the london gazette - ibiblio · the london gazette of friday, 6th april, 1951 6? registered as a...

$tttnfr. 39196 1965

THIRD SUPPLEMENT TO

The London GazetteOF FRIDAY, 6th APRIL, 1951

6?Registered as a newspaper

THURSDAY, 12 APRIL, 1951

AIR OPERATIONS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA FROM 1st JUNE, 1944,TO THE OCCUPATION OF RANGOON, 2nd MAY, 1945

NOTE.—A set of maps for this despatch is on separate sale at Is. net. This set of maps alsocovers the operations described in the other Air and Army despatches of the Burma Campaignfrom the 16th November, 1943 to 12th September, 1945.

The following despatch was submitted to theSecretary of State for Air on 16th Novem-ber, 1945, by AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIRKEITH PARK, K.C.B., K.B.E., M.C.,D.F.C., Allied Air Commander-in-Chief, AirCommand, South East Asia.

(PART ONE,

FOREWORD.1. This Despatch is a review primarily of air

operations in Burma during the last year be-ginning in June, 1944. During this period afanatical and over-confident enemy has beendriven back from his foothold in India atImphal over 800 miles, which included thecomplete rout of the enemy's field army in theopen plains of Burma and culminated in theoccupation of Rangoon by our forces on 3rdMay, 1945.

2. The primary cause was the defeat of theJapanese Army. This achievement has beenmade possible by air power, which not merelytook an intimate share in the ground attack,but also isolated the enemy's forces in the field.Confronted by overwhelming air power, the•enemy's air forces withered away, and thissame air power helped to undermine thestability of his land forces, so that after theirdecisive defeat at Imphal, although they madea tenacious stand on a number of occasions,they were no match for our well-equipped field

"army—well equipped in large measure by theunstinted effort of air supply to provide theirdaily needs. Though air supply did not andcould not supplant all other means which

themselves involved a great effort to maintain,without it the campaign could not have beensuccessfully fought. Regardless of weather,climate, and distance, the air supply line wasmaintained unhindered by enemy air opposi-tion, which had been driven from the skies.

3. The Burma campaign should make itsmark in the annals of history as a triumph ofair power and air supply and as a feat ofendurance of Allied land forces.

COMMAND.4. In June, 1944, the Allied Air Forces in

South East Asia were under the command ofAir Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, K.C.B.,D.S.O., A.F.C. Upon his relinquishment ofthe appointment on 26th November, temporarycommand was assumed by Air Marshal SirGuy Garrod, K.C.B., O.B.E., M.C., D.F.C.,until my arrival on 23rd February, 1945.

The Position in June, 1944.5. Two events mark the beginning of the

period. The major Japanese offensive againstImphal had been blunted and was in processof being broken by means of air supply on ahitherto unprecedented scale to the forces cutoff from land communications with their base ;and second, the south-west monsoon was reach-ing its full intensity over the operational areas.It remained to be seen whether air forces couldmaterially influence the land battle in weatherwhich had in preceding years prohibited theireffective employment, and whether the enemydefeat in Manipur was to prove the turning-point in South East Asia strategy which would

1966 SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 12 APRIL, 1951

enable the primary tasks of the Command, there-opening of the land route to China and theclearance of Burma, to be accomplished.

6. The dry-weather campaign which wasdrawing to a close had brought few positiveresults. Only in the north-east had any terri-torial gains been made, and here GeneralStilwell's forces had cleared the HukawngValley and were in possession of Myitkyinaairfield. Jn the Fourteenth Army sector,Imphal was still invested, though 33 Corps wasdriving the Japanese from the Kohima-Imphalroad, and 4 Corps was attacking the Japanesein the Imphal plain. In Arakan, althoughone enemy offensive had been frustrated, theJapanese still held the Mayu peninsula and therice port of Akyab. The other British forcesoperating on the offensive were the long-rangepenetration groups of Special Force.

/7. The Air Forces, having just completeda period of intensive operations, were envisag-ing some retrenchment, a " reculer pour mieuxsauter". An extensive programme of re-equipment was in train which would convertnine squadrons of Hurricanes to Thunderbolts,the two Wellington squadrons to Liberators,and four squadrons of Vengeances toMosquitos. The relative sparsity of all-weather airfields in the forward areas entaileda withdrawal of these squadrons to bases inIndia for their conversion, and the monsooncampaign was undertaken with a total of 17squadrons out of the line, re-equipping, restingor training. Having regard to the nature ofmonsoon conditions and of the fighting in pro-gress, the forces remaining in the line wereample, nor indeed could any more be deployed.The net result was that the air component con-ducting tactical operations that culminated onall three sectors in the capture of springboardsfor a dry-weather assault, was a moderate,well-balanced force of experienced squadrons,versed in the ready identification of jungletargets and trained in close co-operation withthe formations whom they were supporting.

Plans for 1944-5 Operations..8. The broad mission of S.E.A.C. was formu-

lated at the Octagon conferences as . . . " thedestruction or expulsion of all Japanese forcesin Burma at the earliest date. Operations toachieve this object must not however prejudicethe security of the existing air supply to China,including the air staging post at Myitkyina andthe opening of overland communications withChina ".

.-9. The plans that were prepared to this endduring the monsoon of 1944 envisaged anelaborate series of airborne assaults that didnot appreciate the reliability and self-sufficiencyof an army supplied unstintingly from the air.Indeed, had it then been suggested thatRangoon could be reached by an army travel-ling overland and supplied largely by air, theproposal would not have received serious con-sideration. The overall strategy can best bejudged from the four main plans which wereformulated during the 1944 monsoon: —

(i) Plan "X" involved an overlandadvance from the Mogaung-Myitkyina areato Katha and Bhamo, co-ordinated with

another advance from Imphal to the Chind-'win and an airborne operation in thevicinity of Wuntho. The furthest penetra-tion that was envisaged was the occupationof territory north of a line stretching betweenKalewa and Lashio.

l(ii) Plan " Y" intended to employ air-borne troops in the seizure of Kalewa, anda second air landing at the point of debouch-ment into the Mandalay plain to exploit theconfusion that would be caused.

((iii) Plan "Z" entailed an airborne(assault in strength with all transport aircraftin the theatre immediately north of Rangoon,to capture the city.

(iv) General Stilwell's plan was for Britishforces to press forward towards Shwebo-Mandalay, while N.C.A.C.* profited by thediversion to occupy Bhamo, whence they.could mount an airborne operation tocapture Lashio.

10. The part that the Air Forces were toplay in these operations was given in an Opera-tional Directive in which the order of prioritieswas interesting, putting as it did close supportand transport operations very low in the scale.In the event, a reorientation of tasks took placewhich gave greater emphasis to the work ofclose support and air supply. The results ofsuch a shift in the centre of gravity to a machinegeared to the classical form of air warfare in-volved changes in organisation, control, supplyand maintenance which are discussed at morelength in the appropriate context.

11. Plans " Y " and " Z " were approved inprinciple by the Chiefs of Staff in July andAugust, and called " Capital" and " Dracula "respectively. Jn point of fact, however, opera-tions in Central Burma progressed morequickly than anticipated. (Continually out-flanked by Allied forces, to whom the mannaof air supply gave an unprecedented degreeof mobility, and continually harried by ourclose support aircraft, the enemy was neverallowed to consolidate the new positions thathe occupied along the line of his retreat. Thusby January, the airborne aspect of " Capital'"had been rendered unnecessary, a fact whichcaused great relief to the Allied Commanders,for it was increasingly evident that the trans-port aircraft to train for and launch the opera-tion, scheduled for mid-February, would bedifficult to find from existing resources.

12. Operation "Dracula" was to be thegreatest airborne operation yet conceived, in-volving a fly-in over a distance of 480 milesby some 900 transport aircraft and 650 gliders.The necessity for retaining these forces inEurope, and their high attrition rate in opera-tions there, precluded their re-deployment inthis theatre as planned, and in October" Dracula" was postponed with the prospectof not being mounted until the winter of1945-46.

13. The emphasis now lay on Central Burmaoperations. An advance to the Monywa-Mandalay area was considered to be thefurthest point that could be reached before the1945 monsoon. Exploitation further southwas not thought to be practicable in view ofthe difficulties of supply. In the event, the

* Northern Combat Area Command.

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 12 APRIL, 1951 1967

advances made exceeded all planned expecta-tions. This can be attributed to the followingmain causes: —

/(i) The magnitude of the Japanese defeattat Imphal, which was not realised until muchlater.

(ii) The virtual elimination of enemy airopposition resulting in complete pre-dominance and liberty of action of ouroffensive and air transport forces.

.(iii) The steady growth of air supply re-ispurces and improvements in their organisa-tion.

(iv) The occupation of Akyab andRamree, which had been decided upon toprovide advanced air supply bases. Thisenabled us to reorient and shorten the supplylines in relation to the advance southwardof Fourteenth Army.J4. By February, 1945, the possibilities of

a more ambitious plan were becoming evident,and Fourteenth Army and 221 Group sub-mitted a plan for vigorous exploitation of thefavourable set of circumstances then obtaining.G.O.C. Fourteenth Army considered that if theenemy elected to stand and fight aroundMandalay, there was every hope of destroyingthe Japanese Army in the open plains ofCentral Burma, thereby opening the route fora swift advance upon Rangoon by highlymobile columns. The plan aimed at encircle-ment of the enemy forces on the MandalayPlain to be completed by air attack on suchlines of communication as remained open tohim. In conjunction with a direct thrust by33 Corps towards Mandalay, 4 Corps were tocarry out a wide encircling movement directedtowards Meiktila which would cut the mainline of communication southwards. Meiktilaitself was to be secured by a small air trans-ported force who would consolidate ourposition athwart this vital route.

15. This bold plan was highly successful,and as a result the Japanese Army in Burmasuffered heavy casualties in a costly and bloodykilling match to which the Air Forces contri-buted in large measure. Notwithstanding itssuccess, the battle of extermination took longerthan had been contemplated, and the time-tablefor the dash to Rangoon by 4 Corps was injeopardy. The prospect of a race against areduced time limit caused considerable anxietyin the mind of C.-in-C. Allied Land Forces,South East Asia (A.L.F.S.E.A.). Jn hisopinion the overland advance by highlymobile forces might not have the necessaryimpetus to overcome opposition en route, to-gether with the final opposition estimated fromthe defenders of Rangoon, reinforced by theremnants of field formations extricated fromCentral Burma. (Upon his urgent recom-mendations, the capture of Rangoon before themonsoon was made more certain by the mount-ing of a modified " Dracula " by sea and air.

16. To carry out this operation, it would benecessary to utilise forces which were ear-marked to seize concurrently with the captureof Rangoon a springboard on the Malay Penin-sula. In the event, this modified " Dracula "proved to have been unnecessary, as thefollowing pages will show. Nevertheless thecapture of Rangoon entailed such a largeexpenditure of effort and resources that plan-ning has had to be conducted since then on

(68741)

the premise that large-scale refitting, re-deployment and marshalling of forces is neces-sary before the next step is undertaken. Theoccupation of Rangoon therefore constitutes amilestone in the history of South East Asia,,marking the end of a well-defined period.

PART Two.

THE OPERATIONAL BACKGROUND,JUNE, 1944—MAY, 1945.

17. When, on 22nd June, 1944, an overlandjunction was effected on the Imphal-Kohimairoad between the garrison of the Imphal plainand the relieving ground forces which had.advanced from the north, a major crisis hadbeen resolved, and our land forces, despite the;monsoon, were able gradually to turn more andmore both tactically and strategically to the;offensive.

18. The Fourteenth Army, with its head-quarters beside those of the Third Tactical.Air Force at Comilla, controlled the Alliedunits on the southern two-thirds of the front.On its coastal section, 15 Corps held the portof Maungdaw and a monsoon line along th&Maungdaw-Buthidaung road; its left flankwas thinly covered by the Lushai Brigade which"operated in guerilla fashion over the desolate;hill country as far north as Haka and the valleyof the Manipur River. In the Imphal Valley,,although 4 Corps had linked up with 33 Corps:advancing from Assam, the Japanese were stillholding tenaciously to their positions amongthe hills east of Palel overlooking the plain;further to the north-east, however, the positionwas more favourable, and elements of 33 Corpswere pressing forward towards Ukhrul.

19. Beyond the operational area of the Four-teenth Army, Special Force, which had been-boldly launched into the heart of enemy held!territory in March, was fighting both theweather and the enemy in the general area ofthe railway corridor east and south-east of LakeIndawgyi. It was controlled by the NorthernCombat Area Command under General Stilwell,and had effected a junction with the Chineseand American forces now investing theJapanese garrison of Myitkyina, where themain airfield had passed into their hands.Further still to the north-east, a Chinese armybased on Yunnan was fighting in the upperSalween valley.

20. The front remained static, dur'ng the-period of the monsoon, only in the coastal area.On the Imphal sector, 33 Corps—which tookover from 4 Corps when the latter was with-drawn from the line for four months—remainedon the offensive. In the course of July the-enemy was finally driven by combined air andground bombardment from his tenac:ously held1

positions, on the perimeter of the Imphal plain,and with the capture of Tamu in early Augustthe Allied forces had re-established a foothold!in the Kabaw Vallev and were ready to pushsouthwards towards Yazagyo and Kalemyo andi!eastwards to the Chindwin.

21. On the right flank, a seres of Japanesedelaying positions on what was euphemisticallycalled the Tiddim Road, was overcome during

A 2


August and September, the " Hurribomber"again proving itself a most effective weapon forclose support in jungle country, as the wreckagealong the Tiddim Road testified. Tiddim itselffell on 18th October, and the way was nowopen for a double thrust towards Kalemyo fromthe west and north. Japanese resistance in theKennedy Peak area, albeit grim, iproved nomatch for the experienced Allied troops and theaccompanying air bombardment, and Kalemyofell on 15th November. With the capture ofKalewa on 2nd December the chapter of moun-tain warfare was closed and the FourteenthArmy was ready to debouch upon the plains ofCentral Burma.

22. Comparable progress had also been madein the Northern Combat Area Command sector,where the enemy garrison at Myitkyina hadbeen reduced early in August In the railwaycorridor, 36 Division, which had replacedSpecial Force, made steady progress; it cap-tured Hopin on 7th September and by 10thDecember had reached the junction at Indaw.A drive southwards from Myitkyina carriedChinese units to Bhamo at approximately thesame time. Thus by the end of the monsoonperiod the forces of the Northern CombatArea Command were in a position seriouslyto threaten the right flank of the enemy ele-ments facing the Fourteenth Army.

23. Before the opening of the campaigning•season proper, a certain number of changesTiad been made in the organisation of the•ground forces facing the Japanese in Burma."Since with the converging advances of boththe Fourteenth Army and the Northern CombatArea Command the opening of a continuousfront in Central Burma seemed probable inthe near future, Lieut.-General Sir Oliver Leese,Bart., K.C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O., was allottedcommand of all the Allied Land Forces inBurma. This Headquarters absorbed that of11 Army Corps, and was set up at Barrack-pore outside Calcutta, while an off-shoot wasmaintained at Kandy. 15 Corps, operating inArakan, was removed from the control ofFourteenth Army and placed directly underhis command—a step which enabled Head-quarters, Fourteenth Army, to move forwardand establish itself beside 221 Group on theImphal plain. With the return of 4 Corpsto the field in early November it thus retainedcommand of two army corps, for 33 Corpsremained in control of the operations develop-ing against Kalemyo. Such was the generalorganisation of the ground forces when thenew campaign fairly opened in November,1944.

24. In the coastal sector, IS Corps had begunthe preliminaries to its offensive at an earlyhour and before the end of October, 81 (WestAfrican) Division, supplied entirely by air,had crossed into the Kaladan valley fromits monsoon quarters at Chiringa and wasbeginning to advance southwards against someopposition. The main offensive was openedwest of the Mayu Hills in mid-December;its purpose was to secure air bases on Akyaband Ramree Islands, from which support couldbe mounted for future operations in southernBurma, and also by driving the Japanese fromthe coastal strip west of the Arakan Yomasto liberate the considerable Allied forces they•had contained there. It met with even less

resistance than had been anticipated. Forwardunits of 15 Corps reached Foul Point beforeChristmas, and an Allied landing on AkyabIsland on 3rd January was unopposed.A further landing on Ramree Islandon the 21st met with only slight opposi-tion. The core of Japanese resistance was,however, met along 'the coastal road fromMyohaung to Taungup, and a number ofamphibious landings which were effected inJanuary and February at various points alongthe coast provoked fierce fighting (whoseissue was beyond doubt due to -the heavy andaccurate air support 'that was given), andgradually the enemy was driven towards thetwo routes leading eastwards from An andTaungup towards the Irrawaddy valley. Withthe capture of Taungup in -the middle of Aprilthe coastal campaign was virtually over.

