Burma '45: The Master Stroke

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I turned to see a Jap racing across in front of the bunker, a sword flourished above his head.

He was going like Jesse Owens, screaming his head off right across my front.

I just had sense enough to take a split second, second, traversing my aim with him before I fired.

He gave a convulsive leap and I felt a jolt of delight.

I'd hit the bastard!

And as he fell on all fours, a Highland officer with whom I'd played football dived on him from behind, slashing at his head with a cookery.

Someone rounded the bunker, almost barging into me.

It was Stanley, shouting, Where?

Where?

In that kind of mad scramble.

All that matters is seeing the enemy.

He had a Bren magazine in one hand and was trying to change it for the one on the gun.

I grabbed the barrel to steady it, burned myself, yelped, and seized the folded folded legs while he pushed the full magazine home.

One of his pussies was coming loose.

A yard away, Gail was lying dead with two men bending over him.

The whole wood was echoing with shots and explosions and yelling voices.

Stanley ran past me, dropping the empty magazine, and as some Presbyterian devil made me pick it up, I noticed Gail's hat lying in the bunker doorway, and the little sergeant was shouting and running towards the second bunker.

And that is George MacDonald Fraser describing 60 seconds of the McTeela battle in his amazing memoir, Quartered Safe Out Here.

And yes, I would recommend that book to anybody who wants to know what the war was like in Burma, from the point of view of an incredibly articulate and brilliantly vivid writer, who, of course, then went on to write the Flashman books with a slightly different view on the British in the empire and history.

Anyway, welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, and welcome to our fourth episode of Burma 45.

Jim, what we've done, as ever, with these with these sort of series, is we found that we'd tried to get too much done, but in the episodes we have planned, but that's largely because there are lots of moving parts.

This is a hugely complicated scenario.

And more importantly, you know, having laid out one plan, that plan then doesn't go according to plan.

It goes better than according to plan.

So the plan has to be altered for a new plan that replaces the old plan that isn't the plan that ends up being the plan.

I think that's about right.

Yeah, in case anyone missed the last few episodes, there it is.

The thing with this is that, you know, it is complex and it's also got lots of strange names that we're unfamiliar with and places that we're unfamiliar with.

So we don't, you know, when you're sort of talking about Normandy, one has a kind of sort of mental map of more Normandy, what it looks like.

You sort of, you can sort of imagine where Conn is and Saint-Lo and Bayeux and the Cotentin Peninsula or whatever.

It's kind of harder to picture this, I think.

But you have got these two sweeping rivers coming down.

You've got the Chindwin, the mighty Chindwin on the kind of western side, running in a sort of north to south way.

And then a sort of hundred miles miles gap is the mighty Irrawaddy, which runs kind of roughly almost directly north-south, then does a 90-degree dog leg to the west at Mandalay, pushes on for another sort of 40 miles or so before sort of then turning again.

So it's like a sort of giant S bend, but the other way around, a sort of inverted S, sort of heading sort of southwest.

And it's there that the Chindwin meets it.

And this is that kind of central sort of corridor running roughly in a kind of sort of northeast to southwest kind of direction.

And either side of that, you've got hills and jungle and all the rest of it.

But if you think of this sort of corridor running down the absolute spine of it's like a sort of inverted Apennines, I suppose, of Italy, that's where you're at.

And this is where they are at the moment, you know, and it's a very different kind of fighting to what they were experiencing, you know, in the Arakan, for example, or in the Chin Hills as they were crossing over from India into Burma.

And what it isn't is bamboo and the enemy emerges 10 feet from you in front of you.

It's quite different, isn't it?

That's, I mean, I think that's one of the things to remember about Burma: there's actually different terrain, which offers different challenges and different solutions.

And I think one of the things that's striking here, isn't it, is that, you know, the test of a general is when things go badly, when things don't quite go according to plan, and how they then respond, and how they then turn that into a victory.

And we can see that

Slim, the year before in 1944, where actually the Japanese are further into, Mutaguchi is further into his offensive than Slim realizes, has got further around him in the spring, summer of 1944.

Come through the back door.

And it's interesting because I wonder whether the Kohima operation by the Japanese, that going further north than Slim thinks, I wonder whether that has inspired him with Operation for Operation Extended Capital, which is when he realizes that he can't meet the, he's not going to be able to have a decisive confrontation with the Japanese in the Shweibo Plain, this wide expanse of sort of dusty plainland between the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy.

I wonder whether that is one of the things that inspires him to think, well, okay, maybe we should just do a big drop south and get him right behind the Japanese and Mandalay and go to Mictila.

The Japanese have been inspired by the year before's battles anyway, haven't they?

They're going to be a bad person.

Well, they've been inspired by the Chindits.

So maybe this is the true worth of the Chindits, is that the Chindits have inspired Matoguchi.

Matoguchi has inspired Slim.

And as we discover, you know, he's on the cusp of his greatest victory.

All inspired by Aud Wingate.

How about that?

Or maybe not.

No, I'll take that.

I'll take that standing naked, eating an onion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that.

But what I would say, and we'll get onto this a little bit later, is I don't think the Chindit Expedition, while you can absolutely argue that the Chindits get carried away in the second Chindit Expedition of March 1944, there are definitely lessons learned, values to be had, experience gained, which helps at this current decisive battle, which is playing out, albeit battles, I should probably say.

Anyway, in the last episode, we were really focusing on 33rd Corps' sector.

This is Monty Stopford's Corps, and this is in the kind of, you know, what they're trying to do is lure the Japanese into thinking this is the main effort.

And certainly they've got three divisions rather than...

the two they've got in fourth corps attacking around north of mandalay we've got pete rees's 19th indian infantry division and crossing over to the north of mandalay about 40 miles north of mandalay and now pressing southwards you've then got about 40 miles away from mandalay to the west um after the irrawadi does its 90 degree dogleg towards the west you've got 20th indian infantry division which having quite a sticky time getting across.

And then you've got closer, a little bit later, you've got 2nd British Division, rather than the Indian Division, also crossing as well, but only about kind of 15 miles west of Mandalay.

So that's where we were on that one.

And I think this time it's time to look at the daring right hook deep to the south, which has been carried out by Frank Mesavy's 4th Corps.

I thought that one of the way to do this would be to look at an American taking part in this, who is Captain Scott Gilmore, who is second in command of a company of the Four Faith Gurkhas.

He's a New Yorker from a successful publishing family, and he has volunteered to drive ambulances with the American Field Service in 1941, for America's joined the war, who are in North Africa in support of AIPH Army.

But with the kind of Battle of Alamein over and Ape Army sort of disappearing off into Libya and beyond and heading towards Tunisia, he decides he needs a different challenge.

He gets jaundiced as well, so he's hospitalized and then comes out of it and thinks, well, you know, he talks to a guy and a guy said, well, why don't you join the Indian Army?

You know, you don't need any citizenship to join the Indian Army.

They're not going to worry about the fact that you're American or anything.

So he thinks, yeah, all right.

So he gets posted to Bombay, now Mumbai, goes to office a training school in Belgaum, and is commissioned in July 1943.

And then he's posted to join the Gurkhas.

So, you know, obviously, like everyone else, he has to, any white officer in the Gurkhas, he has to learn Gurkhali.

And he then serves at the admin box.

I think we touched on him maybe in our Burma 44 series.

And then he's in the back end of the Kohima battle.

And now the Four Faith Gurkhas are part of 89th Brigade in the 7th Golden Arrow Division, which is the division that's defending the admin box.

and spearheading drive south, and they will be spearheading the crossings of the Irrawaddy.

