ROAD TO MANDALAY

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 68, 14 December 1944, Page 7

ROAD TO MANDALAY

Great Bridging Feat On

The Chindwin (Received December 13, 9 p.m.)

COLOMBO, December 13. Working under shellfire, engineers of the Thirty-third Division have thrown a Bailey bridge 1000 feet long across the Chindwin River at Kalewa, says the Australian Associated Press correspondent. It is probably the longest built m any theatre of war. and it is the. first bridge ever built across the Chindwin. Over it Fourteenth Army troops, guns and vehicles arc rolling in a drive which will not halt this side of Mandalay. Japanese nlanes yesterday bombed the area, but fighters drove them off, shooting dowfi one. The bridge, which is floating on pontoons, was open for traffic less than 48 hours after the approaches had been begun. It was carried up the east Bengal railway, trucked by road 300 miles across the Chin Hills, and assembled out of sight of the Japanese. Sections were then floated round a bend of the river’ and joined up. „ The river at the spot is 40 feet deep and the bridge ramps drop sharply to the main decking. In the monsoon the river will be 60 feet higher up the banks, and logs, dead buffaloes and even elephants will come racing down the swollen stream. Then a more permanent bridge will be needed. . , , , , The Burma communique states that on fl- Chindwin front East African troops, advancing down ’he Kalewa-Yeu road, arc now within 500 yards of Shwegyin.