Burma '45: The Road To Mandalay

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Speaker 5 Let's get undercover. The frontier force are attacking Mandalay Fort now.
You can probably hear the noise of the shelling, mortaring, shooting.

Speaker 5 I'm fairly close to the walls myself, standing looking half round a concrete wall. Our chaps are advancing steadily, bunching little more than I'd like to see them.
They're going very well.

Speaker 5 The tanks are advancing, firing very hard at the walls. You can see where our medium guns, firing direct, have made breaches in the walls of the fort.

Speaker 5 You can see the bullets flicking the ground just ahead of me. Tremendous lot of noise going on.
A whole lot of smoke now near the wall itself, which is a very good thing for our infantry.

Speaker 5 I'm not quite sure which of the firing is the enemy firing. I can see some of our infantry going across now.
They're running across near the tanks.

Speaker 5 They're in slouch hats, Australian hats, Gurkha hats. Very clear to see.
And that was Major General Pete Reese there for the BBC. So that fully embedded bit of journalism there by the BEEB.

Speaker 5 I mean, amazing. Because actually, I only put a part of that broadcast in.
It goes on. I mean, you know, it's quite a lengthy broadcast.

Speaker 5 It's absolutely stunning because you just get such a vivid picture of what's going on. And there he is, you know, the fighting general right at right at the front.

Speaker 5 Yes, welcome to We have ways to make you talk burma 45 episode 5 road to rangoon so jim you were saying well my enthusiasm for pete reese knows no bounds you know in sharp contrast to my disgust and contempt at oliver lees but but um pete rees i think is uh is uh you know becoming fast becoming a great friend of the show isn't he i mean he's tremendous fellow and there are these major generals in burma in particular no one's ever heard of them But they're top drawer, aren't they?

Speaker 5 They're really good.

Speaker 5 And they're all interesting characters as well. So, you know,

Speaker 5 there's juice in the lemon lemon as well as them doing a good job yes and you think what their relationship must have been like with their men and their men trusting them and their men at least having confidence in them which is after all what it's all about in the end isn't it yeah and also this thing that one of the things that happens in generalship in the second world war and i think it's a thing in generalship actually throughout history is people with personality who bend the rules a little in what they wear and they project a version of personality for their men to relate to and all that sort of thing and there are the famous ones who we know that do that and then there are are the ones who do that and we don't know about at all.

Speaker 5 Why don't people know about Pete Reese Jim? I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 5 That's apart from the sort of epic struggle, that's what we want people to ponder. Well, you know, I mean, the interesting thing is

Speaker 5 the other person we're going to be talking about, well, two other fighting generals who are really, really brilliant.

Speaker 5 General Punch Cowan, David Punch Cowan, you know, of 17th Indian Infantry Division, who we're going to be looking at in a minute with the battle for McTila.

Speaker 5 And also Douglas Gracie, you know, commander of the 20th Indian Infantry Division. You know, these are, these are, they're top draw.
I mean, they're really, really good and they just get it.

Speaker 5 And one of the things that makes them good is the distance, is the remoteness, is the fact that they are forced to kind of think on their feet and do the impossible.

Speaker 5 And that actually makes you up your game. It's a bit like sort of, you know,

Speaker 5 when I'm playing cricket, I tend to, I quite often do better when I'm coming up against better opposition, you know, because you're concentrating a bit more, you're focused a bit more.

Speaker 5 So, so basically, we're saying Burma's basball, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was definitely basball.

Speaker 5 Oh, my God. Yeah,

Speaker 5 extra. I was sort of in this.
I was.

Speaker 5 The power of Mandalay. That's what I'm much more interested in.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 So, as we related in the last episode, what's been going on is that Slim, of course, needs the Japanese to fall for the Mandalay thrust he needs he needs the Japanese to sort of stuck to him like glue so he can hold them there so his sickle cut to the south can work luckily or or or as predicted the Japanese have done as required but that still means there's there has to be a battle for mandalay that has still got to happen the Japanese of course have decided that the pennies finally dropped but they're stuck now they're they're caught in

Speaker 5 they're wedged in they're caught in the jaws of of Slim's trap. And at the same time, have finally come to realize that there was no point holding on to Mandalay anyway.

Speaker 5 And that they've been 100% sucked. No strategic value.
No strategic value. Suckered not just

Speaker 5 by their enemy, but by their own thinking. Yeah, by their own hubris and lack of intelligence and arrogance.

Speaker 5 And what's interesting is... Well, and delusion, but also by going against the way they fought, right? So they're very successful in 1942 because they don't care about places.

