Tank Tracks to Rangoon (25 page)

At dawn the tanks of B Squadron, under Major W. B. Gordon, began to put down covering fire, including smoke, and commenced crossing on Bailey rafts. By last light, two troops were over, and the remainder of the squadron followed after a quiet night.

During the next few days, 7th Indian Division’s bridgehead extended and consolidated, the tanks being involved daily in numerous actions, fighting at one time to winkle the enemy out of some 900-year-old catacombs, whilst on another Major Gordon acted as FTO from his jeep, under direct enemy fire.

So far, the Japanese had not seen the purpose beyond 7th Division’s almost casual occupation of a piece of ground on the east bank of the river, and they were not certain that this was not a feint to divert their attention from a major thrust elsewhere along the river. To encourage their suspicions, 28th East African Brigade had been sent south along the west bank to create a diversion at Letse, opposite the oil town of Chauk, which seemed a likely objective. The Japanese were determined to put a stop to this before it got started, and crossed the water in such numbers that they outnumbered the East Africans, who fortunately had A Squadron 116 RAC, under Major F. J. R. Moir with them. The deception force, which had had a very rough ride through some unreconnoitred country and which had been supplied with petrol by air-drops, encountered the enemy at a location known as the Springs on 26th February, and received a very warm welcome.

The whole setting for the Springs action was rather like a Hollywood film set [wrote Major Moir]. Everything was set up, including the ridges over-looking the defile on either side, and a rather dusty track leading through the centre. A Squadron got within about 400 yards of the ridge before the Japanese opened fire. Most of the fire was coming from mortars and machine guns, and whilst this did little to stop the advance of the tanks, it certainly grounded the infantry.

I ordered No 3 Troop to skirt the ridge and work round to the rear of the Springs in order to distract Japanese attention from the advancing tanks and infantry. The ruse was a very successful one, as the Japs threw everything they had at the three tanks in their rear and temporarily ignored the advancing troops.

The troop commander, however, did not intend to enter the defile, but accidentally found himself there and decided that the best move for him was to join us. Wise he was, as the Japs had despatched a considerable number of their infantry to the road side, in order to make quite sure that the tanks were separated from their headquarters.

It was as a result of the Japanese coming off the ridges to cut off this troop that they had so many casualties. They were immediately spotted by the rest of A Squadron’s tanks and took a very severe hammering, and there is no doubt that their casualties that day were much higher than the records show.

The interesting thing about this action was that the mortar fire made absolutely no impression whatsoever on the tanks, apart from piercing one or two water containers.

Having cleared the enemy from the forward slopes, the squadron advanced over the crest, where the Japanese infantry counter-attacked with insane fury and attempted to swarm over the tanks, in spite of falling in heaps in front of the chattering machine guns. Two were cleared off the back of one tank by the fire of the askaris of the King’s African Rifles, but more broke through, clambering aboard 2/Lt R. Johnson’s tank. In his frenzy, one shoved a grenade down the 75-mm barrel, but another managed to get his bomb into the turret, where it wounded both Johnson and his operator, and started a fire. Out of control, the vehicle careered into a tree, trapping the driver. As the gunner clambered out, he was shot, but Tpr Gray, the co-driver, held off the Japanese with his revolver whilst Johnson and the operator were carried to safety. Elsewhere, a 3 Troop vehicle had bogged down, and crewmen and askaris were forced to fight off the Japanese at very close quarters before it could be towed out.

It was not part of the plan that the Springs, once captured, should be held, so the deception force withdrew, to return again on 2nd March. This time, the Japanese had taken some trouble to reinforce the position, as Major Moir recounts.

‘The second operation at the Springs was somewhat different. The Japs had brought up some anti-tank guns and they were firing these from quickly dug positions at point blank range. They did cause some damage to the tanks, but none of it was of a serious nature. It was obvious that the Japs had few weapons capable of completely destroying Sherman tanks.’

Two tanks had been disabled by artillery shells bursting on the engine decks, but these were towed in at the conclusion of the operation.

On the 6th, the Springs was attacked yet again, and this time the enemy, whilst inflicting minor damage and casualties, did not await the final assault up the slopes.

