CAMPAIGN IN BURMA

Waikato Times, Volume 194, Issue 22321, 12 April 1944, Page 3

CAMPAIGN IN BURMA

HEAVY JAPANESE CASUALTIES

(Received April 12, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 11 Major-General Cowan, General Officer Commanding the Seventeenth Division, which recently fought its way through the Chin hills, in a message from the front estimates that the Japanese suffered 1800 casualties. These actual figures of dead and wounded were seen.

The general the first night after the evacuation of Tiddim marched over twenty miles with his troops and continued to do so until he was satisfied that all valuable stores and wounded men had been evacuated. Tiddim was left in flames.

At his press conference in Washington Colonel Knox, Secretary to the Navy, expressed confidence that the British troops will halt the Japanese thrust towards Imphal. He said the Japanese operation involves only a small force and he did not regard it as serious. Allied aircraft flew 4500 sorties over Burma in March, says a New Delhi message. In the first week of April they flew at the rate of 250 sorties daily. One and a-half million lbs of bombs were dropped. Damage to Burma Road

Fighter bombers inflicted considerable damage to the Burma road along the Yunnan-Burma border, necessitating considerable repairs before the road can be used again, says General Stilwell’s communique. Mitchell bombdrs bombed two railwav bridges and railway equipment near Vinh, in Indo-China.

A week’s fighting on the BurmaAssam frontier has brought some changes in the situation round Imphal and left our troops in a better position to challenge the Japanese threat, says a British correspondent. By fighting its way through, the 17th Division has strongly reinforced Imphal, although some Japanese troops are freed for action elsewhere. The Japanese have outflanked Imphal. but, on the other hand, the troops at Imphal, by staying to fight, outflanked the Japanese, and it remains to be seen who can turn a ticklish situation to advantage. .