BEGINNING OF END

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 147, 19 December 1944, Page 5

BEGINNING OF END

Rec. 10.30 a.m. RUGBY, Dec. 18. The remarkable advance in Burma mai-ks the beginning of the end for Mandalay and >.the Japanese rule in North Burma, says a New Delhi correspondent. The link-up of the British Thirty-sixth Division, advancing southwards along the railway from Myitkyina, and the Fourteenth Army has liberated 500 square miles of territory. The Fourteenth Army has liberated 800 villages and 2000 square miles east of the Chindwin.

In the reoccupied territory rebuilding operations are in full swing, and the women are making new clothes from Allied parachutes. Another correspondent describes the link-up as one between British troops advancing south in northern Burma and those advancing east from western Burma. Indaw, where the junction was effected, is an oilfield town known as Oil Indaw, and not to be confused with the town in North Burma, which was recently captured and*which is known as Rail Indaw. From there the command in the northern combat area has been operating. The Fourteenth Army in their advance occupied Pinlebu. A task force of the northern combat area command attacked the Japanese position north-west of Tonkwa yesterday and took it, killing many of the enemy. SEAC headquarters today disclosed the presence of American troops south of Bhamo.—B.O.W