The Japanese were now thoroughly fed up with A Squadron, and the following night mounted a raid on their harbour area
at Letse, designed to wipe them out. The raid did not succeed, but, as Major Moir has told the author, it was probably the most frightening of all the squadron’s experiences in Burma, and it was only excellent harbour drill that prevented very serious casualties.

The raid was preceded by a barrage of broken English slogans, and the amount of noise created by the Japanese was deliberately intended to cause confusion and panic. Neither in fact took place, and the troops that night showed that the many months of harbour drill training was paying off. A considerable number of grenades were thrown, and the fact that only one found its mark was entirely due to the fact that the troops kept their heads and kept under cover, using what protection they could from the trenches and the tank hulls.’

Four days later, A Squadron rejoined the Regiment. The deception force had done its job extremely well, for whilst the East Africans had been so heavily engaged with good quality Japanese troops, General Cowan’s 17th Indian Division, with the remainder of 255 Tank Brigade, had on 21st February, broken out of 7th Division’s bridgehead and advanced on Meiktila through country held largely by administrative and line of communication troops. The story of this advance and its consequences forms the next chapter, but for the moment it is necessary to remain with 116 Regiment RAC within 7th Division’s perimeter, for the Japanese had begun to react to the terrible danger they now found themselves in, and were moving in their reserves as fast as they could.

With 17th Division launched safely at Meiktila, General Evans set about enlarging the area of his own divisional bridgehead, attacking first in one place, then another, keeping the Japanese unsettled and unable to predict his true intentions.

Palin was taken on 23rd February, and on the following day 2nd King’s Own Scottish Borderers attacked the village of Nakyo Aing with the support of C Squadron. The village was held by good troops, ‘the best equipped and hardest fighting Japanese in our whole experience’, as the Gordons’ historian puts it, but they were no match for the Scots. The KOSB Commanding Officer planned a converging attack on the village from different directions, with each of his two assaulting companies supported by one troop of Shermans, whilst a third troop moved round the village into a cut-off position.

The action began badly for the Japanese. Forty of them were
caught in the open, preparing to move off, and were cut down before they knew what was happening. Very soon the village itself was blazing from the tanks’ fire, and into the inferno went the Borderers and the Shermans. Amidst the smoke and flames savage, suicidal fighting smashed the enemy’s resistance, and Major Craig, listening to the crescendo of small arms fire, the crump and cough of mortars and grenades, and the deeper bangs of his tanks’ 75s smiled in grim satisfaction at the enthusiastic transmission of one of his troop leaders, Lt H. Baker; ‘We’re having a helluva party here! Bunkers all around us and Japs galore!’

Baker and the other tank commanders were literally on top of the enemy, so close in fact that they were able to run them down when they broke and bolted, Lt W. J. Hendry was recommended for the award of the Military Cross when he dismounted at the height of the action to lift a wounded KOSB officer onto his tank, remaining outside with him until he was able to leave him at the Regimental Aid Post, before returning to the fight. The award was never made, as Hendry was killed on patrol ten days later.

By 26th February the bridgehead was about twenty miles wide, but fresh Japanese forces had begun to close in behind 17th Indian Division’s advance on Meiktila, and 7th Indian Division’s primary objective was now to advance out of the bridgehead and keep clear the rear of the former formation.

3rd March, therefore, found C Squadron breaking loose and advancing quickly to seize Kamye with one company of 4/15th Punjabis. Pressing on, the little force reached the steep sided Sindewa Chaung, only to find the approaches mined. Finding an alternative route, the tanks crossed the chaung and regained the road.

Suddenly, an anti-tank gun opened up at less than thirty yards range from a concealed position, hitting two tanks without causing vital damage. Spotting the flash, Sergeant Cowie quickly destroyed the gun and a covering machine gun.

The next day, two troops from C Squadron and another Punjabi company advanced north-west in the direction of Myingyan, the only incident being the destruction of an enemy field gun which had had the impertinence to open up on Sergeant Stewart at 600 yards.