25. The climax of the main battle in centralBurma was meanwhile not long delayed.During December the Fourteenth Army struckeastwards, and with the occupation of Wunthoby 4 Corps on the 20th, secured its leftflank by laying the basis for a continuousfront with the Northern Combat Area Com-mand. The railhead at Ye-U was occupiedby 33 Corps on New Year's Day, and theJapanese stronghold at Monywa was finallyreduced on the 21st, by when 33 Corps hadreached the general line of the Irrawaddy,on which it was evident -that the enemy hadresolved to make a stand. Bridgeheads hadhowever been secured by 20 Division on theleft bank of the river at Thabeikkyin andSingu, and in the great bend of the Irrawaddythe Japanese stoutly defended the approachesto Sagaing on the right bank. In these twosectors, where the contending forces were notseparated by the river, bitter fighting continuedthroughout the second hah* of January andthe first half of February. To the north-east, the Northern Combat Area Commandforces were moving southwards across theShweli valley and towards Lashio ; Hsenwi wastaken on 19th February, and Namtu on the23rd.

26. While these events were taking place inthe Irrawaddy valley and to the north-east, themain strategy of the campaign was beginningto take shape. 4 Corps was removed fromthe left flank of the Fourteenth Army as soonas the junction with the Northern CombatArea Command was assured, and with twodivisions was given the task of pushing south-wards from Kalemyo along the Gangaw valleytowards Tilin and Pauk. The natural obstacleson this wild route were every bit as great asthose prepared by the enemy, who did notappreciate the threat to his left flank that wasthus being unfolded. His ignorance of thesituation was due to the fact that his recon-naissance aircraft dared not cover the area, andto his tardy realisation of the new mobilityof the Allied armies with which air supplyendowed them. His defences at Gangaw wereoverwhelmed on 10th January after an airbombardment to which the Army paid fulltribute, and by the 27th the forward units of4 Corps had reached Pauk. Early in Februarythey established themselves on the right bankof the Irrawaddy below Pakokku. The stagewas now set for the crowning blow of thecampaign.


27. After a few days' pause, a series of con-certed crossings at various points of the Irra-waddy below Mandalay began on the nightof 12th-13th February. A new bridgehead wasestablished by 33 Corps opposite Myinmu, inthe teeth of determined opposition on the partof the Japanese, who took it to be part of amajor encircling movement against Mandalayin conjunction with the forces in the Singubridgehead to the north. They accordinglythrew in most of their available reserves tocombat it. A feint crossing was made far tothe south, opposite Seikpyu, while the mainthrust was made a little upstream, oppositeMyitche, where 4 Corps was able to establisha foothold against comparatively light opposi-tion from the enemy, who still underestimatedthe threat to his left flank. When this bridge-head had been consolidated, a motorisedbrigade was concentrated behind its lines.

28. On the 23rd, this Brigade moved swiftlyeastwards, reaching the railway at Taungtha thenext day. It then turned south-east along theline towards the junction of Meiktila, a nodalcentre in the communications of central Burma,in the neighbourhood of which there were alsoseveral good airfields. The enemy was com-pletely taken aback by this thrust into his rearareas, and although his line of communicationtroops fought hard, they were unable to domore than delay slightly our advance. By theafternoon of 3rd March, the garrison ofMeiktila had been annihilated and 4 Corps hadthus placed a brigade, which pur air transportspeedily built up into a division, squarelyathwart the main enemy line of communicationfrom his base at Rangoon to the fighting zone.

29. It was in March that the battle whichwas to decide the fate of most of Burma northof the Gulf of Martaban was fought. TheJapanese reacted speedily to the major strategicthrust whose significance they had grasped toolate, and hastily moved southwards all theiravailable forces, in an effort, first, to breakour stranglehold on their communications, and,when this failed, to withdraw to safety as manyas they could of their troops in the Mandalay-Meiktila noose. Mandalay itself fell to ourtroops advancing from the north by the middleof the month.

30. Meanwhile the whole area Mandalay-Myingyan-Meiktila had been transformed intoa vast battlefield, in which the FourteenthArmy and No. 221 Group attacked from threedirections the disorganized forces of theenemy, whose casualties were heavy. A num-ber of scattered units made their escape, butby the beginning of April it might fairly beestimated that Japanese military power inBurma had been shattered. In the NorthernCombat Area Command sector, the course ofevents in central Burma had helped to quickenthe pace of the Japanese withdrawal; Lashiowas captured by a Chinese division on 8thMarch, and the enemy soon broke contact,retreating southwards into the Shan States.

31. The Fourteenth Army resumed its large-scale offensive on 12th April, after a shortperiod for regrouping its forces. 4 Corps,supplied by air, struck along the mainMandalay-Rangoon axis; by the end of themonth it had covered some 250 miles and hadreached the outskirts of Pegu, less than 50miles from Rangoon, which the Japanese were

known to have evacuated two or ihree days;earlier. 33 Corps had moved south-west toMagwe, which was captured on the 18th, andthence advanced down the Irrawaddy valley;its forward elements reached the railhead atProme on 1st May. Nowhere was the enemyable to bar the advance by a frontal stand.Such were the circumstances when the com-bined operation for the capture of Rangoonfrom the south was put into execution at theexpress wish of C.-in-C. A.L.F.S.E.A.

32. As 'already explained, Operation"Dracula" met with little or no opposition.It was a copy-book operation, and the troopsadvancing into the city from the south partookmore of the nature of a triumphal processionthan an assault force. They were met by thecommanding officer of No. 110 SquadronR.A.F., Wing Commander Saunders, who onthe previous day, perceiving no signs of theenemy at Mingaladon airfield, had decided toland and reconnoitre the city. He took formalpossession of Rangoon on behalf of the Alliedforces. It was fitting.that the vital part theAir Forces had played in the campaign shouldbe symbolically rounded off by the occupationof Rangoon by the Royal Air Force.

PART THREE.

ALLIED AIR DOMINANCE.33. Until October, 1944, when the enemy

began to withdraw aircraft from this theatreto reinforce his garrison in the Philippines, theoverall strength of the Japanese Air Force inthis theatre remained at some 450 aircraft inoperational units. Normally about 150 air-craft, 70 per cent, of which were fighters, weredisposed in Burma and Thailand for imme-diate use. The majority of the remainder wereretained in Malaya and Sumatra, and com-prised bombers and floatplanes for shippingescorts and anti-submarine duties, fighters forthe defence of the Sumatra oilfields, andoperational echelons refitting or training. WithGeneral MacArthur's invasion of the Philip-pines, when up to 100 aircraft left S.E.A.C.,a steady decline in strength set in, aggravatedby the constant attrition caused by our fighters,for which full replacement was not forth-coming, until in May, 1945, the enemy couldmuster but 250 aircraft in the S.E.A.C. area,of which over 100, stationed in Malaya andSumatra, were for most purposes ineffectiveby reason of their distance from the battleareas.

34. Following the sharp lessons he receivedbetween March and May, 1944, the enemy'swarning system became somewhat lessembryonic, so that it was difficult to achievecomplete surprise in any part of the theatre.By listening to Allied W/T and R/T, and bysupplementing a skimpy radar system withobservation posts and sound locators, a com-prehensive albeit somewhat thin warning-system had been established around the wholeof the Western Perimeter, and it was only aquestion of time before growing technical pro-ficiency rendered the task of Allied aircraft insearch of all too rare targets, even moredifficult.


35. By comparison, the strength and com-position of the Allied fighter force was mostsatisfactory. Spitfires, Lightnings, and latterlyThunderbolts and Mustangs, completely trans-formed the situation which had obtained untilNovember, 1943, when our Hurricanes wereoutclassed and out-manoeuvred by the enemy.Backed by a warning and control system ofhigh standard, Allied fighters had without failrendered the enemy's incursions into our de-fended areas costly and ineffectual. During theeleven months covered iby this despatch 165enemy aircraft were destroyed on the groundor in the air, together with 47 probables and152 damaged. This destruction was achievedagainst a total enemy effort, offensive anddefensive, of 1,845 sorties. One enemy air-craft was destroyed for every eleven sighted;that the air superiority established before theperiod of this narrative was well maintainedover the year, needs no further proof.

36. This virtual dominance of the air overBurma was the result of hard work with smalldividends upon the part of our fighter organ-isation. Freed from the necessity of estab-lishing superiority, the major problems remain-ing to Allied fighters by the time this despatchopens were the interception of sneak raids,usually undertaken by the Japanese Air Forceunder the protection of cloud-cover, and thesearching-out and destruction of a meagreenemy air force dispersed upon a generous net-work of rear airfields. Initially, the greatestdanger was to the stream of transports haulingsupplies to the Imphal Plain, which offered thebest prey ever presented to any air force.Some one hundred unarmed aircraft flew dailyin and out of the area, and fighter patrolslaboured under the handicaps of extensive cloudconditions and a shortage of P.O.L.* at theirbases.

37. Moreover, the mountainous terrain to theeast precluded efficient early ak raid warning,and the enemy could at will come un-announced through the valleys. To minimisethe danger, traffic was routed along a corridorfrom the Khopum Valley to Palel under afighter umbrella. Ground signs were displayeden route to indicate the presence of enemyaircraft which was also broadcast by R/T.The sight of a stream of transports flying intothe Imphal Valley with a screen of Spitfirescircling overhead was a most heartening sightto the garrison, who thereby received con-stant assurance that their aerial life-line wasunbroken. The precautions taken and the im-potence of the enemy resulted in only twotransports being destroyed by enemy actionduring the whole of the siege, a remarkableachievement.

38. The danger to transport aircraft per-sisted during the whole of the advance, sincethey were continually operating in front of thewarning screen, and fighter bases were notalways established as far forward as was tac-tically desirable. For this there were two mainreasons; in the early stages of the advancethrough hilly jungle no airstrips could be con-structed near the front, and" second, havingdebouched on to the plains, the Army were notwilling .to devote supplies and resources to

* Petrol, Oil, Lubricants.

establish fighter bases in the area of droppingoperations.

39. On two occasions, therefore, our trans-port aircraft were victims of enemy sneakraids ; on one day in November while droppingalong the Tiddim Road, five aircraft were de-stroyed by the enemy, and on the 12th Janu-ary four were shot down while supply droppingnear Onbauk, an airfield recently recapturedfrom the enemy which, however, had not bythat time been prepared for defensive fighters.Even when during the temporary halt aroundMandalay, and Spitfires were able to occupythe Shwebo and Monywa airfield groups, airsupply was proceeding over a hundred andthirty 'mile front which the four availablesquadrons of Spitfires were hard pressed tocover in conjunction with their other defensivecommitments. It is a lesson of the campaignthat the air supply of ground forces dependson the immediate deployment as far forwardas possible of fighter squadrons to patrol theLines of Communication. Had the enemy usedhis fighters effectively instead of frittering awaytheir effort on infrequent low-level attadksagainst forward troops, he would have beenable to do great execution among our Dakotasand Commandos, thus seriously impeding theadvance.

40. Since it was not always possible to engagethe enemy in the air, it was necessary to searchout his aircraft on the ground. To this end,intruder raids were undertaken at frequentintervals, and paid a dividend of 80 destroyed,25 probably destroyed and 78 damaged aircrafton enemy airfields. In October, a series ofraids were undertaken against the Rangoonairfields with the additional motive of hinder-ing the 'transfer of units to the Philippines.In this operation, many types of aircraft wereemployed, including Beaufighters, but, as air-craft resources became more suited to opera-tional requirements, intrusion was progressivelyleft to the Mustang squadrons of the AirCommandos, who on more than one occasionin the spring of 1945, made the 1,500 mileround trip to the Japanese base airfields inSiam with good results totalling 38 destroyed,10 probably destroyed and 21 damaged aircraft.

41. The problem of destroying an enemyintent on conserving his forces and possessinga wide choice of airfields containing manyrevetments (Meiktila airfield disposes of overa hundred) is not an easy one. In addition,the enemy's skill with light anti-aircraft andmachine-gun fire is well-known, and low-level" strafing " runs are apt to be costly. It wasfound uneconomical to make a preliminaryreconnaissance run to discover which revet-ments were occupied, and often only a quicksnap-shot at a target seen late hi the " strafe "was possible. In view of these factors it willbe seen that the result achieved is more thancreditable.

42. Early attempts to ground or destroy theenemy by bombing his airfields were ineffectiveand were discontinued in favour of more worth-while targets.

* * * *43. The enemy's offensive effort was so

ineffectual as to be hardly worth mentioningexcept to recount the losses he sustained. In


late September the Japanese Air Force begana series of reconnaissances with disastrousresults. Cover was attempted of the ManipurRoad, Silchar, Chittagong and battle areas.Four Dinahs were destroyed during this briefspell and since then no reconnaissance overthe India border has been attempted. OnChristmas night three bombers attempted topenetrate to the Calcutta area; of these, twowere destroyed by Beaufighters and the thirdreturned in a damaged condition. Enemyattempts to interfere with shipping off Akyabin January were decisively dealt with by theSpitfire squadrons who moved in five daysafter its occupation, No. 67 Squadron destroy-ing five out of six attacking Oscars in oneday.

44. Thereafter, the enemy effort degeneratedinto a series of sporadic and infrequent attemptsto disrupt our forward columns. Theineffectual nature of these attacks was evidentto all who flew over the battlefield and noted,on the enemy side no signs of 'activity, but,behind the British lines, long lines of trans-port moving in uncamouflaged safety, supply-dropping parachutes in use as tents, and allthe apparatus of war left in full view bytroops whose immunity from air attack wasscarcely ever violated even by fast-flyingfighters, for the enemy dared not send abomber over the Allied lines by daylight.

45. It is unnecessary to recount in detailthe enormous advantages accruing to bothground and air forces when the enemy airarm is small and misemployed, and when ourown squadrons are superior in performance,training and control. It is, however, worthpausing to consider the results had enemy air-craft been allowed unrestricted use of the sky.The air supply on which the whole land cam-paign hinged would have been impossible, theattrition rate of our close support squadrons,which worked with accuracy and effect, wouldhave been prohibitive, and the disuption causedby our strategic bombers to the enemy's com-munications far to the rear could not havebeen such as to have materially influencedthe battle.

PART FOUR.

TRANSPORT SUPPORT OPERATIONSAND DEVELOPMENT.

46. The Burma campaign has proved beyondall doubt that once air superiority has beenachieved, the air maintenance and supply offorces in the field is governed primarily by theavailability of airfields and of transport air-craft. The supply and maintenance of theArmy, in the field .and engaged in intensiveoperations together with a tactical air force insupport, is a major problem under most favour-able conditions. It should be borne in mind,however, that supply bases were some 250 milesdistant, and that the intervening country com-prised vast stretches of impenetrable jungle anda formidable mountain barrier rising up to10,000 feet. In addition, weather conditionswere by no means favourable, and experiencebas shown that monsoon cloud develops a

degree of turbulence which has been theof a number of fatal accidents.

47. Despite these many difficulties, the successof the -air supply operations in the Burmacampaign has been fully testified. It is fair tosay that without air supply the Burma campaigncould never have been fought on its presentlines. It was in fact a decisive factor of theland campaign. ^Admittedly mistakes occurred,sometimes due to miscalculation but more oftendue to unforeseen contingencies. Even so theair supply operations in Burma will probablyrank as one of the greatest, if not the greatest,of air supply achievements in this war.

48. The organisation and operation of airsupply is a problem which calls for mutualunderstanding of each other's difficulties by therespective Services. In this respect it cannotbe too strongly emphasised that it is the opera-tors and not the consumers who determine themost efficient method of delivering the goods.Moreover, it is up to the consumers to stateprecisely what is required, in a given order ofpriority. It is their responsibility also todeliver these goods in the required quantitiesand at the right time to the air supply heads.The swift and uncp-ordinated growth of theair transport organization did not allow of afull appreciation, by either the Army or the AirForce, of the importance of the ancillary ser-vices necessary to promote the full effectivenessof the machine. As the campaign advanced,this tendency has been progressively eliminated,and the situation is now that only a lack ofresources prevents the air transport organisa-tion from incorporating all the lessons that havebeen learnt, and giving it the full effectivenesswith which experience can endow it. From thisobservation, the air supply organization that hasdeveloped within the area of Northern CombatArea Command and Tenth Air Force isexcepted. There, a realisation of the import-ance of firm backing to the supply system wasevident from the outset, and resulted in a veryhigh standard of operating efficiency*

# * * *

49. In June, 1944, there were in Air Com-mand eleven transport squadrons engaged onair supply, four British and seven American. ByMay, 1945, these figures had risen to nine andsixteen respectively, an increase which still leftthe air supply force with little or no marginof reserve* The growth of air supply during theperiod can well be imagined,

50. At the beginning of the period, attentionwas still centred upon the critical position of4 Corps besieged in and around the ancientcapital of Manipur. There were still twenty-three days of June to go before the road toImphal was to be re-opened. Working tosupply the garrison and to build a stockpile toexploit the anticipated Japanese retreat, asmuch as 700 tons were being flown in on asingle day under monsoon conditions. Whenthe road was re-opened, effort was not allowedto drop and for the remaining days of June thesquadrons flew at maximum effort in order tobuild up stocks and ascertain the peak air liftthat could be achieved. The wisdom of thiswas doubtful; all concerned were already ex-hausted, and experience has illustrated the valueof retaining a margin of effort in -reserve, andof not over-straining a complicated machinewithout urgent necessity.


