BITTER CLASHES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 123, 19 February 1944, Page 7

BITTER CLASHES

Fighting For Strategic Points In Burma

LONDON, February 17.

British and Indian troops, facing a strong Japanese line in the MaungdawButhidaung area on the Arakan front, have held their positions while behind them the series of bitter clashes continues for the possession of strategic pointe. The Japanese, despite .casualties, are striking day and night against the. Allied supply, lines, thereby hoping to gain control of an area of 10 square miles behind the most advanced British troops. Other British and Indian troops are fighting their way forward and are near to reopening the Gnakyedauk Pass across the Mayu Range, about 10 miles north, of Maungdaw, and thus relieving the Allied force which has been hemmed in since the Japanese sealed the pass on February 6. When the pass is opened the first troops to be evacuated will be the wounded, some of whom have had to remain m the mobile casualty clearing stations for nearly a fortnight. In the fighting east of the Ngakyedauk Pass across the Mayu Mountains, 700 Japanese dead have been counted in this area alone in the last two weeks, while in several actions west and north-west ot Buthidaung, the enemy casualties were considerable. . A Japanese attempt to. cross the Umndivin River has been driven back and a small pocket of resistance in Kaladan village has been mopped up. In.the Chin hills the Japanese have attacked and occupied some high ground. l! urther north, fighting continues in the Hukaung valley, and the communique from Chungking'says that Chinese forces have advanced and continue to exert pressure east of an objective and have captured two strongly-fortified points. Berlin radio quotes a Tokio message as saying: “The opposition from the Seventh British Indian Division encircled east ot the Mavu mountains is slackening. Jhe Japanese have further tightened the ring and compressed Um British, who are well equipped with numerous guns and tanks and several hundred vehicles, into a small area. They face annihilation or surrend-