MANDALAY WON
FORT DUFFERIN ENTERED JAP. NIGHT-TIME ESCAPE (Rec. 11.30) COLOMBO, March 20. Fort Dufferin has been captured and the whole of Mandalay is m our hands. The Japanese numbering 3UU, including the regimental headquarters, left the Fort last night, and Indian troops entered at lunch-time toda, rhe Australian Associated Press correspondent in Burma says that five Burmans walked out of the northfern gate of the Fort at 12.45 p.m., carrying a white flag and the Union Jack. They said the Japanese had deserted the Fort. Troops of the 19th Division entered through a breach-in the Walls. Empty foxholes showed where the defenders of the ramparts had taken cover during the bombing. Hundreds of cases left behind, seemingly ammunition, were found to contain horseshoes. The news that the Japanese departed last night tallies with a report of a motor transport column which Gurkhas fired upon. The Japanese, with some bravado, sent out parties to “jitter” our troops On the northern and eastern sides. No casualties resulted. Thfere was much movement in the railway station area and motor transport was heard moving south-east away from this spot; It is believed there are still Burmans and interned British and Burmans within the fort. Before it was known that the Japanese had left, an air strike was carried out. One wave of bombers entirely missed the fort area and caused several casualties among their own troops. The firing of Thibaw’s Palace, a relic of the last Burmese monarch, yesterday, will rob the capture of Fort Dufferin of some of its historical interest. Shortly after an experimental bombing of the walls, huge columns of black smoke were seen rising into the air from the Forts centre, some distance from the bombing. A story has been put forward that the Palace had been fired by the Japanese as an act of revenge. TANKS IN ACTION
RUGBY, March 20. Having beaten the Japanese inside the jungle, the British are out in the open country with their tanks, a message from South-east Asia Headciuarters says. Such is the air coyer afforded by American and R.A.I fighters that our own armoured columns are enjoying a freedom they can achieve in no other theatre. South-east Asia has now seen Sherman tanks in action. MASTERY IN THE AIR. " LONDON, March 20. “Because of the effectiveness of Allied air power in Burma, the Japanese now move troops and supplies by road, rail, and coastal shipping routes almost entirely at night,” said an Air Ministry spokesman. lhe Allies, on the other hand, because they have won air supremacy, can supply their big armies entirely by air, enabling the land forces to strike out in any direction in the 'knowledge that their supplies will reach them.. “Allied air superiority to-day extends not only over the whole o: Burma, but over Siam, and the Japanese Air Force rarely attacks in the day time. While the Allied air forces are flying an average of from 600 tc 700 sorties a'day, long-range naval aeroplanes, and land-baseo fighter-bombers are subjecting the Japanese communications, from dispatch to delivery, to constant attack. The Japanese are compelled to use very elaborate forms of camouflage to protect railway and road traffic. They put up duplicate bridges, and make serviceable bridges appear unserviceable by removing planking in the day time and replacing it at night. They build bridges with moveable pontoons, the middle of which they remove m the day time and put back after dark. “Allied transport aeroplanes in 194< in Burma flew more than 300,001 hours on 90,000 flights. They carried more than 250,000 tons of supplies tc the combat zone, and they now fly 1201 sorties a day. A total of 2000 tons is being carried each day to the foui Burma fronts—Lashio, Meiktila, Mandalay, and Arakan.” RECORD BOMBING MISSION. BOMBAY, March 20. The Eastern Air Command carried out its longest bombing mission yet when Liberators yesterday attacked the Bangkok-Singapore railway in the area of the Kra Isthmus, says the Australian Associated Press correspondent. The mission involved a round trip of 2500 miles (equal to a non-stop flight across the Tasman and back). The bridges damaged are only 670 miles north of Singapore. Railway sidings elsewhere were left wreckfed and burning. CHINESE SUCCESS. CHUNGKING, March 20. Chinese troops penetrated Tayu. which is a wolfram-producing centre, and key point of the Japanese supply lines near the Southern Kwarigsi border. A Chinese communique says that Japanese forces in Tayu are hemmed in on three sides. Severe fighting continues in the Kanhsien suburbs.
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Greymouth Evening Star, 21 March 1945, Page 5
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751MANDALAY WON Greymouth Evening Star, 21 March 1945, Page 5
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