History of the Second World War (89 page)

The main part of the army strength under General Giffard (Eleventh Army Group) was the newly formed Fourteenth Army, of which General Slim was given command. It comprised Christison’s 15th Corps in Arakan and Scoones’s 4th Corps on the central front, in northern Burma, while having operational control of the Chinese divisions in this theatre of war. The naval strength remained small, but the air strength was increased to some sixty-seven squadrons, of which nineteen were American — an effective total of about 850 aircraft.

It was this large increase of Allied strength, and the obvious offensive move that it portended, which spurred the Japanese to embark on a fresh and preventive offensive, into Assam, when they would otherwise have been content to stay on the defensive and consolidate the area, in Burma, they had conquered early in 1942. Wingate’s first Chindit foray had made them realise that the Chindwin River was not a secure defensive shield. The object of the Japanese offensive was to foil an Allied offensive in the dry season of 1944 by occupying the Imphal plain and controlling the mountain passes from Assam — not to attempt a far-reaching invasion of India, or a ‘march on Delhi’.

The Japanese command system, too, was reorganised during the preparatory period. Under General Kawabe, the top commander in the Burmese theatre, there were three so-called armies (they were barely equivalent to army corps scale) — the 33rd, under General Honda (of two divisions) in the north-east; the 28th, under General Sakurai (of three divisions) on the Arakan front; and the 15th, under General Mutagachi, on the central front, consisting of three divisions and an ‘Indian National Division’ which had only 9,000 men — little more than half the strength of a normal Japanese division.

Mutagachi’s ‘army’ was to carry out the Imphal offensive, after preliminary attacks in Arakan and Yunnan.

Each side had planned a limited offensive in Arakan before a larger thrust on the central front. On the British side, it provided General Slim with an opportunity of trying out new jungle tactics, based on the idea of creating strongholds into which the troops would withdraw, and be maintained by airborne supply, while reserves were brought up to crush the intruding Japanese between them and the strongholds. This technique was a contrast to the previous practice, and habit, of retreating when outflanked.

By the beginning of 1944 Christison’s 15th Corps was gradually advancing southward, in three columns, towards Akyab. But then, early in February, its progress was interrupted when the Japanese launched their planned attack — although with only one of their three divisions in Arakan. Helped by British negligence, they were able to capture Taung Bazar and then, turning south, put the advancing British columns in an awkward situation — until relieved by fresh reinforcements that were flown in. But despite local blunders the value of the new British technique was proved, and the Japanese, running short of food and ammunition, were driven to abandon their counteroffensive, even before the monsoon intervened in June and halted operations.

Wingate’s forces had been quiescent since the first Chindit operation had ended, with a withdrawal, in May 1943. But during the interval their strength had been increased from two brigades to six — largely owing to the way that Wingate’s ideas and arguments had fired Churchill’s imagination, and had come to be regarded favourably by the previously sceptical Chiefs of Staff when he was summoned to attend the Quadrant Conference at Quebec in August 1943. Orde Wingate himself was promoted major-general, and his forces were given an air unit of their own, No. 1 Air Commando — a force much exceeding the scale implied by its official title, being equivalent to eleven squadrons. It was commonly called ‘Cochran’s Circus’ after its young American commander, Philip Cochran.

The later months of 1943 and the early months of 1944 were spent in the specialised training of the newly allotted brigades. Although still called the 3rd Indian Division, as camouflage, the force did not comprise any Indian troops and now amounted to the equivalent of two divisions, the chief new element being provided by the British 70th Division.

Wingate’s ideas, too, had changed and developed — from guerrilla ‘hit-and-run’ tactics to a more concrete and prolonged kind of long-range penetration. His L.R.P. groups were to seize Indaw and the area around it on the Irrawaddy, some 150 miles north of Mandalay — the space between the British 4th Corps and Stilwell’s Chinese forces (two divisions) — and disrupt the Japanese communications by establishing a string of strongholds that would be supplied by air. They were to ‘fight it out’ with the enemy forces, not merely harass them. In essence, the Chindits would become the spearhead, and the 4th Corps the supporting, and mopping-up force. Wingate visualised, and aimed to have eventually, several L.R.P. divisions operating far ahead of the main army.

