Tank Tracks to Rangoon (13 page)

Donbaik did not fall, and it is probably as well that it did not, for the Japanese were already sweeping in from the east, under a dashing Colonel Tanahashi, and were threatening to isolate the British forces on the coast from the bases. A difficult withdrawal was carried out, and instead of success, the First Arakan campaign brought humiliating failure.

In India, morale slumped, and the Congress Party, anxious to see the end of the British, actively encouraged sabotage and civil disobedience. Indian troops, bombarded with cynical propaganda by opportunist politicians, remained true to their salt, with the exception of Indian prisoners in Japanese hands, many of whom were persuaded by professional traitors to enlist in the so-called Indian National Army. At general headquarters, several officers overreacted to the failure of 146 Regiment at Donbaik, and
gloomily argued that it would be quite impossible to use armour in an offensive role in Burma.
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Meanwhile, the British armoured regiments in India continued with their training, and the Indian Cavalry proceeded with its slow and frequently confusing programme of mechanization. The frustrations of the period can be gauged by the experience of 3rd Carabiniers, an immensely distinguished regiment which traced its origin to the days of King James II, and which had arrived in India as horsed cavalry in 1936.

The regiment had converted to light tanks the following year, but had been forced to hand these in at the end of 1941, and was issued with, of all things, lorries, pending the issue of Stuarts. It was then decided that the Carabiniers would become a medium regiment, but before the first Lees were issued, the lorries were confiscated, and the regiment was left virtually dismounted before a few tracked carriers arrived.

By the end of May 1942 the Carabiniers were actually in possession of a few Lees, but, because of the situation in the Middle East, these were handed in in July, leaving the regiment again dismounted. They were then told in September that their
establishment was to be changed to two squadrons of cruisers and one of mediums, but by this time, as the Regimental History remarks, were ‘unable to display any particular interest’.

In fact, the tanks did arrive as promised, but this was by no means the end of the story. In July 1943, the Lees were withdrawn from the medium squadron, which conformed to the rest of the regiment by drawing Stuarts, but no sooner had this been done than it was decided that the Carabiniers would after all become a medium tank regiment, so all the Stuarts were handed in and Lees drawn in their place. This at last ended this very sorry tale.

In the midst of all this the regiment had been called upon to play the major role in raising a further British armoured regiment in India, to be called 25th Dragoons, and 12 officers and 102 other ranks were despatched to that end.

Coming as they did straight from a regular regiment of the British line, they were not unreservedly delighted to meet their new comrades, almost all of whom arrived as drafts from infantry battalions. Some were obviously good men who had volunteered, others showed a useful mechanical aptitude, and a fair number would settle down in time, but it was all too obvious that in many cases their parent battalions had resorted to the traditional device of unloading on somebody else their problem children, their hard cases, drunkards, no-hopers and stumblebums. Many of the men were due for repatriation to the United Kingdom, and the problem was largely solved by sending home about 200 of them in exchange for a large draft of trained men. Thereafter, 25th Dragoons began to take shape.

In the meantime, Lt-General William Slim, commanding the newly formed 14th Army, was forming plans for a further offensive in the Arakan. When the Japanese had evicted 14th Indian Division earlier in 1943, they had halted their advance along the line Maungdaw/Buthidaung, two towns on either side of the Mayu range, connected by the only metalled all-weather road in the area. This road ran along the track-bed of a disused narrow gauge railway, which, at the summit of the line, ran through two tunnels, and the Japanese had spared no pains in fortifying the position. The capture of this road, together with Maungdaw and Buthidaung, was the primary objective of Slim’s offensive, for without possession of it troops east of the Mayu range could only be supplied with difficulty, along a winding fair weather track that ran through the hills several miles to the north. The route
this track followed was called the Ngakyedauk Pass, but as this placed an unnatural strain on British and Indian vocal equipment, it was referred to generally as Okeydoke. It represented only a temporary solution, and further operations in the Arakan were only envisaged after the capture of the Tunnels road and its termini.

