Authors: Jerrard Tickell
A large-
scale operation was planned for the final phase of the battle in Burma prior to the capture of Rangoon. Mandalay had been captured after very stubborn resistance
by the Jap. General Messervy's 4th Corps had pushed South East and, by a lightning thrust, had cut off the Japanese retreat route and captured the vital Meiktila group of airfields. The stage was set for the advance on Rangoon down the Sittang Valley.
The distance to be covered was still very considerable and the chances of getting there before the monsoon broke didn't look promising. It was absolutely essential to take Rangoon before the monsoon because, after that, supply by air transport squadrons would be very much restricted. In short, unless the port of Rangoon could be opened, it would be impossible to keep the armies supplied. A rapid advance was considered feasible but it would not be backed up in any strength. It would obviously be impossible to clear the Japs from the hill country on either side of the road and the advancing Army would be subjected to the threat of ambush. More than that, any force which had moved south to Rangoon might well be cut off completely. Special measures had therefore to be taken to protect the flanks and prevent Jap reinforcements arriving from Siam.
At the request of 14th Army, an airborne operation was planned by Special Operations Executive. It was to be on a very large scale. It was no
t possible to use ordinary airborne units as the only regular airborne troops available had already been earmarked to parachute into Rangoon on D-day. Their job was to capture the coastal batteries covering the entrance to the estuary. The only other regular paratroops were in hard training for the subsequent Singapore operation. It was therefore decided to drop British officers with small parties of troops; mainly Gurkhas and Burmese. They would recruit the villagers from the Shan hills and organise them into fighting units armed with equipment dropped by aircraft. The flanks of the movement on Rangoon would thus be secured by holding the hills on either side of the road and railway.
The operation was divided into three phases. Phase number one was the initial blind dropping of the first parties. The second was the building up of these guer
rillas with more men, weapons and stores. This had to be accomplished during the hours of darkness to maintain secrecy for as long as possible. The third phase was the re-supply by daylight as soon as the secret was out and the Japs knew what was happening. From the R.A.F. point of view, it was highly desirable to start day operations as soon as possible. The country was wild and rugged and night; operations were quite impossible other than by moonlight.
To start the operation off, the area was divided into three sectors, and a dropping zone selected in each from air photographs. On the first night, three part
ies were to be parachuted blind, one into each dropping zone. The aircraft had to be navigated to the exact spot and the men parachuted down into it without any assistance from the ground. Half an hour after the first parties went down, three follow-up aircraft - one to each dropping zone - would parachute more men and stores on to lights laid out by the first people. These second aircraft would be dropping to an organised ground party and they would have a Eureka set on the ground to assist them. That was the plan. This is what happened.
On the first night only one aircraft was successful with its blind drop. It was successfully backed up with the second aircraft. Of the other two dropping zones, one was considered by the captain of the aircraft as being unsuitable. There were too many trees in the area. The third crew failed to find the exact spot and returned to base. Next night the two unsuccessful parties went off again. This time one was dropped on its prescribed place while the other went down to lights arranged by those who had parachuted in the previous ni
ght. The newcomers then marched, or rather made their way, through the jungle to their correct area and found suitable clearings for re-supply. After a shaky start, phase one was a complete success. For the first month, all the re-supply was done at night. It was a hazardous job. The dropping zones were very difficult to get in and out of with the result that crews were forced to drop high -especially the Liberators- and a lot of the precious supplies were lost in the thick jungle. Stores which land away from the pin-point are almost impossible to retrieve and so great accuracy was essential. By the middle of March, the Japs had realised exactly what was going on. The Squadrons switched at once to day operations and the show really started on the grand scale. Everything from ammunition to blood plasma was flown in and all sorts of personnel, including doctors, were dropped. There was great need of them.
In rather more than a month from the start of this operation, a very large guer
rilla army had been built up and this army had a vital effect on the land battle. The Japs had to despatch punitive columns into the hills to deal with these forces, but the more troops they committed to this task, the deeper they got themselves involved. The guerrilla army was expanding daily and the Japs soon found themselves engaged in a major battle. All this was to the east of the Sittang valley. The same sort of thing was going on in the west side of the valley, although on a smaller scale.
This vast and difficult airborne operation made the capture of Rangoon possible with practi
cally no casualties. The follow-up proceeded smoothly in spite of the fact that the road was continually being cut. Although Rangoon was captured in early May, the Sittang battle did not take place until July. It came about when the Japs, bottled up between Prome and the Sittang (in the Pega Yomas), tried to break out of the trap and rejoin their forces on the east bank of the Sittang. Even though Rangoon had fallen to our arms, there was as much fighting still going on in Burma as at any time during the campaign.
After the capture of Rangoon, the army plan was to push on towards Moulmein, provided the Jap resistance was not too strong. This thrust would then join up with a landing from the sea, cutting off Moulmein. The Jap resistance on the Sittang proved to be very to
ugh and the plan was called off. This enforced change in plan had serious consequences. It meant that the guerrillas in the Shan hills would have to remain where they were during the monsoon, whereas it had been thought that the army would press on and that they would be overrun. The Air Force was now faced with a considerable headache. The men in the Shan hills would have to be supplied with food and ammunition when the weather was at its vilest. The job of supplying them was taken over by the Air Transport Supply squadrons and they did their utmost. Many of the men who had been dropped in February and March did not get out until October or November, but they had lived indomitably in fearful conditions. It was possible in some cases to fly people out. There were a few Lysanders for this job, since they were the only aircraft with sufficient range and rate of climb and they did very well. The construction of strips by the exhausted, frequently fever-racked men on the ground, was most difficult. There were practically no areas that were at all suitable.
