned us of recently arrived reinforcements from

the Solomons. From this and other signs Christison

sensed trouble. The tanks of 25 Dragoons) had been

withdrawn from Razabil for maintenance. That same

afternoon Christison ordered them over the Okeydoke.

To deceive the Japs into believing that our armour still

concentrated west of Mayu the Corps Commander sentup a squadron of reserve tanks continue operations at

Razabil. At the same time one brigade of 7 Div was

placed in reserve for the coming offensive. Both next day

went into action to meet the new threat. The tanks came

as a complete surprise to the Japs who did not know they

were even in the valley.

Flooding over Aaung Bazar by a 33-mile forced march,the Japs swept on to the heights of the Mayu Range north

of the so-called 7 Div Admin Box at Sinzweva. This had

a few days earlier become a Corps Administrative area

supplying 7 Div, a brigade of 5 Div (who were the link

between the two sectors of the front ), and a large

number of Corps troops, including a couple of artillery

regiments, ack-ack and anti-tank batteries and the tank

unit. There were thus encamped there nearly 8.000

administrative troops, pioneers, sappers. Signallers.

ordnance and medical units, mule companies, and native

road builders, together with a considerable amount of

equipment. Protection was organised to resist any

interference up to a large scale raid. What now struck

the Admin area, however, was a tornado of six thousand

men. A further four thousand formed an outer ring.

A few hours before dawn on 6 February the Japsattacked 7 Div H.Q. Div Commander Maj-General F.W.

Messervy, C,B.. DSO., with his staff, narrowly escaped

captureor, more probable, massacre. Grenade in hand

he led a party along the bed of a chaung to, the Admin

area, where he re-formed his HQ. Fresh parties kept

coming in for several days, and throughout this period a

Soldiers Battle raged. Signallers, sappers, cooks, clerks,

all seized the rifle and fought like veteran infantry.



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Gradually the enemy washalted, though not before he

had practised appalling atrocities against our wounded.

Tanahashi pressed on round the flank and rear, towards

the Goppe Pass. He did not in fact reach Goppe; a little

short of it, he ran into 18 Mule Company, who stood

their ground resolutely and engaged him. Tanahashi,

believing that Goppe Pass must be strongly held, andurgent to capture Bawli Bazar (15 Corps HQ) and cut the

Bawli - Maung road, decided to storm straight over the

2,000-foot Range between Goppe and Okeydoke. He

burst through a large concentration of British rear

echelons on the western slopes of the Mayu where he

was again fiercely challenged. But driving on with

barbaric energy, he reached the road where he blew up

bridges, set fire to dumps, way-laid convoys, and finally

dug-in in the nearby jungle from where he kept trafficunder continual fire. In the end his raiders had to be

liquidated to the last man. The Japs success in

interfering with our L of C was less than they had hoped,

for much of the supply of the troops on the western side

of the Mayu continued to pour in by sea.

However Tanahashi scored when he detached a force to

double back along the crest of the Range to cut

Okeydoke Pass, linking up with another Jap column

which had pushed through from the south east. The

wedge had been driven between 5 Div and 7 Div. and the

latters supply route severed.

Tokyo went to town on the news. The giant presses

roared, showing the East with their headlined triumphs,

Victory! Victory Annihilation! The British Are

Trapped! The British in Full Flight! Night and day the

Jap radio blared The March on Delhi has Begun.

Tanahashi, Victor of Arakan, will be at Chittagongwithin a Week New British 14th Army Destroyed in

One Thrust. Traitors drew up proclamations for parades

under the walls of the Red Fort and Tokyo Rose crooned

persuasively to the Allied troops in the Pacific why not

go home? Lts all over in Burma. It really appeared to

the Japanese that everything was in the bag, and so it

was. Unfortunately for Tanahashi the neck of the bag

was still open.



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Arakan victory

He had forgotten the AIR.

Through the Air would pour the stores and supplies

which were denied land passage. The troops thus

trapped. instead of yielding their ground, ditching their

equipment and seeking to escape across the hills, wouldhold fast and hold on with sheer guts, certain that within

measurable time the power would be brought them to

drive the enemy from his encircling lines. Meantime, on

General Slims orders, both the supplies to sustain such

en-circled troops and the aircraft and air crews to carry

them and had been assembled and wereready to go in.