Speaker 5 The point is you move on. You disrupt the enemy.
You get

Speaker 5 inside the way he's thinking and you get him to think the way you need him to so that you can do what you want to him. It's what the Japanese are brilliant at in 1942.

Speaker 5 And here they are hung up on a place with someone inside the way they think, someone inside the way they do war. And as a result, they're going to get tonked, aren't they? It's the simple truth.
Yep.

Speaker 5 And you may remember that Reese's 19th Division are coming from the north,

Speaker 5 heading south, was driving southwards. And 2nd British Division, not Indian Division, 2nd British Division, are moving in from the east.

Speaker 5 But it is the 19th Division, Reese's Division, that are on top of Mandalay Hill.

Speaker 5 And we ended last episode with the 4th Gurkhas taking the hill, but not clearing the southern slopes down into the town.

Speaker 5 And, you know, down below, there is Fort Dufferin, which is this sort of huge, like a medieval castle, really, a moat, huge embankments, thick walls, all the rest of it.

Speaker 5 They haven't cleared the southern slopes of Mandalay Hill either.

Speaker 5 And dead Japanese are littering the summit, but there's plenty more in the cellars and basements of the buildings running up to the hill.

Speaker 5 And as John Masters writes in his brilliant The Road Past Mandalay, he goes, a gruesome campaign of extermination began among the temples of one of the most sacred places of the Buddhist faith.

Speaker 5 And the problem is that the chambers and cellars running up to the hill from the temples are made of concrete.

Speaker 5 And Rhys is entirely within his rights from

Speaker 5 standards of the Second World War to order a massive bombardment of Mandalay Hill.

Speaker 5 But he doesn't want to do that because he really does recognise their great importance from a religious and cultural perspective and thinks, no, no, no, we don't need to destroy all these temples.

Speaker 5 We don't need to do all this.

Speaker 5 We can winkle them out. Shades of Casino.
Well, quite. And, you know, snipers are a big problem.

Speaker 5 John Marces is standing by or is crouching by a Sikh machine gun who gets drilled in the head just five yards from where he's standing. And the clearing of the hill.

Speaker 5 And then the the city that follows is incredibly methodical. You know, beehive charges are brought up, holes blown into the concrete, petrol poured in, then a very light fire down the hole.
Oh my god.

Speaker 5 So then you hear sullen

Speaker 5 explosions from within and the sort of rocking of the ground.

Speaker 5 Any Japanese that sort of run out are then gunned down by machine guns. Piats are also used to blast doors and grenades and flamethrowers.
I mean, this is a really grim, awful way to do it.

Speaker 5 Horrendous. But by the 12th of March, Mandalay Hill is finally clear.
But they've still got to get to the rest of Mandalay, and that's the problem.

Speaker 5 And it's this Fort Dufferin that's the sticking point, really. And this is an old fort.
So picture,

Speaker 5 is it red, red dust earth there? You know, like a

Speaker 5 you know, mud walls, 30 thick foot walls, 70. Oh, it's as stone walls as stone.
Exactly. Stone, right? Oh, okay, right, okay.

Speaker 5 But, I mean, 30 feet thick, there's there's nothing that will get through those, actually. And it absolutely dominates the city.
It dominates the city.

Speaker 5 It's just this huge, sort of almost square block sort of immediately to the south of Mandalay Hill. And it's almost on the banks of the Irrawaddy, but,

Speaker 5 you know, it's... Yeah, I mean, you know, it's the best part of a kind of mile-long Fault Dufferin.
Yeah. And I mean, it's huge.
If you pull up the...

Speaker 5 pull up the stock image, it's vast and it's imposing.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's extremely difficult to crack so they're bombing it they're actually that they're they're they're shelling it they're bringing in fighter bombers they're bringing in b24s as well to try and uh smash it i mean jim it says in your notes even smaller barns wallace bouncing bombs used yes i know yes incredible isn't it yeah absolutely amazing they can breach the wall but not the um the earthen embankments around it so This is the, here we go again.

Speaker 5 I mean, clearing the city on the hill, as you say, is a grim, awful business.

Speaker 5 Because the Japanese aren't going to surrender, this is what you're going to do. There's every probability that if things were the other way around, a white flag will come up at some point, surely.

Speaker 5 But that isn't going to happen. And they have that, the order is to fight to the last round, isn't it? That order has been given, hasn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Even though the commander of 15th Army is very against all that and actually thinks it's completely pointless. But, you know, the orders have come from Kimura and Katamura.

Speaker 5 So, you know, what do you do? What are you going to do? Yeah.

