The Burma Campaign

by Frank McLynn

  The dispersal of the Northern Group into individual columns was always a risk, but Wingate could hardly have expected disaster as complete as that on the night of 3–4 March. At the very same time as Southern Group was being ambushed and No. 2 Column wiped out, No. 4 Column also walked into an ambush, two miles west of Pinbon. Major R.B. Bromhead, a descendant of the Bromhead famous for the defence against the Zulus at Rorke’s Drift in 1879, did his best but was stymied when panicking Gurkhas stampeded the mules. He gave the order to disperse and regroup at a rendezvous point where they could get help from No. 7 and No. 8 Columns, but while trying to reach the rendezvous, the men were attacked again, and by the time they arrived at the rallying point, 7 and 8 had moved on. With no food or radio, low on ammunition and with just a handful of animals left, Bromhead had no choice but to order a retreat to India.23 And so in just 24 hours, both No. 2 and No. 4 columns were out of the picture and on their way back to Assam. Needless to say, Wingate did not accept this setback as part of the fortunes of war. Since his own credibility and that of LRP in general was at stake, responsibility had to be fastened on the luckless Bromhead. Fortunately the Japanese believed that in wiping out No. 2 Column they had destroyed the entire invasion. Meanwhile Wingate began to have secret doubts about the whole operation. He had seen himself as a knight-errant, delivering Burma from tyranny, but there were two main problems. One was that the Burmese population was apathetic, had no interest in the war and just wanted to be left alone. The pro-British tribes of the north and east were not national but separatist movements; the only national movement was headed by the morally and politically ambivalent Aung San, a man distinguished only by ‘great cleverness and Hitlerite fixity of purpose’.24 In Burma there was no equivalent of Haganah or Haile Selassie’s liberation movement, but only Aung San’s pro-Japanese Burmese Independence Army. Lacking an ideological or emotional focus for his military ambitions, Wingate often seemed detached or half-hearted about the struggle he was engaged in. As has been well said, ‘nothing that he wrote on Burman affairs is comparable with his impassioned and assertive pleadings on behalf of Ethiopia and Israel’.25

  However, the Chindits were about to score a great success, under the aegis of Calvert and Fergusson. By 6 March both their columns were within striking distance of the Wuntho–Indaw railway. Calvert was in his element, sowing disinformation wherever he went, euphoric, manic, fond of lethal practical jokes, with a macabre sense of humour and a hatred of all Japanese.26 He and Fergusson hatched a daring and ingenious plan for an assault on the 800-strong garrison at Pinlebu. Making contact with Major Walter Scott, who was leading No. 8 Column, they agreed that Scott would attack Pinlebu while they supervised a massive supply drop north-east of the town. The idea was that the attackers and the supply collectors could support each other. To this end they set up roadblocks to the north and east of Pinlebu to guard the approaches to the supply drop, while calling in the RAF to bombard the town, making the Japanese think they were facing a huge force. The attack on Pinlebu turned out to be a notable success, which at once confused the Japanese about exactly what was going on and masked a supply drop. The battle itself turned into a grim and bloody affair. On the afternoon of 6 March, Calvert and Fergusson ordered the demolition of the railway line. Calvert’s men reached the tracks after heavy fighting and set the charges. The line was blown up in several places as a fitting birthday present for Calvert, who was 30 that day.27 The Japanese then counterattacked in force to try to stop the demolition. The main battle raged around the outlying village of Nankan. While this was going on, Calvert’s men also mined two railway bridges, one of them a three-span 120-foot monster. No. 3 Column saw the bulk of the fighting. In a bloody night’s work, Calvert and Fergusson’s men killed about one third of the Pinlebu defenders, aided by a lucky mortar shot, and cut the railway line in several places (some say in more than 70 separate locations) without taking significant losses themselves. In the evening, Fergusson’s No. 5 Column blew the 40-foot rail bridge at Bongyaung gorge and also exploded the gorge’s overhanging rock walls, dropping hundreds of tons of rubble on to the railway track. The explosions at Bongyaung railway station lit up the night sky and announced to all of Northern Group that the main LRP mission had been accomplished.28

