Second World War, The

by Corrigan, Gordon

  If Japan was to make use of her control of the airstrips and roads in Siam to attack Burma, then she would do so through Tenasserim, the narrow spit of Lower Burma that runs along the east coast of the Bay of Bengal and peters out at the top of the Kra Isthmus and is bordered to the east by Thailand (then Siam). The first Japanese action against Burma was on 14 December 1941, when an infantry regiment of the Japanese 55 Division captured Victoria Point, on the southernmost tip of Tenasserim, and put the tiny garrison of local troops to flight. Now air reinforcement of Malaya from India was blocked. Then, on 23 December 1941, the Japanese air force raided Rangoon. They did little damage to installations but there were heavy casualties to the civilian population who gathered in the streets to watch rather than taking refuge in the air-raid shelters. As there was not a single anti-aircraft gun in the country, the defence was undertaken by a squadron of RAF Buffaloes and one of the American Volunteer Group’s marginally more useful P-40 fighters that had been lent to Burma by Chiang Kai-shek. The most serious result of the raid, however, was the mass defection of most of the dock labour force, whose Burmese members took refuge in the jungle outside the city, while its Indian members headed for India on foot. A second raid on Christmas Day saw the departure of the remaining dock labourers and the beginning of a mass trek to India by the many Indian workers in southern Burma. These refugees blocked roads and bridges and were a constant source of interference with British military movement.

  Reinforcements for Burma had begun to arrive on 9 January, in the shape of the Indian 17 Division, commanded by Major-General J. G.‘Jackie’ Smyth VC MC. Smyth had won the VC as a subaltern with 15 Sikhs on the Western Front in 1915, and was one of the Indian Army officers brought back to England to command British formations at the beginning of the war (he commanded a British brigade in the Battle of France in 1940) before being posted back to India with the acting rank of major-general. His command of 17 Division was in many ways a poisoned chalice in that it had been raised in July 1941, intended for the Middle East, and was still short of technicians and some heavy weapons. Two of its original brigades had been sent to Malaya in December 1941 and lost, while all of its regular battalions had been severely milked of British and Indian officers, NCOs and sepoys as cadres for the raising of new battalions. Even the Gurkha battalions had each lost 250 British and Gurkha officers and riflemen, whose replacements were just out of the training centres and had never seen a hand grenade, still less used one; there were none for training as the limited stocks had gone to equip battalions going to North Africa. There had been no opportunity for formation training and such unit training that had taken place in between digging defences and humping stores had been for war in the desert, not the jungle.

  The General Officer Commanding Burma, Lieutenant-General Thomas Hutton, who had been appointed in December 1941 having previously been Chief of the General Staff India, decided that the only realistic course of action in the event of a Japanese attack on Burma was to conduct a fighting retreat. His reputation, and his career, suffered for it but, given the paucity of his troops, the few aircraft, the lack of armour and heavy weapons, and the state of training of most units in theatre, his decision was absolutely correct in the circumstances. He ordered Smyth to fall back using the Rivers Salween, Bilin and Sittang to delay the Japanese and cause as much damage to them as possible, but to keep his division intact for the eventual defence of Rangoon. On 11 January 1942 a Japanese battalion crossed the border and captured the town and airstrip of Tavoy, putting to flight the garrison of two companies of 6 Burma Rifles and a volunteer artillery battery whose defence collapsed once the commander, a regular officer of 7 Gurkha Rifles, was killed. With the capture of Tavoy, the third airstrip in the south, Mergui, could not be held and its garrison was withdrawn by sea. The Japanese could now use these three airstrips to support their operations farther north, and a few days later two divisions advanced towards Moulmein, the provincial capital, across the Dawna mountain range from Siam. By now it was quite clear that a major Japanese offensive was under way and 17 Division was spread out over 400 miles, trying to maintain a presence astride the major routes into Burma proper.

