Tank Tracks to Rangoon (27 page)

The situation demanded, and received, an application of the technique of Indirect Approach. 255 Tank Brigade would carry out a wide flanking movement to the north, and then attack from the east along the line of the railway to Thazi, while 48 Brigade attacked from the north and 63 Brigade maintained pressure from the west.

The battle for Meiktila began on the morning of 28th February. The advance guard of 255 Brigade consisted of A and B Squadrons of the Royal Deccan Horse, commanded respectively by Major D. H. Mudie and Major G. B. Nixon, accompanied by armoured cars from PAVO and 16th Light Cavalry.

B Squadron found themselves held up by an uncrossable
nullah, but A Squadron, which was leading the left flank of the advance, had a clear run and was soon at the main airfield, which was taken at the gallop.

‘As far as I could make out,’ wrote Major Fred Joyner, second-in-command of the PAVO squadron, ‘it was everyone for himself. It was a sight I shall never forget, with everyone joining in, nothing fancy, just a straight line from A to B and get there as quick as you can. Everything joined in, tanks, armoured cars, jeeps, trucks, straight across country against fairly heavy opposition, but it
was
successful—maybe it was the surprise element.’

The Deccan’s impression was that the Japanese had certainly been caught with their trousers down, for the airfield had been heavily prepared for mining, with many large aerial bombs ready to be put in position.

10 The capture of Meiktila

Pressing on, A Squadron stormed across the Thazi road and swung west to their final objective for the day, Point 860, a hill surmounted by a golden pagoda which overlooked the southern lake. Here the Japanese were dug in, and the infantry began to sustain casualties.

Mudie’s squadron were ordered to proceed without the infantry, and was soon duelling with the enemy’s bunkers. Soon a deep nullah was reached, spanned by an iron bridge upon which the Japanese had placed three 40-gallon petrol drums. Finding he had sufficient room to get through, the leading troop leader, Lt I. S. Lamond, crossed safely, although the enemy ignited the barrels at once, and engaged positions in the nullah itself.

Meanwhile, Probyn’s Horse had arrived, with two squadrons, B and C, and had come up on the right of the Deccan squadron and deployed for a regimental attack which had as its objective the canal joining the northern and southern lakes. Very soon the attack stalled as the infantry began to suffer heavily from a strong position in a nullah, and the tanks began a series of suppressive fire tasks. It was now late, and because of the growing darkness and the difficult going, both regiments withdrew and went into harbour near the airfield.

If Meiktila had not been seized by a
coup de main
, at least the day’s operations had succeeded in isolating the town and now the armoured cars were out screening all approaches. One 16th Cavalry patrol under Captain Charles Rennie twice went down the Rangoon road a distance of
twenty-three miles
, ambushing a number of enemy vehicles, and providing vital information. Rennie was awarded an immediate MC, but was killed by a sniper several weeks later.

Round the airfield itself, numerous Japanese were still hanging about, and Colonel Chaudhuri decided to sort them out himself. Manning a car with his adjutant as driver and Lt Hundal as gunner, he set out to eliminate bunkers along the Meiktila–Thazi railway line, accounting for a number of the enemy: if Hundal found his Colonel’s fire orders a little unfamiliar, it was because the latter had commanded his regiment’s machine-gun troop in the days when it was horsed cavalry.

Elsewhere a PAVO patrol had destroyed a Type 95 light tank with 2-pdr. fire, and had captured a 105-mm gun, the crew of which was found sleeping around it.

