THAZI CAPTURED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 5

THAZI CAPTURED

BURMA SUCCESSES Trapped Japanese loth Army Liquidated N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. BOMBAY, April 10. Thazi Junction, 14 miles east of Meiktila, has been captured by British Fourteenth Army troops, states a South-east Asia Command communique. In the course of the operations to clear enemy strongpoints in the Meiktila area heavy casualties were inflicted on the enemy and a number of guns were captured. An enemy pocket of resistance in the Legyi area, 24 miles south-south-east of Pakkoku, has been cleared. Allied long-range fighters yesterday destroyed 19 Japanese aircraft on two airfields in the Bangkok region. Six more were probably destroyed and five damaged. Our aircraft also set fire to many buildings. The Japanese Fifteenth Army has been decisively defeated in Central Burma and is no longer an effective fighting force, an Allied spokesman reveals. The war correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald in Burma says that no organised Japanese forces are left inside the huge triangle from Mandalay, in the north, down to Meiktila, and across to Pakkoku, on the western side of the Irrawaddy River. As well as the Japanese Fifteenth Army formations of the 33rd and 2Sth Divisions also sustained considerable casualties trying to stem the tide by rushing relief forces to Central Burma. The 33rd is the crack division which crossed the Chindwin River last year in the abortive invasion of India. What is left of the Japanese divisions are trying to withdraw at night through our lines towards the hills south-east of Mandalay and south of our strongly established land and air base at Meiktila. The enemy still holds all Southern Burma, from Rangoon to Meiktila, 306 miles north.