Their task now, as they're getting going and trying to do this daring right hook, is to follow the spearhead south and then get across the river, establish a bridgehead, and then once they've done that, punch Cowan's 7th Indian Infantry Division will then follow and then make the, you know, do the drive to Mictida itself.

It's quite an adventure, isn't it, for an American though?

But he wrote a very good memoir.

It's very engaging.

And, you know, from someone from a Connecticut Yankee Yankee in the 8th Gurkha Rifles, I kind of don't think the title's the best.

But, you know, for someone who's from a publishing family, he certainly writes very nicely.

But it makes its point, though.

I mean, it's so bizarre, isn't it?

It's absolutely bizarre that he might do this.

Did he go on having a life of adventure?

Did he return to publishing?

No, he goes back to publishing and he lives out his life and stuff.

He's a tremendous fellow.

You know,

he comes across very well.

It's sort of very genial, very honest about, you know, when he's...

absolutely bricking it and when he's not.

And he just, he obviously, you know, he's that East Coast American kind of well-to-do.

and he likes British stuff and he and he likes all the kind of the way they conduct themselves and having tiffin and, you know, nightcaps and all this kind of stuff.

And he thinks it's all, you know, moments of terror, but otherwise tremendous fun.

I thought it'd be interesting to kind of look at this, this march of 4th Corps through his eyes, really, was my thinking.

And the 4th, 8th Gurkhas, they've been resting up after,

because this is a periodic thing, isn't it?

Is that a battalion will be

in action and then held back, very often guarding drop zones and and stuff when it's not in forward yeah retraining reconstituting the malarial casualties will be being sorted out all that sort of stuff yeah so they've been up in the north they've been in the teak forests and the in the you know the the the chin hills and everything um and they moved down the kibor valley and they're aiming for pagan which is the ancient capital of burma and a place of you know beautiful place of temples and pagodas and you know it's just absolutely gorgeous sort of shimmering out of the plains and all the rest of it on the on the banks of the irrawaddy and you know they're told that the absolute key thing is that the japanese don't discover them.

Gilmore hears that only one enemy reciplane has ever seen the dust trail of the column, but Kimura's staff, and you remember General Kimura is the commander of the Burma Army Group area, discount the info.

I mean, all very kind of France 1940, isn't it?

With Gauland discounting the accounts of Germans in the Ardennes.

It's not possible.

That must have been quite the journey, though, in trucks all the way down.

I mean, that's been hard going.

Well, they're not doing it all the way.

They travel the first 125 miles by lorry and then they camp by the Manipur River for a few days.

um then the mules catch up and they march the next 42 miles to the village of cannes so they're doing this on foot and this takes three days so it is the lushai brigade who we touched on in the last episode um slim's own chindits sort of irregulars who are are drawn from sort of local who know the land a bit better so the lushai brigade are are doing the kind of first foraging and that is also deliberate because they they want it to look like an irregular force and this is just sort of reconnaissance and kind of you know jitter raids you know a bit like the chindits really that's what they're trying to make you know if the japanese come across them that's what they want it to appear like.

But they're also kind of paving away as well, of course.

And then they're being followed by the 28th East African Brigade and the rest of 7th Indian Division then following.

So once it can, the Four Faith Gurkhas are then ordered to carry out a sweep east and then south through the hill country, which is a hundred-mile hook.

And the aim is to cut off Japanese troops between Gangor, which is literally due south from Kalua, which we've mentioned a number of times, which is up in the north, and the river Irrawaddy.

And of course, when they set off on this, this huge sort of sweeping operation, it was absolutely not clear at all how many enemy troops there'd be.

They're told that comms are strictly by wireless only and very tightly rationed.

And of course, but the problem they have is that any radio comms are tricky because of the ranges involved and the atmospherics and the temperamental radio sets and all the rest of it.

So basically once they're off on this sweep, they're kind of basically on their own.

There's this rather lovely news bulletin which they publish with a really nice description of this countryside in which they're traveling through.

I mean, do you want to do this one?

The Burma Hills in January are cool and fresh, and when in the sunset, the hillsides turn to all the greens and browns of an English woodland in autumn.

Their beauty is unsurpassed.

Between them lie the valleys of Paddy Stubble, and nearby nestle the villages of picturesque little stilt-raised dwellings.

Who can convey on paper the charm of the little pagodas standing in clusters large and small, guarded on their hilltops by the chinthies and with their tinkling, silver-voiced windbells that never stay silent?

I mean, I'll buy a timeshare.

I don't know about you, Jim.

Yeah, yeah, I'm off that.

I mean, it sounds absolutely great, doesn't it?

I mean, really, really love.

It's very sort of evocative.

And of course, they're all they're desperately trying not to get complacent because every day they're not meeting Japanese and they're having, they're sort of getting into this people like routine and the sort of the daily rituals of what they can do.

You know, so they're up early, cooks busy with fires covered by screening branches.

You know, they then move off when it's still dark.

They have 10 minutes rest in every hour.

And during the rest, the mules are also briefly unloaded.

Then, you know, in addition to 700 riflemen, they also have a platoon of Indian sappers for bridge building and track improvement if necessary, and a battery of mountain artillery.

And after three hours, they stop for a full half hour.

And Gilmore notes in his memoir, he goes, he goes, there would be a few minutes to lie back and enjoy the rustle of the breeze in the swaying bamboo, or a stare into the heights of a lone giant teak tree.

I mean, it all sounds rather nice, doesn't it?

And you see that he's finding it very agreeable.

And by 1.30 to 2 o'clock, you know, they'd have done 12 or 15 miles or so.

So that at that point, they'd have reached an objective, which they would have picked out the previous day's O group.

And O's group is orders group.

You know, this is where you sort of officers get together and go, right, chance, what are we going to do tomorrow?

That kind of thing.

And they pick out a drop zone.

Once they're there, they would put a markers out.

And then lo and behold, every single day without fail, Dakotas would fly over low and slow and shove out Hessian sacks, which is, you know, fodder for the meals, food for themselves, rations, you know, a bit of ammunition if they need it.

And Gilmore writes, we came to love the sight of those overworked Dakotas laboring and across the hills.

In the fine weather of the Burmese winner, they always found us.

And that's the thing they've learned from the Chindits, really, isn't it?

Is how to get the air supply right.

Actually, the thing that Audwingate's sort of adventures have delivered to 14th Army, isn't it?

Yeah.

And at this point, they're not in the plains.

They are in the hills, in the jungly bit.

They're following the courses of rivers.

You know, they're trying not to be seen.

When they're walking, they're not creating huge, great dust columns.

You know, so it makes it easier to do so.

And, you know, every day is the same.

You know, the march at dawn, the reaching the objective early afternoon, prep for the airdrop, dig in, repeat, then repeat again.

So commanding the Four Fate Gurkhas, and I'm pleased about this, is Lieutenant Colonel Walter Walker, who is our friend of the show, Annabel Vennings, a historian herself.

Yeah.

It's her grandfather.

Oh, brilliant.

And she wrote a brilliant book called To War with the Walkers, which is all about her grandparents and uncles and all the rest of it and all the amazing life, amazing war they went through.

And they were very much sort of Indian Army stock.

Anyway, Walter Walker is very experienced.

He's imperturbable.

He's an absolute stickler for appearance and turnout, you know, shaving every day.

But Gilmore really likes him.

He says he's first class at his job, demanding yet efficient, cool yet precise.