The unity of Army a
nd Royal Air Force was absolute - each sustained the other. The Royal Air Force made possible the swift arming and training of guerrillas whose effect on the land battle was decisive. All honour to the men of both integrated Services.
In 1943 and early 1944, special operations to Malaya presented a very serious problem. Range of aircraft was the limiting factor. The distance to Penang was about one thousand five hundred miles and to Johore eighteen hundred. Until Liberators became available in 1944, air operations were quite out of the question.
When Singapore fell in February, 1942, the whole labyrinthine intelligence organisation fell with it. Contact was lost with Malaya. It was vital to re-establish a link as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the only way of getting agents into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies in these dark and dangerous days was by submarine. A large number of Europeans who had been left behind in Malaya had evaded capture. They took to the hills and immediately started to form a guerrilla army in conjunction with parties of loyal Chinese. These were the founders of the resistance movement in Malaya. They needed help desperately and help came.
Towards the end of 1942, a small party consisting of an Army captain, an ex-member of the Malay Police and a handful of Malay Chinese set off by submarine from Colombo to try and contact the gue
rrilla army and, if possible, to establish a wireless link with Ceylon. The party were put ashore on the west coast of Malaya. The submarine returned to Colombo and reported that so far everything had gone according to plan.
The ex-policeman turned officer found the Chinese on the Malay coast very helpful. After he had established various contacts, he returned by submarine to Ceylon to report on his reception. A few months later he was back again in Malaya and contact with him was thereafter maintained by meetings between submarines and whatever native craft he could obtain. The Malacca Straits were regularly patrolled by Jap surface vessels and aircraft and these clandestine meetings were in the t
rue cloak-and-dagger tradition. Nevertheless all went well. Up to now wireless communication had proved impracticable and this was the only way by which information could be exchanged.
In August, 1943, this lone wolf was joined by another officer (an ex-Malayan civil servant) who was put ashore in the humid dusk. Together the two of them set out together to find the Headquarters of the gue
rrilla army, reputed to lurk in the mountains of the interior. It was a long search. When they reached the hills of Perak, they found what they sought: a Chinese guerrilla army which had grown up round the original Chinese parties, trained by the British. There was the incredible news that the original British leader was still alive. But there was still no wireless communication with Ceylon and the only way they could maintain contact was by meetings with submarines on pre-arranged dates.
Eyes and ears were everywhere and the Japanese began to tighten up security measures when they realised that subversive activities were starting. In the summer of 1943, three separate attempts were made by the party to reach the submarine. By a combination of bad weather and bad luck, all three were unsuccessful. The Japs had successfully snapped the link between Ceylon and the agents in Malaya. There seemed to be no way of re-establishing it.
After some time had elapsed and nothing had been heard in Ceylon as to the fate of the party. It was decided to try the East coast of Malaya which was less heavily guarded. Again this was done by a perilous submarine journey. A party of British officers and Chinese agents was formed under the leadership of a British Major (a Johore planter) who was confident that he would find friends on the east coast. He was right. The Royal Navy landed seventeen officers and men on the south east corner of the peninsula in November, 1944. This time the party was provided with a new lightweight radio set and contact with Ceylon was established in a few days. The object of the exercise, supply by air, was coming nearer. It was this party who formed the nucleus of the organisation in the South who were later to select dropping zones and receive the material dropped by parachute.
The first air operation took place in December, 1944. A single Liberator, operating from a Calcutta airfield, dropped a small party of Malays led by a British officer by parachute in Nor
thern Malaya. There was a heart-breaking silence that lasted for three weeks. Then, at long last, the Morse sounders began to chatter. The party had trekked through the jungle and found a hideout. They reported that most of the British officers left behind in 1942 had either been killed in battle or had died in the jungle. The deaths of these brave men were soon to be avenged for the gleam of victory was not far distant. Having got the first party successfully into Malaya by air, there were now two parties - one in the North and one in the South. Both were in wireless contact with Ceylon. Both could be reinforced. From December, 1944 to March, 1945, a gradually increasing number of operations took place. At this time Malaya was by no means top priority and we were short of long-range aircraft, but the job built up steadily. Then Rangoon fell and attention shifted to Singapore. The air build-up of the clandestine forces in Malaya increased enormously. As the monsoon approached, it became more and more difficult to operate from the Calcutta area and the majority of the Liberator aircraft moved to Ceylon. Here the weather conditions were much better and, by August, all the coastal Air Force Liberators had been switched to this job. The air effort became majestic. Japanese air opposition was so slight that all sorties, except the very southerly ones in the Singapore area, were coolly done by day. By the time the Japanese handed over their swords, a very large force had been built up, well-armed and well trained.
Thank God, the invasion of Malaya was not necessary.
But had it proved to be necessary, these men would have saved us many lives and much valuable time. While the basic tasks of the underground forces in Europe had been sabotage and the destruction of communications, the job of these jungle fighters was to seize all vital points, such as bridges and trunk roads and prevent demolitions by the Japs which might hold up our advance. They had dug themselves in at strategic points throughout the country mainly on the West coast and in Johore. They were self-contained and well-supplied by air. All they longed for was the Malaya D-day that eventually they were denied. But in spite of the fact that their primary tasks fell through due to the sudden capitulation, they proved extremely valuable in supplying information as to Jap dispositions. More than that, they played a big part in the operations for the rescue of the internees and prisoners, whose agony it must have seemed to them that God had averted His face from for so long.