Speaker 5 So they attack the walls on the 16th, 17th of March, exercise Duffy, as reese calls it those uh attacks are repulsed quite funny isn't it yes it's quite good excise duffy to get duffer in

Speaker 5 then the next two days there are four more attempts made to get across the moat so slim i mean interesting slim rocks up and decides there's just no point with any further frontal attacks it's too costly so rope it off isolate it besiege it effectively starve them out yeah but reese has been planning an attack through the sewers underneath the castle i mean he's a fighting general isn't

Speaker 5 He wants to get it done, doesn't he? And persuade Slim. Persuade Slim it's a good idea.
And all at the same time, there's street fighting carry on with the corpses of civilians, women, children, dogs,

Speaker 5 and rubble and wreckage and corrugated iron-off roofs, absolutely everywhere.

Speaker 5 Yeah, because I think Mandalay is a very beautiful city. And, you know, it's just, it's just, it's not, it's not destroyed, but it's, it's ravaged.
Smashed up. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Beaten up a bit. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. But the amazing thing is, on the night of the, of the planned sewer attack, four Anglo-Burmese civilians who have been prisoners of the Japanese,

Speaker 5 you know, they walk

Speaker 5 out of the gates

Speaker 5 with white flags and a Union jack out of the North Gate, you know, because Kasamura has decided at long last to withdraw

Speaker 5 and actually had secretly done so on the night of the 19th of the 20th. So everyone's very relieved they don't have to go through the sewers, which is not going to be a pleasant job.

Speaker 5 And, you know, basically that's it. You know, Mandalay is captured.
And he's gone out through the sewers, hasn't he? That's the thing. They've got out through the sewers.

Speaker 5 The escape's been made the same way in that the British were planning to use. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 Gosh. Second Division has been attacking from the southern end of Mandalay

Speaker 5 with the city in their hands.

Speaker 5 You know, Slim now orders a general victory parade in Mandalay, which actually gets him a little bit, you know, both Mount Batten and particularly Lise are very sniffy about this.

Speaker 5 He's just done this without consulting them.

Speaker 5 But he says, the capture of Mandalay would be as much the result of of operations in mctila and elsewhere as those of the city itself every one of my divisions have played his part it was an army victory i thought it would be good for everyone to have that fact demonstrated

Speaker 5 he's absolutely right though isn't he it is an army victory

Speaker 5 yeah and you know they're a long way from buddy salon and you know deli and stuff they don't need to yeah

Speaker 5 and barrack poor they don't you know he doesn't need to consult with them it's just a victory march through just keep everyone's pecker up. You know, why not? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 5 JR says, what part of the West Country was that?

Speaker 5 Well, we can do it again if you like, JR. West Bromage.

Speaker 5 That West.

Speaker 5 That West.

Speaker 5 So that's Mandalay taken, complete with parade. McTila, the other part of Slim's offensive, what's going on there, Jimmy?

Speaker 5 You know, the Battle of Mandalay and the Battle of Mictila are kind of raging at the same time, really.

Speaker 5 They cross over.

Speaker 5 And what's just amazing is this sort of, you know, the total, the absolute woefulness of Japanese intelligence and interpretation of the intelligence that they do get is just absolutely remarkable and very much plays into, you know, Slim's and the Allies' hands.

Speaker 5 When the Japanese hear that the Allies have broken out of Nyangu on the eastern side of the Irrawaddy, they just think it's a raiding force, you know, sort of another Chinditz kind of thing.

Speaker 5 And then when 17th Indian Division, this is Punch Cowan's division, swiftly capture McTila, it catches them completely by surprise.

Speaker 5 I mean, you know, they're just dumbfounded that this could have happened.

Speaker 5 I mean, we talked a little bit about this in the last episode, but, you know, their response is quick, but it's in a very uncoordinated fashion.

Speaker 5 The other thing is that Kimura's rear area staff are weirdly blase

Speaker 5 about it. And so Kimura is the Burma Army Area Commander-in-Chief,

Speaker 5 General Officer Commanding. And, you know, he's got his rear area staff and he's got his operations staff.
And the operations staff are in a complete state about it.

Speaker 5 But the rear area staff are kind of just, yeah, whatever, you know.

Speaker 5 And the rear area staff are kind of boasting that the enemy at Motilia would be destroyed in a week by the arrival of 49th Division, which has been hurriedly ordered there. But

Speaker 5 168th Regiment

Speaker 5 had already managed to get there by the time the British were, you know, Punch Cowan's division were attacking the town, and most of them have been destroyed in the process. That's a regiment down.

Speaker 5 You know, that's three battalions kind of more or less gone before they've even started.

Speaker 5 And the 49th Division commander, so the 168th regiment get there kind of ahead of the rest of the division of 49th Division.