He never showed fear nor worry.

And, you know, that's the sort of person you want.

I mean, you can just imagine exactly what he's like.

He's got the moustache.

He's got the slip-bat hair.

He's sort of compassionate for the men, but aloof.

You know, the right balance, you know.

Holland, are your mules in order?

I do hope so, boy.

They are so, yes.

I think they're all in frightfully good fettle.

Jolly good.

Jolly good, carry on.

And do pop by to my tent later on for a touch of scotch.

Anyway, they move deeper into Burma.

On the seventh day of March, which is of their march, which is the 24th of January, they reach and block the main track from Gangor to Pakoku, which is on the Irrawaddy.

Pakoku is the kind of crossing point they've originally kind of aimed for.

They're thinking, you know, they're going to make the final decision when they get there, but that's what they're thinking.

And this is a few miles north of Pagan, and it's right on the Irrawaddy.

And they reached that two days ahead of schedule.

So they're doing really well.

And one of the reasons they were so ahead of schedule is because they're not finding any Japanese.

And so they then push on to sinter and and here they stay for a week patrolling far and wide and they find no enemy at all so it looks like this has worked what a relief that must be though like you're going out and patrol in the jungle and there's no one there that i mean that must you know and they've also prepared the airfield they've uh the newly constructed airfield at sinter so again this is all part of it they're sort of going 50 miles creating another airfield so you can bring up more supplies you know it's all leapfrogging stuff and um and slim comes down to to meet them and he meets just them you know he meets the four-fait gurkhas and no one else And they're absolutely pleased as punch that their chief is coming around and seeing them face to face.

And he talks to all the officers and to all the men.

And Gilmore is really impressed because Slim just chats amiably to all the Gurkhas in fluent Gakkali, you know, quite casually.

Total pro.

And then on the 10th and the 11th, overnight on the 10th and the 11th of February, they march overnight from Sinta to Mayichi on the banks of the Irrawaddy.

And, you know, and obviously it's at night to avoid detection.

And they're now at last out of the hills and the jungle and into the open undulating plains of the mighty river.

Miichi is a tree-lined village on the bank.

So the trees also help...

camouflage what they're doing and they decide to cross here at not at Pakoku.

So although the 28th East African Division has been leading the way with the Lushai Brigade, now it is their turn to cross the Irrawaddy.

And the four-fate Gurkhas have now traveled 450 miles since first leaving Kohima, half of which they've done on foot.

And in that time, they've not met a single Japanese soldier.

That's incredible.

It is absolutely incredible.

And from where they are in Miichi, on the far side, Gilmore can see the ancient Burmese capital of Pagan.

He says, the Irrawadi was wide, sliding silently past, blue and silver in the sun.

You know, and it's all sort of image of sort of, it all seems very tranquil, doesn't it?

And peaceful and calm.

And, you know, it is an incredible feat that they've got to where they've got to.

And obviously, you know, they haven't been held up by that Japanese.

But one of the reasons they haven't been held up with the Japanese is because the dupe has, the deception has worked.

And that's a huge credit to all the higher minds up at corps level and army level.

But it is also, and it has to be said, an incredible feat of engineering and of endurance to get to where they got to.

I mean, the fact that the Japanese don't realize what's going on is extraordinary.

Now, it has to be admitted that Japanese intelligence is really, really bad.

It is a logistical miracle.

It's not a thing they'd ever be able to do, so they don't consider it a possibility.

Your imagination about what the enemy might be achieved is limited by what you imagine you can achieve.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

And I think the Japanese are particularly guilty of looking at things through the prism of their own experience and understanding.

You know, I think that's constantly affected them in the same way that it did.

You know, we've said this a lot about Hitler.

It's one of Hitler's problems.

He always looks at the world through his own narrow worldview.

And that is problematic.

But, of course, they've now got to cross the mighty Irrawaddy

and establish a bridgehead and then get to and capture McTila.

So, you know, there's still a massive challenge.

And one of the big problems about going this far south is the further south you go, the wider the Irrawaddy becomes.

And it, you know, it's vast.

On the plus side, it is now the perfect time to cross because, you know, it is before the start of the monsoon, but it's getting on to being, you know, the monsoon's not that far away.

So water levels are lower, about 40 feet lower than they would be at the height of the monsoon, for example.

The flip side, again, of that is it's so low that there's now lots of sandbars everywhere which have to be negotiated.

And it's very, very hard to map because every single year, these sandbars shift, as does the kind of precise course of the Irrawaddy.

However, it may appear now once the monsoon starts with a little change again anyway.

That's an enormous engineering challenge, isn't it?

Because whatever you're betting on now in a couple of months might all be gone.

Yeah, exactly.

Meanwhile, 114th Brigade of the 7th Indian Division have been fighting a battle at Perkoku, which is the original part where they were thinking they were going to cross, hoping to persuade the Japanese that this is just a minor outflanking operation where they might cross, but nothing more.

It's not conceived to be for the Japanese to consider a kind of a major outflanking incursion.

But while this is going on, this also distracts the Japanese from what else is going on, which is three different courses of which the 4-5 Gurkhas is one of the routes.

And Fourth Corps now plans the operation into four phases.

So the first crossing

is going to be on the night of the 13th, 14th of February in silence with landfall near a place called Noyungu.

And the four beaches have been been earmarked.

And either side of these beaches, there are sort of exit points, but there are then really quite high cliffs, you know, 500 foot high cliffs.

They're quite substantial on the other side.

And what you've got is a similar, which is not dissimilar rather, to Omaha Beach, and that you've got these bluffs, but you've got these drawers, you know, the Colville draw, the Verville Draw.

It's kind of the same sort of thing.

So there are these beaches where cliffs suddenly drop off into a kind of little valley running down to the mighty river.

And that's where you want to land and work your way up these valleys and then onto the top of the cliffs.

That's the idea so nyongu is three miles upstream from pagan and and of downstream from pakoku and then the battalions of the 33rd brigade and some tanks would be ferried over they would then make a rapid advance to take nyongu which is the largest settlement closest to the river and then having taken nyongu um the rest of 17th infantry division would then do a rapid drive to mictila that is the plan so at dawn on the 14th of february 1945, Scott Gilmore is waiting with the men to a cross and recce planes have been have been limited so as not to arouse suspicion.

So they're all a bit unsure of what enemy lie on the other side or what the opposition might be.

And obviously this is pretty nerve-wracking stuff.

You know, you're sitting there waiting to go.

And the crossings here are to be the longest river crossing of any troops in any theater at any point in the Second World War.

You know, and they're as wide as 2,000 feet.

Well over a mile.

And one of the problems is that when you're crossing, because of the flow of the river and the flimsiness of the boats, I mean, you're not talking going, just going straight across.

You're going with the tide.

So you're doing a diagonal crossing, which, of course, then makes it even wider.

And Gilmore understands that the crossings have started when he hears sudden gunfire.

And he knows the guns are theirs.

And that suggests that they're meeting opposition.

So they will no longer be able to get across unobserved.

And that gives you even more of a kind of sickening feeling in your stomach.

And particularly after all this time where they haven't fought the Japanese.

No, right.

So you're sort of a bit out of practice.

Yeah, yeah.

your nerves may be sort of, there's more anticipation.

You're not in the sort of weariness of dealing with it on a daily basis, are you?

And that's the lead battalion of 2nd South Lanx of 114th Brigade.

And they've been chosen for this job because they landed on Madagascar back in May 1942.

