BATTLE IN BURMA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 69, 23 March 1942, Page 5

BATTLE IN BURMA

JAPANESE PUSH DEVELOPING (Reed. 11.5.) Mandalay, March 21. Strong Japanese forces are reported to be massed for a drive through the Sittang River defence toward Irrawaddy, where General Stillwell’s Fifth Chinese Army is already operating . Despatches from the front indicate that the Chinese blows against the Japanese on Thursday and Friday near Pyu are developing into a major battle.' The Fifth Chinese Army—the same which defeated the Japanese at Changsha—are highly mechanised. CHOKING ROADS REFUGEES IN FLIGHT New York. March 20. The Mandalay correspondent of the Associated Press reports that 750,000 fear-stricken Indian men, women, and children are choking the two great roads from Burma ill one of the greatest panic flights in history. Poverty-stricken families struggle along together. Men are carrying all their worldly goods wrapped in cotton rags and the women are burdened with children. The refugee columns have little food and face vast, waterless stretches of country. The military attemnted to limit the number on the roads to 600 daily, but the frantic Indians broke out of barbed-wire compounds. Plans have been made to care for thousands in special camps.