JAPS IN BURMA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 101, 1 May 1945, Page 5

JAPS IN BURMA

HEADLONG RETREAT

Fourteenth Army Almost To

Gates Of Rangoon

N.Z. Press Association —Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. BOMBAY, April 30. British Fourteenth Army troops in Burma, advancing southward along the main road, are now 36 miles from Rangoon, reports the South-east Asia Command communique. In the Irrawaddy sector, Minbu, on the west bank opposite Magwe, has been occupied against opposition. The Fourteenth Army has smashed Japanese attempts to hold it up at Pegu railway junction, on the main Mandalay-Rangoon railway and key to their escape way to Siam, says the special correspondent of the Australian Associated Press in Burma. The advance of the British and Indian troops was so overpowering and speedy that the Japanese were thrown back in headlong retreat and the Fourteenth Army crashed down almost to the gates of Rangoon itself. Japanese troops left in Western Burma, south of the oilfield region and in Arakan have now lost their way of escape by land and their only escape by sea is effectively blockaded by the Navy.