  On 18 January the advance guard of the Japanese 55 Division hit two companies of 1/7 Gurkha Rifles of 16 Brigade at Mayawaddi on the frontier with Siam. Contact with them was soon lost – the battalions had only one radio, the rear link to brigade, and companies were reliant on flags and heliograph – and, as the Japanese infantry were probing through the bamboo jungle to find the gaps and the Japanese air force was in complete control of the skies, the brigade was ordered to withdraw to defend Moulmein, the provincial capital. All non-essential stores were to be destroyed, and when one vehicle drove on to the ferry at Kyondo, to cross a tributary of the River Gyaing, and promptly sank it, the vehicles that had not crossed were destroyed as well, still in their desert camouflage. Some of the trucks still had ammunition on board, which blew up when the vehicles were set on fire, causing many a mule to stampede and disappear into the jungle, and one burning vehicle carrying bleaching powder caused a gas alert when it emitted a huge white cloud of vapour. The only bright spot in an otherwise depressing scenario was the arrival of the two cut-off companies of Gurkhas, who had fought their way out on foot and reported with all their weapons and equipment less their vehicles, which they had abandoned.

  On 30 January the Japanese attacked Moulmein, which was defended by a brigade of Burma Rifles with one Indian battalion as stiffening, and, as they fought their way closer and closer to the centre of the town, Smyth ordered the brigadier commanding the defence to withdraw, which at 0800 hours on 31 January he did, using a fleet of river steamers. The last troops, of 12 Frontier Force Regiment, embarked at 1000 hours with the brigade headquarters and, as they steamed across the estuary of the River Salween making for Martaban, the Japanese arrived at the jetty. In the meantime, the RAF were attacking the Japanese headquarters and the airport in Bangkok, using six Blenheim light bombers – the raids did little damage but they were good for British morale – and the bulk of the reserve ammunition and stores in Rangoon were being moved by rail to Mandalay, 400 miles north. Having withdrawn the brigade from Moulmein, Smyth now pulled out of Martaban and tried to hold along the Salween, as ordered by Hutton, but with a frontage of 100 miles he could not possibly cover all the likely crossing points, and, when on 13 February it was obvious that the Japanese were crossing and liable to infiltrate to the rear of his division, he ordered a withdrawal to the next practical obstacle line, the River Bilin. Here he intended to make a stand, and, as far as Commander ABDA was concerned, he should have done so before now. Wavell signalled Hutton: ‘I do not know what considerations caused withdrawal behind Bilin river without further fighting. I have every confidence in judgement and fighting spirit of you and Smyth but… time can often be gained as effectively and less expensively by bold counter-offensive. . .’ That was all well and good, but the numbers, standard of training and mobility of Smyth’s division were simply not such as to allow bold counter-offensives. Fighting at the Bilin was ferocious, as the Japanese tried to cross and 17 Division tried to stop them.The Bilin was hardly an insuperable obstacle; it was easily fordable at numerous points and the defenders were always liable to be turned by a sea landing to their southern, right, flank or through the myriad of jungle tracks to their north. On the night of 17/18 February, elements of the Japanese 215 Regiment forced a crossing in the centre and attacked 8 Burma Rifles; on 18 February the Japanese 143 Regiment crossed the Bilin estuary by boat, landed at Zokali and pressed inland behind 17 Division’s positions. That night it reached Tungale and was being held off by a company of 2/5 Gurkha Rifles. To the north, two battalions of 215 Regiment had crossed the Bilin on 17 February and were in action against the British division’s extreme left-hand battalion, 1/4 Gurkha Rifles.

  By 19 February, Smyth’s men had held the Japanese off for four days and had forced them to slow up and deploy most of their units. The time bought meant t
hat 7 Armoured Brigade, on its way by sea, could land at Rangoon. That formation was equipped with the American Stuart tank – the Honey to the British – armed with a two-pounder gun, a weapon that would have been more useful than it was had there been any high-explosive ammunition for it. Unfortunately, the only rounds available were armour-piercing solid shot, which was fine against Japanese tanks but of no use against infantry. Other assistance was also arriving from China, in the shape of two Chinese armies that would move into the Shan States and the British end of the Burma Road. These latter were somewhat of a mixed blessing: the so-called armies were in fact rather smaller than British divisions, they lacked modern equipment and had no logistic services, being accustomed to living off the country. Although Chiang Kai-shek had agreed that these armies would be under the command of GOC Burma, in practice they would do nothing without the agreement of the Chinese headquarters in Chungking, and any orders to them or to their subordinate units had to be delivered by the commander personally or in writing and signed by him – there was no concept of a staff officer acting for his commander. Equally, by 19 February it was clear to Smyth that, if he did not withdraw at once, he would be most unlikely to be able to withdraw at all, and this view was reinforced when a patrol sent north found a large Japanese force ignoring 17 Division completely and heading west as fast as it could go, presumably intending to cut 17 Division off from the Sittang. Orders went out for a withdrawal and at 2330 hours that night Smyth issued the codeword to implement it.

