The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1945. "BACK TO MANDALAY."

Evening Star, Issue 25440, 22 March 1945, Page 4

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1945. "BACK TO MANDALAY."

Kipling's exhortation has been obeyed; the British soldier is back in Mandalay whence he was driven in April of that gloomy year of 1942. The exploits of the Fourteenth Army in Burma have not received merited attention. To begin with the campaign is overshadowed by the immensity of the operations- in Europe and in the Pacific, and, strangely, any major success iu Burma has coincided with some outstanding development elsewhere. The capture of Mandalay has not escaped this eclipsing coincidence, for it came when all eyes were focused on the great routing battle in the Saar Palatinate. In its way the capture of Mandalay, an issue fought in a little-known country, may seem " small beer" compared with the colossal nature of operations in Europe, but the truth is, of course, that the event is s significant development in the war against Japan; it not only spells the end of Japanese domination in the Burma State, but it emphasises that the British soldier is a better fighting man than the Japanese. It should not escape notice that the capture of this centre of the last monarchist regime in Burma occurred only a few days over a year since the Fourteenth Army was forced to withdraw into Manipur State and the Japanese threat to India loomed large and real. It took time to remove that threat, and then began the arduous forward moves through Burma's mountains and jungles, over country in no way suited to the progress of modern armies-, and through the monsoon, when by all concepts conditions should have made campaigning impossible. The monsoon is again only two months off, but in more suitable country British operations are unlikely to be less successful than last year. The capture of Mandalay, which the Japanese hoped to defend to the last, was accompanied by strategy of the highest order. While the Japanese prepared for a frontal assault after being unable to prevent the crossings of the Irrawaddy_ —that story is yet to be told in its entirety, and it will be an epic, for'the Irrawaddy is no civilised watercourse—British forces, now numerically greater as a result of the landings at Akyab and along the coast, struck unexpectedly from the Pakoktku bridgehead over the Irrawaddy well to the south of Mandalay, and, under forced march, thrust eastward • eighty-five miles—thirty-five miles were covered in two days—to take Meiktila and cut off Japanese communications to Mandalay. Undoubtedly it was the threat of complete encirclement that caused the Japanese to quit the city and their strong positions in Fort Dufferin in darkness. They were, as they have been so often, outwitted strategicallytaken by surprise. It is these unexpected developments that expose the limited intelligence of the Japanese; he seems unable to react quickly enough to counter other than the obvious for which he is prepared. The British Army's road —no longer the road to Mandalay, but the road to Rangoon—should, despite greater favourableness of terrain, be strongly opposed at countless points, but the Japanese is now well off-balance, and it may take him time to recover and make the best use of his greatest asset suicidal, delaying stands. A word should be said of the difficulties of supplying General Siim's army. The air supply organisation originally planned by General Wingate when his raiders operated is extensively used. A recent message stated that General Slim was now able to think in terms of 50-mile advances " because he knows that when his- troops have"

reached their objectives ammunition and will be dropped to them at once. His army marched and the supply droppers looked after its stomach.*' Such a method of supply would have been impossible had the Japanese anything of an air force, but they are as- weak iu air power as they are in initiative. Although by all calculations and considerations the lighting in Lower Burma should be hard and protracted, the end may come quickly. At the right moment an Allied landing in the Rangoon area seems assured, and that may well throw the whole Japanese organisation into chaos, thus hastening fulfilment of Lord Louis Mountbatten's prophecy of " even greater victories " ahead.