Speaker 5 And the commander, Lieutenant General Sabaro Takahara, he reaches the front on the 4th of March and discovers that not only that Motila has already been occupied and most of his garrison killed or wounded, but one of his regimental commanders is also dead.

Speaker 5 And also, the British seem to be staying where they are in mctila not advancing beyond it so the following day he hears from from from major kander one of the survivors of the 168th regiment who who tells him he's only got 400 men left you know that's not a great start in other words you know they're already kind of fighting uphill effectively yeah

Speaker 5 you know and so so other other divisions are sending contributions so you know 33 division is is sending a contribution but you know they're up at mandalay having a nightmare i mean they've been trying to fight 20th 20th Division and,

Speaker 5 you know, and 2nd Division and so on. And they're all under strength in the first place.
Yeah, your division is kind of 8,000 strong rather than 15 or 16.

Speaker 5 So 50%.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 33 Division sends one regiment.

Speaker 5 18th Division has also been hurriedly dispatched, but minus one regiment, which is still in the north of Burma, facing off against the British 36th Division, and more of that in the next episode, final episode.

Speaker 5 And also a regiment from 2nd Division, which has also been posted to Indochina. Right.
It's all a bit fractured.

Speaker 5 And what that means is you've got lots of different units who are not used to fighting together.

Speaker 5 And they're not used to the kind of command and all the rest of it. 15th Army Command, they don't have much clue about what's going on.

Speaker 5 The arriving 49th and 18th Divisions haven't got much clue what's going on.

Speaker 5 They haven't known what forces are holding McTeetler, but the intelligence they've got is it's either the 5th or the 7th Indian Division.

Speaker 5 I suppose it doesn't really matter which division it is, but they're completely wrong. I mean, mean, it's the 17th Division, which they're not even aware of.

Speaker 5 So Major General Naka of the 18th Division is told to simply block the enemy's exit to the west. And once they've done that, then destroy the enemy when they try and break out of Mictila.

Speaker 5 Now, Jim, this is very interesting, isn't it? Because the Japanese have been fighting since 1937 in China, haven't they, basically? Or even arguably 1931.

Speaker 5 And have been done very well there, haven't they? You know, actually, been winning, are winning right at this time with Ichigo, right?

Speaker 5 Why are they so bad at forming kampfgruppers then because this this is what's required here isn't it if this were the germans there would be a thing about how they rapidly assemble a kampfgrupper and luckily everyone even if they don't get along even if you've got an ss guy who hates the wehrmacht guy and the luffuffer colonel and all that although actually when you when you start to prize that apart when you start to look into that in northwest europe It's not necessarily the case very often, you know, say the Luftwaffe colonel doesn't know what he's doing because

Speaker 5 his job is spare parts or something, you know, normally. You know, the Japanese army's hugely experienced, particularly at the command level.
What's going on? Why are they well?

Speaker 5 I think it's I think it's the attrition of war. I think it's the same thing.
You know, the sort of Germans are really good in 1940, but they're not much caught by 1944.

Speaker 5 You know, it's the same sort of thing. I think they've just, you know, they've been attreated so badly that the sort of junior level command probably isn't up to much.

Speaker 5 You know, and that's what you need. You need you need good junior commanders, but they're being hurried through officer school, aren't they?

Speaker 5 Because everything's short and they're running out and they're taking so many casualties and all the rest of it. The other big problem is, you know, know, they haven't got much mechanization.

Speaker 5 You know, most of this is being done on foot. They've got a handful of tanks, but the tanks they have got are kind of, you know, thin and small and pretty puny.

Speaker 5 The artillery they've got is a bit mixed. But, you know, they haven't got much fire support for the infantry.
That's the problem.

Speaker 5 They've got a few machine guns and a few mortars and stuff, but their main way of kind of overwhelming of the enemy is still suicide charges.

Speaker 5 But the problem with suicide charges are incredibly costly and very, very expensive.

Speaker 5 And, you know, what the Allied forces forces now, you know, what Punch Cowan has worked out is that he needs to operate here in this landscape in fully formed battle groups and the kind of battle groups that you and I would recognize from the German army or, you know, from the Normandy campaign or whatever.

Speaker 5 In other words, infantry moving down the road, clinging to Sherman tanks, you know, when they come into action, getting off.

Speaker 5 coordinating with motorized artillery and anti-tank guns and mortars. And so these are proper big battle groups that are going off and doing, you know, and operating.

Speaker 5 And their superior firepower and, frankly, training is just besting the Japanese sort of pretty much every single time at this point.

Speaker 5 What's actually the case is the Japanese could form a campfor all they wanted, but with what they've got versus what the Allies have, but that essentially

Speaker 5 there's a mismatch.