Quite extraordinary and ironclad.

Basically being treated as, you know, you've done an amphibious landing.

Here you go.

And they're going to, they were going to send a company across under cover of darkness and then land and secure the headland on the cliffs.

But of course, no plan to survives contact with a river.

River crossings involve noisy engines.

I mean, when we were talking about the Rhine crossing, went with them,

you know, buses, buses, bus fits.

And also, don't forget that these boats have all been made, you know, upriver, have to be transported south, you know, and they're all kind of made on the hoof.

So lots of them leak.

Hardly surprising, is it?

Dawn arrives before the South Lanks have landed and suddenly they come under mortar fire and rifle and MG fire.

Two company commanders are killed in action

in the process and boats are sinking.

But some do get through and they're very quickly followed by the 415th Punjabis.

And when they cross, there's no enemy fire whatsoever.

And it later turns out the firing on the South Lancashires came from only a chance Japanese patrol who, once they realised what was going on, have scarpered and hurried off.

So it feels like there's more enemy than there actually were.

Anyway, Gilmore and the rest of the 4-5 Gurkhas, they crossed that same afternoon.

St.

Valentine's Day.

And of course, the boats are drifting diagonally as they make the journey and they reach the cliffs and they get off.

They've been crikey.

They're pretty high.

But the draws off the beach are, you know, they do give you quite an easy exit.

They're opposed by another chance patrol who, and also by GIFs.

These are, do you remember GIFs from the INA?

What are then what the Indian National Army are known as?

And a force of 160, which could be problematic, but in fact, they promptly surrender.

And they also say, yeah, no, there's hardly any Japanese around here.

And oh, by the way, here's the best route to the top of the cliff.

So they're actually quite helpful.

And they're, you know, having properly surrendered.

It is interesting, though.

I mean, the fact that, you know, when the length, the south lengths cross, the fire is from just a patrol.

It just shows you how fragile fragile these sort of um landings are how everything's delicate and everything is predicated on luck people staying cool good judgment all those things that that if a patrol can disrupt this kind of this kind of landing that's this important you know you've got to take it all very very seriously haven't you by the next morning fourth eighth gurkhas have moved three miles inland haven't they yeah they've made it your bottom line is 7th indian division is across they've got their three miles they're holding that prominent ridge 500 feet high um their target their personal target is to get a monastery with a pagoda next to it perched on top, you know, which is seen as a sort of crucial landmark and an obvious aiming point when you're getting across the river.

And a bit further to the south is one of those sort of gaps in the cliff.

So that makes sense.

You know, you can expand that trackway for tanks and all the rest of it.

You know, Gilmore was ordered to take a company to take the pagoda and hold it and deny it to the enemy, but there aren't any enemy.

He says, the summit greeted us with nothing more than lethal gusts of cooling wind coming over the crest from the east.

Phew.

Thank goodness.

Surprise has been total, but it's more than total surprise, isn't it?

Because the Japanese don't seem to even know about it.

Well, of which more are later on in this episode, because it's just extraordinary.

And it means that they can expand the bridgehead up to the beautiful ancient Burmese capital of Pagan, which they do in very quick order.

And Mesofee knows that speed is of the essence here.

You know, he's a thruster.

We know this.

You know, this is his whole point: to get to Mectino as quickly as possible before the Japanese can react.

You know, it is

not very far removed from Gudarians, get to the MERS in three and cross in four.

You know, it's this kind of thing.

You know, get there before you, you know, unseat, unsettle the enemy before they have a chance to react.

So, you know, he just doesn't wait for 7th Indian Division to finish consolidating the bridgehead.

He just goes, right, go on.

17th Infantry Division under Punch Can, get across and get going.

So

17th Division start crossing on the night of the 16th of 17th of February.

So it's only like, you know, three days after the start of the crossings.

Incredible.

And they finally meet some heavy Japanese resistance from troops that are dug into extensive tunnels around the town of Nyungu.

You remember that was the kind of, you know, get to Nyeongu, take Nyeongu, then get to Mictila.

So air power is brought in again, underlying the crucial vital importance.

And they hammer these positions with rockets, bombs, and napalm.

But the enemy is not for shifting.

And instead, the sappers brought up charges and they just seal up the enemy bunkers and tunnels with the the troops in a life.

Crikey.

Ruthless.

We haven't got time for this nonsense.

If you're not going to surrender, that's what happens.

Yeah.

And then the town surrenders without a fight, doesn't it?

Nyangu, that you know, they overrun that pretty quickly, yeah.

And Slim is on the scene, you know, he wants to see it himself.

And he gets to Pagan and he says, says, it's 1,200 temples, madder red or ghostly white, rise, some like fantastic pyramids or turreted fairy castle, others in tapering pagoda spires from the sage-green mass of trees against the changing pastel blues, reds and golds of sunrise.

As the foreground flows the still dark yet living sweep of moving water.

There's no question, is it, that fourth course

sweep, their big right hook, is getting the descriptive writer to come to the fore, I think, in this.

They're mesmerized by the beauty of this.

I still think in his adopted Brami, it's better, but there we are.

I mean, that's people like to say that Shakespeare talked like this as well, don't they?

But it'll go with it.

Exactly.

rough winds do shake the darling butts away

to be or not to be

that's the question

all right we're for author

so anyway on the by

between the 18th and the 21st of february the rear guard of 17th division and the all-important 255th tank brigade are also ferried across the river.

Tanks have always been the key part of the plan.

And don't forget, it was Frank Mesavy proving before he took over 7th Indian Division that tanks, you know, medium tanks, 30-ton tanks, could operate in Burma.

That is why they're using them in such abundance at this stage.

Anyway, the advance on Maktida, which is 80 miles from the bridgehead, then begins on the 21st of February.

And most of 17th Division are aiming for the twin towns initially of Kami and Saiktaine.

And so at this point, Punch Cowan, the commander of 17th Division, now splits his division into two.

So 63rd Infantry Brigade is given 5th Probin's horse in one column, and 48th Brigade and the 9th Royal Deccan Horse is given the other.

And leading the charge vote is a sort of ad hoc force called Tom Col, which is a sort of rapid recce force with some sort of armoured cars and whatnot and carriers, etc., who are told to sort of surge forward and reconnoitre routes.

They're using Stuarts and stuff, aren't they, as well?

Yeah, yes, yes, exactly that.

Yeah.

Stuarts proved their worth in the retreat from Burma in 1942.

Actually, they do a really, really, really great job.

Yeah, they beetle around.

They're quick and manoeuvrable.

Yeah, very well suited to the jungle.

They're less likely to get bogged.

And then 63rd Brigade, who are in the lead, they quickly roll up the Japanese and they speed on towards Wellong.

They roll up the opposition at Oyin, where they have actually have quite a tough fight.

They kill several hundred Japanese, as you say, then speed on to Wellong.

And then they take Tongfa, which is roughly halfway to Mektila.

So, I mean, this is on the 24th of February.

I mean, they're making incredible progress, aren't they?

Yeah, they really are.

You know, as we just touched on there,

there is armor in the retreat from Burma in 1942.

And then there is an attempt to use armor in the Arakan offensive.

But in penny packets, one of the things Slim has learned and knows is that you've got to use armor decisively and in mass for it to work.

There's no point using up tanks in twos and threes, as they do so disastrously as Noel Arwin does in the Arakan offensive in 43 rather.

It's that learning slim grasp the fundamentals of this combined arms warfare and has the imagination to change his plan when his plan doesn't work out the way it ought to.

