ALLIES' DRIVE IN BURN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 39, 14 January 1944, Page 5

ALLIES' DRIVE IN BURN

PREPARING FOR BIG PUSH LONDON, Jan. 13.

British troops now firmly astride the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road are battling forward across difficult jungle country south-eastwards, says the British United Press's correspondent at Fourteenth Army Headquarters in South-East Asia. They have made fresh progress in their new drive during the last 24 hours in the face of stubborn Japanese resistance. Many Japanese were wiped out in a sharp clash near the village ofiKanindan, in the Maungdaw area. Another British force is now fighting close .to the junction of the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road and the highway running southwards to India. Hard fighting pockets of Japanese are still preventing the Fourteenth Army from using the road to Maungdaw from the north, but British sappers have succeeded in laying a track across the paddy fields. The enemy is hitting back strongly against the advancing Allied troops in many sectors" of the Western Burma front Attacks have been launched in the last 48 hours against the Allied positions all along the Mayu Rango running laterally between Maungdaw and Buthidaung, but the hurled them all back. 'The British on other parts of the front are stilly edging steadily forward to improve tTioir positions in readiness for the big push. Only the jetty at Maungdaw remains untouched. The town was an empty and desolate shambles when the Allied forces marched in. Allied bombers had left their mark everywhere.