DESTROYER OF WELLS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 226, 25 September 1942, Page 6

DESTROYER OF WELLS

JAPANESE FOILED IN BURMA; The story of the destruction of the first of Burma’s oilfields, the Yenan-| yaung group, valued at £10,000,000, is told in the London Daily Mail. The I man who put them out of action for > the duration was trained in his 1 strange job by the Russians. He learned some of the secrets of destruction which made the Germans squeal when they entered “scorched” Kiev. Bitter enemy attempts to capture the wells, which produced 90,000,0*00 tons yearly for the armies of the United Nations, were foiled. In their anxiety to take them in usable condition the Japanese avoided bombing the area. They used crack infantry in their last attempt to grab the fields. The large dumps, containing many tons of machinery, drilling apparatus, and rotary tables, were all cut up by oxy-acetylene blow lamps, the work being started weeks before on surplus machnery. All identical pieces of machinery were cut in exactly the same place, so that no matter howmany parts the Japanese tried to fit together, they could never produce one workable machine. The wreckers had a two-fold purpose: to prevent the Japanese getting oil out of Yenanyaung, and to make certain that not one piece of equipment was left for them to transpoi* to the Dutch East Indies, which is the easiest large source of supply for them to develop. At the power-house and other buildings concrete “moats” were filled with oil ready for firing. The oil went up in flames/providing the only spectacular part of the destruction. The wells themselves were not fired, but sealed by dynamite, concrete, and rubbish. Other methods for thwarting Japanese ambitions are secret, but represent the most advanced scorched earth technique yet developed.