I mean, these are all the ingredients of absolute military genius, right?

Yep.

Mesovi's bought into it.

Punch Cowan's bought into it.

You know, Pete Reese has bought into it.

You know, Gracie of 20th Division has bought into it.

You know, they all get this.

They understand what they need to do.

And it's amazing the speed at which they're operating on this very much, you know, and effectively a battle group.

What we're talking about here is a campgrouper.

You know, let's not kid ourselves.

You know, this has got artillery, it's got reconnaissance troops, it's got tanks, it's got infantry, it's all motorized, you know, for the most part, it's motorized.

You know, they know what they're doing.

And so they take Karlang on the 25th of February.

And the next day, the 26th of February, they take the crucial airstrip at Thabat Khan, which is only about 15 miles to the west of Mictila.

So they're almost there.

And this means that another part of the plan can get underway, which is flying in 99th Brigade, which is the third brigade of 17th Division.

So, you know, the idea was to sort of get across Irrawaddy with two brigades only rather than three that you would normally have in a division, and then fly in the third one.

And this is what they've been doing.

They've been waiting in Palal, which is on the Infal plane, to be flown in the moment it's captured.

And it's all just going absolutely according to plan.

They arrive on the 26th of February.

There's still a bit of small arms fire around, but they add crucial extra strength and weight just when it's needed.

And of course, you know, the Japanese are still fighting to the death with plenty of banside charges whenever they come across them.

But what they are noticing, what the fourth corps troops are noticing, is that the fighting skills and tactics seem well below par from what they've experienced earlier.

And of course, this is exactly as you'd expect, you know, because the training is not as good.

It's not complete.

You know, they've got less supplies.

And they're being degraded.

They're out of time in the same way that the Germans have been, you know, degraded.

It's just not the same.

Japanese way of dealing with a tank is to send someone out strapped with a box of explosives attached to their chest and just lie in front of it.

Christ.

And blow themselves up and the tank.

And later on

by nightfall on the 26th of February, having flown in 99th Brigade and having got this airfield at Thabat Khan, they're now eight miles only from McTila.

63 Brigade at that point becomes very deeply ensnarled in bitter fighting.

But, you know, suddenly it's more like the desert war.

It's sort of open plains.

It's dusty, it's dry waddies, and whatever.

But here, the armor is really, really decisive.

You've got Cowan heading for the airstrip, and Mesavi had been leading the rest of the corps into Mictila itself.

And Slim writes, The Japanese had no experience of these massed armoured attacks and seemed quite incapable of dealing with them.

But clearly, there's no way the Japanese are going to be giving up Mictila without a fight, and we'll be coming back to that in the second half.

We'll see you in a tick.

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This is ServiceNow.

Welcome back to Weird Ways of Make You Talk with me, I'm Array and James Holland.

And we're eight miles from McTila.

Armour is rolling forward.

And of course, tanks are very, very effective when the other side doesn't have an answer to them.

And when you've got air power supporting you as well.

Yeah, and there's no one getting their top trumps out and going, well, you know, the armor's inadequate because they haven't got an answer to it.

Right.

So now, of course, crucial part of Sloom's plan is that the Japanese need to, up to this point, have been glued in position by 33 Corps to the north.

That's what this whole thing relies on, right, Jim?

So what's going on there?

Well, you know, it's just a juggling act.

You know, he's got to send over enough to keep the bulk of the Japanese 15th Army around Mandalay.

And that's the key thing.

And, you know, Mictina, the balance of these two twin operations over the distances and the logistical challenges of getting across the river and all the rest of it have to be quite carefully timed.

And remember, we talked about Moniwa and the 20th Division attacking there.

And having, this is sort of very close to where the Chindwin joins the Irrawaddy, having quite a tough fight there.

Slim gets there on the 8th of February.

And this is a town that he vacated back in May 1942 when he's retreating back across the Irrawaddy.

20th Division starts crossing the river on the 12th of February, but they're going to take three weeks for the whole of the division to establish a firm bridgehead.

Because General Gracie has sent his division across at the very junction of the Japanese 31st and 33rd Divisions.

But this second crossing after 19th Division, Pete Reese's 19th Division north of Mandalay prompts a ferocious response.

And I should just remind people, this is about 40 miles or so due west of Mandalay, after the dogleg and the Irwadi.

And what he does is he sends both, you know, both divisions.

Katamura sends both divisions and remaining Japanese tank regiment in Burma to meet this attack by Gracie's 20th Division.

And once again, Gracie owes a huge debt to the air forces, which are such a massive force enhancer because number 221 RAF group hammers the Jap armor when they try and counter-attack and hurry bombers knock out 13 tanks in one day.

I don't know what it is about knocking 13 tanks out in one day.

That's the same number that the Sherwood Rangers knocked out on the Rory Ridge.

But obviously, this goes on to your point.

You know, tanks are obviously an easy target in open territory with no cover of their own and with no answer.

The key thing about this is it doesn't really matter that 20th Division's crossings are taking such a long time.

In fact, actually, it's a good thing because what they're doing is they're drawing troops, not only keeping them away from Mictila, they're also drawing them away from Mandalay.

So at one point, two battalions from the Japanese 33rd Division lose 953 men out of 1200 in a suicide assault against the 20th Division's bridgehead.

And between the 21st and the 26th of February, 500 Japanese bodies are buried by bulldozer.

just in that time alone.

So the 20th Division are having a sticky time of it, but actually, this is perfect for Slim.

But Jim, what's this reminding you of?

What it's reminding me of is let's say what we're going to do is draw the Germans in on our left flank around Conn, around a major crossing and an important nodal point.

And you're going to draw them in and you're going to

get them to stick to you.

And then you swing round on your right flank, on their left flank, and envelop them.

Yeah.

I mean, we've talked about that so much about Normandy, where the idea is all the armour's up one end all the all the german heavy metal the german focus is on one end and yes they're fighting at the other end but that's the point they're concentrating on their main effort because they fear after all because you know it's a it's a valid fear in normandy if the if the british break out on the on the eastern end of the normandy lodgement it's curtains for the germans yeah if slim gets into mandalay properly it's curtains for the japanese here so you can completely understand why they might get sucked into fighting this battle and if it goes slowly and it draws them in in longer, great.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly that.

There are now really clear signs that General Kimura, a reminder, he's the total Burma Army area commander, Japanese commander, has been totally duped by this.

Yeah.

What it means is the battle is now raging as Kimura had expected with, you know, an assault from the north on Mandalay, assault from the west.

And, you know, he thinks that's what it's going to be.

He also knows that the US-led NCAC forces, and remember those Northern Combat Area Command forces, Chinese and American and British, of course, as well, 36th Division, advancing from Mitkina.

And Kimura is expecting those to merge with 14th Army and then to attack Manned later given.

That's what he's trying to second guess as Allied intentions.

Well, and he hasn't got enough to deal with everything if and when it all happens at once, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But what is really interesting is that his decision to pull back across Irraadi and not have a decisive engagement on the Sri Bern Plain actually dovetails with orders from Imperial General Headquarters that now considered protecting the overland route from Burma into China of secondary strategic importance to that of protecting southern Burma and Rangoon.

So clearly it's understandable that he's going to consider the defense of Mandalay critical to fulfill this.

And, you know, this goes back to Slim's misreading of it in the back end of 1944 because he's assuming that the Japanese are never going to surrender and all the rest of it.

But actually, their strategic picture has changed dramatically.

