FIRST OF RAINS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 30 April 1942, Page 5

FIRST OF RAINS

NATIVE OPPOSITION TO ALLIES DEFENDERS’ LINES SHORTENED London, April 28. A correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain with the Chinese forces says the civil Government of Burma has evacuated from Maymyo (20 miles east of Mandalay), because Japanese columns are approaching-. The evacuation coincides with a series of fires and a rising tide of native opposition to the British. Rains, which are believed to be the first of the monsoons, are bogging down the dirt roads and causing the rivers to rise. On the curving front defending j Mandalay the Chinese and British j armies have shortened their lines of] infantry and shell-scarred tanks in an effort to check the Japanese spear-j heads thrusting through the Shan i Slates toward Hsipaw and Lashio. | Three groups of Chinese troops in the Shan States have been cut off from the main forces farther west, but they have radioed that they wiped out a Japanese battalion at Taung-gyi, were continuing fierce guerrilla warfare round Loikaw, and slashing at the Japanese communications south of Hsipaw. ENEMY PLANES SWARM Japanese planes are swarming over Mandalay and other towns on the main Allied communications routes, bombing and machine-gunning them. The Calcutta correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says the Imperial forces have suffered even more terribly in Burma than did the troops in Malaya. The Chinese are lighting doggedly, but their equipment, particularly in heavy artillery, is unequal to the Japanese, and they are also suffering terribly as a result of a lack of adequate air support. The correspondent adds that Burmese Fifth Column activity has flared up in the rear of the Allied forces. Dacoit bands are murdering stragglers and wounded, burning petrol dumps, blocking supply routes, poisoning wells, and spreading panic and sedition among the loyal inhabitants in the Shan States. The Japanese mechanised forces have penetrated within 67 miles of Lashio. A Chinese communique placed one Japanese spearhead near Konghaiping, 93 miles north of Taunggyi, and another at Mong-Sung. 46 miles east of Kong-J haiping. The Chinese are resisting stub-] hornly along the entire Shan States i front. Fierce fighting is costing both ] sides heavily. To the west, on the Irrawaddy front, British and Chinese forces are holding] a 50-mile-wide line some 75 miles in j fr ont of Mandalay. Behind this line; lie some of Burma’s most important] oilfields. Major James Wilson, head of the! United States technical mission, was] killed in the streets of Mandalay during the Japanese bombing. COURAGE OF IMPERIAL TROOPS ; A tribute to the courage and tenacity] oi the Imperial forces who for thi-ee months, in the face of overwhelming odds, have carried out the fighting re-] treat from the Tenasserim, crossed the] Sittang. broke out from Pegu, crashed through the Shwedaung block and finally battled their way from Magwa, is paid by the Bri.lsh United Press correspondent on the Irrawaddy front. When they were ultimately relieved at Yenangyaung, he said, the Imperial ] troops had not : lept for a week, while 1 for days on end they had suffered severely from hunger and thirst. 1 Large Japanese forces had trapped ' the Imperial troops in waterless, tree- 1 less hills to the east of Yenangyaung. i and the men, with very scanty sup- ‘ plies and almost no water, fought un- < ceasingly for three days and nights till the Chinese behind the British tank ’ corps broke through the Japanese ring ; and relieved the exhausted division. < The Imperial °ops included the Scottish Camerons, Inniskillings, West i Yorkshires, Gloucesters, Punjabis, < Sikhs, Rajputs, Ghurkas, and also > some Kachins and Chins from north i Burma. <