Speaker 5 Well, yes, I was just going to say, Slim has created a situation, set of circumstances where it's not a fair fight if you're the Japanese, from the Japanese perspective, because who wants a fair fight?

Speaker 5 If you,

Speaker 5 you know, very often there is that kind of whiff of implication that the Allies, the Allies are kind of not doing it fairly by using overwhelming firepower, combined operations, armor, aircraft.

Speaker 5 Well, so what? Yeah. You know?

Speaker 5 Well, we'll see how this, I mean, you know, when we, when we go through this, the siege of Mictido, it'll become absolutely clear what on earth is going on here.

Speaker 5 So Cowan's policy is one of aggressive defense. He doesn't want to fight in the town.

Speaker 5 he's he's got the town he holds the town that's now his admin box that's his administrative area what he wants now is that he wants to form these these battle groups and send them down the roads leading out of mctila you've still got those two lakes that's now in their favor because they're they're protecting them in effect but all around the southern lake for example he has um single infantry companies positioned with mortars and machine guns in in a static defense so there's three from the 99th brigade and we'll remember that the 99th brigade were the third brigade of 17th division which were flown in to Mictila.

Speaker 5 One each from the 48th and the 63rd Brigades. The 48th is the one that George MacDonald Fraser is in with the borders.

Speaker 5 And one company from divisional headquarters, plus two battalions holding the airfield and the dumps.

Speaker 5 So the airfield is to the kind of the main airfield at McTila is to the kind of immediate east of the town.

Speaker 5 And then there's these five columns of infantry, armor, and artillery, which start sweeping out of the town on the 6th of March because

Speaker 5 they've secured the town and now they want to kind of push out and

Speaker 5 engage as many Japanese as they can and destroy them. And what they really want to do is destroy them piecemeal as they're arriving.
You know, it's the same old thing as Normandy. You know,

Speaker 5 when the panzer divisions are coming to converging towards Con, they're being flung straight into the action before they've had time to dig in, reconnaissance, you know, coordinate themselves, get themselves into organization and all the rest of it.

Speaker 5 This is exactly what Punch Cowan is doing now against the Japanese.

Speaker 5 They're heading out kind of five to ten miles on that first day.

Speaker 5 You know, one column from 48th Division, 48th Brigade rather, meets fairly stiff opposition at Yindor, but that's 10 miles south of Mictila.

Speaker 5 So what they're doing is they're going forward, waiting till they meet the Japanese, firing at them, shooting them all up, then pulling back again. Going out looking for a punch-up, basically.

Speaker 5 Yeah, but not getting stuck. Yeah.
And so

Speaker 5 there's a load of engagements, aren't there? Yeah, yeah. It's just like constant every single day.
There's these sweeps going out, meeting the Japanese as they're arriving, basically.

Speaker 5 And overwhelming them and destroying them. Yeah, so the Japanese are coming from sort of every which way they can.

Speaker 5 And then suddenly trundling towards them is a whole load of Sherman tanks and artillery and pretty well-trained and disciplined men with Bren guns and mortars and grenades.

Speaker 5 And they're getting absolutely hammered just as they're, you know, they're discompobulated. They don't really know they're not familiar with this ground.

Speaker 5 And then the British are kind of sort of pulling back again. We need to take a quick break now as the Japanese feed themselves into Slim's cunning trap.

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Speaker 5 Welcome back to Weirways A Making You Talk. The battle for McTaylor.
The battle for Mandalay continues. God.
So, I mean, an example is on the 10th of March.

Speaker 5 17th Division sent out a force of armoured cars, infantry, and tanks from 5th Probin's horse. Fantastic.
Fantastic.

Speaker 5 Probin's horse

Speaker 5 will have been amalgamated and disappeared now. But 5th Probin's Horse, whoever still bears their standard,

Speaker 5 this is a good action. They're sent out to help

Speaker 5 a divisional Echelon B column to get back into Mictila. And they run into units from the 214th and 56th Regiments who are digging in at a milestone,

Speaker 5 five and a half miles north of the the town. And basically, I mean, there is probably nothing worse than being caught while you're digging in because you haven't dug in quite yet.

Speaker 5 And the Japanese have gotten no answer.

Speaker 5 And there are these two big tanks, which are much bigger than theirs. Yeah.
Yeah. Coaxial machine guns,

Speaker 5 you know, just hammering them.

Speaker 5 It's only five millimeter guns, pounding them. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Two days of fighting, both regiments get absolutely hammered.

Speaker 5 And then into the second half of the march, the weight of the fighting shifts the main, main there's an airfield the main airfield to the east of the town well i think the point is what's happening now is is the japanese forces which have been hurriedly sent to reinforce mctila by the kind of 14th of march they're there to all intents and purposes you know 90 of them have got to the mctila area but they're not in mctila i mean it's it's it's really important to understand that they are they're they're coming down the approach roads But obviously a really huge objective is not only the town, but also the airfield.