Ten days rations for 40,000 men had been already

packed and dumped against exactly such an emergency

by Fourteenth Armys grocer Maj.General Alf

Snelling; the first of theseries of similar services which

this remarkable organiser was able to do the army in this

rear of continuous fighting.

Nor on the combat side was the Army Commander

caught napping by Tanahashis violent recoil to his

initial offensive. General Slim had placed 26 Indian

Division (MajGeneral C. E. N. Lomax, CB, DSO, MC.at Chittagong to cover the road to India. This officer in

particular had deserved well of the army for his

conspicuous work in building up the morale of his

division unit by unit in patrol work during the long

disheartening period after the Arakan failure of 43.Still

further back, in Calcutta, another division was brigaded

and ready to move forward on requirement. Such

dispositions are not completed overnight, and they are a

sufficient answer to the ignorant jibe that Arakan 1944was one more example of waiting for something to hit

us.

Meantime in the Admin area none sat down to wring his

hands over his fate but all set to work like men to shape

it. Maj-Generai Messervy brought in the West Yorks,



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Arakan victory

who later renforced by a company of KOSBs and a

battalion of 2 Punjabs. With tanks and artillery a formid

able Protected box was veryrapidly built up.Tanksand guns formed a protection for HQ, hospitals and soft

vehicles. Later the box was ringed with barbed wire.

Every man was told bluntly what the situation was and of

the further steps being taken by the Corps Commander to

meet it. From Supreme Commander Lord LouisMountbatten came a heartening message telling them

that he had directed powerful reinforcements towards

them.

Immediate evidence of his resources was what the

garrison saw with their own eyes in the sky above them.

Jap Zeros had at one time been a fairly common sight in

Arakan. The recent arrival of the Spitfires over the front

had changed that. These Spitfires were the first starting

innovation in Burma produced by the new South East

Asia Command. But on the eve of Tanahashis thrust the

zeros returned to the scene. Jap documents revealed that

the Jap Air Command believed that if the RAF fighters

could be drawn into combat they could be wiped out.

Though the Japs did not give close air support to their

ground troops they appeared over the battle area many

squadrons at a time, looking for trouble with our fighters.

They did not return home disappointed. The Allied

fighters of Third Tactica1 Air Force, then commanded

by Air Marshal Sir John Baldwin. KBE, CE, DSO,

rushed at them. The air was filled with dog fights. Ten

days after their first challenge the Jap fighters broke it

off. Three Spitfires had been lost. Third TAF claimed 65

Jap fighters destroyed, probably destroyed, or damaged.

Thereafter the Allied fighters flew in close support,solitary strafing or recce as they pleased and practically

unimpeded. During the height of the aerial battle the

huge, and mostly defenceless aircraft of Troop Carrier

Command flew between the sky fights and the roof of

the jungle to deliver vital stores of war to the troops

fighting it out in the savage hand-to-hand battles on the

ground.



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Arakan victory

These supply operations were under the direct command

of US Brigadier-General William D. Old, pioneer of the

China Hump route and none could have desired or

chosen a mere energetic and intrepid leader. When the

fist flight of heavily laden Dakotas was driven back

General Old stepped up to the pilots seat of the next

flight and led them in himself. The planes were attacked,

gunned, and some of the crews hit, but the goods gotthrough.

The job grew:- By night as well as by day the supply

aircraft rose from the Allied airfields. The crews simply

turned their aircraft round and flew again. They slept

barely five hours in the 24. The ground crews serviced

them, the RIASC supplied them, all-round the clock.

Many boarded the loaded planes then and flew; some

times unescorted, over the Jap lines to help the supply-

droppers heave out theirvital cargo into the narrow

target areas of the besieged boxes. It wasmagnificent

Combined Ops. The pilots of the supply crews were

themselves combined. British, American. Australian,

Canadian, New Zealand, South African and Indian.

Five hundred sorties carried 1,500 tons into battle. With

food, ammunition and weapon replacements came

cigarettes, kit, oil, petrol and Jane floating down in

SEACdaily newspaper from the skies, even beer (and

one thrice-blessed unit got a whole formations ration).

Tanks, waiting for fuel, watched drums of it cascading

down on parachutes. Before the aircraft left the tanks

were moving into action.

