BURMA CAMPAIGN

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23013, 3 October 1944, Page 5

BURMA CAMPAIGN

Japanese Position Precarious Allies Advancing On Tiddim By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.— Copyright (11.58 p.m.) KANDY, October 2. The Japanese defence of Tiddim 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 the position is precarious, says the correspondent of the Associated Press. Sick and wounded have already been evacuated, and it is believed that the enemy has 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 Fifth Indian Division moved through the hills to the east, and are now endangering his right flank with the two-fold 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. The cratered road is laid down with booby traps and mines, and the enemy is 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.