Burmese Connection. Ashish Basu
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entered the area, the fire of the automatic weapons would scatter the Japanese into the undergrowth, where they impaled themselves on the pungyis. The indigenous pungyi stick became a feared and deadly weapon in Burma. Having inflicted heavy damage, the lightly armed Kachins usually disappeared from the area, within minutes, avoiding prolonged engagements. Regular soldiers often displayed too much enthusiasm to stand and fight. Kachin scouts never did that—they knew how to survive. By the time Japanese reinforcements arrived, the Kachins would be long gone.
The Japanese could not follow the scouts all the way to their jungle hideouts. The Galahad forces quickly learned some of the tactics used by the Kachin scouts. General Merrill’s Galahad forces had entered Burma from India to build on the successes the British special forces had. These soldiers were well equipped and well-trained US Army special forces adapted for long-range jungle warfare. Some of the Galahad commanders had seen actions in other theaters, so they brought a lot of real-life combat experience with them to the Burma front.
They provided extensive weapons training to the scouts. Participation of the Chinese soldiers was a force multiplier even though they were inexperienced at the beginning of the campaign. Aung liked several of the Chinese commanders and became very good friends with them. This time, the combined American and Chinese forces were able to take the battle to the heart of the Japanese occupation. Many of the Chinese soldiers were in their early teens, really young, but they never gave up and kept fighting. In terms of sheer headcount, the Chinese X Force soldiers were much larger in numbers.
A few members of the Galahad became good friends too. One of the Galahad captains used to say, “When you fight alongside someone in the Kachin Hills, you have to know him really well because in these hills, death lurks in every trail and every stream.”
The Americans had a great deal of difficulty in adapting to the altitude, rain, humidity, heat, leeches, and diseases. The terrain was really unforgiving. In the initial stages of the campaign, they were losing more men to diseases, exhaustion, and accidents than firefights. The hills of Northern Burma were essentially the southernmost tip of the Himalayan mountain ranges, among the tallest in the whole world. Some the peaks were really tall, and most of the ravines on the way were thousands of feet.
No amount of training in the plains could prepare the American and the Chinese for what they were faced with in real life. The Kachin scouts taught them a range of survival techniques. They also had difficulties with food supplies and rations because parachute drops were difficult and irregular. The Americans and the Chinese understood the challenges and adapted. Navigating tall mountains in torrential monsoon downpour with heavy loads on their backs was not easy. Initially, it was very hard for the Americans and the Chinese; gradually, they adjusted. Some of the trails were so steep and so slippery with rivers of mud that the load carrying mules would slip and fall in ravines thousands of feet in depth. There was nothing the soldiers could do other than use self-preservation. Some sections of the terrain were so high in the mountains that when they woke up in the mornings, they could see clouds floating below, obscuring the view.
On some occasions, parachute drops went haywire because of the cloud cover below their positions. Sometimes, they fell in the wrong hands, and the Japanese enjoyed the food and rations. It took them a while to adapt to the harsh ground realities in the Kachin Hills. Aung and his scouts were battle hardened and ready to assist the Americans and the Chinese. During the first half of 1944, the Americans and the Chinese hit the Japanese hard where it hurt. The Japanese took heavy casualties everywhere and lost a lot of their communication infrastructure.
In about six months of combat, the combined forces advanced hundreds of miles through the harshest jungle terrain in the world, fighting hunger, malaria, blood dysentery, and the Japanese at the same time. Living out in the open in heavy rain and heat took its toll on the human body. Often, the soldiers developed chronic health issues that never went away. None of the battles were easy because Burma’s natural topography always favored the defenders. The defenders could easily use the high ground and the river to their tactical advantage.
In the early days of the engagement, several Chinese X Force formations had deadly friendly fire incidents because of poor communication. Aung regretted those unintended tragedies the most—many lives were lost. If there was one thing that held tight till the very end, that was the spirit: the rag tag multinational force knew that they had to win—they had no other choice. Aung remembered several major engagements in places like Walawbum, Shaduzuo, and near his home base in Myitkyina during that period. There were many other battles that he heard about. The American and the Chinese forces with the help of Kachin scouts engaged in combat with the Japanese Army on thirty-plus occasions. Most of the outcomes were against the Japanese.
Most military observers were surprised by the success of this hurriedly put together coalition of fighters against the more organized Japanese. The momentum of the war had shifted. Perhaps the only difference was that these Allied forces knew that they had to win, and by then, the Japanese resolve was slowly weakening. The Japanese confidence was shaken to the core—they were, in fact, afraid of the Allies by that time. Aung saw the tide turning against the invincible Japanese Army in front of his eyes. Battling Japanese soldiers, hunger, and disease did not come cheap; casualties were high among the Americans and the Chinese forces. During those fading days of the war, Aung was often reminded of his grandfather. Granpho used to talk about Burma’s geography protecting its flanks from enemies from the West.
Food and supplies were scarce. In the battle at Myitkyina, the Americans suffered over two hundred soldiers killed. In addition, about a thousand were wounded, and another thousand evacuated for disease. By the time the town of Myitkyina was taken, only a couple of hundred members of the original Galahad forces remained standing. Finally, by early August 1944, the entire town of Myitkyina was taken from the Japanese. The losses and injuries were much worse for the Japanese Army. The Japanese lost more than four thousand soldiers in the battle of Myitkyina. They had realized that the war was lost, and hurriedly organized groups of soldiers were retreating to Thailand.
At an overall level, the war was unraveling for the Japanese government in multiple fronts. By October of 1944, not long after Myitkyina fell in Northern Burma, the tables had turned. The United States 6th Army led by General MacArthur landed on Leyte and eventually liberated the islands of the Philippines. In addition to Allied air forces owning the air over Eastern India and Western Burma, the Allied navy submarines had started dominating the seas completely by this time.
Those were undermining Japan’s supply lines in a major way. By the end of 1944, US Marines were threatening the Ogasawara Islands, inevitably getting closer to the Japanese mainland and islands of Okinawa. As bits and pieces of these news items started reaching him in Myitkyina, Aung was thrilled. He tried his best to locate Colonel Suzuki and his men in Rangoon. He wanted to call them out on their false promises, but they had all disappeared. By the end of August 1944, Aung knew that the war was coming to an end in Burma very soon, and the post war alliances would start settling down. Tribal leaders were already making plans. Suddenly, alignment with the Allies was in great demand. The Japanese Imperial Army, their vision of Minami Kikan, and praises for their Asian culture were all but forgotten. Aung had become wiser by then, and he told himself, “Such is the irony of life.”
For the first time since 1941, Aung Lung was optimistic about his and Burma’s future!
1945: Myitkyina
It was many summers ago, but Aung still remembered the conversation vividly. Aung was close to his grandparents. One night, Aung’s grandfather was retiring for the evening at their ancestral home, when Aung and one of his younger siblings went to him. Both were requesting Granpho to complete “one last” story before they went to bed—Granpho was the best storyteller. He finally did. That story was about the Ahom rulers of Assam who were descendants of a Shan prince.
During the story, Aung asked, “Granpho, other armies do not attack Burma like they attack India. Why? My history books have stories of India getting attacked from the North by different armies.”
Before he answered, Granpho smiled and said, “Aung, I am happy to realize that you are actually reading your history books in Rangoon. At least all of your time is not getting invested in