The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1945. THE BATTLE OF ASIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1945. THE BATTLE OF ASIA

/""ENTRAL Burma has been so nearly cleared of Japanese that no organised forces are left in the huge triangle from Mandalay, in the north, down to Meiktila and across to Pakokku, on the western side of the Irrawaddy River, while spearheads are beginning to feel their way towards the borders of Siam. A year ago the Japanese were attacking close to the Indian frontier. Throwing aside its traditional caution, the Japanese High Command in Manipur last March gambled on an early and easy victory. Its frontier forces were threatened in the north by General StilwelFs troops and in the rear by General Wingate's Chindits, but they were strong and well armed, and so a counter-stroke was begun at the centre of the long but discontinuous Allied front. That blow, had it succeeded, would have marked the beginning of an invasion of India and the severance of Stilwell from his base. There w.?re times of grave peril, then, for the Allied line, but the attack, though pressed with vigour and tactical skill, was first held and then broken, the enemy suffering enormous losses because of the obstinacy with which the four divisions held to positions after they were outflanked and outgunned. Four months after it began the attack was completely smashed, and then began the long trail forward which has carried our forces hundreds of miles through the Burma jungles, round swamps, over roadless mountains and across river torrents. By February the Allied drive, small at first, had gathered such impetus that it had flowered into a full-scale offensive, planned to cut off the 50,000 Japanese in northern and central Burma, to drive southward towards the sea and eastward to Siam. It was a splendidly and courageously planned attack, one which put the Japanese very badly off-balance. Threats to Mandalay drew the enemy northward, then daringly and in defiance of orthodox methods General Slims' British and Gurkha divisions forced a way across the Irrawaddy, and, while the enemy forces were stalled in the north, thrust his tanks through to Meiktila, severing the line to Rangoon. Though this success outflanked Mandalay, the Japanese held to it as if it were a slice of the homeland, but General Rees took his Punjabis into the city, and another force from the west closed the trap. The enemy fought stubbornly for Fort Dufferin, the inner citadel, but he could not escape, and the whole defensive force was wiped out. The. campaign has a long way to go yet, and the monsoonal rains will soon turn the whole country into a quagmire, but, thanks to the magnificent work of the American road-makers and of their air transport services, which have completely revolutionised campaigning methods, the Allied forces will be in a much better position than the Japanese when the rains come. Though very long, our lines of communication are practicable, and much shorter than those of the Japanese, who can no longer reinforce or send supplies by sea or replace their heavy losses except by the long marches now being undertaken from Siam and the Kra isthmus of Malay. The danger of amphibious attack prevents him from .using any reserves he may have in southern Burma for the threatened east and north. The air force has been so steadily reduced that Allied planes roar over the whole area without serious opposition, and the enemy can no longer supply isolated groups from the air. He will fight on with the fatalistic obstinacy which has characterised all his campaigns, and even without that obstinacy monsoon and jungle, mountain and stream, distance and disease, would still make the reconquest of the territory difficult and dangerous.