The Burmese Rump

Crashing south toward Singapore, the Jap had more than the glory of the Mikado to drive him on. He was in a desperate race with time, and if he could not beat the hands of the clock, his push to the strategic hub of the Far East was going to be a historic failure.

For just to the right of his soft rump lay Burma (see map], and Burma was still in British control.

The Jap recognized the danger. He stabbed at Rangoon with his bombers, with the dual purpose of knocking out Allied aircraft and smashing the supply depots for the Burma Road. He missed the Chinese Army's supplies, dissipated his effort. There was a reason: U.S. pilots met him.

On Burma's west coast lies a long chain of flying fields, all the way back to Calcutta and beyond. By this route new planes were coming to be added to Burma's thin complement of bombers and U.S.-made fighters. The Allies raided Bangkok, reported they set great fires. They pounced on Jap airfields, riddling their ground establishments. In one raid near week's end, returning pilots reported they had smashed up 27 Jap planes, mostly bombers, on the ground.

If this kind of slashing could be stepped up, the Japs down the peninsula would have plenty to worry about.

For one of the most vital jobs in the Far Eastern Theater, the Allies got two new, relatively young commanders. Posted to command of Burma was Lieut. General Thomas Jacomb Hutton, a 51-year-old, crop-mustached professional who was wounded three times in World War I, has since got the reputation of being one of the finest strategists in the British Army.

Burma's Air Force also got a new commander: 46-year-old Air Vice Marshal Donald Fasken Stevenson. Onetime commander of a bombing outfit in the United Kingdom, Marshal Stevenson is a field-educated flying man, has battle-trained flying men to command -- not yet nearly enough of them.

But against time and distance Thomas Hutton and Donald Stevenson had to do the best they could with what was available, and look to the west and north for more. Down from China marched troops from Chiang Kai-shek's Army. The defenders of the Far East could only hope that many more reinforcements of men and planes were coming from the west.

If enough should arrive in time, General Hutton might well cut across into Thailand after the Jap. But it was more easily said than done, even with a big force. Thailand and Burma have long been uppity neighbors. Their railroad and highway systems do not mesh, and the border country is mountainous, wild and miasmic in the low places. Yet Germany in Greece and Japan in Malaya have shown that an army with the will and equipment can traverse any kind of country, fighting as it goes. Up-to-snuff military men like General Hutton must have profited from their examples.

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