Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [226]
Yet the visible rewards of the Burma campaign seemed pathetically drab. Slim wrote: “It was always a disappointment613…to enter a town that had been a name on the map and a goal for which men fought and died. There was for the victors none of the thrill of marching through streets which, even if battered, were those of a great, perhaps historic, city—a Paris or a Rome. There were no liberated crowds to greet the troops. Instead, my soldiers walked warily, alert for booby traps and snipers, through a tangle of burnt beams, twisted corrugated iron, with here and there, rising among the squalid ruins, the massive chipped and stained pagodas of a Buddhist temple. A few frightened Burmans, clad in rags, might peer at them and even wave a shy welcome, but at best it was not a very inspiriting welcome, and more than one conquering warrior, regarding the prize of weeks of effort, spat contemptuously.”
Though the men of Fourteenth Army perceived themselves as winning a great victory, American scepticism persisted about almost everything the British did. A U.S. military observer group reported on an action of 23 April 1945: “Again in typical fashion the enemy held the initiative…19 Division seldom knew where the enemy was…the enemy again proved himself able to conceal his movements, and to deny to the British any knowledge of his strength.”
By the end of March, Slim had gained control of Burma’s road and rail net. The orders received by Japanese units became increasingly fanciful, demanding the occupation of positions already irretrievably lost. One day in April, Honda’s army headquarters in a garage on the outskirts of Pyawbwe found itself under fire. Every truck, car and radio was destroyed. The general lay writing his will while the position was defended by three hundred men, of whom a third were medical orderlies and other non-combatants. The Japanese received an unexpected deliverance when British tanks veered away northwards, unaware of the prize at hand. When darkness came, carrying only a cane and a handful of salvaged possessions in a pack, Honda led his survivors on foot towards Yamethin. The general was seen at his best in the days of flight which followed, still dispensing to his exhausted men the brothel jokes for which he was notorious. A few of his units were fortunate enough to possess transport. Maj. Mitsuo Abe described the Japanese 53rd Division’s retreat: “Among the stream of vehicles614, men of all manner of units commingled, many of them wounded. Some had their arms in improvised slings…some were bandaged with towels or strips of shirt. Some had lost eyes, others cried aloud for their mangled limbs to be cut off, others again raved in malarial fever. There were those who pleaded with friends to make their wills, and younger soldiers moaning ‘Mother…mother.’ Some cried out for their commanders as they struggled on, supported by a comrade on each side. It was hell on earth.”
Slim’s purpose was now to drive hard and fast for Rangoon, Burma’s first city, 320 miles south of Meiktila, then turn back and mop up enemy remnants on both sides of the road. The chief impediments to the British advance proved to be logistical—weary men, worn-out tanks and trucks which had travelled almost a thousand miles since the campaign began. On 27 April, Fourteenth Army signalled to Mountbatten: “Leading troops now only 72 miles615 from Rangoon port…spirit of competition of leading troops in race south now intense. Since capture MANDALAY 20 March [Fourteenth] Army troops have advanced 352 miles in 38 days.”
British commanders emphasised the need to minimise losses in this last phase of the campaign, when the outcome was decided: “Men are the most precious thing616 we’ve