OUT OF BURMA BEFORE MONSOON DELUGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 123, 27 May 1942, Page 7

OUT OF BURMA BEFORE MONSOON DELUGE

BRITISHERS SAVED

Miracle Evacuation Over

Mountains

United Press Association.—Copyright. Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, May 26.

General Sir Harold Alexander, British commander in Burma, has brought the last of his gallant little British army from Burma, says the Daily Mail correspondent in Assam. The escape became a race against the monsoon deluge, which would have made useless the mountain roads which led to safety.

The evacuation from Burma was a miracle, on a smaller scale like the miraculous Dunkirk evacuation. Not until the last weary band of British soldiers was being driven along the last stretch to safety did the rains begin. As these men were covering the last few miles the road was already beginning to crumble and dissolve under the wheels, but they got through. Before the rains began relieving forces from India were brought into position on the mountain line, barring the Japanese on the road to India.

Great Fighting Spirit Some of General Alexander's men from Burma are with this relief army. No greater tribute could be paid to their courage, endurance and tremendous fighting spirit at the end of their long retreat than this, that they are fit to take their place in the fighting army. Their presence will be invaluable because they know the Japanese and his methods.

The New York Times says three reasons largely brought about the Burma disaster. The Australians from the Middle East Wvare sent home instead of into the Burma fighting. Not enough troops were brought in, and planes and anti aii-craft defences were lacking. Armchair strategists should be slow to condemn blunderers acting under such a strain, says the newspaper, but it is right to condemn the policy of withholding unnecessarily the disastrous truth and encouraging false hopes by prematurely cheerful predictions.

British Prisoners Bayoneted Questioned at New Delhi about Japanese atrocities in Burma, General Still well said: "The Japanese behaved with their usual savagery. Prisoners taken from the 17th India Division in one place were tied in houses, which were then burned down. The Japanese in another place carried out bayonet practice on British prisoners until they died. This story is confirmed by a prisoner who escaped." A Royal Air Force spokesman in Xew Delhi says India's air defences are now. vastly different from what they were two months ago. He pointed out that Allied offensive bombing was already on an increasing scale, and mentioned the attacks on Japanese-occupied areas in Burma.

A tribute to the British troops who fought in Burma is paid by Philip Jordan in a recorded dispatch, from Cairo. He said soldiers have never fought better or more bravely in the history of the British Empire, and he doubted if men had ever been asked to endure so much torturing discomfort in battle for so long a time. It was the stand of the British troops in Burma that gave General Waved time to organise his defences in India.

River Craft Destroyed A correspondent on the Burma front states that 700 river craft on the Irrawaddy and Chindwin Rivers have been scuttled to prevent their being used by the Japanese, says the British Official Wireless. Passenger steamers, launches and "flats" had done a fine job carrying Allied wounded, ferrying troops and stores, transporting refugees and acting as assault landing craft for the Burma armies and commandos attacking enemy dumps. The water transport commander said there was no chance of the Japanese replacing the craft they had sunk. They had only about 30 barges and a number of small "flats'* taken from native owners who had not obeyed the order to remove them above Renzada, at the head of the delta. The commander described how law and order disappeared and refugees were butchered by Thakin rebels. He said the Japanese did. nof make a determined attack on shipping, presumably because they wanted to capture the vessels.