The Road to Mandalay

The Japanese in northern and western Burma were in full retreat last week. Only at Akyab, principal port on the west coast, and around Wanting, on the old Burma Road, were Allied troops in close contact with the retiring foe. To the British, who had been driving on Akyab for two dreary years, the disease-ridden town at the mouth of the Arakan River seemed like something at the end of a rainbow. Now they were within sight of it, and in position to contain it.

On the central sectors progress was uniform. British, Chinese and U.S. columns pushed south on three main routes toward Mandalay and Lashio. To the east, fighting swirled around the alternate north branch of the Burma Road. Jap suicide garrisons were entrenched in Namhkam and Wanting. But Namhkam was bypassed as a column of American-trained, U.S.-equipped Chinese troops crossed the Burma border into Yuennan. Other Chinese, from the opposite direction, were assaulting Wanting, and when this fell, the Ledo-Burma route for a road and pipeline to nourish the armies of China would be opened.

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