SHAN STATES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 118, 21 May 1945, Page 5

SHAN STATES

MAIN BURMA BATTLE

Hard Fight Ahead To Gear

Country N.Z.F.A. and Wireless Rec. 1 p.m. COLOMBO, May 20. A South-east Asia Command communique says that 82nd (West African) Division patrols have reached a point 50 road miles southeast of Taungup on the road to Prome. On the Fourteenth Army front mopping up operations continue satisfactorily. Bombers from a low level hit the Japanese defences north of Mokpalin, near the mouth of the Sittang River. The main battlefield in Burma shifted to the eastern Shan States, where the Japanese are fighting grimly for their escape roads to Siam, says a correspondent. The Fourteenth Army has made little progress in area in the last week and the official weekly review of operations predicts heavy fighting before Burma is swept entirely clear.

Leading citizens in Rangoon, in an address which they read to the military governor, expressed their gratitude to the British, American, Indian and Chinese troops for their liberation from the Japanese and promised wholehearted support in the restoration of Burma.