51. However, by the end of the month, theenemy was in retreat, and food and munitionswere available to speed his withdrawal. Thethreat to India and to the China life-line hadbeen removed, and a grim defence, sustainedsolely by air supply, was becoming a vigorousoffensive, whose progress was also fed fromthe air. From July until November, 33 Corps(fought its way eastwards to the Chindwin,southwards along the Kabaw valley and downthe Tiddim Road, provided entirely withmunitions and food by our transport squadrons.Until the end of the monsoon, supply wascarried out under conditions of unbelievabledifficulty. In July the commander of 33 Corpssent the following signal to No. 194 Squadron:"Your unflagging efforts and determinationto complete your task in spite of appallingflying conditions are worthy <of the highestpraise." In August, another squadron sum-marised its efforts as follows: —" It has takenon occasion six to seven days of battlingthrough torrential rain, strong winds and10/10ths cloud down to 200 feet to achieveone mission, but it has been done."

52. In August and September it was becom-ing clear that the planning and day-to-daycontrol of air supply operations required anorganisation separate from Third Tactical AirForce, whose responsibility air supply opera-tions had been since the dissolution of TroopCarrier Command. This was rendered all themore necessary by the large part that it wasproposed airborne operations should play inthe coming dry season. Thus, in October,Combat Cargo Task Force (C.C.T.F.), an inte-grated U.S. A./British Headquarters, wasformed and became responsible for the day-to-day control and the planning of air transportoperations in support of Fourteenth Army and15 Corps.

53. One of the first measures undertaken byH.Q.C.C.T.F. was the reorganisation of theallocation of tasks, whose importance whendemand is always outrunning supply cannot bestressed too strongly. The original procedurehad been that, prior to the beginning of eachmonth, Fourteenth Army submitted to ThirdTactical Air Force its planned air supply re-quirements, which were based on the assump-tion that the Army's advance in the varioussectors would invariably be strongly opposed.Consequently, demands were always high andsupplies were occasionally fifty per cent, belowthe planned figure but withal more than suffi-cient for current requirements. The Rear Air-field Maintenance Organisation (R.A.M.O.)received its day's tasks direct from the head-quarters of the Corps which it was supplying,and at the same time asked the Air Forces forthe requisite number of aircraft. If, as oftenhappened, the Army's daily requirements ex-ceeded the air resources available, considerableconfusion resulted, since no proper system ofallocating priorities had been evolved.

54. This problem was solved by forming, along-side C.C.T.F., the Combined Army-Air Trans-port Organisation (C.A.A.T.O.) which receivedand collated daily requests, assessed their urgencyand, having a full knowledge of aircraft states,allotted the tasks accordingly. The organisa-tion was thus more in line with current Euro-pean practice, with two notable exceptions, thelack of signals and telephone communications

was such as to clog any air supply machineryno matter how well-planned, and second,there were crippling deficiencies of personnel insuch ancillary bodies as Staging Posts andCasualty Air Evacuation Units.

55. On December 20th, the first strip forlanding-on of supplies was opened at Indaing-gale. Others followed in quick succession,Taukkyan near Kalemyo, Kawlin and Indawtrans-Chindwin as soon as the river had beencrossed, and Kan in the Myittha Valley where4 Corps had returned to the line, replacingthe Lushai Brigade and representing anotherand growing commitment to our transportforces*

56. Thus, by January, the increasing de-mands of mobile warfare, which did not accordwith the plans on which resources had beenallotted and organisation developed, and theengagement of larger forces, witnessed agradual and sustained -rise in the demands ofFourteenth Army for air supply. Many un-foreseen difficulties were now coming to light,and when the Supreme Commander visited theforward areas he was informed that the AirForces were not carrying enough supplies.C.-in-C. A.L.F.S.E.A. circulated a memoran-dum calling for more resources in transportaircraft, without which, he stated, not onlywould the advance to Mandalay and beyondbe arrested, but due to the impossibility ofsupplying forces in front of the roadhead hemight ibe forced to withdraw beyond the Chind-win for the monsoon. This view of the situa-tion (which in my opinion was undulypessimistic) caused an urgent request to theChiefs of Staff for additional transport squad-rons, and as a result Nos. 238 and 267 Squad-rons arrived in March. Actually a better organi-sation of existing ground transport resourceswould have met every commitment, and forthis reason Air Marshal Garrod undertook atour to investigate the working of the system.

57. It is as well here to outline, for -the sakeof comparison, the working of air supply in theN.C.A.C. area, to which but little reference hasso far been made.

Air Supply in the Northern Combat Area Com-mand.

58. The most striking feature of this organi-sation was the high standard of co-operationachieved by aU agencies concerned—N.C.A.C.,Service of Supply, Tenth Air Force, Air Ser-vice Command and all ancillary formations.Collective responsibility for the task of aidsupply was rated higher than service allegiance;each body trusted the ability of the others tocarry out their part of the work and did notattempt to dictate on matters outside its ownsphere. The second great advantage was theabundance of good signal communications;every link in the chain, organisational, supply,squadrons, co-ordinators, being linked by ateletype and telephone network which allowedof a quick dissemination of the next day's tasksand priorities as allotted by the collating agencyin N.C.A.C., and of speedy re-adjustment ifnecessary.. A last-minute change in locationof a Dropping Zone could be signalled backby a Division and retransmitted to an aircraftalready airborne for another objective. More-over, the packing and loading processes wereorganised on a moving-belt principle whose


efficiency eliminated a multitude of smalldelays; these ancillary organisations workedwith the industrial efficiency of a large com-mercial factory.

59. A comparison between the Americanpacking loading agencies at Dinjan and theR.I.A.S.C. Air Supply Companies at Hathazarireflected no credit on the British ground organi-sation. Here it should be emphasised that noreflection is intended on the personnel in-volved ; British Officers and Indian OtherRanks were strained to breaking-point, andoften had to work seventy-two hours at astretch to complete their tasks; the fault layin the fact that the importance and nature ofthe work demanded a much more generousscale of personnel, facilities, and organisingability than could be allotted by the Army.

i60. An examination of the data gathered onAir Marshal Garrod's tour brought to light thedifferences of organisation and procedurebetween the two air supply systems, and re-vealed a crying need for improvement in theorganisation operated by C.A.A.T.O. andC.C.T.F. Too numerous to recount here, thesepoints did have the effect of initiating action toimprove the operating procedure. Meanwhile,Air Command was pressing for the speedydevelopment of the recaptured bases along theArakan Coast at Akyab and Ramree whoseemployment would shorten the haul into Cen-tral Burma. Journeys from the establishedbases at Chittagong, Comilla and Tulihal werenow becoming so long that in order to com-plete three trips in a day, aircraft had to takeoff at first lieht and perhaps not finish untilafter dark. The strain on technical mainten-ance, flying and loading personnel can well beimagined.

61. It was in (February that an overlandadvance to Rangoon supplied entirely by airwas first put forward as a serious proposal.Fourteenth Army prepared a plan whichenvisaged two parallel drives southwards alongthe axes of the River Irrawaddy and of theMandalay-Rangoon railway, while a large forcefrom 33 Corps, of up to three and a half divi-sions, struck east to Takaw with the object ofcontaining and destroying all enemy forces cutoff north of Meiktila.

62. Air Command reactions to the plan were(i) a re-orientation of supply lines, using

Akyab and Ramree as advanced air supplyheads which would result in substantial re-duction in length of the air supply line asthe force advanced south of Mandalay.

(ii) We doubted the soundness of the planwhich aimed at a total destruction of theenemy in addition to the capture of Rangoonif the former necessitated a drive eastwardsto cut off and destroy the enemy in the hills.This would inevitably involve a supplyproblem in that direction in addition tosustaining a main advance southwards.63. A study of the situation after the fall of

Rangoon shows that these reactions were fullyjustified. Apart from this, the plan had manyadvantages, and at a major conference inCalcutta on 23rd February which heralded myarrival as Allied Air Commander-m-Chief, itwas approved in principle and the target for

tonnage to be hauled in its execution decided.The maximum lift was assessed at 1,887 tonsper day between 20th March and 1st April and2,075 tons per day between 1st May and 15thMay. I emphasised that these figures wouldentail a very high rate of effort from thesquadrons involved, and would entail consider-able retrenchment during the monsoon to payoff the mortgage in maintenance and overstrainwe would have contracted in its achievement.

64. Meanwhile, the air lift was still increas-ing. In February, C.C.T.F. hauled 51,210 shorttons of supplies into the operational area. Inaddition, at the end of the month, a smallthough vital airborne operation took place toconsolidate the capture of Meiktila, which hadbeen seized following an armoured dash fromtheir bridgehead on the Irrawaddy by 17 Divi-sion.

65. Troops were landed to reinforce the fly-ing column which had seized the airfield andwas now being fiercely attacked on all sides by•the enemy. Transport aircraft landed and dis-charged their loads under fire, many sufferingdamage while so doing. One aircraft takingon wounded for its return journey had a shellexplode inside it, causing further injuries tothe casualties who were already emplaned.Thus, within very few days, landing becameimpossible, and it was necessary to resort tothe less economical practice of dropping, whichstill further increased the load on our transportsquadrons.

66. The Meiktila operation was a success,and a captured Japanese Staff officer assessedit as the turning point in the battle for Burma.It was not accomplished without mistakes, how-ever, which rendered it far more hazardousthan it might otherwise have been. It shouldbe established that aircraft will not land untilthe possibility of the airfield 'being subjectedto heavy fire is ruled out. Planning should becarried out on this premise. Secondly, theR.A.M.O. that was established on the airfieldwas pitifully inadequate, the officer in chargehaving to guide aircraft to unloading pointsinstead of being free to organise their quickturn-around under fire. In a critical opera-tion, such points might make all the differencebetween success and dismal failure. Theymerit much greater consideration in combinedplanning than has hitherto been accorded them.

* * * *67. By the beginning of April, Meiktila was

again safe for landing, although shells werestill bursting less than 200 yards from thestrips. Preparations were immediately com-menced to build up stocks to maintain Four-teenth Army in the final dash which was tocarry them 250 miles southward in the secondhalf of the month. On the 20th, the mainairfield at Lewe was captured and speedilyprepared for light aircraft and gliders, whichbegan landing on the morning of the 21st.Toungoo, 50 miles further south, was occupiedon the 22nd and, in spite of bad weather, over100 Dakotas and Commandos landed on the24th. Within five days, Pyuntaza, anotherairstrip 70 miles further south, was also receiv-ing supplies, and a battalion group was flownin to cut the enemy escape route eastwardsfrom Pegu. The enemy was still active onboth sides of the narrow strip along theMandalay-Pegu railway which had formed our


corridor, and while the capture of Rangoonwas left to an assault from the south, transportsquadrons continued with unabated activitythe supply of Fourteenth Army, who but forthese outstanding efforts would not have beenable to hold the ground they had won.

Casualty Evacuation.68. Throughout the period, the saving of

lives, the morale of the fighting troops and themobility of our ground forces has beenmaterially assisted by the work of light air-craft and Dakotas flying out sick and woundedfrom the battle areas. The total of men thussaved from avoidable pain and suffering, frommany days' journey by sampan, mule andambulance, and from dying for lack of hospitalfacilities was formidable.

69. The flexibility of air power, by no meanslessened when used in the interests ofhumanity, was well illustrated by a uniqueoperation carried out by Sunderlands ofNo. 230 Squadron, which landed on LakeIndawgyi behind the enemy lines and flew out537 wounded men of Special Force, whomGeneral Wingate's columns would otherwisehave been forced to abandon to the mercy ofthe Japanese.

70. This operation was, however, exceptional.The normal procedure was for light aircraftof the R.A.F. Communication squadrons andthe U.S.A.A.F. Liaison squadrons to bring inthe sick and wounded from extemporised land-ing strips to grounds where Dakptas and Com-mandos were discharging their cargo, andwhence they would take them to base hospitalson return journeys. It was proposed at onetime to attach light aircraft to the transportsquadrons, and form one co-ordinated flyingunit to undertake the whole process of casualtyevacuation, but such a scheme would eitherhave unpaired the mobility of the light aircraftcomponents or would have left them continu-ally detached from their parent squadrons withno administrative or domestic backing for thedifficult conditions under which they live andoperate. Accordingly, as the American lightaircraft are withdrawn from this theatre andthe R.A.F. take on the whole of the work,it is proposed to form independent self-sufficient flying units to reinforce the GroupCommunication Squadrons in casualty evacua-tion. The resultant organisation will be suf-ficiently elastic to cover the whole front and yetbe capable of concentration where casualtiesare heavy.

71. Casualty evacuation has been a regularpart of the Air Forces' work in this theatresince the middle of 1943. It is unfortunate thatwith the increase in traffic which intensifiedoperations have caused, there has been insuf-ficient parallel growth of resources. NursingOrderlies are 11 per cent, below establishment,and the buildings and accommodation for thereception of wounded at base airfields are notof the standard which good hygiene andhumanity demand. If the Royal Air Force isto maintain the high reputation it has built inthis sphere, far more generous scales of equip-ment and personnel must be authorised.

Conclusions on Air Transport.72. The first essential for air supply is good

ground organisation. One weak link in thechain can vitiate the work of the aircrews andmaintenance personnel, the estimates of theplanners and the efforts of the fighting troops.It is worth outlining some of the faults thathave occurred in order that they may be avoidedin the future.

(i) Dropping Zones should always be locatedwhere a drop is feasible. This might sound aplatitude to anyone who has not flown onsupply-dropping operations in Burma andfound dropping areas continually located innarrow valleys whose negotiation after eachrun is a major hazard.

(ii) The system of communicating informa-tion on dropping areas, on the compositionof loads, on changes of location, on enemyinterference and all other aspects of airsupply must be such that the one small andvital item of knowledge which might makethe difference between a successful or anabortive sortie is available at all links in thechain.

(iii) The British Army-Air" supply systemin South-East Asia has been continuallymarred by the failure to provide formeticulous organisation in a sphere wheregreat efforts can be rendered nugatory byinaccuracy in minor details.

The following are some of the lessonslearnt:—

(a) Adequate distributing facilities mustbe made available by the land forces atlanding grounds to ensure that perishablegoods are quickly distributed when un-loaded from aircraft.

(6) Aircraft should not be detailed toconvey food to areas in which the samecommodities can easily be obtained bylocal purchase,

(c) Packing of goods must be strongenough to ensure that containers do notburst in transit.

(d) Adequate facilities must be providedfor feeding and resting aircrews engaged onthis arduous flying, as they are often absent•from their bases for as long as ten hoursat a time.

{e) An efficient supply of re-fuellers andfacilities for night maintenance must bearranged, otherwise aircraft which couldotherwise be making an effective contribu-tion to the battle will be grounded.(iv) Forward airfield commanders and fly-

ing control personnel took a long time torealise that air supply traffic is as vital as anyother, Cargo aircraft should not be keptcircling an airfield while tactical aircraft takeoff on a routine operation whose delay byhalf an hour is immaterial.

(v) Each part of the planning and assess-ment of air lift must be carried out by theService in whose province it lies. Much con-fusion has been caused here by the Armyattempting to quote and work on flying hoursper aircraft with -no knowledge of the impli-cations of U.E. and I.E.*, aircraft serviceable

* U.E. = Unit Equipment.I.E. = Initial Equipment.


or aircraft on strength. Moreover it was con-sistent practice for the Army to require fulldata on the performance of our aircraft andexplanations for any short-fall that mightoccur, while never giving equivalent informa-tion upon their own short-fall in overlandor inland water transport,73. Air supply depends on so many agencies,

and is affected by so many imponderables, thatthe allocation of resources and good brains toensure efficiency, speed and good liaison cannever be too generous. The campaign inBurma would have been rendered easier hadthe engineering resources that were poured intoless profitable projects been directed towardstimely building of forward airfields, more effi-cient supply depots and stronger lines of com-munication to the air haulage centres. TheLedo Road, for example, is surely the longestwhite elephant in the world. Had the wealthof ability and material that went to its buildingbeen employed in strengthening the air supplysystem, the recapture of Burma could probablyhave been advanced by an appreciable period.