  Ten miles north of Wuntho, Wingate had established his headquarters in the Bambwe Taung hills. Now he had to make one of the salient decisions of his life: should he retire to India or press on and cross the Irrawaddy? He was faced with the dilemma that so often afflicts commanders, revolutionaries and even thinkers. What happens when the theoretical framework surrounding events collapses and the individual is left without pointers, guidance or rudders? The theory of LRP posited that once the severing of the railway had occurred, the main force of the regular army would invade, but it was obvious this would not happen. Wingate therefore had to invent a refinement or secondary development of his theory. Without being too fanciful, one might compare it with Lenin’s adaptation of classical Marxism to form Marxist-Leninism. In other words, it was time for the theory of LRP Mark Two. But what form should this take? Wingate toyed with the idea of turning his headquarters at Bambwe Taung into a second Fort Hertz; this would allow him to be supplied by air and to sortie at will, forcing the Japanese to give up the Indaw and Irrawaddy towns immediately to the north and south of his operating ambit. There was even the hope that eventually all of northern Burma could be reclaimed.29 But this assumed that everything would continue on an ‘as is’ basis. The Japanese, however, were determined to cut out this cancer in their midst. It may seem extraordinary, especially after the ostentatious early antics of Southern Group, that the Japanese were at first unaware that the Chindits were being systematically resupplied by air, but such appears to be the case. Once they realised they were not dealing with small raiding parties but with something more serious, they strengthened their land forces and commenced a search-and-destroy operation.30 The success of the railway demolition had created its own perils. The Japanese were now present in numbers in the rear of the Chindits, while their strength in the country across the Irrawaddy was unknown. It was conceivable that if Wingate crossed the Irrawaddy, he would deliver the entire brigade to destruction. On the other hand, the same fate might await them if they tried to retreat. Wingate has been much criticised for the decision to press on, but in fairness it must be stressed that there were no easy options. This explains his indecisiveness. After another attack of the dithers, he effectively left the decision to Calvert and Fergusson. They both said they wanted to cross the Irrawaddy and Wingate finally gave them the nod, rationalising his decision on the grounds that the terrain on the other side of the river was better suited to jungle warfare. His decision to go on ‘was the most difficult, the most dangerous, and the most expensive in men of any which he took at any time’.31

  Perhaps his decision was influenced in part by the news that No. 1 Column, the surviving rump of Southern Force, had also blown up a railway bridge, at Kyaikthin, and then crossed the Irrawaddy at Taguang on its own initiative (but with the sanction of the original general order) on 10 March. But with the Japanese on their trail, there was no time to lose. The people of Tigyaing welcomed the British and made boats available for the crossing. Fergusson and No. 5 Column got across by nightfall just before a Japanese column arrived on the west bank to intercept them.32 Learning that the enemy had occupied Tigyaing, Calvert and No. 3 Column crossed five miles downriver, where the western shore is divided into islands stiff with elephant grass. The column was able to approach the river under cover of this tall and thick grass, using an elephant and mahout as guide. But on the shoreline on the morning of 13 March they ran into a serious ambush. Calvert tried to hold the attackers off with the rearguard while the main body crossed to an island in midstream. If the Japanese had pressed their attack, they would have destroyed the whole of No. 3 Column. But, uncertain of British numbers, they probed hesitantly. Sensing how the Japanese commander’s mind was working, Calvert bluffed heavily b
y launching a temporary counterattack with the rearguard, simulating a large force. The Japanese drew off to reconsider, allowing Calvert to get his force across by midnight. To have crossed the mile-wide Irrawaddy while under attack was a major military achievement. The cost was seven men killed and six wounded, who were left on the island with a note from Calvert asking the Japanese commander to treat them according to the code of bushido.33 Wingate and the main body of Northern Force (1,200 men) left Bambwe Taung and came to the confluence of the Irrawaddy and its principal northern tributary, the Shweli, on 17 March. Here the river was so wide that their ropes and dinghies were useless, and the crossing had to be made in boats. The danger was that the approach to the stream was over open paddy fields, where they could easily be spotted. A further problem was that intelligence revealed the far shore was held by units of the Burmese Liberation Army. But when Wingate sent across an envoy to treat with them, the fearless warriors of the BLA promptly decamped. The crossing commenced but once again the mules proved difficult. Forty were left behind, and those that crossed were tethered to boats that were paddled while the animals swam. The crossing began at nightfall on 17 March and was complete by sunset on the 18th.34