However, essential as these peripheral operations were, the
burden of capturing Meiktila inevitably fell upon the two Sherman regiments. Dawn on 1st March found both, less one squadron each detached to the infantry brigades, continuing the attack. Patrol activity had disclosed that the enemy had abandoned the positions he had defended throughout the previous afternoon, so A Squadron Deccan Horse was despatched to secure Point 860, which was achieved without a shot being fired. The troops fanned outwards, firing into bunker slits without attracting return fire, and waited for the infantry, accompanied by B Squadron of Probyn’s to arrive and consolidate the position. For an hour A Squadron waited in eerie silence on Point 860, and watched the approach of Probyn’s tanks and 6/7 Rajputs. Suddenly, all hell was let loose on the unfortunate infantry as automatic fire was opened from well concealed bunkers. For the next ten minutes shot and shell criss-crossed the slopes of Point 860 as the thirty tanks hunted down their prey remorselessly, and then all was quiet again. Both squadrons then shot in attack by the Rajputs across the escape channel, Probyn’s following the infantry to engage further enemy positions on Point 799.

The Deccan’s B Squadron had, meanwhile, been fighting its way into Meiktila town from the north-east in support of 48 Brigade. The battle raged throughout the morning, infantry and tanks gaining ground yard by yard, winkling the enemy out of their bunkers. During the afternoon there was a lull in the fighting, and Captain Sheodan Singh noticed three Japanese officers, all wearing their swords, standing in a trench about thirty yards ahead of his tank.

‘Two of them retreated and ran, while the third charged my tank with his sword. While he was trying to climb on the tank from the rear, a Gurkha soldier detailed to guard the tank, bayonetted him rather ineffectively. The Jap and the Gurkha faced each other momentarily, then the former struck the latter with his sword, wounding him slightly, and charged another tank of my troop. A bullet dropped him dead. It was the first sword to be collected by the regiment.’

The tanks went into harbour with 48 Brigade and were jittered during the night by parties of the enemy who had infiltrated back into positions captured during the day.

Probyn’s A Squadron had been similarly engaged in support of 63 Brigade, pushing into the town from the west, capturing
the outlying villages of Kanna and Magyigon, clearing a hospital and gaol area, and killing some 200 Japanese.

The following day A Squadron was detailed to support operations to clear the Kyaukpu area,

which was strongly held and consisted of dense thorn thickets and well built stone buildings containing vehicle pits, foxholes and air raid shelters.

The forming-up point was in the hospital compound, which now contained blazing ruins and was strewn with corpses, the result of the previous day’s battle. The axis given was at an angle to the main road, but visibility on the left was limited to fifty yards by the thorn thickets. On reaching the FUP, the infantry were pinned down by LMG fire.

A Squadron was in support of 7/10th Baluch. The squadron was formed up ‘three-up’ with SHQ behind the left and centre troops. There was some delay through waiting for an air-strike which did not take place. A barrage was then put down by the divisional artillery but appeared to do but little damage.

As soon as the artillery fire died down the tanks advanced, the left troop finding itself unsupported by infantry in thick scrub honeycombed by bunkers. This belt of scrub was forty yards deep and contained a few houses.

As the tanks entered the scrub they came under a hail of small arms fire, and Jemadar Fateh Singh’s tank was assaulted by tank hunters who placed a charge on the track disabling the tank, and hurled petrol bombs onto it. Thus Japs were killed by co-ax fire from another tank (Jemadar Sarup Singh). No 4 Troop Leader’s tank (Lt Bahadur Singh) was similarly attacked, but no damage was sustained.

The tanks continued to blast methodically each bunker which they could see. The left troop and half SHQ advanced slowly through the scrub until it came out on the far side where it killed many Japs who were breaking and running into a nullah. They were killed in the open and in the hedgerows as they withdrew. This troop and half SHQ were then ordered to join the right half-squadron, who had been progressing steadily but slowly, destroying bunkers the whole way. The infantry here were also unable to keep up with the tanks owing to snipers and LMG fire. Several snipers were knocked out of trees by the tanks and one was brought down from a platform forty feet high.

Resistance finally centred in one large red house which contained a deep air-raid shelter. Here the forceful action of the tanks broke the enemy’s morale and they fled from the position, being heavily engaged by No 3 Troop (Risaldar Bhag Singh) on the Kyaukpadaung road as they withdrew into the open. Numbers of the enemy withdrawing down the lakeside were engaged by No 2 Troop of C Squadron from Point 799 (taken the same day) on the opposite side of the lake. A Squadron claimed to have killed at least 300 Japs.