PART FIVE.

TACTICAL SUPPORT OF THEGROUND FORCES.

The Organisation of Tactical Support.74. Air forces operating in tactical support

of the Allied Land Forces in Burma comprisedNos. 221 and 224 Groups R.A.F. and 10thU.S.A.A.F. all under the command of Head-quarters, Eastern Air Command. Each workedin close association with a corresponding armyheadquarters—the Tenth U.S.A.A.F. with theNorthern Combat Area Command, 224 Groupwith 15 Corps and 221 Group with 33 Corpsand 4 Corps, and finally from the beginningof December onwards with the FourteenthArmy. 221 Group and Fourteenth Armyremained together at Imphal only until theend of December, when the latter moved for-ward to Kalemyp, being accompanied by theA.O.C. and his air staff.'The two headquarterswere again united fully at Monywa from 9thFebruary until the middle of April, when theymoved to Meiktila, their final staging postbefore Rangoon. The mobility of 221 Groupheadquarters had a less active counterpart inthat of 224 Group, which remained with theheadquarters of 15 Corps first at Cox's Bazarand later at Akyab. In both cases the closerelationship of the headquarters of the twoServices was an essential element in theirsuccessful co-operation.

75. In the campaign in central Burma, justas all the ground forces came under theFourteenth Army, so all the aircraft engagedin close, as distinct from tactical, support ofthe former were controlled by Headquarters,221 Group. There were however two excep-tions. The two Air Commando Groupsoperated directly under Eastern Air Command,and the Mustangs of the Second Air Com-mando Group, which played so important arole in the operations of 4 Corps which ledto the seizure of Meiktila, were for the crucialperiod of these operations controlled by anadvanced headquarters of the Combat CargoTask Force located with 4 Corps headquarters.

The second exception was provided by theThunderbolt squadrons of 905 Wing, for which,owing to administrative reasons, there was noroom east of the Lushai Hills and which weretherefore located in Arakan under 224 Group.

76. In this connection the very difficultproblems of administration confronting 221Group must be recalled. Its wings and squad-rons operated from bases covering a front ofsome two hundred miles, and a depth whichat the beginning of the campaigning season inNovember was no less, and which by the endof April had expanded to some six hundredmiles, from the Mosquito wing at Khumbigramto the fighter squadrons on forward strips nearToungoo. Most were on a highly mobile basis,with personnel reduced to the minimum; theseparation of squadrons from servicingechelons which was generally effected towardsthe end of 1944 contributed materially to themobility of units in the group. Fighter squad-rons moved forward in pace with the advancingfront as quickly as the army were able toprepare landing grounds and forego air trans-port for them ; the squadrons of 906 Wing, forinstance, were operating from airfields nearYe-U by the middle of January, a fortnightafter the occupation of the district by 33 Corps,and before the end of April no less than ninefighter squadrons were located at Toungoo,which had not been captured until the 22nd,and another four at Magwe, which fell on the18th, in preparation for the assault uponRangoon. These moves were effected with theaid of transport aircraft, overland communica-tions being almost non-existent. There was,however, some feeling among the squadronsthat in the matter of motor transport andindeed of supplies generally the army was ata distinct advantage.

77. The enormous area over which thesquadrons of 221 Group were scattered, togetherwith the meagreness of communications byland and telephone, also precluded the whole-sale adoption, for the operational control offighter aircraft hi close support, of the organiza-tion which had been evolved in the Europeantheatre of war for army-air co-operation. Theformer system of Army Air Support Unitswas replaced in the closing months of 1944by the establishment of Air Support SignalsUnits with Visual Control Posts (V.CPs.), AirAdvisers being also provided for both corpsand divisional headquarters. A CombinedArmy/Air School for training V.C.P personnelwas set up at Ranchi, and it was soon foundthat the greatest difficulty in the establishmentof Visual Control Posts was the provision ofpersonnel, particularly of Controllers, who itwas agreed must be chosen from experiencedjunior officers of the General Duties branch.Ten teams were however operating by theend of 1944 and by the beginning of May,1945, their number had risen to thirty-four.The special value of the V.C.Ps lay in theextra flexibility and accuracy which they lentto air operations planned hi conjunction withthe ground situation; the former device ofindicating targets by smoke shells, alwaysliable to inaccuracies in both place and timeas well as to counterfeiting by the enemy,was now needed only when 'the target layin flat jungle country, invisible from the ah*and not determinable in relation to any obviousfeature of the landscape.


78. Of the general success of the V.C.P.system there can be no doubt, from both airand ground points of view. It contributedmaterially to that close and efficient co-opera-tion of ground and air forces which was somarked a feature of the campaign of 1944-45.It led however to a tactic of less unquestion-able value in the employment of the " cabrank "method,- by which aircraft patrolled con-tinuously over selected areas, maintaining touchall the time with the V.C.P., who as oppor-tunity offered would call them down to attackany fresh target revealed by the progress ofthe battle. This tactic was very popular withour own troops, as the continued presenceoverhead of our own air support had excellentmorale effect. Furthermore, air support wasavailable to engage any target at a moment'snotice. It was however wasteful of flyinghours and reduced petrol stocks, in that theaircraft were liable to be kept waiting andtargets could not always be provided, whileit diminished the weight of air attack, sincein order to maintain a continuous patrol theaircraft could seldom operate in more thanpairs. If the army requires direct air supportto be available at such short notice, it is con-sidered that their desires could moreeconomically be satisfied by providing the airforces with airfields as close behind the frontline as the reasonable security of the groundinstallations will warrant.

Close support of the Fourteenth Army.79. The aircraft employed in close support

operations were of various types. In June,1944, there were still four squadrons ofVengeances operating, two on the Imphal andtwo on the Arakan front; they had doneexcellent work in the 1943-44 campaign, buthad soon to be withdrawn. In September, thefirst R.A.F. Thunderbolts began operations;Thunderbolts had already been in use for sometime with 'the Tenth U.S.A.A.F. which hadalso occasionally employed its Lightnings(P.38) in close support work. As the new cam-paign developed, and it became clear that theenemy was in no position seriously to chal-lenge the Allied air superiority, Spitfires wereincreasingly diverted to the ground-attack role,particularly in the Arakan sector.

80. But the backbone of direct air supportwas always provided by the Hurricane, with orwithout bombs. The " Hurribomber " had wellproved its worth in the 1943-4 campaign, andsome in particular of the " Humbonnber "squadrons enjoyed an immense reputation fortheir accurate pin-pointing of "targets within acomparatively few yards of our own positions.Their value in this was particularly evidentduring the period of mountain warfare thatended at the beginning of December, 1944, andsubsequently in the interval of semi-static fight-ing that was marked by the battle of thebridgeheads in late January and February,1945. In conjunction with fighter-bombers aswell as independently, ground-attack fightersalso frequently operated in close support, doingparticularly effective work in attacks upon gunsites and patrols over areas in which enemyartillery was suspected to be located.

81. 'Heavier aircraft were also taken intoservice in support of ground attacks. Mitchells

(B.25) had already been employed for this pur-pose in the 1943-4 campaign, but the foursquadrons of the Twelfth Bombardment Group-were now withdrawn from the Strategic AirForce and placed under the operational controlof first 224 Group and later 221 Group, so thattheir work might more simply be dovetailedinto the general tactical pattern. They oper-ated sometimes independently, 'but in close-support more frequently in conjunction withfighter-bombers, and added greatly to theweight and effectiveness of large-scale closesupport operations ; the term " Earthquake ""which was ultimately taken into official useto describe these concerted attacks uponJapanese bunker positions originated amongthese 'Mitchell squadrons, who earned for them-selves the name of "the Earthquakers."

82. An outstanding " earthquake " operation,,for instance, was the air contribution to thecombined army and air attack directed on10th January against the enemy stronghold atGangaw in the Kabaw Valley, where an ex-tensive and well-defended system of bunkersand gun emplacements was holding up theadvance of 4 Corps southwards in its vitalthrust against the Japanese left flank. FourMitchell squadrons participated in this opera-tion, as did some thirty-four " Hurribombers,"'defensive cover being supplied by Spitfires and.Thunderbolts. It turned out to be a highlysuccessful day; the 'bombs were dropped atapproximately 1430 hours and within ninetyminutes five out of the six main Japanese posi-tions were in Allied hands. The subsequentwithdrawal of the enemy from the whole neigh-bourhood during the next few days wasattributed toy 4 Corps to be due in greatmeasure to a lowering of his morale as a resultof this air attack. But the participation of so-large a number of aircraft in a single operation-was not usual, and as the campaign wore onit was realised that Mitchells operating in num-bers as low as two or three could do effectivework in accurately winkling out small enemyparties from their lairs.

83. Heavy bombers of the Strategic Air Forcewere also employed on "earthquake" opera-tions from time to time, mainly in supportof the Fourteenth Army during the battle forthe bridgeheads in January and February, 1944,though they also intervened effectively in sup-port of 15 Corps during the struggle for thepossession of the coastal road at Kangaw atthe end of January. But well-marked targetssuitable for their employment in direct co-operation with the ground forces were ofnecessity few, owing to the Japanese skill incamouflage, and the heavy bombers were there-fore of most assistance to land operations intheir attacks upon targets not in the immediatebattle-zone.

Indirect Support of the Fourteenth Army.84. On numerous occasions the ground'

forces requested the help of the Strategic AirForce, and nominated targets some distancebehind the battle area though still in thetactical zone of land operations. Thesetargets were, in the main, supply centres ornodal communication points or built-up areasin which the enemy was believed to be living.A notable attack of this type was mounted on


13th January against Maudalay, the keystoneof the whole Japanese defensive system incentral Burma and directly threatened in twodirections by the advance of the FourteenthArmy. Fifty-four aircraft attacked theJapanese-occupied district and a further 12 thesuburb of Sagaing on the opposite side of theriver, the operation being preceded by attacksby Thunderbolts upon anti-aircraft gun sitesin the neighbourhood, and accompanied byfighter sweeps over the airfields at Aungbanand Meiktila. Photographic evidence con-firmed the destruction of some 70 major build-ings in the Japanese quarters, while intelligencereports variously estimated Japanese casualtiesalone at 600 and a 1,000, in addition to thoseinflicted upon Burmese puppet troops.

i85. Such operations undertaken at therequest of the Allied land forces reached theirzenith in February, during which month nearlytwo thirds of the total number of sorties flownby Liberators of the Strategic Air Force weredirected against targets in or near the battle-front as requested by the Fourteenth Army.These included, for instance, the stores dumpsnear the railhead at Madaya, from which theenemy forces fighting to contain the Singubridgehead were supplied, which was attackedby forty-five heavy bomber aircraft, and thegarrison districts at Yenangyaung, which wereattacked by 50. OLater in the month, heavybomber targets included objectives designatedby the Army at Myittha, Mahlaing andMyingyan—all towns lying on or close to thepath being followed by the armoured columnsof 4 Corps in their thrust towards Meiktila.To take a final example, the climax of the airattacks upon the potential stronghold ofToungoo, where the enemy was expected tomake a serious effort to stop the drive of4 Corps southwards towards Rangoon in thesecond half of April, was supplied by over 40Liberators, which bombed the garrison areathere on the 21st, when the nearest Alliedtroops were already within striking distance,and indeed entered the town the following day.

86. Very effective operations against targetsin the immediate rear of the enemy werecarried out by ground-attack fighters through-out the period; their most vulnerable objec-tives were to be found along the lines ofcommunication, where animal and motor trans-.port units were carrying to his troops in thefield, and also along the waterways where mis-cellaneous rivercraft served the same purpose.In these operations varied aircraft were em-ployed, from Hurricanes and Spitfires toBeaufighters, Lightnings, Thunderbolts andMosquitos, while Mitchells also participated,particularly by night. Armament includedrocket projectiles and bombs, as well as 40 mm.cannon, also guns of lesser calibre.

87. Some small foretaste of the weight andpattern of this tactical support of the armywas given in July, when the enemy wasendeavouring to withdraw from the perimeterof the Imphal plain, and good toll was takenof his transport forced to brave the open roadto Tiddim and the other routes eastward tothe Chindwin. Direct attacks upon vehicles,mainly by Hurricanes, were varied by success-ful efforts to block the Tiddim road by causinglandslides, and to break the bridges both alongit and in the Kabaw Valley—achievements for

which Lightnings and Vengeances were respon-sible. In all, over 75 motor transport unitswere successfully attacked in this area duringthe month. These operations, though invisibleto the army, were controlled with the militarysituation always in view, and evidence was sub-sequently forthcoming in plenty from captureddiaries of enemy officers and men of their effec-tiveness in hindering the passage of suppliesand the movement of personnel, and in aggra-vating the conditions of disease and under-nourishment under which the Japanese groundforces laboured.

88. In August the tactical picture on theFourteenth Army front came to centre roundthe Chindwin river, which for two or threeweeks became of considerably enhanced im-portance as a supply route. It had long beenin use by the Japanese as a line of communi-cation, and the riverine ports, particularlyMonywa and Kalewa, were active points ofsupply. The still worsening military situationcontinued to impose upon the enemy the neces-sity for emergency movements of men and sup-plies behind the Manipur sector of the front.Since the capacity of the Sagaing—Ye-U rail-way had been greatly reduced by air action,and the other overland routes were more orless unusable owing to the monsoon, they wereforced to have increased resort to the Chind-win as a line of communication.

89. Early in the month the toll of rivercraftsuccessfully attacked began to increase and itbecame apparent that something was afoot.The Spitfires and Hurricanes which had hithertobeen covering the river were reinforced by adetachment of Beaufighters from 224 Group." Hurribombers " were joined by Wellingtons,and later by Mitchells, in a series of attacksupon riverside targets. In addition, mines, bothmagnetic and ordinary, were laid in the Chind-win by Mitchells so as to catch traffic attempt-ing to move under cover either of cloud ordarkness. The total number of rivercraft suc-cessfully attacked on the Chindwin during themonth was not far short of five hundred, andincluded seven launches ; of this total the Beau-fighters accounted for slightly over half,together with five of the launches.

90. Attacks upon road transport vehicles con-tinued throughout the campaign, their effective-ness being increased with the advent of betterweather at the close of the monsoon. In par-ticular, the periods during which a major Alliedadvance was in progress and the battlefront wastherefore fluid, were marked by the presenceof transport targets in otherwise unusual quan-tity. This was. so during the advance to theIrrawaddy in December, the thrust towardsMeiktila "during late February and early inMarch, and above all during the final advanceof 4 Corps towards Rangoon in the second halfof April. Ox-carts belonging to the local popu-lation had long been habitually pressed intoservice by the Japanese, and were attacked atall times. But lorries moved mainly undercover of darkness, and the Beaufighters whichlit upon a convoy of forty to fifty vehiclestravelling westwards along the road fromMeiktila to Kyaukpadaung on the afternoon ofFebruary 5th and successfully strafed them madean exceptional discovery. But it was probablyno coincidence that on the night of February15th/16th, just after the Fourteenth Army had


made its decisive crossing of the Irrawaddybelow Mandalay, another Beaufighter locatedsome fifty vehicles all moving eastwards alongthe Chauk—Meiktila highway.

91. A little later, on the night of the27th/28th, a Mitchell on intruder patrol dis-covered a convoy of over a hundred vehicles,together with some armoured cars and sixtanks, travelling northwards along the roadfrom Taungdwingyi to Myothit, doubtless tobe thrown into the attempt to stem the advanceof the Fourteenth Army. The aircraft deliveredattacks by both bombing and strafing for thespace of an hour. It then attacked anothersmaller group of vehicles some distance to thesouth-east, after which it returned to the largeconvoy and was able to observe that some fortyunits had been knocked out by its previousattacks; finally it delivered one more strafingattack, setting three more vehicles on fire.

92. In the second half of April, with the finalstages of the advance southwards in progress,such targets became unprecedentedly plentiful.A Hurricane squadron, for instance, caughtover forty vehicles on the 19th standing noseto tail, heavily loaded and camouflaged, off theroad a little south of Pyinmana, and was- sub-sequently able to count seventeen in flames andmany more severely damaged. The samesquadron located an even larger number nearthe site of the bridge over the Sittang at Mok-palin on the 30th, when a total of forty-threelorries finally was counted in flames. BothMustangs of the Second Air Commando Groupand Beaufighters of 224 Group had each al-ready made a haul similar in size and nature inthis escape corridor on the 26th. In all, duringthis second half of the month, approximatelythree hundred and fifty motor vehicles weresuccessfully attacked behind the enemy's linesthroughout Burma. The analogous figures forthe whole period covered by this despatch mayconservatively be assessed, on the basis of vis-ible evidence, at 3846 M.T. vehicles.

