AKYAB CAPTURED

Waikato Times, Volume 196, Issue 22549, 6 January 1945, Page 5

AKYAB CAPTURED

LANDING IN BURMA BRITISH AND INDIANS NO JAPANESE DEFENCE (United Press Assn.—Eleo. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, Jan. 5 United Kingdom and Indian troops of the 1 5th Indian Corps have retaken Akyah, third largest seaport of Burma. While United Kingdom troops went ashore from a fleet of landing craft, covered by cruisers and destroyers, men of the 25th Indian Division, comprising the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, the 2nd Gurkhas and another Indian regiment, were ferried across the r four miles of water separating Akyab Island from Foul Point. Other troops crossed hi fishing boats from an island at the mouth of the Mayu river. Our converging columns met no enemy opposition. The last Japanese had left Akyab the previous day. In their 12-mile march across the island to the port our troops met booby traps and mines, but no Japanese. , When the Japanese withdrew they tried to take the civil population with them. Many of the Burmese refused to go and are reported to have threatened to use weapons hidden by the British troops when they retreated from Akyab in 1942. A correspondent says that pilots of the Indian Air Force had kept useful contact with the villagers before the landings. Only a few days ago it was announced that British troops had reached the, tip of the Mayu Peninsula, four miles from Akyab Island. Importance as Base The correspondent of the Australian Associated Press says that a big force of the 15th Corps, under Lieu-tenant-General Sir Alexander Christison, moved across the Mayu river from four points. This was the first amphibious operation in the Burma theatre. The capture of Akyab, says the correspondent, will seal the fate of the Japanese in Arakan and give us a great sea, land and air base for further operations to drive the Japanese out of Burma. A great fleet of warships and landing craft had crept down the coast from Teknaf, but when it arrived at the assembly point off Akyab news was passed that the Japanese had left Akyab on New Year’s Eve. There had been thousands of them with coastal guns, anti-aircraft guns and tanks, but they did not wait to give battle. The bombardment from the cruisers and destroyers and the heavy air support which had been ordered were therefore cancelled. Akyab is Burma’s fifth town and the main port of the Arakan district of Burma. It was through Akyab that the great export rice trade of Arakan, which helped to feed India, passed. The loss of the port cut off a big proportion of India’s rice supply and helped to cause the Bengal famine. New Zealander Greeted A few hours before the first British and Indian troops landed on Akyab Island the island’s former judge, now a Royal New Zealand Air Force Wing Commander, flew in a light aircraft, landing on a strip made serviceable by villages. He was Wing Commander J. G. B. Bradley, of Wellington, New Zealand. The villagers greeted him with garlands of flowers. They told him that the Japanese, having to abandon large quantities of rice, the island’s staple food, poured kerosene on it. They removed all roofing materials; such as corrugated iron and wood. !