  The Sittang was, and is, a mighty river – between 1,200 and 1,800 yards wide, fast-flowing and subject to a violent tidal bore. In February 1942 it had one remaining bridge over it, a railway bridge of eleven spans which Smyth had ordered to be decked to allow vehicles to cross. Upstream of the bridge was a ferry, and all boats belonging to locals had been commandeered, paid for and then destroyed to prevent the Japanese using them. If the British were to be able to defend along the Sittang, then they needed that bridge to get west of it. Conversely, if the Japanese wanted Rangoon, then they too needed that bridge as the Sittang was the last major obstacle before the capital. It was unfortunate that at some time on 18 or 19 February the plan for the withdrawal was passed by radio in clear – that is, it was not encoded. The official history is coy about which unit sinned in this way, but it was probably one of the three brigade headquarters as battalions passed the orders verbally. Inevitably the message was intercepted by the Japanese, who sent two battalions round to the north of the British to head for the Sittang bridge. The bridge was guarded by 3 Burma Rifles, whom Smyth knew would not stand if attacked in force, so he sent a company of Second Battalion the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, recently arrived as a reinforcement, to bolster them up. Seventeen Division managed to break contact and withdraw from the Bilin on 20 February. There was a metalled road to within fifteen miles of the Sittang bridge, and a dirt track thereafter. The troops marched along the road with as much of their impedimenta as they could take with them, flank guards moving parallel through the jungle, and vehicles ferrying the marching troops forward. To begin with, the Japanese left them alone – they too had their problems and had far outrun even their meagre resupply chain. Then on 21 February the Japanese air force appeared, bombing and strafing the columns of transport. Vehicles trying to get into cover off the road overturned in drainage ditches, mules panicked and dashed off into the jungle carrying infantry mortars, and the situation was made worse by the arrival of aircraft of the RAF and the AVG whose pilots thought the columns of troops and vehicles were the Japanese and attacked them, causing even more chaos and delaying the withdrawal to the bridge. Late that afternoon, the advance guard of the division, a battalion of Indian infantry and some sappers and miners, got to the bridge to find little had been done to prepare to defend it. The sappers and miners began to prepare the bridge for demolition while the infantry began to site defensive positions on the east bank. The plan was for the division to withdraw over the bridge with one of the brigades acting as rearguard and then for that brigade to withdraw, after which the bridge would be blown.

  By now the Japanese had caught up with the retreating British. That night 17 Division, whose main body was approaching the bridge, received a signal from Rangoon saying that there was a risk of a Japanese coup de main on the bridge using paratroopers – there was no evidence that the Japanese had parachute troops in Burma but they had recently used them in the Netherlands East Indies and that information must have put the wind up the intelligence staff in Rangoon. No paratroopers appeared, but it was now urgent to get the division across the bridge, a task made more difficult when in the early hours of 22 February a vehicle went off the decking of the bridge and jammed in the girders. The blockage was not cleared until 0630 hours, and in the meantime traffic was closing up on the east side. A Japanese attack on the bridge from the north-east at 0830 hours put 3 Burma Rifles to flight and destroyed the river ferry, but a counter-attack by Indian troops restored the perimeter. By now the Japanese were attacking the flanks of the columns, ambushing withdrawing battalions and generally causing chaos. That day the sappers and miners completed preparation for the demolition of the bridge, but there was only sufficient explosive to blow the three central spans. This would produce a gap of 150 yards, which was quite sufficient, but there was also a shortage of fuse and initiator cable, which meant that, instead of the firing point – the location from which the bridge would be blown – being dug in and well back on the west bank, it had to be on the west side of the bridge itself, which meant that, should the Japanese get close enough to shoot at the bridge, the sappers could not guarantee to be able to set off the demolition in daylight.