93. One operation in tactical support of theFourteenth Army is worthy of special mention,namely the achievement of a Hurricane IIDsquadron, firing rocket projectiles, which onFebruary 19th—in the course of a single day—put out of action twelve tanks which the Japan-ese were about to -throw into the battle for thebridgehead opposite Myinmu. These belongedto the single tank regiment of whichthe Japanese forces in Burma were known todispose, and it was a measure of the importanceattached by the enemy to the outcome of thestruggle in the Myinmu bridgehead that he nowsought to commit them in the field for the firsttime since they had been withdrawn from theImphal front in the previous June. They were,however, destroyed before they came within 'range of infantry weapons, their destructionbeing shortly afterwards verified by advancingAllied troops who inspected their remainsj

94. Somewhat different in character from theharassing of Japanese road communication wasthe interdiction of the railways used by theenemy in supplying his troops in Burma.Already, before the opening of the period cov-ered by this despatch, the operation of ground-attack fighter aircraft over these lines hadbecome a difficult and expensive undertaking.Trains had practically ceased to run by day,

their component parts generally 'being camou-flaged and dispersed until sunset with the loco-motives hidden in specially constructed shelters,often at the end of long sidings deep in thejungle. All obvious railway targets wereguarded by efficient anti-aircraft defences,dummy or derelict locomotives being placed todecoy the aircraft into traps or at least to drawtheir fire. Nevertheless, some three hundredand ten locomotives were successfully attackedby day, Beaufighters accounting for one hun-dred and eighty-seven. Most of the remainderwere claimed by Mosquitos, Mustangs,Lightnings and Thunderbolts.

95. Of the number of rolling stock destroyedit would be unsafe to give any estimate, butin any case there were always more thanenough waggons available in Burma to satisfyJapanese military needs—in contrast to theposition in regard to locomotives, which, as aresult of past Allied air attacks were alwaysin short supply, the Japanese going so far as toimport them from Siam and to use petrol-driven cars to haul railway waggons. Water-towers always presented a vulnerable target,difficult to hide, and thirty-nine were holedduring the period. It should be noted that theseday attacks by ground-attack fighters reachedas far as the northern extremities of both theBurma-Siam and the Bangkok-Chiengmai rail-ways.

96. A further one hundred and twenty-twolocomotives were put out of commission as aresult of night attacks, thirty-seven being con-tributed by Mosquitos and thirty-seven byMitchells. These attacks were of coursedelivered upon trains in full employment, andwere not infrequently accompanied by spectacu-lar results, with engine boilers exploding,trucks aflame and a series of secondary .ex-plosions. They may be reckoned as havinginflicted greater material injury upon the enemythan a numerical comparison between thenumbers of locomotives damaged by day andby night would suggest.

97. Concurrently with attacks upon locomo-tives, key points in the Burmese railway system,such as the junctions at Thazi and Pyinmana,were bombed, mainly by Mitchells and Light-nings. But the main weight of attack con-fanued jo be directed (upon bridges, whichwere so numerous that it was impossible toprovide anti-aircraft defences for more than themost important. The enemy pursued his estab-lished policy of erecting by-pass trestle bridgesto serve as temporary substitutes for the per-manent structures wrecked or menaced by airattack.

98. In all, about three hundred bridges wereput out of commission by medium, light andfighter bombers ; of this total, one hundred andtwelve were railway bridges. So great, how-ever, was the success of the bridge destructionpolicy, that in connection with the unexpectedlyrapid advance of the Fourteenth Army it pro-voked the query whether we were not destroy-ing our own future land line of communicationin advance, and agreement was reached bywhich, from February onwards, the indis-criminate destruction of bridges was abandonedin favour of a policy of keeping specifiedmajor bridges unserviceable. When, in courseof time, the sites were occupied by Allied


troops, Bailey bridge sections flown in bytransport aircraft were available to mend thebroken thoroughfare.

99. Attacks on watercraft in Burma werepressed home by ground-attack fighters of alltypes throughout the campaign, particularlyalong the Irrawaddy, always an importantJapanese line of communication, and also onthe Arakan coast and the waterways of south-west Burma, though, as along the land routesso on the waterways, the enemy moved mainlyby night. A rough estimate of the total numberof inland or coastal watercraft in enemy usesuccessfully attacked is 11,822 of which 302were power-driven units. Towards the endof the campaign, the Irrawaddy tended tobecome less a line of communication for theJapanese than a hindrance to their lateralmobility, so that boats collected for ferryingrather than supply craft provided the maintargets. At the same time, air reconnaissanceand attack was maintained at a high rate overthe Bassein-Henzada district in order to dis-courage the enemy division located there frommoving eastwards to reinforce the main battle-front in central Burma. In the course of April,the motor launches supplying this garrison(formation were successfully attacked on anumber of occasions, notably on the 25th,when their hiding-place south-west of Rangoonwas located and bombed and strafed withrocket projectiles by a mixed force of twenty-seven Beaufighters and Mosquitos.

100. A word must be added in connexionwith the patrols flown by Beaufighters to inter-cept enemy shipping in the Gulf of Martaban.Owing to the reduction through air attack of thecarrying capacity of the overland routes ofentry into Burma, the Japanese had increasingresort during 1944 to the shipment of goodsnorthwards along the Tenasserim coast andthence westwards across the Gulf of Martabanto Rangoon, employing for this a number ofcoasters of wooden construction eighty to onehundred and twenty feet in length. A dailypatrol was maintained by Beaufighters, whosebase at Chiringa lay not far short of fivehundred miles distant from the Gulf at itsnearest point, and resulted in the sinking oftwenty-eight coasters, many of which weredestroyed at dawn or dusk soon before shipsreached or after they had left the nooks inwhich they hid during the day.

101. Attacks by all types of aircraft likewisecontinued, throughout the campaign, to bedirected against enemy bivouac and barrackareas and against storage points from smallstacks of petrol drums near the front line tothe great dumps north of Rangoon mentionedelsewhere in this despatch. Despite the un-doubted accuracy of operations against thistype of target, more particularly by Lightnings,Mosquitos and Mitchells, difficulties of terrainoften forbade the assessment of results, evenwith the aid of photographs, and in default ofthe subsequent occupation of the target areaby our own troops it has often only been areference in a Japanese diary or an intelligencereport which has arrived weeks or even monthslater which served to clinch the evidence ofsuccess. To take one instance out of many,it was not until several weeks after the eventthat the full success of the heavy raids of8th February on targets at Yenangyaung was

confirmed, when two prisoners of war agreedthat they had been most terrifying, and statedthat one bomb had destroyed thirty-four motorvehicles parked under shelter, and that anotherhad landed in a trench in which some thirtyJapanese were sheltering, killing all theoccupants.

Tactical Support of 15 Corps.102. Tactical support of 15 Corps followed

lines closely parallel to those on which airsupport was furnished to the Fourteenth Army.There were, however, certain special charac-teristics which deserve mention. After theinitial advance down the Kaladan Valley, themajor forward moves of the ground forceswere marked not by overland offensives leadingto a break-through by mechanised formations,but iby a series of amphibious landings at half-a-dozen points on the coast. Of the threeisland landings, those on Akyab and Chedubawere completely unopposed, while that onRamree met only with slight opposition; fewor no targets presented themselves and the airsupport on these occasions was therefore akinto a peace-time exercise. The mainland land-ings each achieved tactical surprise, but wereall followed shortly by bitter fighting when theenemy entrenched himself in characteristicfashion and attempted to prevent the exploita-tion of the initial landing. Fierce battles thendeveloped on the same general pattern as thosefor the Irrawaddy bridgeheads.

103. Two developments confined to opera-tions by 224 Group deserve mention. The firstwas the use of Spitfires in the fighter-bomberrole. The second was the employment .fromFebruary onwards, of airborne Visual ControlPosts, whose success was undoubted. From alight aircraft they were able to discern targetsin the coastal jungle that were well concealedfrom ground observation, and so to passdirections to the aircraft waiting to attack.Two of these teams were operating by the endof the campaign.

104. Indirect support of 15 Corps centredlargely around the maintenance of air attacksupon the long supply line on which theJapanese depended for the- existence of theirtroops in Arakan. Its forward end among thecoastal waterways and along the parallel roadsouthwards to Taungup was covered by ground-attack fighters of all types, while the eastwardtrack from An to Minbu—whose existence hadbeen established by Beaufighters on recon-naissance—and the mountain road fromTaungup to the railhead at Prome, also yieldedvaluable targets. Stress was laid by the armyin March and April, 1945, upon the need formaintaining a continuous interdiction of thelatter road by cratering its surface or pre-cipitating landslides by bombing, even at thecost of denying ourselves the future use ofa much needed supplementary land line ofcommunication to the Irrawaddy valley, andfighter-bombers and also heavy bombers ofthe Strategic Air Force were accordinglydiverted to this purpose. Targets along theProme-Rangoon railway were attacked aselsewhere in central Burma; in this, thedestruction of its bridges by Lightnings of the459th Squadron in February was especially


notable. The stores areas at Taungup andProme were watched and bombed from tuneto time.

Tactical Support of the Northern Combat AreaCommand.

105. On the north-eastern sector of the front,direct air support to Special Force and later toThirty-six Division together with the Chinesedivisions and the American Mars Task Forcefurther to the east, was provided by the P.47s.,P.38s. "and also by the B.25s. of the TenthU.S.A.A.F. The general principles of army/air force co-operation were as on other sectorsof the front, the Visual Control Post beingknown as the " air party ". There were, how-ever, two directions in which the techniqueof close air support as practised by the TenthU.S.A.A.F. was more advanced than on the221 and 224 Group sectors. The first was inthe more highly developed signals methodsused in R/T communications between the " airparty" on the one hand and the attackingaircraft and also the light aircraft—L.5s.—used for observation on the other.

106. The second lay in the special use madein' the N.C.A.C. area of photography foitactical operations. Photographs of all sortswere used—low level verticals, reconnaissancestrips, obliques and pin point shots. A simplemethod was worked out by which a commonphotograph grid was accepted by both groundand air forces for marking photographs; thiswas all the more necessary in that the countrythrough which the N.C.A.C. forces wereadvancing consisted of an expanse of jungle-clad hills with few natural features byreference to which a target could be simplyidentified. The effectiveness of close , airsupport was acknowledged by the ground forcesin this sector no less than elsewhere, despitethe considerable obstacles offered by the wildterrain to .an exact collaboration.

107. It was no doubt in part the very suc-cess of air support operations in the N.C.A.C.area that led to their comparatively earlycessation. The country through which theland forces advanced with a continually grow-ing momentum offered few or no sites for theconstruction of forward landing-grounds, andthe leading army units tended more and moreto draw away from the available air basesas a consequence. Enemy opposition alsodwindled, and, from the end of March onwards,contact was lost with the Japanese. Thence-forward, the air effort was thus inevitablyrestricted to long-range attacks upon thetransport routes, supply centres and bivouacpoints along the enemy line of retreat throughthe Shan States southwards into Siam.

{PART SIX.

STRATEGIC AIR FORCE.108. Operations by heavy bombers in this

theatre were conditioned by the restrictednature of the targets available and by thevulnerability of the all-important Japanese linesof communication. To understand the patternof attack, and to assess its results, demandssome knowledge of these circumstances, whichare discussed in some detail hereunder. •

(109. The factors of climate, topography andthe occupation of large areas of China com-bined to make the Japanese grip on Burmaone which, it was early realised, the Allieswould have great difficulty in prising loose.Notwithstanding his seemingly inviolable front,the enemy possessed an Achilles' heel in hispoverty of natural resources and his consequentdependence on seas that he has never actuallycontrolled. A high percentage of everythingupon which his industry thrives must cross thesea in crude form to be processed in the home-land ; thence it must recross the seas to arriveat the fighting line. From Japan to Burmathe sea lanes stretch for some 4,000 miles, ofwhich more and more were open to attack byAllied bombers as strength, experience and airbases developed. The railways which carriedhis supplies thence to the front were at themercy of Allied bombers to an even greaterdegree.

110. Communications by sea were not dis-puted during 1942 and much of 1943. It wassimple to follow the normal channels of com-merce to the ports of Siam and Malaya in theeast, Singapore in the south, and Mergui,Tavoy, Ye, Moulmein and Rangoon in thewest. But Japan herself had proved by thesinking of the "Prince of Wales" and" Repulse " that control of the sea demandscontrol of the air above the sea. In her earlyvictory lay the seeds of her own defeat, forAllied aircraft disputed with her, and won,control of the air over all her lines of com-munication in Burma and Siam.

111. From the nodal ports, the railways ofBurma and Siam constitute a system of strate-gically connected lines with a total length ofapproximately 5,000 miles. From PhnomPenh, north-west of Saigon, the railway goeswest and north-west through Bangkok, Peguand Mandalay, where it forks into two linesterminating at Lashio and Myitkyina withbranches to Rangoon, Bassein, Kyauk-padaung, Myingyan and Ye-U. (The tacticalimportance of all these railheads was reinforcedby their strategic positioning on the lines ofsupply. Their function was not only to feedforward material from Japan, but to shuttlewithin the occupied territories the natural re-sources whose employment would ease the loadon Japanese shipping—rice, tungsten, oil, tinand rubber. It has been estimated that atleast 50 per cent, of the Japanese Army'srequirements in Burma were produced locally.

112. In JuAe, 1944, the Strategic Air Forceunderwent changes in organisation and com-position that materially reduced its strengthand effectiveness during the monsoon months.The Twelfth Bombardment Group, comprisingfour squadrons of Mitchells, was transferredto Third Tactical Air Force, a step for which.Air Marshal Baldwin had long pressed, andthe Seventh Bombardment Group of foursquadrons of Liberators was diverted to haulpetrol to China. This was considered moreremunerative employment for them than theconduct of bomber operations under activemonsoon conditions. Strategic Air Forcetherefore retained only its British component,totalling three Liberator and two Wellingtonsquadrons, excluding the Special Duty and AirSea Rescue element, dn consequence of the


reduction in strength, and with the monsoon atits height, a change in policy was necessary,and a new Operational Directive (No. 10) de-clared that objectives would be 'tactical targetsbest calculated to assist Fourteenth Army;communications, shipping and railways, withparticular attention to the Martaban—Pegu,Pegu—Mandalay and Bangkok—Nampangsections.

)113. In October, the Seventh BombardmentGroup returned to Strategic Air Force, and inthe following month, Nos. 99 and 215 Squad-rons returned to the line having been re-equipped from Wellingtons to Liberators. Withone more accession to its strength (No. 358Squadron formed within the Command andoperating by January), Strategic Air Forcereached its full power for the vital six monthsto follow. Its operational function was accord-ingly expanded from October onwards to in-clude all the duties of strategic bombers,including mining, and the Force was ready forthe decisive campaign which lay ahead.

.114. Operations fell into well-defined cate-gories, the first of which was the effort againstshipping and harbour installations ; the second,and most important, was the interdiction of theoverland supply routes into Southern Burma;and the third the destruction of the enemy'spowers of resistance in Burma by disorganisinghis internal communications, razing his dumps,and denying him the use of his airfields andmilitary installations.

(I) Attacks against Shipping and Harbours..115. Although the main weight of attack

fell upon railways, some effort was directedtowards the furtive and well-camouflaged ship-ping which plied the coasts, seldom movingby day and never venturing far within theradius of action of strike aircraft. Such opera-tions were carried out with the purpose ofdeterring the enemy from committing his sup-plies to the perils of the sea rather than ofsinking the ships en route. It was a policyof denial rather than of destruction. Thischoice was necessary since shipping was neverfrequent enough to justify intensive search forit, and the most remunerative targets weretherefore harbours, docks and port facilities. Ofthese Mergui, Martaban, the new port of KhaoHuagang, and Bangkok were most oftenattacked, and considerable destruction achieved.A typical intelligence report on a raid againstBangkok in March, for example, was—" Con-centrated and successful attack causing destruc-tion of forty per cent, of the storage units;sixty Japs lolled".

116. Accepting that enemy shipping was hardto search out, Strategic Air Force had resortto the policy of hindering what it could notdestroy. Mining was already proved by photo-graphic reconnaissance as being a profitablemethod of delaying the passage of supplies, forin harbours already mined there had been aserious curtailment of Japanese shipping, andsuch craft as continued to approach the har-bours anchored outside so that cargoes had tobe lightered ashore.