Speaker 5 So that's that's a key objective for the Japanese, plus the dumps which are there between the airfield and the town. So, so that's where they're heading.

Speaker 5 And overnight on the 14th, 15th of March, one Japanese company from the 55th Regiment and one company from the Jap Mori Special Force, they're probing the airfield defenses from the south and the northeast.

Speaker 5 But again, the fact that there's one company, you know, two companies doing this from different forces very much underlines the sort of ad hoc nature of which these units are arriving.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you're here, you can go in, off you go. Yeah, yeah.
Given that they're overpowered, overmatched, it's a double recipe for disaster, isn't it? For the Japanese.

Speaker 5 But you know, by the 15th of March, you know, Japanese artillery has arrived. So

Speaker 5 that now starts to shell the airfield fairly heavily. But

Speaker 5 the same day, the 9th Indian Infantry Brigade, part of the 5th Indian Division, begins flying into McTila as reinforcements. And we all know how short of supplies the Japanese are.

Speaker 5 So heavy shelling by the Japanese is not the same as sort of heavy shelling by the Allies, for example. It's just not on the same league.

Speaker 5 You know, remember when we were in the Arakan, they, you know, they fired 800 shells in one day, and that was like the heaviest barrage ever.

Speaker 5 But obviously, it's just paltry compared to the kind of shelling you get in Normandy or Italy or something. So they're still able to fly in despite the airfield being under attack.

Speaker 5 And that same night, we've now got two battalions from the 55th Regiment moving up to take positions. So they're starting to arrive.
Do you see what I mean?

Speaker 5 You can see how this is all, this is building up.

Speaker 5 But again, you know, they've just arrived a bit too late because on that day, the 15th of March, you know, this whole, whole infantry brigade has arrived by air.

Speaker 5 But Cowan, by keeping the Japanese on the back foot, the previous days, though, has meant that they aren't organized and can't be organized. No.

Speaker 5 Even though they are now able to sort of invest bits of Mictila, they just can't, they can't do it with anything like the effectiveness.

Speaker 5 No, you never get a sense of this concentration of force.

Speaker 5 They don't sort of go, right, what we're going to do is we're going to sort of mass in the northwest and we're going to kind of, you know, or northeast or whatever, and we're all going to kind of push in one great coordinated shot.

Speaker 5 It's so piecemeal, the Japanese attacks. Even though they're sort of, you know, at this stage of the battle, they're concentrating around the around the airfield.

Speaker 5 You know, we're still talking two battalions. So, you know, what's that? Thousand men? Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Maybe a bit less. So how does Cowan respond to the airfields being airfield being besieged? What does he do? Well,

Speaker 5 he's not having any of it. So 16th of March, he sends troops from the 99th Brigade with tanks from our old friends in Probin's horse.

Speaker 5 And, you know, they sweep towards the airfield area and push the Japanese back up the Mandalay Road.

Speaker 5 They just got no answer to the Sherman tanks because they're tiny bullets just ping off the metal. Yeah.

Speaker 5 You know, what they do start to do is they do start to kind of sort of do these suicide attacks where they've just sort of run at the tank and kind of, you know, with explosives and all the rest of it.

Speaker 5 And there's no question they take a toll, but it's not, it's just not enough.

Speaker 5 So then on the 17th, 18th of March, two battalions from the 63rd Brigade, which is part of Punch Cowan's division, and two squadrons of tanks from yet again Probin's horse,

Speaker 5 they really are getting around in this battle. They then carry up a sweep up the Malang Road to Sewa.
Now, Malang

Speaker 5 is the road that's coming out, pressing out of the north west of the town. So the airfield is on the east.

Speaker 5 So they've done their sweep the previous day, gone back into the center of the town, then moved back up the Marlang Road the following day. So they're literally kind of everywhere.

Speaker 5 But what they're doing is they're sort of, okay, you're needed there. Go and push the Japanese back.
Once you've done that, then we can kind of go back up another road.

Speaker 5 And we'll just, every time they reappear, we'll just carry on pushing them back again. You know, but they're not, they can't be everywhere all at the same time.

Speaker 5 So this is, again, this is, this is where the lack of coordination by the Japanese is really starting to kind of

Speaker 5 work against them because

Speaker 5 there's never a sense that Punch Cowan's division are being attacked in the round all the time, that they're able to kind of maneuver troops around to deal with threats as they come in rather than in the piecemeal fashion in which they're happening.

