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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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.
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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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