117. Thus from August onwards plans andtechnique for very long-range mining weredeveloped and soon bore fruit. In September

(68741)

the Pakchan river, housing the newly con-structed port of Khao Huagang, was heavilymined and the flow of coastal traffic seriouslydisrupted. Similar operations against Bangkok,Goh Sichang and Tavoy followed. In Octobera remarkably successful flight was carried outto the inner approaches of Penang harbour.Fifteen Liberators each laid four 1,000 Ib. mines" precisely in the positions ordered ", with nomishap or failure although the round trip wasover three thousand miles. Such operationscontinued throughout the campaign against allports and anchorages along the TenasserimCoast and from March onwards against thosein the Gulf of Siam. Mining was the specialand exclusive province of No. 159 SquadronR.A.F. who throughout the period laid the im-pressive total of 1,953 mines at ranges which ayear before would have been considered im-possible. The following results were observedfrom reconnaissance:

(i) Jap launch and passenger steamer sunknear Victoria Point (February).

(ii) 3,000 ton tanker Kuisho Maru sunk atBangkok (January),

(Hi) 200 ft. M.V. sunk at Bangkok(March).

(II) The Interdiction of the Southern BurmaSupply Routes.

118. If the anti-shipping effort was intangiblein effect, that against railways was spectacular,and its results immediately apparent. By farthe greatest attention was paid to the Bangkok-Moulmein railway on which an overall total of2,700 tons of bombs were dropped. With theinterdiction of nearly all alternative routes, thisrailway was of paramount importance to theJapanese to supply and maintain their forcesin Burma. Approximately two-thirds of therailway pursues a winding course in jungle hill-covered country, and it is not suitable for low-level attack, in addition to providing first-rateconcealment. But as the strength and efficacyof the bomber force grew and the Burma—Siamrailway became more vital, techniques weredeveloped for its neutralisation. No precisedate can be given for the introduction of thesemethods. A modus operandi was hammeredout and in use before it became a doctrine, butits broad principles were as follows: —

(i) Bridges were the best targets becausethey were the most vulnerable and the mostdifficult to repair.

(ii) The underlying motive was to isolatesegments of the line, and then to destroy atgreater leisure the rolling stock and locomo-tives stranded thereon.

(iii) Diversity of attack was necessary toconfuse the enemy.

(iv) Close photographic reconnaissance wasmaintained to detect any abnormal build-upat sidings or stations which would repayattack.

119. These principles were followed to suchgood effect that between January and April theaverage number of bridges unserviceable at onetime was 9.2 over the stretch of railway fromPegu to Bangkok. It has been estimated thatthis reduced the traffic from 700-800 tons to100-200 tons a day, The value of the attacksneeds no further emphasis.

B


120. Operations similar in concept but lessin intensity were maintained against theBangkok—^Ghiengmai line, the Kra Isthmusrailway, and the Bangkok—Singapore line. Inall cases, the enemy reacted by placing thestrongest A.A. defences he could muster alongsuch a dispersed network of lines, by rebuildingand repairing bridges with beaver-like zeal, andby constructing as many as four by-pass struc-tures at one crossing to counter or anticipateour attack.

(Ill) Destruction of the Enemy's Powers ofResistance within Burma.

(121. To sever the external supply routes wasnot enough, for the enemy held at least sixmonths' reserves of supplies that were containedin vast dumps, mainly dispersed in the Rangoonarea. Therefore, during March and April,systematic destruction was initiated on theRangoon Dumps in conjunction with XXthBomber Command. Their destruction was vital,since with the stores contained therein theenemy might have been able to delay our ad-vance and even halt it above Toungoo. TheDumps contained about 1,700 storage units welldispersed in revetments, and of these, photo-graphic evidence alone showed 524 destroyed,and ground observers reported that well over50 per cent, destruction was achieved.

122. The attacks on Japanese Headquartersand concentration areas can be illustrated bya strike on 29th March against the JapaneseBurma Area Army Headquarters located inRangoon. Reports indicate that four hundredJapanese, with a high proportion of officers,were killed. News of the attack spread to theAllied prisoners in Rangoon, and was thecause of considerable encouragement to them.The enemy's evacuation of the city a monthlater is much more understandable in the lightof these attacks, which made Rangoon sucha dangerous area even before ground forceswere within striking distance. Mandalay hadalready suffered such attacks, notably one inJanuary when it was reported by agents thatsix hundred Japanese were killed. The partplayed by such air blows in persuading theenemy to abandon his strategic positions earlierthan anticipated must surely have been great.

" Special Operations."

123. Air operations in connection withintelligence and guerilla raising activities inthis theatre have increased greatly during thepast year. From a strength of two squadronstotalling 15 U.E. aircraft hi June, 1944,resources were increased by the end of April,1945, to three squadrons and one flight totalling61 U.E. aircraft. The dividend that has beenpaid definitely justified the effort involved.From a handful of informants supplying skimpyinformation at great risk, the organisationsgrew, by the end of the campaign, into apowerful force capable of exerting a consider-able influence on the course of the battle,and the air effort to support them reacheda total of 372 sorties in the lunar month18th April to 17th May. Between November,1944, and May, 1945, over 1,350 sorties wereflown, in which 2,100 tons of stores and 1,000liaison officers were dropped behind the enemy

lines. The effort for the preceding comparableperiod resulted in 34 tons of stores and 35bodies being parachuted in.

124. One of the major results of the greateffort involved was the prevention of theJapanese Fifteenth Army from taking any partin the defence of Toungoo during our advance,and rendering unnecessary the major battlewhich Fourteenth Army anticipated in frontof the town. Other guerillas killed up toseven hundred Japanese, including a General,in the Toungoo-Rangoon area alone.

125. From 'the Air Force point of view,the great value of the Special Duty effort flownby Strategic Air Force was the provision oftargets for the tactical Groups. During thefinal fortnight of April almost 'the whole of.the long-range Fighter-Bomber resources ofNo. 224 Group were employed on Force 136targets. Troop trains were caught at rest anda pagoda reported as a petrol/ammunitiondump blew up with a huge explosion.

126. Special Duty operations in -this theatreare of vital interest to the Air Forces in viewof the difficulty of locating targets withoutthe help of informants. Thus the diversion ofeffort to secret work has not been grudged,and current developments, foreshadowed inthe R.A.F. Airborne Commando, will makethe information supplied by operatorsbehind the lines of even greater value.It is emphasised that parties shouldbe thoroughly briefed in the limitationsand potentialities of air strikes and thatthey should develop a speedy and accuratemethod of reporting if a full harvest is to bereaped from the information whose garner-ing depends so much upon the operationsof our S.D. squadrons.

PART SEVEN.PHOTOGRAPHIC RECONNAISSANCE.127. At the opening of the period, photo-

graphic reconnaissance was carried out mainlyby the aircraft of the Photographic Recon-naissance Force commanded by Group CaptainS. G. Wise, D.F.C. These included the Spit-fires, Mosquitos and Mitchells of 681 and 684Squadrons, R.A.F., operating from Alipore,and the Mustangs, Mitchells and Liberators ofthree U.S.A.A.F. squadrons, the last of whichspecialised in mapping. A fourth U.S.A.A.F.squadron flying Lightnings, began to operatein September.

,128. The dense cloud banks habituallyshrouding the operational area of South EastAsia during the period of the monsoon inter-fered greatly with photographic reconnaissance,but advantage was taken of the northwardpassage of the monsoon in August to procurethe first large-scale and survey cover ofnorthern Sumatra by Mosquitos detached tooperate from Ceylon. Other detachments werelater sent eastwards to operate with the for-ward tactical air force headquarters fromTingawk Sakan (where at the beginning ofSeptember an American tactical reconnaissancesquadron was placed under the P.R. Force),Imphal, Comilla and Chittagong in preparationfor the forthcoming campaign, and these werelater reinforced and moved forward in step


with the ground forces. From the beginningof September onwards, a considerable measureof decentralisation in the planning and conductof operations was introduced, with the purposeof giving squadron commanders more latitudein the allotment of sorties.

129. With the return of fair-weather con-ditions in October, the effort of the photo-graphic reconnaissance squadrons rose to itsformer level, and during this month the dailyaverage of sorties represented over a third ofthe total aircraft available in the whole force.The methodical cover of enemy airfields, com-'munications and other targets was resumed,survey photographs being supplied as requiredby Headquarters Air Command, and Head-quarters Allied Land Forces, South East Asia.In proportion with the increased flying, thephotographic work of the photo sections of theP.R. Force was expanded, nearly 354,000prints being produced during January, 1945,the peak month. Technical photographicdevelopments included the introduction of themoving film camera on operational sorties, andthe fitting into Mosquito aircraft of forwardfacing oblique cameras. The latter were firstused on 14th February, when a set of stereo-scopic pairs covering the Bunna-Siam railwaywas thereby secured.

130. An exceptionally valuable photographicreconnaissance of the Burma rice areas wascarried out by Squadron Leader C. Fox during1944. The results shown by an analysis ofthe pictures were subsequently checked up onthe ground, and were found to be correctwithin 5 per cent.

131. The main hindrances to the operationsof the P.R. Force continued, even in thecampaigning season, to be factors inseparablefrom flying in the tropics rather than the oppo-sition of the enemy, which remained slighterthan was usual in other theatres of war.Successful cover of the waterfront at Akyab,for instance, was secured in November, 1944,by two Spitfires flying at from 50 to 200 feet,at neither of which a shot was fired. Butthe lengthening range of Mosquito sortiesmonth by month bore witness to the masteryof climate and terrain. It was in December,1944, that the first cover of Puket Island wasobtained, in the course of a flight involvinga round trip of 2,100 miles, which marked thefurthest penetration to be made in this area.This record was, however, eclipsed by anotheraircraft which in January flew 2,431 air milesin eight hours and 20 minutes to coverMoulrnein and the railway from Bangkok toPhnom Penh. Finally on 22nd March aMosquito XVI broke the long distance recordfor this type of aircraft in any theatre of warwith a flight of 2,493 air miles in eight hoursforty-five minutes, covering the Bangkok-Singapore railway to a point south of theMalayan frontier. It was thus that theMosquito made amends for the structuraldefect which had seriously curtailed its useduring November and December, 1944.

132. The work of the P.R. Force was co-ordinated at one end with the short-rangephotography of the tactical reconnaissancesquadrons, while at the other end, long dis-tance survey work over Malaya was undertakenby the Superfortresses of XXth BomberCommand, U.S.A.A.F. The P.R. Force was

responsible, for instance, for all the workadaysurvey and mapping required by the FourteenthArmy. As the Officer Commanding, No. 11Indian Air Survey Liaison Section, R.E.,reported in February, 1945, 684 Squadron,R.A.F. alone had achieved, in twelve months,three-quarters of the basic cover for the wholecampaign and 1/30,000 cover for maps, photo-maps and artillery block plots over the battlelines from Dimapur nearly to Rangoon andMoulmein. The work of photographic recon-naissance in general in this theatre has, ofcourse, been of all the greater importance owingto the comparatively meagre intelligence avail-able from ground sources; for air force pur-poses alone it provided an indispensable factorin the maintenance of Allied air superiority byproviding speedy evidence of the location ofenemy aircraft, while the work of the StrategicAir Force would have been unprofitable with-out the coverage of targets it furnished.

PART EIGHT.

GENERAL RECONNAISSANCE.

133. As the period under review opened, adeal of uncertainty existed as to whether theIndian Ocean U-boat warfare would be inten-sified by the arrival of long-range GermanU-boats. Such a possibility was not im-probable, and had the contemplated threatmaterialised then, all General Reconnaissanceair power in this theatre would have beenharnessed under the co-ordinating and super-vising control of IOGROPS.*

134. The period from June to August wit-nessed a decided increase in enemy U-boatwarfare, although at no time can it be saidthat the threat reached alarming proportions.During these three months the enemy (operat-ing with considerable wariness) sank thirteenships of the medium-sized merchant vesselclass, and, in turn, suffered the loss of onesubmarine as a result of a combined attack byaircraft and Naval Force 66.

135. In July, a concentration of enemy unitsin and around the shipping lanes to the eastof the Maldives—resulting in the loss of fiveships—portended a possible menace. In thisconnection it is worthy of comment thatCatalina aircraft employed on rescue searchesco-operated in the location and eventual rescueof 244 survivors.

136. Having regard to the amount of ship-ping in the Indian Ocean, and the fact thatduring August there were possibly five Germanunits operating in these waters, the enemy'sachievements might be considered singularlypaltry. This is a tribute to the constant vigi-lance of General Reconnaissance aircraft inthe flying of anti-U-boat sweeps and patrols.Such a policy might not have produced manysightings and kills—a consideration of theimmense expanses of ocean to be guarded willclearly show the difficulty of locating enemyunits—but it kept U-boats submerged and outof range of our shipping.

137. With September came a falling-off inU-boat operations, and this was continuedduring October and November. A slight in-

* Indian Ocean G.R. Operations.


crease during November was considered as aparting shot of little weight and trifling import-ance. As an explanation of this it is reasonableto assume that American aggressiveness in theChina Seas and the Pacific was absorbing theattention of Japan, as was the European warthe attention of Germany. Thus the expectedthreat did not develop but rather declined, andas a consequence the need for an over-allcentralised control as vested in the organisationof IOGROPS diminished with the declining U-boat threat.

Offensive General Reconnaissance.138. The second half of the twelve months

under review opened with No. 222 Group "still'being primarily concerned in supplementing thehunting and striking .powers of the East IndiesFleet in -anti-U-boat warfare. But it was be-coming apparent 'that the U-boat threat nolonger existed. Therefore, in the due con-sideration of alternative employment was con-ceived the undertaking of an offensive role. Themining of enemy waters in the Malacca Straitsand the Chumphorn, Singora, Padang, Singa-pore areas; anti-shipping operations to denythe waters of the Andaman Sea to enemy ship-ping—this was to be the future employmentof General Reconnaissance aircraft.

139. Mining operations were the first tocommence, on the 21st January. From thatdate until 3rd May, 1945, 833 mines have beencarried to enemy waters by No. 160 Squadron,the high percentage of 86.9 being successfullylaid. The success of these operations, althoughnot immediately apparent, will be revealed withthe broadening of the operational scene in thistheatre.

140. Only a short period of training wasnecessary to prepare No. 354 Squadron forits new assignment of low-level anti-shippingstrikes, which were commenced early in Febru-ary. A second Liberator squadron—No. 203—began to augment the anti-shipping effort inMarch. A statistical summary of the materialdamage inflicted as a result of these operationsproves that these two squadrons played nosmall part in complicating the enemy's acuteproblem of shipping shortage.

The Development and Control of OffensiveGeneral Reconnaissance.

141. The last four months had seen GeneralReconnaissance changing the nature of itsoperational function with deftness and adapt-ability. The reinforcement and development ofthis new offensive role was envisaged duringMarch, when No. 346 Wing was formed atAkyab, to provide escort for " forward area "convoys and to make easily available a strik-ing force against enemy shipping off the Arakanand Burmese Coasts.

142. One squadron of Sunderland aircraft•based on the depot ship S.S. " Manela " consti-tuted a significant part of 346 Wing. Thisvessel ultimately proceeded from Colombo toRangoon via Akyab, and her advent to thesewaters was an important milestone in offensiveGeneral Reconnaissance. Should a situationdevelop wherein it was necessary to conductanti-shipping and similar operations in a

theatre where the scene of operations might beconstantly and rapidly changing (with a conse-quent paucity of adequate land-bases) thena mobile flying boat base would be an invalu-able asset. If this situation did not develop,then the inherent mobility of such a unit couldbe usefully adapted to the requirements of AirSea Rescue and Transport operations, where,as always, the lack of immediate land-basesestablishes a major problem.

143. The period closed on an encouragingnote. General Reconnaissance had alreadystruck a worthwhile blow at enemy shipping,and plans were in hand for an intensifyingof these operations in the months to come. Inconsidering the strategic plan of anti-shippingsorties, mention should be made of the invalu-able contribution of those General Recon-naissance Liberator and Mosquito aircraftbased on Ceylon, in their day and night photo-graphic reconnaissance over the Andamans,Nicobar Islands, Northern Sumatra and parts ofMalaya. Meteorological flights were also flownregularly, and materially assisted weather fore-casts for aircraft flying over vast expanses ofwater.

PART NINE

ADMINISTRATIVE AND OTHERASPECTS

(I) Administration.144. Administrative development of Air

Command, South East Asia, during the yearwas dictated by the following factors: —

i(i) The move of Command Headquartersito Kandy.

(ii) The need for identifying group ad-ministrative areas inside India with thegeographical boundaries of the Indian ArmyCommand.

(iii) The traditional problem of adminis-tering units spread over vast areas with in-sufficient resources.