The operation was launched on the evening of March 5, and had an ominous start when many of the sixty-two gliders used by the initial contingent miscarried or crashed on landing at ‘Broadway’, a spot fifty miles north-east of Indaw, while another chosen site was found to be obstructed by felled tree-trunks and a third soon discarded for various reasons. Nevertheless the construction of an airstrip went ahead at ‘Broadway’ and the bulk of Mike Calvert’s 77th (L.R.P.) Brigade was successfully landed during the next few nights, and was followed by Lentaigne’s 111th (L.R.P.) Brigade. By March 13, some 9,000 men had been put down deep in the enemy’s rear. In addition, Bernard Fergusson’s 16th (L.R.P.) Brigade had set off on an overland march from Assam early in February, and despite the appalling difficulties of the country was approaching Indaw soon after the middle of March.

Although the Japanese had been taken by surprise, they soon managed to assemble an improvised force under General Hayashi, amounting to the equivalent of a division, to deal with this airborne invasion. Part of it arrived at Indaw by March 18, and the bulk of it before the end of March. Moreover the Japanese air force in a counterstroke on the 17th destroyed most of the half dozen Spitfires that were now operating from ‘Broadway’, and after that its air defence depended on fighter patrols flown from the distant airfields around Imphal. Then on March 24 Wingate himself was killed when his plane crashed in the jungle. But even before that tragic accident his over-elaborate yet rather ill-thought out plan was becoming disjointed. On the 26th a direct attack on Indaw by the overland marching 16th (L.R.P.) Brigade, ordered by Wingate, was repulsed by the Japanese in their prepared position, and they also succeeded in countering the threat of the other L.R.P. brigades. Wingate’s development of the concept from guerrilla action into long-range penetration of a more concrete kind had not proved a success, although it is true that he was not given the main force backing-up he had intended.

After Wingate’s death, Lentaigne was appointed to replace him as commander of the Special Force, and early in April he agreed in discussion with Slim and Mountbatten that the Chindits should be moved northward to assist Stilwell’s advance, with the Chinese, as they were not hampering the Japanese thrust to Imphal. Although Stilwell did not welcome their transfer, feeling that they would draw Japanese forces in his direction, they helped his advance to some extent by capturing Mogaung — although even then Stilwell’s Chinese troops failed in the effort to reach the enemy’s key position at Myitkyina. The northward move of the Chindits was made just before a fresh Japanese division arrived on the scene.

The ‘preventive’ Japanese offensive into Assam, to capture Imphal and Kohima, had been launched in the middle of March, by three divisions. Its launch and progress was not affected, contrary to expectation, by the Chindits’ descent into the Irrawaddy valley on its easterly flank and rear — a threat which was too remote to endanger its own northward line of advance and communications.

At the end of January, Scoones had broken off the gradual southward advance of his own 4th Corps, from Imphal, and taken up defensive positions in view of reports and evidence that the Japanese were regrouping and concentrating on the upper reaches of the Chindwin for an offensive of their own towards Imphal. Even so, Scoones’s three divisions were still rather scattered, while the southernmost (the 17th) was by-passed near Tiddim and then found its road of withdrawal to Imphal blocked. The situation looked so precarious that a fourth British division, just back from Arakan, was hastily made ready for an emergency switch by air to Imphal, as well as other reinforcements. The Japanese flanking advance from the Chindwin was also making progress and hustling the withdrawal of the 20th Division. Then the British position at Ukhrul, some thirty miles north-east of (and behind) Imphal, was attacked on March 19 and it became uncomfortably evident that this Japanese deep-flank thrust was aimed at Kohima, sixty miles north of Imphal, on the road back across the mountains into India. The Imphal-Kohima road was actually cut, for a time, on March 29. Two more fresh divisions were then sent forward as a safeguard and stopgap. In sum, Japanese nimbleness and thrustfulness had once again thrown their numerically superior opponents of balance and put them in an awkward plight.