On the 6th, C Squadron and a company from 1st Burma Rifles advanced on Taungtha, which had been cleared by 17th
Division in their advance, but to which the Japanese had now returned. An attack on an important feature south-east of the town was repulsed the following day, largely because of heavy and accurate Japanese shell fire, so the tanks settled down to several days’ heavyweight sniping at suspected enemy OPs.

On 11th March, Colonel Blackater took C Squadron, plus one troop from A Squadron and a detachment from 1/4th Gurkhas, on a sweep to clear two villages near Taungtha. The tanks were met with heavy fire from a pagoda area, which was overrun, the enemy losing an anti-tank and a field gun, sixty-three dead and three prisoners.

Next day, A and C Squadrons supported an attack by 1/4th Gurkhas on the feature which had been unsuccessfully assaulted on the 7th, and this time the Japanese were overwhelmed, resisting to the last as usual, and throwing rocks when their ammunition was expended. Forty bodies were counted on the hill, and two mortars captured.

On the 16th, B Squadron, which had carried out a number of probes southwards out of the bridgehead, undertook another sweep, but encountered only Jifs, who surrendered after a token resistance. The squadron then returned to 7th Division’s southern flank, where the enemy had crept back into several villages that had been abandoned. Of these, the most important were the twin villages of Milaungbya, which the squadron cleared on 18th March in conjunction with 4/5th Gurkhas, causing the enemy 100 casualties and the loss of five guns.

7th Indian Division’s attention was now focused on the capture of Myingyan, an important road and rail communication centre on the Irrawaddy with its own airstrip and facilities for shipping supplies southwards by river boat. This the Japanese were not prepared to yield easily, and it took a week’s step by step fighting before they could be evicted. Both A and C Squadron were heavily involved, shooting up bunkers and assisting in the capture of the principal strong points such as the cotton mills, the railway station and the jail, where the watch tower had to be shot to pieces and the walls breached before the infantry could break in.

On the 26th March operations began to clear away pockets of Japanese remaining to the north and east of Taungtha, C Squadron overrunning an enemy artillery position ‘with a most commendable display of dash and initiative’, destroying a 105 mm gun and blowing up an ammunition dump.

The following day the squadron captured Magybinde in company with 4/15th Punjabis, and pressed on towards Legyaing, surprising two parties of Japanese whilst they were cooking. On the outskirts of Legyaing the force met A Squadron which had been leading a similar sweep with a Rajput regiment.

At this point the Japanese in the village suddenly came to life, and heavy firing broke out all round, much of it at very close range. Corporal Morrison’s tank ground to a halt with a petrol stoppage and in spite of the close proximity of the enemy, Morrison climbed out and assaulted three Japanese in a bunker with his Sten and grenades. Then, in spite of intense rifle and automatic fire all around, he organized the Bombay Grenadier escort and the nearest Punjabis to provide immediate local protection and to ‘give better than they received’, whilst he and his crew worked to clear the stoppage. For his cool and clearheaded courage Morrison was awarded the Military Medal.

By evening Legyaing remained untaken, and the tanks withdrew to harbour for the night on the outskirts of the village. The following morning the attack was resumed, but the heart had gone out of the enemy, and they broke and fled, leaving seventy dead behind and all their guns, having inflicted trifling casualties.

116 Regiment then withdrew from active operations for a short period of rest and maintenance, before moving up to Meiktila to rejoin its parent brigade. The regiment had been involved in almost continuous fighting for over six weeks, and its performance had reflected a very high state of training and morale. No doubt, too, the men were glad to get into action after waiting so many years for the chance, adding to their natural qualities of dash and aggression for the release of frustrated energy.

In the days of horse cavalry, the measure of a regiment’s efficiency was whether it would ‘go’. If a regiment would ‘go’, it had dash and élan and would complete an attack with great speed and drive. If a regiment lacked ‘go’ it could find itself relegated to protecting lines of communication and providing escorts for convoys. Nothing could be more hurtful to a cavalry officer than to be told that he lacked this essential quality, to the development of which all his training and most of his sports in India, hunting, polo, and pig-sticking, were directed.