TROOPS IN BURMA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4534, 9 February 1942, Page 6

TROOPS IN BURMA

NEW WAR FRONT MANNING THE BORDER JAPANESE AIR RAIDS The development of Burma’s new war front is virtually turning the Southern Shan States into a tremendous armed camp, with the troops of four nations spread out through hundreds of miles of jungle, hill, and plateau country, says the war correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald. As I travelled to this headquarters, villagers in drowsing Shan hamlets gazed in amazement at the swirling passage of'military trucks, gun batteries, and staff cars. Unable to realise the import of the war, or to appreciate the possibility of its coming to disturb this centuries-old serenity, these people who are still in the crossbow and bullock cart age, are being taught to construct shelters for defence against Japanese bombs. WARDEN ARMED WITH SPEAR At one town I was directed by a native who announced that he was an A.R.P. warden. With magnificent irony, he was armed with a spear. The British organisation of the Shan States, which involves the placing in position of forces both for defence and offence, when the army and ail - force grow sufficiently strong, is necessitating the overcoming of extraordinary difficulties. Not the least of these is malaria, which insidiously reduced military effectives, and which is going to increase as the season advances. An expert who is now studying the problem told me that it was urgent that Britain should allot a large sum for special measures against the malarial mosquito. Another difficulty is that supply lines have to be maintained over more than 300 miles along a single road. Already this road, which runs from the base to near the ludo-China border, is organised for the most rapid possible transport, including one-way sections, provisions for staggering traffic, and the guarding of important points. CHINESE TROOPS Lorry convoys travel day and night, though biack-out conditions are enforced in all towns and at all strategic points. The Chinese who came into Burma from Yunnan Province are being supplied with food, but they brought their own equipment, making notable marches along the passes, and mule tracks through mountainous country. Reinforcements from India, together with tlie Burmese frontier forces and British units, are now lining the Thailand border, and more reinforcements are being sent in order further to consolidate the positions. Observers, however,, emphasise the import-

ance of having the greatest possible strength for an offensive from Lower Burma in order to relieve the Japanese pressure in Malaya. PROPAGANDA “BLITZ” Apart from the efforts to stir up dissension by dropping pamphlets, the Japanese are making a propaganda “blitzkrieg” on Burma in an attempt to influence the sympathies of the “Poonghyis”—the priests, who are numerous and influential among the predominant Buddhist population. Although this campaign has succeeded to the extent that the Poonghyis have been encouraged to fly their flaring yellow robes above some monasteries, believing that they would confer immunity, recent raids on the Moulmein area resulted in two monasteries being damaged. Incidents such as these are going to have an interesting effect on local opinion, which I found during a visit before the war incredulous of the possibility of any Japanese bombing. Later, when this hope had been rudely shattered, the people clung to the belief that their monasteries were sacred emblems and would be spared. The authorities are giving publicity to the damage, and Tokio is countering with the story that troops are billeted in the monasteries. Pamphlets like those dropped on Indian troops at Hongkong have been dropped at places in Lower Burma, promising national freedom and urging obstruction and sabotage. On one occasion blank pamphlets were showered down near Rangoon.