  With Calvert and Fergusson well ahead of him, Wingate signalled them to make for the Gokteik viaduct and destroy it, thus severing the Mandalay–Lashio road. This was the structure Alexander had hoped Calvert would destroy in 1942, and now, it seemed, he had another chance.35 Calvert and Fergusson turned south towards Mytison, but shortly afterwards Fergusson was ordered by Wingate to abandon his back-up for Calvert and instead rejoin the rest of the brigade. Calvert, unaware of this order, approached Mytison, concluded it was too strong to take and switched tactics to an ambush. While the RAF pounded the town, Calvert laid a trap along the Nam Mit river. A Japanese patrol walked right into the ambuscade and lost 100 men killed. Calvert reported: ‘We let fly with everything we had and a lot of Japs could never have known what hit them. It was one of the most one-sided actions I have ever fought in.’36 Calvert’s boast that he had not lost a man was, however, sheer vainglory. Perhaps half a dozen Gurkhas died in this action.37 Although his men were now very tired, Calvert was buoyed by the success of an airdrop on 19 March – a 10-ton aerial dump of supplies that was the biggest drop in the entire expedition. Up in the hills he made final preparations for the assault on Gokteik, the glittering prize that had eluded him in 1942 and which he still yearned for. But he was to be disappointed yet again. Suddenly he received an order to return to India; as he was then far to the south of the main body, he would have to achieve this on his own initiative. Bitterly disappointed, he showed his contempt for the orders by carrying out further railway demolition on the retreat. Reading his chief acolyte’s mind, Wingate sent him a further signal to say that he should get out as fast as he could and not attempt any more derringdo. It was now crucial to bring out as many survivors as possible, for ‘we can get new equipment and wireless sets. But it will take twenty-five years to get another man. These men have done their job, their experience is at a premium.’38 No. 3 Column reached the Chindwin on 14 April, crossed it without opposition and were the first out of Burma. This column and Calvert himself were the real success stories of Operation LONGCLOTH. The combination of proper training and Calvert’s natural talent as a leader of irregulars had created a formidable unit.39

  Meanwhile Wingate seems to have entered another ‘down’ period in the bipolar cycle, for many accounts refer to him at this juncture as a luth suspendu – highly strung, irritable, irrational. During the crossing of the Irrawaddy, an officer had reported a snag, and Wingate threw himself on the ground with a cry of exasperated despair. With what his biographer calls ‘one among a hundred evidences of his impersonality at continual variance with his egotism’ he left no record of exactly where he crossed the Irrawaddy. He seems to have concentrated on the negative and discounted the amazing run of luck the Chindits had enjoyed so far – crossing the Chindwin, cutting the railway in 70 different places, crossing the Irrawaddy, all without significant losses – suspecting that, in the words of one of his sergeants, ‘there must be a catch somewhere’.40 Maybe Wingate was actually more perceptive than his many crazed utterances would suggest, for at a deeper level he might have been aware how many bad mistakes he had already made and was continuing to make. At war with the deep, irritable pessimism was a countervailing facile optimism. He was complacent about being able to link up with friendly tribes in the Kachin hills, unaware that between him and them lay a hot, dry belt of waterless forest, criss-crossed by crude motor roads heavily patrolled by the Japanese. He seemed not to realise that after all their exertions, his men were at the limit of their endurance. And he had made the cardinal mistake of in effect funnelling his columns together in a possible death trap. Instead of spreading them over a wide area, he had compressed them within 15 miles of each other in a kind of peninsula surrounded by the Shweli and Irrawaddy rivers, making it easier for the Japanese to find them. The Chindits were now concentrated on the base of this triangle, and as the terrain was mainly paddy fields rather than jungle, they were peculiarly liable to discovery by the enemy.41 A spotter plane did in fact detect No. 5 Column at one stage, and all the Japanese needed to do was man the roads from Mytison to Male and they would have the whole 77 Brigade in a trap. Suddenly aware of his predicament, Wingate ordered his men to break out of the ‘Shweli loop’. It was easier said than done. The men marched slowly because of hunger, thirst and disintegrating boots, and they had to wait for supply drops, which were intermittent and inadequate – to the point where No. 5 Column went 48 hours without food. It became apparent that Wingate’s force was really too large to be supplied by air. The logic of that was that by taking 77 Brigade east of the Irrawaddy, Wingate had made a serious mistake.42