Although the British managed to get back to the Imphal plain, and had there got more than four divisions defensively deployed, Kohima was held by only 1,500 troops (under Colonel Hugh Richards). It was fortunate for the British that the top Japanese commander, General Kawabe, refused permission to General Mutagachi, the local army commander, to push on a force to seize Dimapur, thirty miles beyond Kohima, at the exit from the mountains. Such a coup would have forestalled, and disrupted, any British counteroffensive to relieve Imphal.

In the breathing space thus allowed, Lieutenant-General Montagu Stopford and the leading part of his 33rd Corps was brought forward from India, and on April 2 he was put in charge of the Dimapur-Kohima area, pending the arrival of the bulk of his corps.

The Japanese attack on Kohima (by their 31st Division) began on the night of the 4th, and it quickly seized the dominating heights, so that by the 6th the small garrison was cut off from the brigade that had been sent to reinforce it, while this brigade in turn was cut off from Dimapur by a road-block at Zubza that the Japanese established behind it.

General Slim, however, ordered a general counteroffensive on the 10th. By the 14th a fresh brigade sent forward by Stopford captured the road-block at Zubza, and on the 18th the two relieving brigades broke through to the tiny and exhausted Kohima garrison just as it was making its last stand. In the next phase, they drove the Japanese off the surrounding heights.

Around Imphal, also, there was hard fighting when two of the British divisions there counterattacked — northward to clear the road to Kohima and north-eastward to recapture Ukhrul and threaten the rear of the Japanese division attacking Kohima. The other two British divisions at Imphal were thrusting southward.

Fortunately for the British they now had almost complete command of the air — the Japanese had less than 200 aircraft in the whole of Burma — and were thus able to keep their large force at Imphal supplied by air during these crucial weeks. (They had about 120,000 men at Imphal even after 35,000 wounded, sick and non-combatants had been flown out.)

In May, Stopford’s now reinforced troops cleared the road to Imphal, after driving off the Japanese who were clinging on to their positions around Kohima, and Scoones’s troops came close to cornering the Japanese south of Imphal. But the Japanese could have withdrawn comfortably, and without further loss, if Mutagachi had not insisted on pursuing his offensive efforts long after any prospect of success had passed, and in face of the protests of his executive subordinates. In his furious persistence he sacked all three of his divisional commanders — and was subsequently sacked himself.

During July the British 14th Army under Slim continued its counter-offensive and eventually reached the Chindwin. Its progress was delayed by the advent of the monsoon more than by the resistance of the Japanese — now only an exhausted and hungry remnant.

During their excessively prolonged offensive the Japanese losses had amounted to over 50,000 out of the 84,000 troops they had brought into action. The British, handled more carefully, lost less than 17,000 — out of a larger initial strength, and much larger ultimate strength. In all they had employed six divisions and a number of smaller formations, while benefiting greatly from control of the air, whereas the Japanese had only employed three of their divisions plus a so-called division of Indian Nationalists, low in strength and poor in quality. On the other hand, the Japanese had forfeited their advantage in tactical skill by blind conformity to an unrealistic military tradition — and would pay for such folly still more clearly in the next stage of the war.

PART VII - FULL EBB 1944

CHAPTER 30 - CAPTURE OF ROME AND SECOND CHECK IN ITALY

The Allied situation in Italy at the opening of 1944 was disappointing compared with the high hopes that accompanied the landings there in September 1943. Both the invading armies, the Fifth (United States) and the Eighth (British) had lost heavily and become palpably exhausted by their successive frontal attacks up the leg of the Italian peninsula, on the left and right sides respectively of its shin bone — the Apennine mountain range. Their slow, crawling progress up the length of the peninsula had become all too like the battering-ram process of the Allied armies on the Western Front in the First World War. The great disadvantage at which the Germans had been placed in September by their Italian ally’s simultaneous capitulation and change of sides, coupled with the triple Anglo-American landings — at Reggio, Taranto, and Salerno — had been retrieved by their speedy reaction. Kesselring’s temporarily disjointed and confused forces had met the multiple emergency so well that Hitler was soon able to cancel the initial idea and plan, of abandoning the Italian peninsula and falling back to the north of Italy, in favour of a prolonged defence of the peninsula.