Speaker 5 Yeah, they're not sticky enough, are they?

Speaker 5 No, and on this sort of this sweep, this sort of battle group sweep up the Malang Road, you know, they then smash a number of Japanese artillery guns, which means those guns can't operate in the battle anymore.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Then the 18th of March, 99th Brigade, and a squadron of tanks from the Royal Deccan Horse, they sweep the villages of Kandangbauk and Shorbugen.

Speaker 5 One of the things is actually, when you start to look into this, is very often the village names have changed, or there's a Burmese iteration of the name. And if you put that Burmese iteration

Speaker 5 into Google Maps, the village will suddenly appear

Speaker 5 on the map.

Speaker 5 Anyway, they run into heavy opposition and there are well-placed anti-tank guns and they lose four Shermans. They're all you know it's the 18th of March isn't it?

Speaker 5 So they've had three or four days in which to kind of get themselves sorted the Japanese organized put the guns in the right place they've dug in all that stuff.

Speaker 5 But again it's so piecemeal that's the point. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
And you can afford to lose four Shermans.

Speaker 5 That's not one of those sort of Normandy disasters where entire troops are being knocked off from a mile away by a Panther or anything like that, is it?

Speaker 5 It's it's well four Shermans is a is obviously is a troop and probably or best part of a troop and and you know they were probably ambushed by these anti-tank guns and probably knocked out in pretty quick order.

Speaker 5 But you know what I mean, Jim.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And

Speaker 5 the point is again, is

Speaker 5 there are these little flashes where the Japanese are effective, but that's when they've had a chance to kind of dig in, get themselves organized, work out a plan, find the best positions for an ambush, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 5 But there's not enough of that going on. That's the point.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 And then, I mean, we do have a Japanese armored attack, though, on the 20th of March the 55th Regiment and well come on Let's let's give them credit 55th Regiment and 119th Regiment with a handful of tanks from the 14th tank regiment attack the airfield and 99th Brigade's admin box, but they're beaten back because I mean Japanese armored

Speaker 5 Yeah, at this stage of the war I mean at any stage of the war they they they don't really they haven't got the the what they need to deal with this.

Speaker 5 I mean it's like putting a you know, it's like putting a Matilda 1 against a Firefly or something. I mean it's just not going to work.
It's not fair.

Speaker 5 21st to 22nd of March, 48th Brigade. And this is George McDonald Fraser again.
And I cannot stress, we had the extract at the start of the last episode from Quartered Safe Out here.

Speaker 5 Cannot stress how fantastic that was. Well, I've reread it.

Speaker 5 It's just tremendous stuff. It's amazing.

Speaker 5 So it's the border regiment and the Royal Deccan horse, they counter-attack against a build-up. Again,

Speaker 5 this is the thing where they go out and go and get them. It's five miles south of the the town at a place called Schwepper Degain.

Speaker 5 Yes, because the remnants of 168 Frederickman, they were the ones that were early to Mectida and got basically routed and there were only 400 left by the 6th of March.

Speaker 5 So they've been pulled out of the town, obviously, because they've been kicked out by the Allies. And so they are now kind of, you know, the 400 survivors are now kind of

Speaker 5 around this little village called Schwepperdine.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 they're then hit again. You know, this is five miles to the south of the town.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 they're hammered again, and then they pull back again. You know, so

Speaker 5 the Allies pull back again. So it's the same old, same old, really.
And the same day, the 99th Brigade also attacks the build-up of 49th Division troops south of the airfield near Nyongbinta.

Speaker 5 It's interesting, isn't it? Because what this also suggests is that the Allies have very much got their eyes on what the Japanese are up to.

Speaker 5 And they're very, you know, the patrolling is obviously incredibly effective because you only find out about these build-ups by patrol, you know,

Speaker 5 every night. Ruthless patrolling, you know, and you maybe grab someone, bring him back, say what's going on.
And none of this is guesswork, right?

Speaker 5 This is very, very deliberate and, like you say, aggressive defense. Yeah.

Speaker 5 And then on the 23rd to the 24th, 49th Division launches a major, a proper attack, or as major attack as they can on McTila, which is two battalions. But again, there's a defensive box here.