For the task Slim had Lt-General A. F. P. Christison’s 15th Corps, comprising the veteran 5th Indian Division under Major-General H. R. Briggs, with a long list of hard fought actions in Eritrea and the Western Desert to its credit; the comparatively inexperienced 7th Indian Division, under Major-General F. W. Messervy, who had also served in the Desert; two brigades from Major-General C. G. Woolner’s 81st West African Division; and 25th Dragoons, commanded by Lt-Colonel H. R. C. Frink, who would supply armoured support for the Corps’ operations as required.

5th Division would advance down the coast on Maungdaw, whilst 7th Division moved on a parallel axis on the other side of the range, and the West Africans operated well inland, guarding the left flank.

Maungdaw fell on 9th January 1944, but further progress to the south was denied 5th Division by an extremely strong enemy position at Razabil, and 25th Dragoons were called forward.

The regiment was at its forward base area at Reju Khal on the Teknaf Peninsula, and was ferried across the wide Naf River in barges to its final assembly area at Chamba. The move was made in secrecy, as it was not desirable to alert the enemy to the presence of armour, and with a view to preserving the element of surprise, no attack was launched with the tanks until the whole regiment was concentrated.

On 26th January C Squadron, under Major O. C. Home, carried out an attack on a feature known as Tortoise Hill in company with 161 Brigade. A preparatory air strike by Vengeance fighter-bombers went into the target satisfactorily, but a follow-up by Liberator bombers fell short amongst the tanks, damaging three and causing some casualties amongst the crews. The remainder pressed on, plastering the position with 75 and 37-mm fire, destroying bunkers and lacing the feature with machine guns.

The Japanese, however, were canny fighters, and retired to the reverse slopes whenever the British artillery and tanks opened up, only to rush back and hurl showers of grenades at the advancing
4/7th Rajput infantry whenever the fire support lifted. By nightfall the position remained untaken.

The following day C Squadron and the Rajputs tried again, without success, but were now adapting their gunnery techniques to the particular requirements of the battle, firing HE ahead of the infantry with gradual lifts until the target bunker was hit, when a change was made to AP shot. At this point, the infantry’s mortars would open up on the crest and reverse slopes, compelling the enemy to keep their heads tucked in.

On the 28th it was B Squadron’s turn to support the Rajputs, whilst A Squadron worked with 4th Royal West Kents. Casualties were inflicted on the enemy, and several anti-tank guns knocked out, but progress was painfully slow, and the Japanese were now being reinforced faster than they could be killed. The tanks’ movements were inhibited by soft ground and chaungs which ran between banks twenty feet in height, and the battle tailed off to a position of stalemate by the end of the month, although the Dragoons had succeeded in bringing their bunker-busting techniques to a fine art in co-operation with the infantry.

At the beginning of February, 25th Dragoons were ordered to cross the Mayu range by way of the Ngakyedauk Pass, and assist 7th Division in its capture of Buthidaung. However, before proceeding further it is necessary to examine what was happening in the enemy’s camp.

To the Japanese, the Arakan represented a vulnerable flank which they were prepared to defend at all costs; they were, moreover, on the point of mounting a major offensive on the Central front against the British in the Imphal area, and they reasoned that the more troops Slim was forced to divert to the Arakan, the better their chances of success on the Central front would be. Therefore, a counter-offensive in the Arakan, isolating and mauling the two Indian divisions in the old manner could well win them the war in Burma.

They called their offensive
Ha
-
Go
, and its execution was entrusted to General Hanaya, the commander of the formidable 55th Division. Hanaya’s plans called for his main body, under Major-General Sakurai, to infiltrate the gap between 7th Indian and 81st West African Divisions, and capture Taung Bazar, in the rear of the former. Then, a force under Colonel Kubo would cross the range and cut off supplies to 5th Indian Division, whilst another force under the thrusting Tanahashi swung south and
severed the Ngakyedauk Pass. It was Hanaya’s confident hope that both Indian divisions would panic on finding themselves cut off, try to fight their way out, and be destroyed piecemeal. 81st Division, a helpless spectator to the disaster, would withdraw to save itself, and an advance could be made across the frontier to Chittagong, forcing Slim to strip his Central front to retrieve the situation.