  During the night of 22/23 February, Brigadier Hugh-Jones, commanding 48 Brigade and the bridgehead commander, became more and more concerned about his ability to hold the bridge under increasing Japanese attack, both by infantry and from the air. The direct route to the bridge was blocked by Japanese troops and the only approach was from the south. As units and bits of units straggled in, it seemed that no unit of the division was intact. He had no communication with either of the other two brigades and only a very poor link with Smyth’s headquarters. Eventually he reported to Smyth that he did not think he could hold the bridge much longer, and certainly not for the following day. Smyth was in an unenviable position. If he blew the bridge now, the bulk of his division would be cut off and destroyed; if he did not blow it and the Japanese captured it, then the road would be open for them to take Rangoon, and his division would still be cut off. Smyth told Hugh-Jones that he had authority to blow as he felt necessary.At 0530 hours on 23 February there was an almighty bang as the bridge went up. As it did so, the bulk of two brigades were still on the east side of the river.

  Every man on the wrong side of the river could not have failed to realize what had happened. Their backs were to the river, if they could fight their way to it, and there was no way across except what they could improvise. Bamboo was cut and brought to the bank, as were empty petrol cans, tree trunks, any piece of equipment that might float. Men were set to building rafts and the first priority was to get the wounded across. Then the strong swimmers set out in small groups but even some of those could not breast the current: some were swept out to sea, many were drowned. The men were at least fortunate in that the Japanese did not press too hard that day and the next – there was little point now that the bridge was gone – and they too had problems in resupplying their troops and caring for their own wounded. The non-swimmers – and there were many, particularly amongst the Gurkhas – either learned to swim very quickly, tried to cross using improvised flotation aids or headed north into the jungle to try to cross the river higher up. Not many made it, and those that did reached the other side barefoot, exhausted and without weapons or indeed anything except what they stood up in. Counting heads on the west bank on 24 February told its own story. When 1/7 Gurkha Rifles left Bilin it was 550 strong – now it mustered 300; the third battalion of the same regiment h
ad been reduced from 600 to 170, and its losses were not the worst. Of the twelve infantry battalions of the division, only eighty officers and 3,404 Other Ranks paraded that evening, and only 1,200 of those still had their personal weapons. The remnants of 17 Division made their way painfully back across rice paddy or along the railway track, for there was no road, to the railhead at Waw, from where they were taken by train to the divisional concentration area at Pegu.

  Inevitably, after such a disaster heads had to roll, although, unlike some belonging to the men taken prisoner by the Japanese, not literally. Major-General Smyth had given the order to blow the bridge and he had to take the blame. That he had always pointed out the deficiencies in the equipment and training of his division compared to the Japanese was forgotten; that he had consistently recommended withdrawal to a position that could be defended properly, rather than having to fight a series of delaying actions, was immaterial; that whatever decision he came to on the night of 22/23 February was probably going to be wrong mattered not a jot; that his division had no opportunity to train together, or to train at all, and that it was very largely composed of recruits led by emergency commissioned officers would have no bearing. He was in command and he must take the rap. Smyth was relieved of command, ostensibly on health grounds, reduced to his substantive rank of brigadier and retired from the army. Ever afterwards, Smyth felt he had been unfairly treated, and so he had been. While he can be criticized for not forcing his division, which was admittedly dog-tired and short of water, to the bridge a day earlier than he did, his command was perfectly competent in the circumstances, but there had to be doubt as to whether any soldier would ever have had confidence in him again: he had blown a bridge when most of his division was on the enemy side and the justification and the factors influencing his decision would have been forgotten. Brave, decent and honourable man that ‘Jackie’ Smyth undoubtedly was, it was right that he was sacked (although a kinder regime might have let him keep his rank and the pension that went with it). He was replaced by his chief of staff, Brigadier (now acting major-general) David ‘Punch’ Cowan, a forty-seven-year-old Sixth Gurkha.