  Back in Imphal, 4 Corps, providing the logistical back-up for the Chindits, were puzzled by Wingate’s plans once he had crossed the Irrawaddy. They signalled to know what his intentions were, and he replied that his destination was the Kachin hills, from where he would strike at the Lashio–Bhamo road. Gently 4 Corps reminded the visionary commander that at such a distance they would be unable to supply him by air. It was suggested that he try instead for an attack on Shwebo, west of the Irrawaddy; the clear implication was that that was where they wanted him. Obstinately Wingate responded that he could not get back across the Irrawaddy as the Japanese had commandeered every boat and barred all access routes. At this, the commander of 4 Corps ordered him to end his operations and withdraw to India.43 This was the trigger for Wingate’s message to Calvert. At the same time he ordered Fergusson to rendezvous with him at Baw, where all columns save Calvert’s would assemble to receive the supply drop that would enable them to attempt the return journey. Fergusson’s column was by now suffering badly. With little water, they sucked the fluid from whatever green bamboo stems they could find. They butchered the mules for meat and then made stews of monkeys, rats, locusts and cockroaches. They were crawling with lice and leeches. Leeches were a particular problem, for when they were pulled off, the leech’s head tended to stay embedded in the skin, creating open, infected, oozing sores. Gazing at his cadaverous men, Fergusson felt impelled to radio Wingate with a bitter Bible verse: ‘I can count all my bones: they stare and gloat over me. (Psalms 22:17).’ It was a mistake to trade quotations with a bible-thumper like Wingate. He flashed back a bowdlerised quote from St John’s Gospel: ‘Consider that it is expedient one man should die for the greater good of all people.’44 But Wingate’s original signal to Fergusson engendered a twofold error. Not only did it draw the columns back into the Shweli loop, but it also indicated overconfidence about the airdrops. The ploy of attacking garrisons with one part of the force while overseeing the aerial drops with the other (allowing mutual support between the sections) had hitherto worked so well that the Chindits had begun to take its efficacy for granted. But at Baw the inevitable happened and things went wrong. Wingate launched his ground attack but the RAF p
ilots, seeing a confused battle going on in the jungle beneath them, flew off after dropping only one third of the needed supplies. Wingate’s reaction to this was to scapegoat a junior officer and reduce him to the ranks.45

  Fergusson finally rendezvoused with Wingate at the Shaukpin Chaung river bed on 25 March and found his leader despondent, arguing that the Japanese commander must now do his utmost to annihilate them in order to save face. Fergusson later nostalgically recalled the final conference of Wingate and his officers as ‘the last reunion of a very happy band of brothers before setting out on the perilous homeward journey, which many of them did not survive’.46 Knowing that the Japanese would contest the passage of the Irrawaddy, Wingate decided to try bluff: he would march back to Inywa and cross at the identical point of the eastward crossing. It would be necessary to kill all remaining animals and make the traverse lightly armed; once across, they should disperse into small groups and try to sabotage more railway installations on their way back to Assam. Fergusson suggested that they would do better to stick together. That way they could keep their beasts and weapons and would be more likely to prevail if they encountered the Japanese, who would be unlikely to be in one place in similar strength. The itinerary would be a roundabout one: crossing the Shweli, then striking north to re-enter India in a huge loop via Bhamo and the Hukawng valley. Wingate vetoed the idea on the grounds that supply drops would be too difficult, particularly after the monsoon. Many officers were secretly stupefied that he had ordered all his units back into the Shweli loop for the rendezvous. Should he not have arranged airdrops south of the loop for No. 3 and No. 5 Columns and ordered them to make their own way back thence to India? Wingate’s supporters said that this option was ruled out when he decided to use the RAF for a classic piece of deception. He arranged for drops to be made south of the loop in hopes of persuading the Japanese that that was where the brigade was, thus buying time. As a further and controversial piece of disinformation, he sent No 1. Column on eastwards to the Kachin hills; he was sending them to their doom to save the rest of the brigade.47