BURMA ROAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1944, Page 3

BURMA ROAD

CUT BY CHINESE FORCES IN ADVANCE FROM WESTERN YUNNAN NEW PROBLEM FOR JAPANESE LONDON, May 23. Chinese forces, striking across the Salween River, have cut the Biirnm Road well behind the Japanese positions, 20 miles from-the Bur-ma-Chinese border. The main Japanese positions arc now 35 miles behind the Chinese attacking force and the enemy will find it difficult to send through supplies and reinforcements. General Stilwell's Chinese and American forces are locked in a see-saw battle wth the Japanese at Myitkyina. The Japanese are defending their wellprepa'red positions to the hist. Heavy rain is reported. The Associated Press says private advices report that the Japanese are being reinforced at Canton and Hankow, evidently fox- another- offensive to seize the Peiping-Hankow railway, which the Chinese have cut in several places. STRATEGIC PICTURE BEGINNING TO EMERGE. EFFECT OF ALLIED SUCCESSES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 22. A strategic picture is beginning to emerge from the confused fighting in Burma. The campaigns conducted in widely-separated areas can now be fitted together to form a single picture. The key is Myitkyina, the largest town of northern Burma, terminus of the railway, and focal point of road and track communications. The main attack on Myitkyina was launched from the north by General Stilwell’s mixed American and Chinese force. This operation has been greatly assisted by the long-range penetration of the British and Indian special force which succeeded in effectively cutting the Japanese communications between northern and central Burma. The Chinese advance from the Salween River, by lying down the Japanese troops on that front, completes the pattern of this campaign. The Japanese had three divisions along the Chindwin which they could have sent north to attack General Stilwell’s men, or east to engage the specda! force. The Japanese command preferred instead to attack through Manipur against the Allied lines of communication ixx Assam. This operation, had it succeeded, would have given the Japanese bases for a further offensive against India, and also would have had the effect of strangling the Allied offensive against northern Burma. The Japanese plan failed. They must now pay the price, not only in very heavy casualties suffered in the Imphal and Kohima areas, but also in a severe defeat in the battle for northern Burma.

As the Delhi correspondent of “The Times” says, “the battle fox- northern Burma, if it can be said to have been won, was won in large part by the British Fourteenth Army on the Manipur road.”