BRITISH SEIZE AKYAB

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21605, 6 January 1945, Page 3

BRITISH SEIZE AKYAB

FIRST SEA INVASION OF BURMA bloodlessTlHd success

JAPANESE SURRENDER VALUABLE BASES (10 a.m.j AKYAB, Jan. 5. A British force, with naval support, landed on Akyab Island on Wednesday. They met no opposition and are now

moving' forward to take possession of Akyab City, says the Australian Associated Press correspondent. A big force of the 15th Corps, under Lieut.General Alexander Christison, is now moving across the Mayu River from four points to follow the Commando force in.

This is the first amphibious operation in the Burma theatre. The capture of Akyab will seal the fate of the Japanese in Arakan and give us great sea, land and air bases for further operations to Burma. A great fleet of warships and land-' ing craft had crept down the coast from Teknaf, but when it arrived at the assembly point off Akyab the news was passed that the Japanese had cleared out of Akyab on the night before last. There had been thousands of them, with coastal guns, "ack-ack” guns and tanks, but they did not wait to give us battle. The bombardment from cruisers, destroyers and heavy air support, which has been ordered, were cancelled. The bloodless occupation of Akyab is the climax of the three-pronged drive down the Arakan littoral by the 15th Corps. Beginning on December 14, one column moved down the coast between the Mayu Range and the sea. The second made parallel progress on the eastern side of the range, and .he third, consisting of the 81st West African Division, drove down Kaladan River.

For tlie crossing of the Kaladan. the corps engineers built, reconditioned and altered 100 boats, using native canoes, Ashing boats and river craft. It was the employment of this strange miscellany that enabled General Christison to make an amphibious landing on Wednesday instead of the planned date. General Chxistison’s intelligence officers had discovered that the Akyab garrison had been depleted to meet the threat developing against the city from the north down the bank of the Kaladan River.

Akyab is Burma's fifth town and main port of the Arakan district ot Burma. It was through it that the great export rice trade of Arakan, which helped to feed India passed. The loss of the port cut off a big proportion of India's rice supply and helped to cause the 1943 famine in Bengal.

drive the Japanese out of