WILD COUNTRY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 198, 31 December 1941, Page 6

WILD COUNTRY

MALAY PENINSULA

SCENE OF PRESENT FIGHTING The Malay Peninsula, south of the Thailand border, into which the Japanese are .driving, is roughly 500 miles long by 200 miles across. It lies from north-west to south-east, and through it runs a backbone of mountains, the tail-end of a great chain strctching from the Himalayas. Rough wild mountains, steep and rugged, forest-clad from base to summit; the peaks from six toi seven thousand feet high; below, a tangle of craggy ridges and deep glens, the home of many wild beasts. A glance at a road map of Malaya shows a fair number of roads on the western side of this range, and hardly any on the east, much the wider of the two sides. Most roads lead directly inland from the coast, ending among the hills. There is no military road through the whole length of the country. The only main road from the Thai frontier to Penang, and on to Singapore, would hardly last for long under heavy military vehicles.

Vast Mili'tary Obstacle The reason for this lay-out oL road is obvious. They run into the cultivated country, rubber estates chiefly, to take the produce to the coast. The various small States have no need for a great connecting highway. And these roads are the only means of moving troops through a country, which might be described In Sir George "Whites' words, speaking of Upper Burma, as "one vast military obstacle." On cither side of the central /ange, the land is clothed with dense tangled tropical forest, rising to the top ol' the hills. Only along the coastal fringe is) there any level ground, and this is mainly mangrove swamp. The greater part of the eastern side is a welter cf steep broken hills, matted with jungle, through which a man must hew his way, except for rare tracks between bush villages, or paths made by wild animals. Even where made roads arc found, ihe soil on either side is> soft and peaty, the accumulated waste vegetation of centuries rotting dovs n under tropical rain and sweltering heat. A tank driven off the road would sink out of sight in such ground. Hill-fighting and bush-fighting are both highly specialised arts, and when you combine the two, you have a formidable problem to face.