(iv) The desirability of removing fromoperational formations extraneous adminis-trative burdens.

(v) The necessity for providing operationalunits with greater mobility.

(vi) The planning of the administrativenetwork to sustain and control units advan-cing into Burma.

(yii) The formation of new units in antici-pation of future operations, while hardlymeeting present commitments with existingresources in manpower and material.

((viii) The development on an unpre-cedented scale of air supply for the Alliedforces advancing into Burma.

145. The primary British interests in SouthEast Asia were the re-conquest of Burma, theFederated Malay States and Singapore, theNetherland East Indies, Thailand and FrenchIndo-China. British air responsibilities in SouthEast Asia also included the ah* defence ofIndia and of Allied shipping hi the Indian'Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Ben-gal. With these somewhat diverse objectives


and geographical vagaries in mind it was essen-tial to evolve an administration covering RoyalAir Force commitments which would effectivelymeet the situation in South East Asia.

,146! The extensive re-organizations whichtook place during 1944-45 were effected againsta background of strict and cumbrous control ofexpenditure by the Government of India, andof dependence upon India through the organiza-tion known as the War Projects Co-ordinationand Administrative Committee for the provi-sion of resources. There was, too, a cripplingshortage of manpower in precisely those tradeswhich make for good administration—non-fly-ing officers (notably signals and maintenancestaffs), clerks G/D., equipment assistants, cooksand the like. Moreover, the growing body ofAir Command continually bumped its headagainst the Command manpower ceiling. Itis not intended to infer that the R.A.F. inSouth East Asia was badly served in relationto other commands, for it was well under-stood that the allocation of manpower had tobe assessed in relation to theatre requirements.Nevertheless, it was considered that perhapsthe incidence of and the remedies for the grow-ing pains experienced were not fully recognisedat home.

The Move of Headquarters, Air Command, toCeylon.

147. The move of the Command Head-quarters to Kandy was compelled by the in-sistence of the Supreme Allied Commander thathis Commanders-in-Chief should work besidehim. It was, however, rendered the moreacceptable to Air Command on account of thegrowing need for divorcing operational andhigher administrative control from the exten-sive and complicated negotiations necessarywith the Government of India and with G.H.Q.,India, relative to administrative services, whichhad tended to hamper the primary tasks of theAllied Air Commander-in-Chief.

148. The institution of H.Q. Base Air Forcesat New Delhi, had, therefore, many advantages.It liberated the Air Commander-in-Chief andhis staff from direct day to day responsibilitiesfor developing India as a base, and thusenabled him to address his attention moreclosely to the general problems of planningand policy control.

149. Before Base Air Forces was establishedand re-organisation was under consideration, itwas generally supposed that a vertical splitbetween the Air Staff and AdministrativeBranches offered the best solution to a com-plex problem. This meant that operationssections of the staff would move with the AirCommander-in-Chief- to Kandy while theadministrative sections remained at New Delhi.-It was intended that administrative representa-tion at Kandy should be effected by the pro-vision of small cells or projections of theadministrative branches concerned, whichwould work in an advisory and liaison capacity.This at the time, was broadly the view of AirChief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse.

150. Difficulties ahead if such an administra-tive set-up was adopted at New Delhi assuggested, were foreseen by Air Vice-MarshalGoddard. The reins of higher administrative

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control and policy, he considered, must in thefirst instance, be held firmly at Air Commandin order to effect perfect co-ordination with theAir Commander-in-Chief and the operationalbranches at Kandy. Beside, the geographicfactor was an important consideration, for Delhiwas fifteen hundred miles from Kandy.

151. A new scheme which would more effec-tively meet the situation once re-organisationwas established and yet ensure the retentionof higher administrative control at Air Com-mand, was brought up for consideration duringthe visit of Air Vice-Marshal Goddard toLondon in July, 1944. This revised projectwas, in the main, largely adopted when,* at thebeginning of October, Headquarters Air Com-mand moved to Kandy and Headquarters BaseAir Forces was formed at New Delhi.

152. The essence of the new arrangementlay in the retention at New Delhi of an admin-istrative staff competent to deal with all ques-tions, save the important policy matters, directwith the analogous departments of GeneralHeadquarters, India, and the Government ofIndia. This ensured adequate Air Forcerepresentation at the centre of political powerin India and, at the same time, avoided thecreation of a duplicate headquarters under AkCommand for which neither the men nor themeans were to hand. The administrative ser-vices, whose heads remained in Delhi were,nevertheless, represented at Kandy by re-sponsible and independent skeleton staffs undera senior officer competent to inform and adviseon his own specialist topic as required, so thatbroad policy might properly be formulated atthe Headquarters of Air Command.

153. During October and November, 1944,there persisted a considerable amount of uncer-tainty as to the basis on which the administra-tive machinery would ultimately rest. Forinstance, as matters of high policy were decidedat Kandy, it was decided by the AirCommander-in-Chief that he must have by hisside the head of the service primarily con-cerned. This applied successively to thePrincipal Medical Officer, the CommandAccountant, the Command Welfare Officer andthe Command Catering Officer, and finally tothe Air Officer in charge of Training.

154. The situation was finally crystallisedand clarified in October, when a re vised'direc-tive was issued to the Air Marshal Command-ing Base Air Forces. For all day to daymatters affecting administrative services, theheads of those services were solely responsibleto the Air Marshal Commanding Base AirForces. But when matters of administrativepolicy affecting the Command as a whole arose,then the heads of the administrative serviceswere responsible to the Allied Air Commander-in-Chief through the Air Officer (Administra-tion) (A.O.A.), Headquarters, Air Command.Similarly, when matters of new Commandpolicy came under discussion and the agree-ment of the Government of India was required,the heads of the administrative services con-cerned were empowered by the Air Com-mander-in-Chief, through the A.OA. Air Com-mand, to deal with their opposite numbers inG.H.Q. India, on behalf of the Air C.-in-C.

155. As a corollary to this arrangement, thestaff officers under the A.O.A., Air Command atKandy were not established as mere liaison

C


officers. Their allegiance and responsibilitywas towards the A.O.A. Air Command, wholooked to them for staff work, for records andfor facts. They were not, however, hisadvisers in the formulation of new policy—these continued to be the heads of the servicesin New Delhi, who might if they wished sendtheir own staff officers from Delhi or comethemselves to make representations to theA.O.A., Air Command, on matters of Com-mand policy external to the responsibility ofthe Air Marshal Commanding, Base Air Forces.This was not a normal system. But the separa-tion of -the Supreme Allied Commander and theHeadquarters of his Commanders-in-Chief fromthe seat of the Government of India and dualityof channels to the United Kingdom Govern-ment—either through the Government of Indiaor direct—constituted an abnormal situation.

156. The value and effectiveness of the baseorganisation thus created was endorsed by theAir Member for Supply and Organisation(A.M.S.O.) during his visit in February, 1945.Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Courtneywas impressed by the extent of the negotiationswhich were necessary in New Delhi with thenumerous organisations concerned with theconduct of the war from India, He counselleda progressive decentralisation of functions toBase Air Forces and its gradual endowmentwith a greater measure of autonomy ; .this wasof course in keeping with the original schemeand was accordingly pursued*

Disbandment of Third Tactical Air Force andFormation of H.Q., R.A.F., Bengal-Burma.

.157. Eastern Air Command, from its forma-tion in December, 1943, onwards, was an ex-clusively operational Headquarters with noadministrative responsibilities. When its Head-quarters moved to Calcutta in March, 1944,administrative services for the area of Eastern(Army) Command were being provided byHeadquarters No. 231 Group, and this Head-quarters also administered the R.A.F. elementof Eastern Air Command. But it was clearlyanomalous that a Bomber Group engaged inactive operations should continue to be saddledwith the wide responsibilities for administra-tion which were of no concern to the StrategicAir Force*

158. This, and other considerations pointingtowards a re-organisation of the groups inIndia, was discussed with the A.M.S.O. inAugust, 1944. The logical course would havebeen to confer administrative responsibilitiesupon the R.A.F. (Element of Eastern Air Com-mand and to form a new Group Headquartersunder it to exercise them. But owing to themanpower shortage it was impossible to createa new headquarters altogether distinct fromHeadquarters, Eastern Air Command, and itwas therefore agreed that H.Q. No. 231 Groupshould give up its extraneous administrativeresponsibilities, and that the administrative staffso released should be reconstituted as AirHeadquarters, Bengal. At the same time, theDeputy Air Commander, Eastern Air Com-mand, was to become Air Officer Commanding,Bengal, with administrative responsibilitiesextending eastwards as far as the Brahmaputra.They could not be further extended, since this

would have meant that the Air Marshal Com-manding, Third Tactical Air Force, wouldhave been administratively subordinated to thethe Ak Vice-Marshal, A.O.C. Bengal.

159. It was therefore decided to proposethe disbandment of Headquarters, ThirdTactical Air Force. For such a coursethere were other good reasons outsidethe administrative sphere—operationally, thetitle was now a misnomer, since in June, 1944,the Tenth U.S.A.A.F. had been reconstitutedas an independent formation under EasternAir Command, and the Headquarters of theFourteenth Army was due after -the openingof the new campaign to move forward toImphal, where Headquarters, No. 221 Grouphad long been established, leaving XV Corpsin 'the Arakan to operate independently underthe G.O.C.-in-C., Allied Land Forces.Authority for the disbandment of Head-quarters, Third Tactical Air Force was givenin October, 1944.

160. The disbandment of Third T.A.F.involved also the expansion of Headquarters,No. 221 Group and the allotment to EasternAir Command of direct operational control ofall its subordinate operational formations. Thedate of this further re-organisation was timedto synchronize with the move of Headquarters,Fourteenth Army to Imphal beside Head-quarters, No. 221 Group, and the establish-ment of Advanced Headquarters, Allied LandForces, alongside Eastern Air Command atCalcutta. This move took place on 4thDecember when the Air Marshal Commanding,Third Tactical Air Force, became Deputy AirCommander, Eastern Air Command and AirMarshal Commanding, R.A.F., 'Bengal-Burma.

161. Headquarters, R.A.F., iBengal-Burmawas the name given to the administrativeformation now brought into existence to com-bine the functions of R.A.F. Bengal and theadministrative responsibilities previouslywielded by Third T.A.F. Geographically, itsresponsibilities covered both the base area ofBengal and the more easterly marches, bit bybit being extended into Burma with theadvance of the Fourteenth Army. The militarysuzerain of the former was G.H.Q., India, andof the latter, Headquarters Allied Land Forces.Headquarters, Bengal-Burma was accordinglybuilt up on a dual basis commensurate withthe existence of two sets of army authoritieswith .which it would have to deal, and alsowith an eye to future development wheneverthe reconquest of Burma should compel it.This stage was reached in. February, 1945,when it became possible to carry out theanticipated divorce between Bengal and Burmacomponents of the Air Marshal Commanding'sprovince. R.A.F. Bengal was then expandedinto Headquarters, No. 228 Group andreturned to Base Air Forces, though the fillingof its establishments proved a slow process.

Administrative and Training Groups.162. In order to ensure better co-ordina-

tion of administrative services, to facilitatecombined •training, and to ensure close liaisonon internal security measures, the groups inIndia underwent a rationalization of their areas'to coincide with those of the army formations.


This measure was brought to its logical con-clusion by the formation of No. 228 Groupin February, 1945, to provide functional and/or administrative control of all units of BaseAir Forces within the area of Eastern (Army)Command, and to provide R.A.F. administrativeservices within that area. As Eastern, (Army)Command extends its boundaries to the Burmafrontier, the area of responsibility of No. 228Group will expand. R.A.F. India is thus splitup between four administrative and traininggroups.

Introduction of Wing H.Q. and ServicingEchelon Organisation.

163. In the Far East more than in themetropolitan air force, the administrativeproblems confronting junior operational com-manders are such as to hinder them in theperformance of their primary tasks. In recog-nition of this and to improve the mobility andflexibility of the wing organisation, it wasdecided to introduce the principle of wingheadquarters and servicing echelons for single-engined and light twin-engined aircraft. Thescheme came into effect by the end of Sep-tember, 1944, with the wing headquarters basedon certain major airfields, and the servicingechelons became responsible for the upkeepof the squadron aircraft. The squadrons werethereby relieved of the responsibility for theirown administration and most of their first-linemaintenance.

164. In anticipation of a more mobile kindof warfare, it became necessary in December,1944, to remove the geographical restrictionimplied by naming the wing according to itscurrent location. The wings were accordinglygiven numbers, and their attitude to mobilitythus greatly enhanced, as evidenced by theadvance of No. 906 Wing from Imphal toRangoon in six months, in a series of well-organized moves. The scheme has beensuccessful, and its principle has been extendedto other squadrons in order to centralize controlof resources and administration and toeconomise in overheads.

-165. Perhaps one factor has marred fulladvantage being taken of the inherent mobilityand flexibility which the organisation wouldafford. The provision of more servicingechelons than squadrons would allow of peakperiods of operational effort at very shortnotice from advance airfields, for an additionalservicing echelon could be flown in to supple-ment the existing maintenance personnel. Thislesson was learned at Akyab where the provi-dential presence of a servicing commandoallowed of a much higher rate of effort fromthe island during the early days of the occupa-tion than would otherwise have been possible.

167. In June, 1944, the establishment andstrength of the Command for ground Britishpersonnel were as follows: —

Establish- Strength Shortagement

Officers ... 6,277 5,170 1,107Other tanks ... 88,636 80,967 7,669

94,913 86,137 8,776

The deficiency of 18 per cent, in groundofficers was concentrated principally in suchimportant branches as Admin. G., Tech. (E),Code and Cypher and the like. The airmandeficiency of 9 per cent, more seriously affectedthe clerical trades.

168. By May, 1945, the position hadchanged, but not improved, as the followingfigures and illustrations will show: —

Establish- Strength Shortagement or

SurplusOfficers ... 8,103 7,573 530

ShortageOther ranks ... 105,470 110,459 4,989

Surplus

Total 113,573 118,032 4,459Surplus

169. The 6£ per cent, deficiency in groundofficers affects principally the followingbranches, Admin., Code and Cyphers, Tech.(E), Catering, etc. The shortages in theTechnical Branch have caused particulardifficulty. The overall 5 per cent, surplus inairmen does not give a true picture of thesituation, for there are very serious deficienciesin clerical and domestic personnel which arehampering the development of the Command.Clerks G/D are below establishment by noless than 36 per cent., Equipment Assistants by29 per cent, and Cooks by 28 per cent. Thesurplus was concentrated in the technicaltrades and amounted to 7.100. Such a surpluswas more of a liability than an asset, since itcreated additional work for the already over-burdened administrative and domestic per-sonnel and could not be used to offset theshortages elsewhere.

170. Since February, 1945, very strenuousefforts have been made to disband redundantunits and prune such establishments as canconceivably be reduced. The diminishing airthreat to the east coast of India and Ceylonhas made it possible to thin out the early warn-ing Radar system, and considerable economieshave been effected. Much has been done todistribute the shortages where they could moreeasily be borne, and it was Command policyto make the strongest where it was mosteffective, that was nearest to the enemy.

The Manpower Situation.

166. The Command has been continuallyhampered by an ill-balanced allotment of man-power, whereby shortages have been concen-trated in certain vital trades, rendering theadministrative machine extremely difficult tooperate efficiently.

Conclusion.171. The administrative network covering

the vastness of India is now as complete andrational as present resources allow. It cannotbe said, however, that the administrativeproblems of the Command are now solved. Asthe armies advance, the area to be controlledgrows, and the net is in many places thin..


This is particularly so in those areas vacated bythe advancing tactical groups, and extra pro-vision must continually be made to administerthose formations left in the backwash of theadvance. It has even been necessary to graftadditional administrative responsibilities on tothe air supply group in the forward areas(No. 232), for lack of personnel to set up therequisite administrative framework. The con-flicting factors of function and distance havecalled for an organization far more complexthan would be the case in a more compacttheatre. For this the only solution is a realiza-tion at home that additional personnel andtransport facilities to maintain India as a base,and conduct an energetic campaign in Malayaand beyond, must be allotted on a moregenerous scale than previously.

