RANGOON EVACUATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 60, 12 March 1942, Page 5

RANGOON EVACUATION

BUNGLING CHARGED WHY THE CITY FELL London. March 10. When the British troops evacuated Rangoon they left it a blazing wreck, says the Bombay correspondent of the Daily Express. All the great oil installations and harbour works were demolished. The huge oil refineries were blown up by pressing an electricswitch. The Mandalay correspondent of the Dailv Express states that the Japanese throughout the war have concentrated on stirring up the Asiatics against the Europeans. The Japanese race hatred campaign is reaching a high pitc in Burma, specially among te Dacoits. The worthlessness of the Japanese claims to leadership of a new Asia is revealed by the official attention tnev are giving to brigands which the fierce-y republican Burmese disown. Some Japanese have even joined Daccit bands as leaders. There is considerable criticism of the civil evacuation of Rangoon. Many women were sent northwards by train when car drivers among them should have been ordered to evacuate in some of the thousand cars and trucks scattered around Rangoon, thus saving hundreds of vehicles and easing the present shortage o. transport. Many women were sent to an outlying town for evacuation by air, but on arriving there, worn out, they found no aerodromes. Some women are now going to India on a route involving travelling by train, motor-car, ship, and on foot, one section of the j; urney being over mountains on the backs of elephants. Shortage of Equipment. Rangoon fell because of the shortage of men and equipment. That is the simple essential truth, says the British United Press correspondent at Mandalay. The last-minute spurt to strengthen Burma's defences was not long enough. When the Japanese came they had more men and better equipment. Akyab is now Burma's only remaining usable port. A message from New Delhi says that 55.00(1 Indians had been evacuated from Burma up to the middle of February. N.Z. WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA Melbourne. March 10. Two New Zealand women, Miss R. Manning and Mrs. S. Pincott, who had been working as V.A.D.'s in hospitals in Malaya till the fall of Singapore, have arrived in Australia. Mrs. Pincott narrowly escaped death by flinging herself into a drain during the Japanese attack on her hospital in Johore which was evacuated only two days before the causeway was blown up. She was matron of the Tanglin Nursing School, in Pahang. 12 months before thr- war. When the school was evacuated she began work as a V.A.D. Mr.-. Pincott’s husband was a rubber planter who later joined the Singapore police and was still on the island when she left.