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On 16 March, 17th Division signalled insouciantly to Fourteenth Army: “Jap suicide squads dug in605 Meiktila airstrip, temporarily delaying today’s fly-in…clearing north end airfield proceeding merrily situation quickly developing slaughter.” For the Japanese, the battle was a ghastly experience. Gen. Masaki Honda, the eager fisherman now tasked to retake Meiktila, told his commander-in-chief bitterly: “There aren’t twenty serviceable guns left among the two divisions. It’s quite hopeless to go on.” When ordered to hold his ground to enable the remnants of 33rd Army to escape, Honda asked for the order in writing, but said: “My army will keep fighting to the last man.” So it did. Lt. Hayashi Inoue said: “Meiktila was a place606 where almost everyone died. There was nothing we could do. The British were so much stronger. Our anti-tank weapons simply bounced off their armour. We could only entrench ourselves behind the embankments of rice paddies. We were simply in the business of clinging on.”

Ronnie McAllister, like every British Gurkha officer, deeply admired the courage of his little Nepalese soldiers, especially when acting as artillery observers, often three or four hundred yards in front of the infantry positions. Naik Dhanbahadur Limbu of the 3/10th Gurkhas was once manning an observation post, alone in a tree in front of his battalion position, taking muzzle-flash bearings of Japanese guns. He reported by phone that a big enemy attack was developing, and was told to clear out: within five minutes a British barrage would start falling around him. He chose instead to stay put. When a Japanese officer and several men assembled under his tree, Limbu dropped a clutch of grenades on them, killing three and wounding the officer. The Japanese never realised whence their nemesis came. All that night, Limbu calmly reported the enemy’s movements as British salvoes bracketed his tree.

Further north, British and Indian soldiers driving down from the Irrawaddy were awed by their first sighting of Mandalay Hill, surmounted by its temples gleaming gold in the dusty haze. “Here before us607,” wrote John Hill, “was our first real goal at last: a recognisable place on the world’s maps, not just an unknown village or a tangle of jungle.” By 11 March, Fourteenth Army’s daily situation report described “house-to-house608 and pagoda-to-pagoda fighting” taking place in Mandalay city. By the twentieth, the city was largely secured. Maj.-Gen. “Punch” Cowan, commanding 17th Indian Division, learned that among the British dead in its streets was his own son.

Everywhere, the Japanese were cracking. “We just overran them609 and killed them and killed them and killed them,” said Lt. Col. Derek Horsford without sentiment. On 8 April John Sandle led his company of Baluchis to seize an objective named Point 900, west of Pyawbwe. A sepoy was shot as the Baluchis went in. When the defenders crumbled, Randle shouted to take prisoners. His subadar cried in response: “It’s no good, sahib! They won’t listen.” Randle wrote: “They were in a blood lust…baying in high-pitched screams, with their lips drawn back over their teeth which gave them a ghastly wolflike insane grin. I found myself both exhilarated and appalled by this sheer animal lust to kill. In about ten minutes of grenade work, tommy-and bren-gun fire and the bayonet the whole Jap company was wiped out, with no prisoners taken. They put up little resistance, and I only had one other man killed.” This was the only moment of the war at which Randle saw a Japanese officer turn and flee—to be shot for his pains. The bodies of 124 Japanese were dumped in a convenient ditch. Gunner Lt. John Cameron-Hayes said: “We felt it was going to be over611 pretty soon. The Japanese were on the run. Their corpses lay everywhere. They were much less aggressive than in the past.”

For the men of Slim’s army advancing, winning, was a wonderfully rewarding experience after the past years of pain and defeat. “I’m afraid I enjoyed the campaign612,” said Captain Ronnie McAllister afterwards. “It was