(II) Maintenance.172. The maintenance organisation in South

East Asia embraces supply, servicing, repairand salvage of all air force material in India,Ceylon and Burma ; an area approximately thesize of Europe. It was realised at an earlystage that it was impossible to have the samemaintenance system operating throughout theCommand, since the extensive topographicaldiversities encountered necessitated that theultimate systems adopted be dictated by thegeography of the country. Broadly speaking,therefore, one system applies in Ceylon andIndia as far eastwards as the Brahmaputra,and an entirely different one was evolved tooperate throughout Assam and Burma. Inthe former area conditions are more or lessstatic, the ground communications, althoughgreatly inferior to those of Europe, are reason-ably good with no considerable land or waterbarriers. 'Here, a large and efficient basemaintenance organisation has been built upwhich provides adequate backing for the airforces far beyond the Brahmaputra; it is inthis base area that the Base Repair Depots,Equipment Depots and Aircraft Storage Unitsare to be found. In Assam and Burma, how-ever, the situation bears a vastly differentappearance, parsimonious communicationsfrom Calcutta to the railhead at Dimapur andthence by road over the Naga and Chin Hillsto Central Burma prohibited the use of a main-tenance organisation which was possible inEngland and which, to a limited degree, hasalso been found possible in India.

173. From the time of the siege of Imphalto the capture of Rangoon, air lift, the prin-cipal means of supply to our combat Army andAir Force formations, was restricted to essen-tial needs and could not be provided to supportavoidable maintenance at forward airfields.As a result, a policy was agreed of flying air-craft back to India for comparatively simpleservicing requirements such as periodicalinspections and engine changes. This obviatedthe necessity for flying spare engines and tosome extent, equipment and spares, into theforward areas; at the same time it increasedthe mobility of squadrons and reduced theirmaintenance personnel requirements. Aircraftwhich crashed away from airfields' hadnormally to be written off charge, while thosewhich . crashed on airfields, provided thedamage was not too great, were repaired on

the site. Surface movement back to Indiawas restricted to a minimum, since damage toan aircraft during transit in this part of theworld is normally so great that it is beyondeconomical repair on arrival at its destination.On occasions, damaged fighter aircraft weredismantled and flown back to India, theservicing .personnel becoming so expert thatthey were able to pack the whole of a fighteraircraft and its components into one Dakotafuselage.

174. Owing to the speed and intensity atwhich the campaign was being fought, and thevital need to capture the strategic base ofRangoon before the onset of the monsoon, Idecided that all the normal rates of effort mustbe exceeded, and all our Air Force resourceswere thrown into the battle. During onemonth of 1945, no less than 700 aircraft passedthrough the Aircraft Storage Units andReserve Aircraft Pools in order to providereplacements for the 75 squadrons operatingeast of Calcutta. During the early stages ofthe campaign, the small number of combatlosses introduced a major maintenance com-plication, since low wastage rates, giving air-craft a long life, placed upon the repairorganisation a storage commitment which hadnot been foreseen. A further strain wascaused by severe deterioration owing toclimatic conditions, such as to subject aircraftto monsoon rains accompanied by suddenbursts of sunshine. This had an adverse effectupon the timber, fabric, rubber and electricalparts of aircraft. In the autumn of 1944, forinstance, Mosquito aircraft had to be groundedas a result of such defects, until extensive re-pairs had been effected.

175. The maintenance organisation in theforward areas consisted of the Repair and Sal-vage Units (R. and S.U.) supporting squadronsat their airfields, and taking on all work whichthe flying units could not complete within forty-eight hours. Air Stores Parks held sufficientstocks of spares and equipment for threemonths supply, and the Forward Repair Depotswhich were located far enough forward toundertake major inspections and repairs beyondR. & S.U. capacity. In addition Motor Trans-port Light Repair Depots were deployed inthe forward areas, and the importance of theirwork can be measured by the fact that in traver-sing the tortuous line of communication fromCalcutta through Dimapur and Imphal tocentral Burma, mechanical transport vehicleshad expended the major part of their usefullives before reaching then* destination. Thusa great deal of ingenuity and inventiveness onthe part of M/T servicing personnel was neces-sary in order to keep vehicles running, vehicleswhich in base areas would have been scrapped.

176. The maintenance effort in Burma canbest be summarized as a triumph of improvisa-tion to overcome bad climate and worse ter-rain, the paucity of spares, tools and equipmentwhich was designed for the European theatreof war and not designed to be flown over,driven through or manhandled in the cruelcountry of Assam and Burma. The overload-ing of home production, and the overridingneed to finish off the western war first, wereadequate reasons for this situation, and themaintenance effort during the period which cul-minated in the capture of Rangoon was very


largely dissipated in a desperate struggle tokeep the units of the maintenance organisationabreast of the operational flying units. Thatthis was achieved speaks volumes for the" tena-city, skill and loyalty of the maintenancepersonnel.

(Ill) Interned Air Lines.177. The growth of air routes during the past

year is best illustrated by the followingfigures:—

Passengers Freight MailMay, 1944 2,103 166,313 Ibs. 99,435 Ibs.April, 1945 11,514 1,579,119 Ibs. 777,944 Ibs.

i!78. This rapid increase was attributable toa greater intensity of operations, and betterplanning followed somewhat tardily by agrowth of resources. At the beginning of thecampaign, one squadron (No. 353) shoulderedthe whole burden while still largely equippedwith Hudsons. In July, 1944, No. 52 Squad-ron was formed, and by flying 19,000 hourswithout an accident, speedily gained an excel-lent reputation for its high standard of operat-ing and freedom from accidents over routesthat include the hazardous flight over the Humpto China. In April, 1945, a flight of No. 232Squadron, equipped with Liberator C-87 air-craft, began to operate on the longer routes,forming the most recent addition to a forcethe strength of which has grown to two and ahalf squadrons.

179. Parallel action to build up a groundorganisation to handle greater traffic and morecomplex problems was necessary. To this end,static transport wings have been established atDelhi, Karachi and Calcutta; that at Delhiwas intended eventually to move to Rangoon.Located at nodal points on the trunk routes,these wings also gave advice on all mattersaffecting air transport and ferrying to the groupin whose area they were located. When theirestablishments were fully implemented, 229Group Headquarters was relieved of a greatdeal of day to day work in administering somesixty units spread over India.

180. Even now, internal air communicationswithin the theatre are not adequate. This factcannot be fully realised by anyone who has notappreciated the vastness of India from a rail-way carriage or travelled over roads on whichthe twentieth century has barely left its mark.Moreover, in a sub-continent whose urbancentres are so distant from one another, it isoften necessary to plan an operation eighthundred miles from its mounting base, whilethe allocation of resources may be effected fromanother centre which may be fifteen hundredmiles from the controlling headquarters.Furthermore, the major base for the prosecu-tion of a campaign in southern Burma, Malayaor Java, is still India, and the need for swiftcommunication between base and combat areais another continually growing commitment forsquadrons who serve an area ranging fromKarachi to Kunming and from Peshawar toCeylon.

181. At times, local operational tasks havemade the diversion of aircraft from internalroutes to air supply a tempting solution to apressing problem. This temptation has alwaysbeen resisted, and it is a first principle that the

vital arteries of South-East Asia Commandshall remain open. The mobility of the staffs,the despatch of urgent freight, close contactwith the battle areas, and the building up ofIndia as a base, must always be a prime con-sideration when assessing priorities for airtransport resources in this theatre. Not onlyis the work of all three services dependent uponspeedy communication over long distances ; itis on the air routes that the Air Force canreap a dividend from the transport aircraftwhich are so frequently operated for the benefitof others. The R.A.F. should also use the speedand flexibility of its transport squadrons toimprove the efficiency of its own organisation.

182. Air Command has derived great benefitfrom the Transport Groups allotted to thistheatre, which has made possible a closer studyof transport problems and a more effectivesupervision of this specialised type of flying.The improvement in operating standards is wellillustrated by the accident rate. In October,1943, there were 49 accidents per 10,000 hoursof transport and ferry flights. By April, 1945,the rate had been reduced to 9 per 10,000hours. Such an improvement reflects thegreatest credit on all concerned and demon-strates the close co-operation which has beenachieved- between South-East Asia and Trans-port Command.

(IV) The R.A.F. Regiment.183. Until mid-1944 the strength of ' the

R.A.F. Regiment was deployed to the extentof rather more than two-thirds in machine gunanti-aircraft units, and the remainder in fieldsquadrons designed for an infantry role. Eventsthen "forced a fundamental revision of the partfor which the R.A.F. Regiment in South EastAsia was cast. It had become apparent thatadvanced airfields, radar sites and other airforce installations would not necessarily beguarded if their locations did not happen tofit into the tactical schemes adopted * by thelocal army formations, and that unless the airforces were to withdraw everything to a safedistance behind the front lines they wouldthemselves have to provide the necessary de-fence force. For this purpose the R.A.F. Regi-ment during the later months of 1944 wasexpanded and re-organised into ten wing head-quarters, twenty field squadrons, threearmoured (holding) squadrons and ten anti-aircraft squadrons, so as to provide tacticaldefence for air force units as "required. Thebalance of functions in the Regiment asbetween air and ground defence was thus com-pletely reversed.

184. The wisdom of this re-organisation wasabundantly proved in the course of the 1944-45campaign. As has already been explained, theessence of the tactics by which the re-conquestof Burma was achieved lay in the rapid ad-vance of mechanised units thrusting through oraround enemy positions, the strength of whichhad been weakened by air bombardment. Thefighter bombers which provided the backboneof the latter, and also the fighters required forair defence, could only operate effectively fromairfields close behind the advanced army units.The supplies on whose delivery the mainten-ance of the Army's advance depended were


likewise landed at airstrips as close as possibleto troops in the line. Allied transport aircraftwere often being unloaded on captured airfieldswithin a few hours of their being seized. Butas the army units advanced, it frequently provedimpossible, despite the presence of enemytroops lurking in the neighbourhood, to leavegarrisons behind to protect the airfields theyhad overrun. The defence of the latter thusfell to the squadrons of the R.A.F. Regiment.On their shoulders there thus rested the defenceof the army lifeline and also of the air basesindispensable for air support and defence, andthey were accordingly moved forward step bystep with the progress of the campaign, some-times by air.

185. The main airfield at Meiktila for in-stance, was occupied early in March, 1944, andwas speedily transformed into a forward basefor the supply of the Fourteenth Army, whoseunits had forged ahead both southwards andeastwards, leaving numerous organised partiesof the enemy in their rear. The defence of theairfield thus fell mainly upon two field squad-rons of the R.A.F. Regiment, which went intoaction on a number of occasions againstJapanese parties attempting to dig themselves inwithin the airfield perimeter. For a shortperiod indeed, the landing strip used to changehands twice daily, the enemy infiltrating by•night only to be expelled the next morningwhen, as soon as all was clear, the transportaircraft would begin to land. The Regimentcasualties in the course -of these engagementsincluded two officers and twelve other rankskilled.

PART TEN.

CONCLUSIONS, RESULTS, AND LESSONSLEARNED.

I. Operations.186. One of the major difficulties under which

an Air Force works, is the impracticability ofever drawing up a full balance-sheet which willgive in detail the full results of air action. Un-less a detailed examination of enemy records ismade, air forces must rely upon the dis-jointed accounts of the ground forces, the re-ports of informants, and photographic recon-naissance, for an assessment of their results.This has been particularly the case in Burma,where so much of the effort has been expendedupon fleeting targets, reported troop concentra-tions, or objectives obscured by thick jungle.Notwithstanding the vagueness of the informa-tion, it is certain that the number of casualtiesinflicted upon the enemy as a direct result ofair action has undoubtedly been large, theisolation of the battlefield by the interdiction ofthe supply lines has been almost complete,and prevented the enemy from deploying hisfull strength in every major engagement thathas taken place, while the new mobility givento armies by the unstinting use of air transporthas undoubtedly been the major factor in theexpulsion of the enemy from Burma.

187. There have at times been grounds for abelief that the effort of our close supportsquadrons has not been used to full advantagebecause of a lack of experience on the part of

Army commanders of the relative efficacy ofcertain types of air attack against the variedobjectives. A more scientific application ofthe fire-power afforded by ground-attack air-craft might have led to an economy of effortthus made available to apply to other targets.Whether the attack by twelve fighter-bombersagainst a well-camouflaged single machine-gunis' justifiable, must always be a moot pointuntil machinery is devised to assess the debitand credit side of the picture. It is not diffi-cult in a staff study to deduce that the effortis unprofitable, but the same point of viewmay %not be held by the troops making theactual assault. The results of the air bombard-ment may be just what was needed to make theaction successful. It is certain that the highstandard of accuracy developed in our tacticalsquadrons during 1944-45 has had an enormouseffect upon enemy resistance.

188. The low incidence of casualties duringassaults by our own troops also bears thisout, as do the unvarying tributes paid bybattalions and divisions to the work of thesquadrons who supported them. Recently,further evidence has come to light frominformants on the efficacy of attacks. Withthe co-ordination of Visual Control Post teamsand other sources, an even more efficient direc-tion of fire-power on to targets and betterobservation of results will be possible. Ifanalysed, the plans "compiled from these sourceswould provide valuable proof of the decisivepart that can be played by close supportsquadrons properly trained and handled.

II. Planning.189. The amount of planning that has been

necessary to bring the campaign to a close hasbeen large, due in part to some misappreciationof Japanese intentions and to frustration im-posed by non-arrival of resources. There wasa tendency also on the part of ground forcesto formulate a plan of operations withoutconsulting the Air Commander in the earlystages of planning. In consequence, mucheffort was expended in the recasting of opera-tional plans to take advantage of the strikingpower of air forces.

190. Much of this could have been avoidedhad the Army Commander been able to re-main alongside the Supreme Commander andthe Allied Air Commander-in-Chief insteadof having to base himself at an AdvancedHeadquarters in Calcutta. Not only wasproper liaison at C.-in-C. level impossible, butthe full flow of information and views betweenthe staffs was rendered difficult. The Burmacampaign proved that -no plan of operationsis complete unless it represents the views ofthe air as well as of the ground forces at allstages.

III. Maintenance.191. South East Asia Air Forces have a

background of three years' development undertrying conditions with insufficient resources.The organisation became vast and was spreadover a wide area. The first phase for whichthis organisation was designed is now com-pleted ; the flow of supplies has become secure,and the necessity for tying down large numbers


of men and stocks of essential equipment inIndia has decreased. A more fluid andeconomical base organisation should be pos-sible as the war progresses.

192. Energetic action has been taken, nowthat the pipe line is secure, to reduce the reserveholdings of aircraft and equipment which clogthe machinery of supply and absorb so muchof the Command resources in manpower andstorage space in India. An extensive re-organisation to undertake more maintenancein the field is contemplated, and, it is hoped,will do much to avoid the bottlenecks to whichcentralised maintenance is prone. Such areorganisation is only possible if the scalesof ground equipment, hand tools and otherservicing facilities are adequate and fully main-tained. For un Air Force working in the fielda generous scale of equipment is essential, andthe lack of it was largely responsible for theuneconomical base maintenance organisationwhich events forced upon South East Asia inits early stages. The saving in man-hours thatresults from a generous scale of Aground equip-ment is vast. This should always be takeninto account in campaigns in tropical countrieswhere .sickness and lack of communicationsmilitate against units possessing their fullestablishment.

IV. Administration.193. The standard of unit administration in

the operational areas was not high. Withformations spread over wide areas, anddeficiencies in ground officers also in themajority of vital trades, notably among clericaland signals personnel, much of this has beeninevitable. Nevertheless a very real needexists for the indoctrination of service per-sonnel in overseas theatres of war with theprinciples of self-reliance and better improvisa-tion.

194. The principles of mobility and self-helphave only resulted from the perception ofthose on the spot to train personnel in the

rudiments of active campaigning. In so doingthey have made the best use of local resourcesto achieve that standard of morale and well-being which are the prerequisite of good dis-cipline. The posting of a squadron com-mander from a well-established bomber baseat home to an overseas appointment with nopreliminary training in his changed circum-stances cannot but have an adverse effect uponthe well-being of the Unit. The setting-up ofJunior Commanders' Courses within thetheatre is the best immediate remedy, but theproblems of accommodation, and the timeabsent from units, rendered it little more thana palliative in this theatre.

V. Air Transport.195. Finally, the Air Forces, having given a

new-found mobility to land warfare, must alsotake advantage of it. When assessing bidsfor air transport and air supply, the highestpriority should be given to the rapid movementof spares, personnel, and indeed whole R.A.F.units, in order to keep the force working atmaximum efficiency. It is bad economy tokeep the 15 serviceable out of 20 available air-craft supplying the ground forces when thediversion of one aeroplane to collect A.O.G.*spares would raise the serviceability rate to 18.If full advantage is taken of air transport, thestriking radius of the Air Force can be stillfurther extended, and the application of airpower to any situation made more rapid andmore decisive than hitherto.

K. R. PARK,

Air Chief Marshal.

Allied Air Commander-in-Chief,South East Asia,

Kandy, Ceylon.

October, 1945.

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PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE

1951

Price 2s. Qd. net

P R I N T E D IN G R E A T B R I T A I N S.O. Code NO. 65-39196

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