So the 2nd Division then is the last of Stopford's divisions to cross, and they do so on the night of the 24th, 25th of February at Nagazoon.

And it's the 7th Worcesters.

So you've had Pete Reese's 19th Division crossing at the north.

You've had 20th Division crossing 40 miles to the west.

And now you've got 2nd Division crossing about 15 miles or so west of Mandalay.

And it's the 7th Worcesters.

And they have really bad luck because they have 17 boats filling with water or being sunk by enemy fire.

And by midnight they're back on the bank where they started and it looks like the whole thing might fail completely but then the Camerons the Cameron Highlanders make a small bridgehead and then so too do the Royal Welsh Fusiliers but you know there's a point where Slim's really worried about this and on the far side the Japanese are retaliating with fury but after realizing that the main beehead is going to be a flop brigadier west of the of the 5th brigade of the 2nd british division orders the dorsets to shift 5 000 yards and so help the camerons open a bridgehead.

And this opens a chink that can then be exploited.

And 6th Brigade get across way more easily.

And by the 26th of February, the entire division is across, plus tanks, and they're able to move eastwards towards Mandalay.

So what looks very sticky on the night of the 25th, you know, three days later, two days later, is, you know, it's all happened again.

And this means, of course, that by the end of February, all three divisions of 33 Corps have successfully got across the mighty Irrawaddy.

And so too, by this stage, of course, have 4th Corps further to the southwest.

So, these are huge achievements in their own right.

Just forget about the enemy, you know, just getting across is difficult.

And, of course, most of them have been opposed in some way.

Well, and of course, you're looking at tons of planning, the logistic effort, but also at the same time, an ability to improvise.

I mean, this is the other thing.

You know, we say, well, well, all right, we'll land 5,000 yards in a different direction.

That flexibility, I mean, you can't really imagine that happening at Vasel in Varsity, in Plunder, Varsity, can you?

You can't really see 21st Army Group being able to go, well, you know, maybe we'll land somewhere else, can you?

No.

No.

And Slim, after all, and he makes, you know, he talks about this after the war.

It's all improvised, and, you know, you make, do, and mend, and it's, he says it's been done with a couple of bamboos and a bootlace.

You know, it's an exaggeration because we have talked about an awful lot of Bailey bridging, which, after all, is quite the opposite of that.

But, I mean, it's truly incredible, isn't it?

Yeah, really, really, it really is.

These, but these rivers make European rivers look piddling, don't they?

Literally.

Like a sort of gentle village brook.

But it's absolutely clear by the beginning of March that Slim's great gamble is working.

He's 33 across.

The Japanese have flung most of their men against these crossings, but of course in piecemeal fashion.

You know, they're retreated and ground down.

And it reminds me of just in the same way that it did you a little bit, how the Panzer divisions arriving in Normandy have been ground down by Khan.

You know, they've been pushed into a fight in penny packets rather than en masse.

And that's why the divisions facing them, whether it be 20th division or 19th division or indeed 2nd division have been able to defeat them you know and and see off these attacks second division is is is pushing east towards mandalays 20th is sweeping south and then northeast in a big loop and 19th division is pushing down from the north so mandalay is in danger of being caught if you're japanese in a massive pincer And really, there's only one thing for Katamura, who is the 15th Army commander, to do, and that's pull 15th Army back and very hurriedly too.

But, you know, he's completely falling for Sims Ploy and frankly, Annihilation beckons.

But, meanwhile, meanwhile, a tough fight is also playing out at Mictila, of course.

Yeah.

And so General Tanaka, who's Kamira's chief of staff, holds a staff conference at McTila on the 23rd of March.

Yeah, just amazing.

You think while all this other stuff is going on, while the Allies are sort of 25 miles away, they are having this staff conference at Mictila, blissfully unaware of any issue whatsoever.

No idea this is going on.

But they accept the Mandalay is basically blocked

on all sides and under siege, invested.

And so they're going to reinforce 15th Army with 18th Division and 17th Independent Mixed Brigade and then launch a counter-offensive.

I mean,

over the Irrawaddy, back onto the West Bank.

You've got to admire their optimism.

You know, and they're going to do this on the 10th of March.

I mean, it is absolutely bonkers.

At the time of this, they have no idea about 4th Corps.

How not, though i mean it's it's quite extraordinary isn't it yeah you know this is going on while punch council division is three days away i mean and it's amazing because you know the the oyon battle which i said you know was quite a stiff fight taking place on the 22nd of march you know how come the japanese troops weren't signaling this and say saying oh my god boss you know we've got quite a lot of of enemy to deal with and it's maybe because they just don't have any radios well maybe also if you're fighting to the last man information does not get out of good point handful of that yeah that's a really fair point yeah but they're all dead all dead and a handful captured how are you gonna do it they're a current problem there's no one there's no one thinking right about a jump on a motorbike and and get back to let people know what's going on yeah in fact actually it's only three hours after the conference ends

an urgent signal arrives into mctila which says the enemy at pakoku has crossed the river and entered tangta the force at tangta is estimated at 80 men in vehicles led by two tanks and early the next day

the 24th of march saying saying enemy at tongfa appears to be moving towards Ma Lang.

Four tanks in front, 20 trunks, about 300 men.

But what is really worrying is the man who's making the decisions now, Mictila, is a Japanese civilian, a Gonzoku, who is a civilian administrator.

And he's called Shigemitus Yosichi.

And he realized that McTina has very, very few defenses.

In fact, actually, he's got two airfield battalions, 36 field anti-aircraft battalion, and about 4,000 combat troops, but of dubious quality.

And that's because Mictila is a hub.

It's stores and supplies and hospital and lines of communication officers and troops.

I mean, it's not a fortress.

It's a it's an administrative area.

Yeah.

I think it's incredible though.

When Yosichi talk speaks to one officer, the reply is, isn't there some mistake?

How can the

enemy be so close in these back areas?

Well, yeah.

And even then, they still don't believe any of it, do they?

No.

So 53rd Division have reported a figure of 2,000 enemy vehicles, but that hasn't got to Mictila.

And then Tanaka notes in his diary, that figure's far too high.

Tanaka's chief of staff to Kimura.

Yeah, but again, it's this thing of you don't believe it because it can't be true because you, you know, how is that possible?

Rather than thinking, right, actually, judging by, I mean, surely judging by the kicking they had the year before, this is all possible, right?

Well, you have also.

And what's really interesting is the signal that comes from 53rd Division to Burma Area Command, it takes them a day to process that signal.

Yeah, it doesn't say a lot for the staff, does it no no the staff work's not up to much old boy but it's enough to make them realize that they do need to reinforce mictila and and quickly so major general kusaya and i haven't got his first name is commanding the number two field transport regiment is told to take command of the uh of the town so so it isn't until the 27th of march that katamura agrees to throw everything at the defense and and he then informs Kimura's headquarters of his plans.

And the reply was, enemy and Mictila area, not to be overestimated.

Keep to your objective of the battle for the Irrawaddy shore.

So Katamura then wires back, Mictila situation transformed.

Whether this is merely local disturbance or battlefield will in the end be known by facts.

Army cannot treat present situation as local disturbance.

You know, Kimura could have hurriedly sent the 49th Division, which is in reserve, but he doesn't.

And there's clear the sort of mutual distrust between Kimura and Katamura.

You know, there had been flaps before, such as when the 1943 Chinda exhibition was launched.

