One More River

The Allies gave up the port of Rangoon* last week. They did not give up the city. British Imperials on the city's none-too-distant approaches fought with the greatest fury of the Burmese campaign. But the port died. Its sea entrances were mined, shutting off supplies for the defenders and shipments to China over the Burma Road (see p. 15). Eve Curie, arriving as a war correspondent, recognized in partially evacuated Rangoon "the emptiness, the unforgettable silence of the big cities in danger."

Rangoon was in dire danger. Some 40,000 Japanese in the front lines, 30,000 more in reserve pressed toward the last of three rivers which barred their advance. They had crossed the Salween. They put bicycle scouts in Burmese dress, sent them worming ahead to find weak spots. Small parties of soldiers followed the scouts, stabbed here & there, and called in stronger forces when a foothold was seized. Thus they crossed the Bilin, and moved slowly on toward Rangoon's last important river barrier, the Sittang. The same advance carried them nearer & nearer to the one railway which connects Rangoon with Lashio, at the foot of the Burma Road.

If Malaya was lost by default, as some correspondents reported last week, Burma was not. British and Indian troops fought for every bridgehead, constantly counterattacking. British, Indian, Australian, Canadian and U.S. pilots bombed and strafed the Japs. They met noticeably fewer Japanese planes; the Japanese apparently had sickened of their huge air losses in the first weeks of invasion.

In northern Burma, a Chinese attack comforted, if it did not materially relieve, the British near Rangoon. Tiny, merry Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, Chungking's Minister of Information, discouraged descriptions of China's Burmese activity as a major offensive. Chinese armies, he said significantly, were always making little offensives and would make big ones only when they had the material wherewithal from the U.S.

*From the Burmese Yan-Kon, meaning End-of-War.

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