FANATICAL CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1945, Page 5

FANATICAL CHARGE

JAPANESE IN ARAKAN

LONDON, February 4i British commandos operating with] the 25th Indian Division have so fari counted 277 enemy dead and more Japanese are being found among the mangroves and in the paddy fields after a bitter 24-hour hand-to-handl battle for a hill near Kangaw, states a message from South-east Asia head" quarters. Kangaw, on the coast south of Akyab, is one of the places where British and Indian troops recently made a landing.

The attack was a do-or-die Japanese effort to break our hold on their main escape route from Arakan, the Myohaung to Taungura motor road. The capture of the hill would have helped the enemy to dominate the commandos' beach-head 1000 yards away. The fighting began in the early morning, when 90 Japanese engineers loaded with explosives, and screaming and shouting ."Banzai," rushed through the half-light across the open paddy towards our tanks. The commandos mowed them down with automatic fire, put some succeeded in reaching the [tanks, destroying one and damaging another by pole charges. Other tanks started up and began firing at the Japanese silhouetted by the flames ot a blazing Sherman. Then the Japanese infantry began the mam attack on the hill. Fightingj with incredible fury, the Japanesa1 nurled themselves up the steep hilU side, while the commandos lobbed hand grenades down at them. Dozens died, but still more Japanese rushedi lft, and some managed to reach the tori of the northern end of .the hill. The! Japanese were firing portable one 4 man mortars and were supported bjfl heavy machine-guns and numerous* light automatic arms. Ir* the afternoon while the fighting on the hilltop continued fresh- Japan-! ese made another attack to take the whole of the feature. The commandos broke up the main attack, but odd Parties of "Japanese were dug in all cSuSf tfU" used flghtlne By moonlight a patrol of Punjabi troops of the Twenty-fifth Indian Division who had been sent to support the commandos approached the northern tip of the hill and encountered heavy fire. At dawn the commandos and Punjabis stormed the hill and finished off the remaining Japanese, with a few casualties to themselves.

~_An .?^, ce,r who had tal«en part in the initial Normandy landings said he had never seen a sight to equal the slaughter on .the hill k