The huge twin-engined aircraft were sitting birds for

enemy fighters and ground fire. But only one was lost

and she, too, delivered her goods. In such circumstances

encirclement becomes a technical phrase.

Arakan, indeed, carried forward logically, and

demonstrated in the fire of battle, the soundness of that



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Arakan victory

revolutionary technique of land-air war which so seized

Wingates audacious mind. Casting about always to find

a means to overcome the advantage the Jap held in his

jungle mobility. Wingate had said the vulnerable artery

is the L of C winding through thejungle. Have no L of C

on the jungle floor. Bring in the goods, like Father Xmas,

down the chimney. Many considered this crazy but not

the men at the head of South East Asia Command, whoshared with him these ideas concerning the mobility not

merely of raiding columns but of entire jungle army

corps. The RAF had never once failed during Wingates

first footslogging march into Burma in 1943 to find their

supply-drop site and to deliver their loads. Upon this

basis Fourteenth Army were now building a completely

new concept of jungle logistics. Arakan was its first

vindication.

But meantime, down in the bowl of the Admin Box,

under the guns of the enemy on the surrounding hills,

men were only conscious of the fact that a most

desperate battle called for every ounce of guts and

endurance that the British and Indian soldier could pull

out. All day long thick clouds of smoke rose from the

box and the sound of explosion reverberated round the

hills as first one and then another ammunition or petrol,

dump blew up. Three times stocks of ammunition were

reduced to a dangerously low level. Luckily, the Japs did

not realise it and the tireless airmen quickly replaced

each loss. But the enemy continued also to pour in art

unceasing torrent of mortar bombs, grenades and shells

of every calibre. Snipers roped to trees and even built

into tree trunks, took pot-shots at regular intervals but

each shot brought forth such a volley of fire from the

box that very few enemy snipers lived long enough to

do much harm.

The casualty stations overflowed while a depleted

medical staff laboured like demonsor shall we say like

angels with demoniac energy to cope with the growing

number of dysentery and malaria patients, as well as the

wounded.



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Arakan victory

The devotion of the doctors and their orderlies was truly

moving. Some of them paid the final, terrible price of

duty. It was impossible to hold every point in strength,

and one night in pitch darkness, the enemy overran the

medical dressing station on the edge of the box. They

burst in upon the place, shouting and howling like

dervishes. But their savagery was not that engendered bybattle. Forty-eight hours after occupying the dressing

station a senior Jap officer entered and ordered all

wounded to be massacred. Orderlies and patients tried to

escape by crawling out on their bellies in the darkness

through a deep nullah. Some of the patients were too

weak, and others too severely wounded even to stir on

their stretchers. The Japs went from bed to bed

bayoneting every man that showed the least sign of life

Their heartrending cries and groans were heard by their

comrades beyond the nullah, helpless to rescue them.

The doctors fared no better. The Japs lined up six and in

cold blood shot every one dead with a bullet through his

ear. One MO, who was carrying out an operation in a

dug-out at the time, owes his life and that of his patient

to the fact that he had so efficiently blacked-out his

underground surgery that Tanahashis tribesmen passed

by without noticing it. Another had the presence of mind

to fake death when he saw what was happening by

falling flat on his face and daubing himself with blood.

In the box. whenever the account of these horrors was

repeated, a hush would fall over the company. Among

those who listened were men whose best pals had been

with the 80-odd wounded whom Tanahashi butchered.

Night was the cover the Japs sought to work underdarkness their chief ally Regularly as the sun fell over

the Range these sub-humans donned yet more hideous

face-masks and came slithering through the rank grass,

whining weird animal calls to keep touch with each

other. Then, the bravest defender had to steel himself at

his post and remember the Night of the Massacre. Spirits

sank with the sun- and rose again as he rose. Men who

had never seen the inside of a church since their choir



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Arakan victory

days invoked Gods mercy and His strength. Many

scribbled their home addresses on scraps of paper for

their mates to drop a line home to the missus or my

girl or the old folk just in case anything should happen.

In the box everything was shared. One officer, handy

with a needle and thread, gave all his spare time tostitching buttons on shirts and slacks for anyone that

asked the service from Lieut-Colonels to Lance

Corporals. Many shared moretheir thoughts with

lonely comrades. Some would get to thinking that folks

at home might miss their letters and imagine the worst

and they would begin worrying. They had to be cheered

up, and they were. Then there was sometimes the thought

that though the air-supply had not failed yet,

perhaps. . . .? Men sick to death of biscuits and bully

would put a bit aside in their kit as tho it were manna.