But anyway, Ordwingo coming to the rescue yeah there you are so it's all back to wingo his work we need to really need to you know realign our feelings on him um but anyway humura goes ahead and sends a men bod main body of of of 15th army's artillery and an infantry force from 18th division and one regiment of 33rd and 15th divisions although all these units are by now very badly under strength the counter-attack is going to be uh is going to begin at mctila on the 10th of march and a mandalay the troops are then supposed to go on the defensive But clearly, this is all massively too little, too late.

And whatever he's doing, he's robbing Cleeds to pay Paul.

Exactly that.

Whatever advantage he delivers in one place will disadvantage another.

Yeah, and Kasimiro knows that this means that Mandalay's probably lost, but he knew that anyway.

But he reckons the Mectila crisis is the greater threat because it's their main hub and administrative area, but it's also closer to Rangoon.

And protecting southern Burma is the absolute number one key now.

Yeah.

Now, Mictila's quite defendable, though, right?

That's the thing.

Beautiful town.

You know, it's elegant red brick buildings, its tree-lined avenues and villas, and it's got these two lakes.

It's got the northern lake and the southern lake.

Basically, they cover the whole of the kind of sort of western side of the town.

That makes them quite a good place to defend if you're being attacked from the west, because you've got this waterway through and you've got these lakes, so there's a kind of sort of causeway between the two lakes, which is raised.

But obviously, that's the problem, but if you're attacking, because that means you're being cannalized.

So, you know, that's no good.

And Slim is absolutely desperate to take McTila quickly, as is Mesovi.

And then with Mandalay we can smash the Japanese there.

So Punch Cowan comes up with a plan, which is to encircle the town.

So 48th Brigade attack from the north while the 255th Tank Brigade plus two infantry battalions sweep in a wide loop to the north and attack from the east from a little kind of village called Torma.

And at the same time, 63rd Brigade are cutting the railway line running west from the town.

And they managed to do this on the 1st of March and then sweep on south to block the road running from the southwest into the town.

And they've achieved this by the 2nd of March.

So the town is effectively surrounded by the 1st of March.

And Cowan then lays down a kind of very heavy bombardment and artillery barrage before sending in the tanks and the infantry.

And Slim, again, is there to watch the battle.

He's kind of everywhere at the moment.

However, the ARF refuse to take him in because they think it's an unnecessary, foolhardy mission.

So he then taps up the Americans and they're happy to do so.

And they do.

So he is there.

And Cowan's attack is resisted by pretty stubborn defense.

The Japanese are once again in sort sort of supporting bunkers and fortified houses.

And despite their poor training, their defense is fanatical as it's ever been.

And the snipers concealed everywhere.

And they're picking off the infantry as they're attacking the Allied infantry.

So progress is pretty slow.

And it's only by dusk on the 1st of March that troops are finally entering the rubble-strewn streets at the edge of the town.

As the battle continues in the town, because obviously if the Japanese are going to fight to the last round, you've got to clear them out of every house, every bunker, every position imaginable.

And fortunately, there's armor for that.

So you can bunker busting, which is how tanks sort of come to prominence the previous year.

So that this methodical house-by-house clearing of the town.

And the Japanese, of course, have booby-trapped everything.

Everything's a strong port.

Every water channel has a hidden bunker.

Every ruined building has a sniper.

But I mean, will to fight is one thing.

A methodical and better armed and better equipped enemy who's also given you the jump is another thing, right?

You're surrounded, so you're stuck.

You're going to be running out of ammunition, aren't you?

It's only, you know, you're only going to hold out for so long.

And as we know, they're undersupplied anyway.

Even though this is a base, you know, even so, it's mainly kind of sort of food and supplies rather than bullets and mortar rounds.

And, you know, at times the Japanese are using their 75-millimeter guns and machine guns to engage tanks and infantry, literally at point-blank range.

But one by one, each of these strong points is methodically and systematically taken out.

So that by 6 p.m.

on the 3rd of March, the fighting for the town ends when the last 50 Japanese troops in the center of the city make a mass suicide charge to the lake and then drown themselves.

I mean, God.

Any crocodiles?

I don't think so.

No, no, history doesn't relate.

You know, crocking, you know, eaten by a crocodile or drown yourself.

I mean, you know, it's still pretty grim, isn't it?

I mean, it's amazing this because it's not even a month since they got across the river.

No,

it's half a month.

Well, it's a bit, yeah, it's a little over, say, three weeks, isn't it?

Yeah, it's just incredible.

Around the town, though, I mean, so they take the center of the town, and then there's more fighting, but the fighting's essentially for Mickey is basically over by the 5th of March.

The official body count is 2,000 enemy dead and 47 and 47 prisoners for war.

But there's actually many more because they're buried in bunkers and they're dead in dugouts and all that sort of stuff and tunnels and stuff and in the ruins.

And obviously, the bodies keep popping up in the lake.

I mean, Slim himself, this is absolutely amazing.

He counts 876 Japanese dead in the small area of 200 by 100 yards.

I mean, this is that's not dissimilar to you know, Eisenhower at Fillet saying you could walk on the dead for hundreds of yards.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the interesting thing is that, you know, it's a great victory for Slim, but and for Messavi, and indeed for Punch Cowan.

But of course, the Fourth Corps men are now finding themselves besieged as the enemy forces are finally arriving.

So, you know, the battle for McTela is not over yet.

And meanwhile, meanwhile, you know, there's a battle for Mandalay.

So late on the 7th of March, Pete Reese's men are now in Power Tong.

Remember Pete Rees and the 19th Brigade and Brandon Division rather and, you know, and John Masters?

So they're only five miles north of the city.

And General Katamura, the general officer commanding 15th Army, gives a simple order to the defenders in the city.

You know, you've got to defend it to the death.

Commanding the defense of Mandalay, as it was the Japanese 33rd Division, which is newly commanded by Major General Sayai Yamamoto, who's former chief of staff of 33rd Army.

And he's not quite so committed for everyone getting killed as some of his superiors.

So he says, fighting to the last man is, from the point of view of command, the very worst option.

Doll!

I mean, yes, of course.

So he replies to Katamura asking what exactly the order means.

And to signal back, literally what it says.

So Yamamoto sort of thinks, okay, well, I'm going to have to do it then.

So he signals back, all right, leave it to us.

Very well.

And he's so incensed, he writes a poem in a rather poor translation, reads as, for their sovereign, our warriors will fall, defending to the end this town of Mandalay.

Jim, all the Kamikaze going around writing poems, aren't they?

Yeah, yeah, it is all revolting, isn't it?

Yeah, but it's clearly an absolutely insane order from Katamura.

You know, it goes in the face of what Kimura is saying, because Kimura, the Burma army area commander, says, strategically, I never considered Mandalay worth any serious defense.

The only reason it was held at all was for his prestige value.

Like, okay, well, now you're ordering, you know, all the defenders to die.

I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous.

But, you know, we were looking at Pete Reese's March South in the last episode, you know, which wasn't exactly against orders, but it was very much on his own initiative.

And now at this point, you know, he's really commanding with, you know, tremendous verve, but he pushes hard when there's a sign of enemy weakness and he's and he's more cautious when there's stiff resistance.

But he's certainly not afraid to push the men.

And John Masters records this extraordinary conversation that Rhys has on the 6th of March with one of his brigadiers.

Do you want to do Rhys and I'll do the brigadier?

Well done.

You are doing marvels.

Press on at once.

Keep pressing on.

Over.

The men are exhausted.

Out on their feet.

Half their vehicles need maintenance and repair.

We'll push on at first light, sir.

You've done very well indeed.