The day’s fighting had left the surviving Japanese pinned in that area of the town on the peninsula that jutted out into the southern lake, bounded on the north by the railway line. It was clear that the garrison were going to fight on to the bitter end, for during the day a number of Japanese had been found in foxholes in the road, a 100-pound aerial bomb between their knees and a brick in one hand ready to strike the detonator the minute a tank passed over. All were found and shot by the infantry before they could cause any damage; strangely, not one detonated his bomb, taking his assailants with him, but then the literal obedience to orders was the essence of the Japanese disciplinary code, and they had been told to kill tanks and not infantry. One Japanese tried a variation on the theme, and emerging from a bunker some thirty yards from Captain Sheodan Singh, trotted towards the tank with his bomb. Sheodan Singh’s gunner needed no urging, and to avoid possibility of error, engaged his target with 75-mm HE!

On 3rd March, therefore, A and C Squadrons Royal Deccan Horse set out with 48 Brigade to eliminate this last pocket of resistance. The fighting from house to house, block to block and street to street was, in the opinion of the Deccan, the hardest in the whole campaign. It was a troop leader’s battle, a composite of many local situations and plans made on the spot between tank troops and the nearest infantry, repeated again and again throughout the day.

The enemy tried every trick in the book to get at the tanks, using grenades, molotov cocktails, and sniping in addition to conventional anti-tank fire. Early in the day, Risaldar Nasib Singh’s tank was knocked out by an anti-tank gun, and caught fire, the crew escaping. The gun could not be located until Nasib Singh arrived on foot at his SHQ and pointed it out. The gun continued in action until heavy fire from ten yards range buried it in the ruins of the house in the foundations of which it was concealed. A further anti-tank gun disguised as a bullock cart was destroyed by Captain A. A. Lumb.

Steadily the Japanese position was eaten away, the infantry frequently getting involved in vicious hand-to-hand fighting amongst the burning ruins. The tanks, too, paid a price, having several vehicles knocked out and losing a number of officers killed.

By early evening it was all over. The 3,500 garrison of Meiktila had died to a man. Only about half had been professional
infantry, but they had taken on the most experienced infantry division in the 14th Army, and had not been deterred by more than 100 modern tanks snarling round their perimeter and biting great bloody chunks out of the defences. They had fought in the spirit of bushido and their only hope was that help would arrive in time to prevent this all important nerve centre falling completely into British hands.

Help was on the way, but it was too little and too late to make any impression at all on the fighting. Units arrived piecemeal in the area, without any co-ordinated plan, and it was not until 10th March that it became obvious that these forces were operating under a central headquarters.

Kimura had been horrified when he heard that Meiktila had fallen, and knew that unless he could retake the town, his chances of maintaining the Mandalay front amounted to nothing. Stripping the Irrawaddy line and calling in troops from all parts of Burma, this counter-attack force converged on Meiktila, separating 17th Division’s links with 7th Division’s bridgehead, and placing the former on the defensive.

As part of the counter-attack force, 14th Tank Regiment had begun a road march into the area, but bungled even this simple operation. With the British and Indian air forces having established complete superiority, the Japanese tanks would have been well advised to move only by night, and practise total concealment by day, as their German friends had long been forced to do in Europe. They were spotted from the air, straffed mercilessly, and two thirds of the regiment’s strength was left burning or wrecked along the roads of central Burma. Only seven Type 97s reached Meiktila, where they did duty as camouflaged pill boxes, changing their positions frequently.

The thought of being surrounded in his turn did not worry General Cowan unduly. His division had been in this situation many times and had come to no lasting harm. His supplies would come in by air, and he was confident that he could hold the Japanese long enough for events elsewhere to alter the whole strategic outlook. He planned a defensive role for his infantry brigades, whilst 255 Tank Brigade would operate daily in offensive sweeps, killing the enemy and destroying his cohesion.