It was a bold plan, and it would certainly have worked six months earlier. However, wars are not fought on the ground alone, and General Hanaya probably did not pay too much attention to an air battle on New Year’s Eve 1943 when some newly arrived Spitfires shot down thirteen Japanese bombers and fighters. Until then, the fast, manoeuvrable Zeros had had it all their own way with the few Hurricanes available, and their pilots had become cocky and complacent. The arrival of the Spitfires changed the position radically, and in a second encounter over the Arakan on 14th January, all sense of smug superiority disappeared when sixteen of their fighters were massacred in full view of jubilant British and Indian troops. Since then, the Imperial Japanese Air Force had flown but little over the Arakan, whilst the RAF and USAAF had flown a great deal. This, as we shall see, had a profound effect upon the conduct of subsequent operations.

Late in January air reconnaissance and local subsequent reports from ‘V’ Force (a small group of exceedingly brave officers and men who undertook special operations along the Arakan coast) indicated a build up of Japanese forces in the Arakan. A small party was landed on the coast, and was told by local villagers, who confirmed that a new force was moving up from Akyab. It became clear that the enemy was likely to be reinforced on the Buthidaung side of the range, and might even be going to launch a counter-offensive to bring our operations to a halt. It was therefore vital to get the tanks across the range and onto the Buthidaung plain in time, and General Christison ordered all available sappers to turn the Ngakyedauk trail into a track capable of use by tanks and lorries.

When 25th Dragoons began to move through the Ngakyedauk Pass on 4th February, leaving their reserve tanks and crews with 5th Indian Division as a deception, the Japanese offensive was well under way. Infiltration was taking place on a large scale from the north, and B Squadron spent the next day with 4/8th
Gurkhas in an attempt to stop this. Whilst several of the enemy were killed, the remainder flowed past along the hills, cutting the pass and attacking 7th Division’s headquarters at dawn on the 6th.

The HQ personnel, including clerks and signallers, beat off several attacks until at about 1030 it became obvious that the area could not be held, and orders were given for evacuation. Each man was to make his way to the defensive box maintained by the Division’s administrative troops at Sinzewa, where the headquarters would be re-established. Miles away, operators on the divisional wireless net heard a voice say, ‘Put a pick through that set,’ and then there was silence.

Two squadrons of 25th Dragoons were ordered to patrol the road between the Admin Box and the old divisional HQ, and provided invaluable cover and assistance for the troops now concentrating on the box, towing the heavy 5.5-inch howitzers of 6th Medium Regiment RA out of the glutinuous mud, escorting a mule train, and recovering several vehicles which had been abandoned.

At 1245 General Messervy and several members of his staff arrived at the Dragoons’ RHQ. Messervy was not in contact with any of his sub-units, but the regiment’s radios provided him with an immediate replacement forward control, which was maintained for the next fortnight.
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The following day found the regiment concentrated within the Admin Box, which was almost immediately to become the scene of one of the most ferocious defensive battles in British history. Measuring on 1,500 yards from east to west and half that distance from north to south, the position was overlooked from every direction by hills varying in height from 100 to 200 feet, and was almost cut in two by a feature known as Artillery Hill. Into this space was packed tanks, transport, guns, administrative and tactical headquarters, supply dumps and a hospital, so that every shell fired by the Japanese was almost certain to find a target. Apart from 25th Dragoons and their escort of Bombay
Grenadiers,
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only two companies of West Yorkshires were available as a mobile reserve, and the perimeter was manned by gunners fighting as infantry, and a wide variety of administrative units including a mule company and an officers’ shop. At the outset, few could have imagined that this hotch-potch garrison could be the anvil upon which Britain’s first victory over Japan would be forged.

In fact, for the first few days, morale in the Box was poor, and many regular officers saw an end to their war service. However, Brigadier Evans, who was responsible for the defence of the Box, from which General Messervy continued to run his division, immediately took a tight grip on the situation, and made it clear to everyone that there were only two alternatives—to fight like hell and keep the Japanese out, or capture, with the prospect of being butchered or starved. This left no doubt in anyone’s mind, and the daily competition to establish on which sector the highest total
per capita
of fresh Japanese corpses could be found led to a more positive approach; that this produced exaggerated claims and the sort of indignant argument in which the field bakery
might claim that the officers’ shop personnel were cheating did not worry Evans, who had succeeded in his primary object of turning his mixed bag into a determined and aggressive garrison.