Keep up the pressure.

Over.

But the men are exhausted, sir.

I said, keep up the pressure.

Do not harbour or stop at all.

Keep advancing all night.

Every day we stop to rest and collect ourselves.

Now means a week's more fighting later on.

Over.

Yes, but sir, I don't think we can do it.

Over.

You can do it.

Who's winning this war?

Out.

Yes.

You know, and after, after he's put down the kind of, you know, the radio, Rhys turns to John Marces and says, We've all got to be driven sometimes, Jack.

He's cursing me and thinks I don't know what it's like out there, but I do.

I also know what it'll be like for them tomorrow and the next week and the week after if they do not conquer themselves now.

And you know what this reminds me of?

Oberst Hermann Balk crossing the River Murs and getting to that hill.

Fail tonight what will cost rivers of blood tomorrow.

It's the same thing.

It's amazing insight though, isn't it?

I'm a bit of a fan of Pete Reese, I've got to say, I'm winning forwards.

Exploit success.

Yeah, but that attitude is easier to sort of justify, isn't it?

Yes, I suppose so.

And they take Medaya halfway to Mandalay.

Then a message arrives from Corps ordering all the divisions to hold back one brigade, no more than 20 miles from Shuibo in case of a Japanese counter-attack.

And this is Corps headquarters a stop Stotford not understanding what is actually going on at this point.

It's clearly ridiculously cautious.

But Rhys knows he can't ignore this.

You know, he's already been sacked once in the desert when he's commanding 10th Indian Division for disobeying a bad order.

So he hands over command to Jack Masters and flies off to see Stopford.

He's away for six hours, but he does persuade Stopford to let him continue.

So clearly, this is the way to go rather than just taking a unilateral decision.

So on the 7th of March, Rhys is confident enough to detach an entire brigade to take Maimyo, Maimyo, which is 30 miles to the east and astride the Japanese-held road to Yunnan in China.

And initially, Marshless argues against this.

He thinks it's unnecessary and, you know, he reminds him about concentration of force, etc.

But then he changes his mind because he suddenly thinks about his Chindit experience.

And he thinks, well, actually, you know, if you send 62 Brigade, the commander is also a former Chindit.

And he suspects that Japanese resistance would be slight.

So they do and they send them off to do this.

And what he's doing actually is going, if you take Maimyo, that's also distracting the Japanese and stopping them from reinforcing Mandalay.

It's also increasing the sense that they're being attacked from all corners.

They're in disarray.

This is their moment of weakness.

Exploit this.

So, you know, I can see why they do it, but it's quite bold, isn't it?

And that day, they cover 26 miles in a drive south.

And they come up to the edge of the foot of Mandalay Hill, which is boring the north, which is bordering the north of the city of Mandalay.

And they know that if they take the hill, the city is going to be theirs at some point.

They might still have a fight, but it's all over by the fighting.

And this hill rises a thousand feet above the plain and is topped by a multitude of pagodas.

And it's absolutely stunning.

And it's one of these sort of great scenes of this sort of exotic Far East.

You know, people have written kind of whole books about this and be seduced by this.

People have come to Burma from Europe and seen this incredible scene.

But under the temples are cellars and storage rooms.

And the Japanese hold the entire length of the hill.

And there's also other buildings and structures running up the hill to the top where the pagodas and temples are.

As Rhys and Masters arrive at the front, and they find themselves under constant fire, and the first shell whistles over and lands only 20 feet from Rhys and Masters' Jeep just after they've arrived.

And after dusting themselves off, they hurry to a prostrate man.

But he's a mangled mess of flesh and blood and clearly dead.

So, you know, they're a fighting frontline general and his chief of staff as well.

But it's clear that there's no further advance on Mandalay until Mandalay Hill has been taken.

And Rhys gives the attack to the 98th Brigade and to the Royal Berkshire.

Remember them when they're attacking and they have the guy with the sword jumping onto the tank.

But then the commanding officer of the 4th, 4th Gurkhas, Lieutenant Colonel Hamish Mackay, comes forward and he says, no, sir, you can't let the Royal Berkshire's do it.

We must do it.

Because he's been in the Burma Rifles in the 1930s and knows the place really, really well.

And he reckons he knows a route up and reckons he can do it with his Gurkhas.

And so Rhys goes, splendid, carry on.

But again, it's a sign of growing morale, isn't it?

That people are volunteering to do what, you know, on paper looks like a pretty horrible job.

Yeah.

That night, they take it.

Hamish Mackay, with his fourth, fourth Gurkhas, sees Mandalay Hill, and it means everything laid out before you.

Ain't the palaces of ancient Burmese kings and spacious and beautiful shady trees.

It's obviously been smashed up after three and a half years of war, but there it is, the prize of Mandalay

in 14th Army's grasp.

Yeah.

But the battle isn't over yet.

McTila, fighting continues.

Find out what happens in our next episode.

As Slim's Gambit, will it pay off finally, ladies and gentlemen?

I mean, who knows?

The waiting is almost over.

Thanks, everyone, for listening.

Of course, if you want to get through these without any adverts, then the best way to do that is to go to our Apple Podcast channel, Become Officer Class, or subscribe to our Patreon.

Our perks include live casts every other Monday, pretty much.

Now, we've decided to put a rocket up ourselves about those and much, much more.

Now, of course, the next episode, Jim, can we offer people a hint or are we going to just leave them completely in the dark?

We're going to return to the siege of Mictila, it's going to play out, and then we're going to see what happens after that and wrap up the Burma campaign.

Absolutely, it's still got some twists and turns, of course.

It's just an epic, epic battle.

I mean, basically, we're like the Japanese, we're going to die in a ditch with this one.

We're going to fight to the last man to tell this story.

Cheerio, we'll see you soon.

Cheerio.

Hey, it's Anthony Scaramucci, and I want to tell you about my podcast, Open Book, which just joined the Goal Hanger Network, which we're all very proud of.

In my latest episode, I interviewed Goal Hanger's very own James Holland.

We spoke about World War II and what World War II teaches us about today.

Here's a clip:

Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Well, I think he was a great man.

I think he was a man of vision.

He was a man of enormous geopolitical understanding.

And he was a man who offered possibilities.

When you're in a life and death struggle, you need people that can persuade you.

You need people that can bind you.

You need men of vision, of charisma.

That's the problem with the moment: we haven't got those guys.

I mean, you know, he's flawed, of course.

All the great men are.

But thank goodness for the developed world and the democratic world that he was political leader of Great Britain in 1940 and throughout the whole of World War II.

He literally, in so many different ways, man of the century, I think, because Roosevelt was a charmer.

Roosevelt was a great strategist.

He pulled the Americans through the Depression and helped to manage the war.

But without Churchill holding ground in May and June of 1940, it would have been a much darker, much worse world.

And there would have been not a lot that the Americans could have done without Churchill's steadfastness and his inspiration to his fellow citizens.

If you want to hear the full episode, just search Open Book wherever you get your podcast.

You are not luminous, Watson,

but you are a conductor of light.

Here they are.

Dr.

Mortimer, I presume.

Yes.

Hi, John.

Dr.

John Watson.

Who is your client?

He was my client.

Sir Charles Baskerville.

Keep reading.

Running mute upon his track, such a hound of hell that God forbid should ever be at my heels.

I wish I felt better in my mind about it.

It's an ugly business, Bobs.

An ugly, dangerous business.

And the more I see of it, the less I like it.

I shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street Crossball.

Hello?

Goal Hanger presents.

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