Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Remembering the Burmese campaign
The ‘forgotten war’ was one of the toughest military theatres, writes GUSTAV HENDRICH
WHEN the British singer
Vera Lynn visited Burma she expressed the view that the British forces stationed there were the “forgotten army”. Her famous song It is a Lovely Day Tomorrow gave encouragement to soldiers engulfed in a bitter, vicious war in the dense Burmese jungle
– a war that, even at the time, seemed forgotten.
As this year marks the 73rd anniversary of the ending of the Burma campaign and the last Battle of the Breakout at the Sittang River on July 20, 1945, it is significant to reflect on this campaign. Louis Allen, who served as an intelligence officer in South-East Asia, declared that “the longest campaign in World War II was fought in Burma”.
The war was fought over a terrain of impenetrable jungles and dusty plains and in torrential monsoon rains. Through the green depths of the jungle soldiers fought with courage in hand-to-hand combat, while contending with the scourge of insectborne diseases such as scrub typhus, cholera, blood-sucking leeches and especially malaria, which could decimate entire divisions. Thus, it was as much a medical as a conventional war in which air transport proved vital. As to the viciousness of the war, Allen wrote that “it was a very cruel war. It was often better to be killed outright than to be taken prisoner. Commander’s despair drove me to suicide tactics, and punishment for breaches of military discipline sometimes reverted to the savagery of the 19th century”.
After the triumphant Japanese conquered most of East Asia following their surprise attack on
Pearl Harbour and the fall of Singapore, Burma was occupied in March 1942. Though Burma was not a prime objective for the Japanese, it was an attempt to deny the British air reinforcements. The Japanese advance marked the longest retreat in British military history when they retreated to the borders of India. Humiliated and with the perception of the Japanese as “supermen”, many forces from the British Commonwealth, including Indians, Rhodesians, Nigerians and even
South Africans who were individually conscripted joined forces to stem the Japanese onslaught.
Under the Allied direction of US General Joseph Stilwell and senior British army officer Orde Wingate, who led a small fast-moving guerrilla force, known as the Chindits, operating behind enemy lines, and the masterly tactics of British General William Slim, the Allied soldiers became battle-hardened and gradually adjusted to jungle warfare.
Furthermore, the underlying fear of being taken prisoner and reports of Japanese brutality became an incentive for revenge. As the balance of the Pacific War tilted against Japan by 1944, with their empire being vastly overstretched, their fortunes were slowly reversed.
In an offensive over the Indian border, the crucial battles at Imphal and Kohima – referred to as the “jungle Stalingrad” – the Japanese were decisively repulsed, which marked the turning point of the Burma campaign. The combined factors of the British air superiority and overwhelming resources from the Commonwealth eventually led to a withering away of Japanese military capabilities. The Japanese, though, with their samurai code and the divine duty to fight to the last, retreated almost deceptively down the central Burmese jungle. In their desperation they employed suicide tactics, such as soldiers sitting in foxholes with a bomb and stones, to be detonated when enemy tanks passed over their concealed positions.
At the beginning of 1945 the British 14th Army under General Slim initiated brilliant operational plans which tricked Japanese General Kimura into exposing his forces to an open field. After securing the key towns of Mandalay and Meiktila, where bloody battles had decimated the Japanese, the race to the capital of Rangoon was on.
Rangoon, which was severely bombed, was abandoned and retaken on
May 3 with cheers from the populace.
On the rooftop of the Rangoon jail prisoners of war had written: “Japs gone. British here. Extract digit.” The last battle of the Burma campaign was to be fought at the Sittang River.
As the constant skirmishes raged, the Japanese 28th
Army of 15 000 under General Sakurai attempted to make their last stand and break out to the east.
Hounded almost day and night by Allied air strikes and trapped in the Irradaway Valley and the Pegu Yomas, their only alternative was to escape or succumb through starvation. “X-Day” for the breakout was earmarked for July 20. But it proved to be disastrous from the outset, as, with a stroke of luck, an Indian division captured the Japanese plans and prepared defences.
Thus, when the breakout commenced Sakurai found himself trapped and ambushed. With the monsoon causing flooding and rainsodden terrain, the Japanese scrambled over the river and were swept away by the rapid current of the Sittang.
The outcome of the Battle of the Breakout made an end to all Japanese resistance in Burma with 11 500 Japanese being killed or captured, for a disproportionately marginal loss of a mere 95 by the British.
Allen commented that
“the sacrifice of thousands of (Japanese) men was a heavy price to pay, and it was a cruel fate which made them pay this price only a matter of weeks before the entire Japanese Imperial Army surrendered unconditionally – a possibility which had not occurred to any of the officers of the 28th Army in the worst moments of their tragedy”.
The dropping of the atomic bombs and the emperor’s urge to surrender and “endure the unendurable” led to a sudden end to all hostilities. In Rangoon the Japanese officially laid down their arms on September 13, 1945.
Slim was hailed a hero for conducting one of the most complete and decisive victories in military history by inflicting the greatest defeat suffered by the Japanese army on land. Now, 73 years after the end of the Burma campaign, it is still considered one of the toughest war theatres, irrespective of it being remembered as the “forgotten war”.
Dr Gustav Hendrich is a historian, freelance writer and research fellow at the University of Stellenbosch.