BURMA FRONT

Grey River Argus, 2 May 1944, Page 5

BURMA FRONT

KOHIMA BATTLE. AN ALLIED ACCOUNT. LONDON, April 29. An observer with General Slim’s 14th. Army says: In the Kohima 1 area on Saturday, tanks ran five miles under the nose of Japanese batteries, to link up with a new British attack force driving down from the north. This force is now astride Bokajan track, the Japanese northern exit from Kohima. It split , troops which guard the enemy’s right flank, and pushed to within a mile and ahalf of Naga village, the enemy’s strongest bastion in Kohima. The force came into action after a night and day flanking march through jungle. over a series of mountain ridges. They reached Bokajan track before the Japanese had suspicion of a threat to their northern flank. So complete was the surprise that an entire supply column southward bound with food for hard-pressed enemy garrison in Kohima, blundered into British positions, and was wiped out. Then to 'support the attack: force in their advance, the tanks were sent out to-day from the main British concentrations west of Khimma to ran a five miles’ gauntlet through Japanese positions. From a hill that looks across the Kohima, officers and men of the tank regiment watched the progress of tne mechanical force. On the ridges on either side of the road along which they moved, Japanese were dug in sometimes less than 200 yards above the road. It was known that in Their journey the tanks must pass under the guns of at least one battery. There was an unknown risk too of mines and anti-tank guns apart from scores of mortars and machine-guns. A leading armoured carrier failed to climb from a crater in the road. It was hauled out and went on. Then a tank stuck in a' crater and refused to budge. Hom's later* its crew were still sending out messages from their steel pillbox in view of the Japanese defences. The one casualty was a tank, the last vehicle in the column. A Japanese mine, over which every other vehicle had passed safely, exploded and caused slight damage. There was no other reaction from the Japanese, who were probably subdued by air bombardment and shelling, which prepared the way for the tanks.