Jap. Struggle To Keep Burma Escape Route

Northern Advocate, 3 October 1944, Page 3

Jap. Struggle To Keep Burma Escape Route

KANDY (.Ceylon), October 2. The Japanese defence of Tiddini is becoming a struggle to preserve the escape route from the Chin Hills—the mountain road back through Fort White to Kalemyo and Chindwin—but their position is precarious, says an Associated Press correspondent. • Sick and wounded have already been evacuated and it is believed that the enemy have blown up store dumps. While he fought hard to hold the main 14th Army drive along the Tiddim Road from the north, men of the sth Indian Division moved through the hills eastwards, and are now endangering his right flank, with the twofold object of thrusting to Tiddim and closing the exit. The Japanese have not yet thrown in the towel, and they are determined to contest each step. They have cratered the road and laid down booby traps and mines, and are now heavily shelling our forward positions. Meanwhile, engineers are working like ants to keep open the lines of communication along Asia’s worst road. Bulldozers are working night and day pushing landslides off the Tiddim Road and attempting to preserve some surface on the muddy thoroughfare where vehicles commonly sink down to their sides in the bog.