BRITISH IN BURMA

Waikato Times, Volume 194, Issue 22245, 14 January 1944, Page 3

BRITISH IN BURMA

FIRMLY ASTRIDE ROAD PROGRESS IN NEW DRIVE LONDON, Jan. 13 British troops in Burma are firmly astride the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road and are battling forward across difficult jungle country toward the south-east, says the British United Press correspondent at Fourteenth Army Headquarters in South-east Asia. They made fresh progress in their new drive during the past 24 hours in the face of stubborn Japanese resistance. Many Japanese were wiped out in a sharp clash near the village of Kanindan, in the Maungdaw area. Another British force is now fighting close to the junction of che Maungdaw-Buthidaung road and the highway running south. Hard fighting pockets of Japanese are still preventing the Fourteenth Army from using the road to Maungdaw from the north, but British sappers have succeeded in laying a track across the paddy fields Enemy Hits Back The enemy is hitting back strongly against the advancing Allied troops in many sectors of the Western Burma front. Attacks have been launched in the past 48 hours against Allied positions all along the Mayu Range, which %runs laterally between Maungdaw and Buthidaung, but Gurkhas have hurled them all back. The British forces on other parts of the front are still edging steadily forward to improve their positions in readiness for the big push. The Tokio radio says* fighting is progressing east and north of Maungdaw. A series of battles between British troops and Japanese garrisons on the peninsula about 70 miles north of Akyab is still being fought out.