HIDE AND SEEK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 3, 11 September 1942, Page 5

HIDE AND SEEK

STEALTHY WAR IN BURMA

PREPARING FOR ATTACK

"A strange hide-and-seek war is going on along the Burma frontier all through the monsoon lull." says a Daily Express correspondent at the headquarters of General Sir Archibald Wavell, Allied Comman-der-in-Cliief in India. "It is the sort of Avar not read about in communiques," the correspondent says, "but it will vitally affect operations when the autumn comes.. Like boxers sparring, the British in Assam and the Japanese in Burma are weighing up each other. "They are concentrating on three kinds of activity—firstly, sending out patrols through the rain-lashed jungles to locate enemy positions; secondly, finding out by air and otherwise the enemy's strength and judging his plans;; and thirdly, consolidating communications. Troops' "Tough Time" "The fresh Imperial troops are having a tough time. The monsoon rains pour down for days, and our patrols, crouching and cursing, put up. with such weather in llimsy bamboo huts. "On patrol and also in training, the troops often wade waist-deep through .swamps, dragging pack mules and keping rifles and ammunition dry. Snakes, mosquitoes and leeches lie behind blades of grass and jungle leaves and suck a marching man's blootl, even through thick wooden soefks. "Fighting methods have been reshaped as a .result of the Burma lessons. Tanks are only a handicap in the jungle, and some mechanised troops are now in bullock carts and use pack mules and police dogs for places impenetrable by motor cycle. "This is a time of problem and preparing, and all hope it will not be long before the British start again on the road to Mandalay."