OUT OF BURMA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1942, Page 4

OUT OF BURMA

LAST OF ALEXANDER’S MEN BUT SOME JOIN RELIEF ARMY. STANDING READY TO DEFEND INDIA. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, May 26. "General Alexander has brought the last of his- gallant little British army from Burma,” says the Daily Mail’s” correspondent in Assam. “The evacuation from Burma was a’ miracle, on a smaller scale,, like the miraculous Dunkirk' evacuation. J “Not until the last of the weary band of British soldiers were being driven along the last stretch to safety did the rains begin. Before the rains began, relieving forces from India were brought into position on the mountain line, barring the Japanese road to India. 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 a long retreat than this, that they are fit to take their place in a 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. Firstly, the Australians from the Middle East were sent home instead of into the Burma fighting; secondly, not enough Chinese troops were brought in; thirdly, planes and antiaircraft defences were lacking. Arm chair strategists, the paper adds, should be slow to condemn blunderers acting under strain, but it is right to condemn the policy of withholding unnecessarily the disastrous truth and encouraging false hopes by prematurely cheerful predictions.