ADVANCE INTO BURMA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 80, 14 January 1944, Page 4

ADVANCE INTO BURMA.

“PREPARATIONS FOR BIG PUSH.” THE MAUNGDAW ROAD CUT. (Rec. 1.30 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 13. British troops are firmly astride the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road in Burma, and are battling forward across difficult jungle country to the south-east, says a British United Press correspondent at 14th Army Headquarters, in South-east Asia.

They have made progress in a new drive during the last 24 hours, in the face of stubborn Japanese resistance. Many Japanese were wiped out in a sharp clash near the village of Kanindan, in the Maungdaw area. Another British' force is now fighting close to the junction of the Maungdaw - Buthidaung road and the highway running southwards to India. Hard fighting pockets of Japanese are preventing the 14th Army from using the road to Maungdaw from the north, but British sappers succeeded in laying a track across paddy fields. The enemy is hitting hack strongly against the advancing Allied troops in many sectors of the western Burma front. Attacks have been launched in the last 48 hours against Allied positions all along the Mayu range, which runs laterally between Maungdaw and Buthidaung, but Gurkhas hurled them all back.

The British in other parts of the front are still edging steadily forward to improve their positions in readiness for a big, push. Only the jetty at Maungdaw remains untouched. The town was an empty and desolate shambles when the Allied forces farched in. Allied bombers had left their mark everywhere. The Tokio radio has announced that fighting is in progress east and north of Maungdam, and that a series of battles between British troops and the Japanese garrisons on the peninsula about 70 miles north of Akyab is still being fought out.