Speaker 5 48th Brigade are ready for this yeah and they're there's the 49th division and obviously one of the things you've got to be careful of is yes it's a division fighting and brigade but 49th division by this point are probably probably a brigade strength right they're being they're being smashed up something like that they're beaten up on 48th brigade's defensive box and that again that's in quarter safe out here it's absolutely amazing it's brilliant and and as are descriptions of these patrols and night patrols and stuff i mean you know it's all it's all this is the bulk of the book is this bit yeah it's truly incredible yep and then 25th 26th of march 48th brigade again with tanks from probiot's horse and the royal deck and horse clear an area northeast of the airfield so they're destroying guns and pockets of resistance so that basically means airfield's safe now you know

Speaker 5 it's all over 27th of march 63rd brigade with tanks from probiotin's horse move up the marlang road again north out of the town they get quite a long way you know so so they're really the japanese are not are no longer on the attack at this stage they're they are now being pushed back and the 27th 29th 28th of March, the 99th Brigade continues to push north of the sluice running into the North Lake, but does run in some heavy machine gun fire there.

Speaker 5 And the following day, 28th, 29th of March, 63rd Brigade advances east from the north bank of the North Lake on the Pindale Road.

Speaker 5 makes very good progress and on the 29th 63rd and 99th brigade link up well north of the town so you know this is effectively the end of the battle the truth is that after the assaults on the airfield and the town had failed, General Masaki Honda,

Speaker 5 who is now the 33rd Army commander, he realized that his two shattered divisions have completely shot their bolt. You know, 18th Division has lost about a third, 49th Division nearly two-thirds.

Speaker 5 To the north, 15th Army is now in full retreat, of course, after the end of the Mandalay battle.

Speaker 5 And in fact, 20th Division, who'd had the toughest time of it, now are on this sort of killing spree because they push immediately they push south from the irrawaddy river as it's running kind of sort of east to west um to the west of of mandalay they capture 18th division's administrative headquarters back on the 21st of march well that doesn't really help the effort of 18th division at mictina does it but then they move east to take kiosk which is a burma army area supply center killing lavishly as they go

Speaker 5 And Louis Allen,

Speaker 5 who's the sort of the great historian of this campaign, he likens it to General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, when Sheridan goes on his march and just sort of, you know, hammers absolutely everything.

Speaker 5 And more than 3,000 Japanese soldiers are additionally killed in these sweeps south. So, you know, by the beginning of April, 33rd Army is just 8,000 men strong.
God. Well, that makes the point.

Speaker 5 And the 2nd and 20th Divisions then link up soon after.

Speaker 5 While the 90th Division, this is General Reese, they do take Maimio, which which they'd, you know, been, you remember in the last episode, we were talking about Rees and Masters discussing whether they should detach

Speaker 5 a brigade to go and sort out that town, which is about 30 miles to the east.

Speaker 5 And in that time, you know, in 10 weeks of fighting, 19th Division has killed 6,000 enemy troops, which is a lot in this theater.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Then 7th Division has also been pushing out of Tangtha in clearing the road to Mectila.
They pushed 30 miles northeast to take the the town of Mingyan,

Speaker 5 which is another nodal point they need, where the Irrawaddy and the Chinwin meet.

Speaker 5 And there's also the railway here on the Mandalay-Mectila-Rangu line, which is then captured on the 18th of March by 5th Indian Division.

Speaker 5 And then follows four more days of Bansai charges, but they see them off inevitably with lots of dead Japanese as a result.

Speaker 5 And then, of course, the engineering effort has to immediately follow because, I mean, we are so far from India now, it's the other thing. So

Speaker 5 you need to get yourself straight so it's wharves bridges and bites roads are put together and another supply line to Mectila and finally on the 28th of March General Kimura orders 33rd Army to abandon its offensive against Mectila and on the 30th Cowan's patrols find that the Japanese have cleared out the previous night they're gone it's an extraordinary victory isn't it It really is.

Speaker 5 And, you know, let's just look at the casualties. So 4th Corps has lost 50 tanks and 300 casualties.
I mean, you know, it's a lot, but it's nothing, is it? You know, for a battle of this scale.

Speaker 5 Whereas, you know, this is just around, you know, just Fourth Corps, but in the whole operation to have 300 casualties only from an entire Corps is pretty good going.

Speaker 5 You know, but the Japanese at McTeta have lost 2,500, you know, dead and 50 artillery pieces. But also, you know, their supplies are running low.
They've got nothing.

Speaker 5 You know, and they've just been completely duped by 4th Corps.

Speaker 5 You know, so much so that, you know, I mentioned it earlier on that the Japanese 2nd Division have been transferred to Indochina just on the, you know, now Vietnam, just on the eve of the McTina battle.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's just extraordinary. I mean, it's a stunning victory.
But like any campaign in Burma, they're up against a deadline, aren't they? Because the monsoon's coming. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 So will they get to Rangoon before the monsoon? That's the key question. Join us

Speaker 5 in the next episode. The race for Rangoon is on.
Will they get to Rangoon? Before the monsoon.

Speaker 5 Sounds good, doesn't it? We'll see you soon. Cheerio.
Cheerio.

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