BRITISH ATTACK THAT FAILED

Southland Times, Issue 25025, 10 April 1943, Page 5

BRITISH ATTACK THAT FAILED

LACK OF NECESSARY EQUIPMENT

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, April 8. “In view of the development of the attack against the narrow lines of communication behind them and the impossibility of clearing the Mayu Peninsula before the monsoon our troops, to put it bluntly, abandoned their Donbaik positions,” says The Times New DelHi correspondent. “Our troops are now in an area 15 miles north of Donbaik to a point east of Rathidaung. Fighting is reported to be still going on. British and Indian troops continue to receive assistance from the air.”

The correspondent adds that the withdrawal is bound to increase the general disappointment over the Arakan campaign, which has largely arisen from imperfect appreciation of its limitations and supply difficulties. Originally planned as an attack against Akyab, it had to be given up through unforseen delays in the arrival of the necessary equipment. Indeed, it was remarkable that the Japanese had not shown more initiative because “we put out our neck and were allowed to draw it back. ”

The Japanese, despite their losses, are characteristically operating in the jungle with numbers of small detachments, but the much shorter British lines at the moment seem capable of resisting the assaults. An Indian communique reports that

the Arakan front is unchanged. In the Indian area an attempted Japanese infantry advance was repulsed with heavy enemy casualties. Fighting continues in this sector.

One of our light coastal craft engaged two large Japanese motor launches in the Mayu river on Tuesday night and probably sank one. The Royal Air Force, yesterday, without loss, attacked objectives in central Burma, an airfield at Shwebo, the railway station at Wuntho and ,various occupied villages and enemy positions. CHINA’S SUPPLY POSITION

While it is often vaguely assumed that the reconquest of Burma will radically improve China’s military and supply situation and allow a great number of Chinese troops to become active, The Manchester Guardian’s Chungking special correspondent now visiting India is of the opinion that this is an incorrect view. He writes: “It seems that the supply assistance to China cannot exceed a few tens of thousands of tons a month, even after the reconquest of Burma, until a decisive weakening of the Japanese Navy permits the Allies to use the ports of Indo-China and south China.”

He points out that the small number of British and Indian forces engaged in the present minor operation in the Arakan theatre need regular monthly supplies equivalent to several times the highest freight total ever carried over the Burma Road to China. While the authorities in New Delhi show the keenest interest in the earliest possible reconquest of Burma, in view of the moral and strategic values of such gain and the material resources in rice and oil, they conceive the task of the Indian war effort to be to develop India as quickly as possible into a great general supply base for operations, wherever they may occur.

The correspondent adds that the perfecting of India’s defences has been virtually completed. There is now a growing threat from the quickly developing strength of the Allied base in India, which ’is evidently making Japan more reluctant to dissipate her forces for major drives inside China. STRATEGY ALTERED A Chungking message says that the Japanese have altered their strategy in China. They are garrisoning minor points with puppet forces and are concentrating their own forces in major positions. Explaining this to a Press conference, a Chinese Army spokesman said that the Japanese had thus acquired greater mobility for operations which might develop. He said the enemy’s strength on the whole was unchanged in China. It remained at 30 divisions. He reported that fighting had occurred in the past week in the Hupeh, Honan, Hunnan, Kwantung, Anhwei, Chekiang, Shansi and Shantung provinces, but that it had all been of a minor character. The Japanese, he said, had unsuccessfully attempted to outflank the Chinese across the Yangtse river south-west of Shansi. Enemy thrusts north and west of Winyang had been turned back. Further clashes had occurred in Yunnan near the Burma frontier, in which a large number of the enemy had been killed. All the thrusts had been thrown back,