Sleep was safest at the bottom of a slit-trench with the

rats.

By day the Japs were less formidable. One suicide

squad came in against a post in traditional Imperial

sacrifice style. Within two minutes only one remained

alive and he was too terror-stricken to move. They

displayed the usual Japanese lack of resilience. They

tried to use a chaung as a rendezvous simply because it

was marked as such in their Operation Orders. A British

infantry unit had captured it but as this was-_ NOT in the

orders the Jap NCO s still came to use it for their rendez

vous. Not a single one lived to pass on his instructions.

But the time for the counter-stroke was now at hand, and

Tanahashis troops were tiring. Ten days had been set fortheir task, and ten days rations issued for it. They had

carried out the planand the British had not fled, had

not even withdrawn anywhere from the Admin Box from

their forward positions in Kalapanzin Valley or from

their line on the western side of the Range.

On the contrary, the British were fighting back with



13/17


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Arakan victory

into the Kalapanzin for despatch there by troops

defending the Admin Box.

For this purpose General Lomax had been laboriously

building up his forces in the valley. His only L of C was

the Goppe mule track. But in due course both his own 26

Div and also 36 Indian Div (Maj-General F. W. Festing,DSO) were fully mustered for the final settlement. The

Japs generally were in a wretched state by this time. The

defenders of the Admin Box had taken savage toll of

thema preliminary count revealed that more than 1100

had been buried in this area alone. Two forward

brigades of 7 Div, which with a brigade of 5 Div. had

never relinquished their positions and had also already

exacted their price, now blocked the retreat of the enemy.

Trapped themselves now, and with no transport planes to

feed and munition them. the Japanese began to suffer

the full pains of siege. Heavy bombers dived on their

bunkers and fighters gunned their foxholes. When the

planes went home for fresh bomb-loads the artillerymen

relieved them, and when they in turn paused the tank

gunners opened up. The diary of a Japanese Intelligence

Officer which fell into our hands recorded that

Tanahashis Brigade Group had gone seven days without

rations and had existed on wild yams and water. Another

entry noted that the owner himself had gone 10 days

without food, tho even at the end of that time he had

reported himself as able to dig bunkers. The enemy, of

course. looted what he could from the villages, but he

was elsewhere described as being so short of food that he

was eating monkeys.

The British attack was pressed home relentlessly by a

pincer movement from both sides of the Range.

Between them, they left very little of the March on

Delhi. or on Chittagong either. The Admin Box battle

ended when Major Ferguson Hoey led the assault of the

Lincoins on Point 315 overlooking it. He fell as it was

captured, gaining the VC.



15/17

Arakan victory

The three weeks siege was raised. The breaking of the

enemys stranglehold on Okeydoke followed shortly

after by the capture of Hill 1070. It required ten days

fighting with tank and artillery support to liquidate deep

Jap bunkers in this knife-edge feature with its conical

peak. Even after it was thought cleared a landslide

caused by the bombing and shelling, unearthed another

score of the enemy.

Then at last the convoys ladened with food rolled once

more down the slopes of Okeydoke to the relieved

army. At the head rode Mai-General H. R. Briggs, DSO,

OBE. Commander of 5 Div. coming to congratulate hisfellow divisional commander Maj General Messervy, on

his magnificent stand. The Battle of Arakan was virtually

over, and the Fourteenth Army stood triumphant on its

first great battlefield.

They had smashed No. 1 Japanese invasion of India;

scored the first major British-Indian victory over the

arrogant enemy, killed 4,500 of his finest troops (the

figure later rose to nearly 7.000). Even more vital the

British and Indian soldier had set up a man to man

superiority over the Japanese soldier in the field.

The strategy of the Jap High Command had been

completely frustrated. Our troops on the Southern Front

had been neither driven out nor annihilated; the road toIndia had not been forced; the reserve divisions covering

the Central Front hadnt been sucked into the struggle

and used-up. They remained intact ready to deal with

Part II of the Japanese invasion for which strong enemy

forces were already massing along the Chindwin.

Above all the Allies had demonstrated their mastery of a



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Arakan victory