Victorious Anticlimax

The Allied campaign in western Burma reached an anticlimax. For more than two miserable, rain-soaked years, British and Indian troops had tried to reach Akyab. malarial island port well down the coast toward Rangoon. Now they looked upon it from Foul Point, across four miles of treacherous water, and steeled themselves for a tough amphibious operation.

Last year Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's Southeast Asia Command had been denied landing craft because of more urgent needs in Europe, but now at last there were enough to permit an assault on Akyab. It was elaborately prepared, with landings scheduled at three points. The assault troops were to be British Commandos and units of the 25th Indian Division, part of the XV Indian Army Corps under Lieut. General Sir Alexander Frank Philip Christison, who studies birds between campaigns.

A gas-engined bird stole this show: Group Captain W. D. David landed an R.A.F. liaison plane at one of Akyab's eight airstrips, found that the Japs had left on New Year's Day. It seemed too good to be true. The assault troops landed as planned; but they found no enemy to assail. Akyab was theirs, with a harbor 20 ft. deep and a system of airfields from which the Eastern Air Command could bomb Rangoon (320 miles to the southeast) in preparation for bigger amphibious moves.

Akyab would be of no direct value in the campaign for Mandalay; it is separated from the Irrawaddy valley by 10,000-ft. mountains. But its capture frees about 50,000 British and Indian troops for the drive on Rangoon and, afterward, Singapore.

Meanwhile the Allied campaign to cut a way through northern Burma to southwest China neared its climax. In midweek. Chinese troops which had driven from the Salween River, in Yunnan Province, captured Wanting, one of the last two Japanese strongpoints on the best road between Myitkyina and Yuennan. The last remaining enemy strongpoint then was Namhkam, already under artillery fire from Lieut. General Daniel I. Sultan's Chinese and U.S. forces working the opposite way, from Bhamo. The gap was narrowed to about 25 road miles. Then the unpredictable Japs lashed back, retook Wanting. They would be pushed out again, but they may have delayed the transit of the first convoy over the new Ledo-Burma Road by another weary weel or two.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.