BATTLING FORWARD

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22790, 14 January 1944, Page 4

BATTLING FORWARD

British Troops In Burma HARD FIGHTING AT MANY POINTS (Rec. 12.36) LONDON, Jan. 13. British troops are now firmly astride the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road and are battling forward across difficult jungle country to the south-east, says the correspondent of the British United Press at Fourteenth Army Headquarters. south-east Asia. They made fresh progress in a 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 of Kanlndan, in the Maungdaw area. Another British force is now fighting close to the junction of the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road and the highway running south 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 on many sectors of the Western Burma front. Attacks have been launched in the last 48 hours against the Allied positions all along the Mayu Range, running laterally between Maungdaw and Buthidaung, but Gurkhas hurled them all back. The British troops on other parts of the front are still edging steadily forward to improve their positions in readiness for a big push.

Only the jetty at Maungdaw remains untouched. The town was an empty, desolate shambles when the Allied forces marched in. Allied bombers had left their mark everywhere.

The Tokio radio announced that fighting is in progress east and north of Maungdaw. A series of battles between the British troops and Japanese garrisons on the peninsula about 70 miles north of Akyab is still beingfought out.