- 75 - Pacific War - Japanese counteroffensive in Arakan, April 25 - May 2, 1943

Last time we spoke about Operation Vengeance, the assassination of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. When the decrypted intelligence hit Admiral Nimitz desk about the vulnerability of his Japanese rival, he wondered what he should do. Was it moral? Would it even benefit the allies, Yamamoto was arguably losing the war on his own? In the end he ordered the hit and sent the job over to Admiral Halsey who enthusiastically took the bull by the horns. A special squadron of P-38 Lightnings were sent over to perform an extremely precise interception of Yamamoto’s G4M Betty aircraft enroute to Ballale airfield on Bougainville. Yamamoto’s aircraft was shot down killing him and all those aboard it. The death of the admiral was hidden from the Japanese public for an entire month and upon learning of it the Japanese people all mourned. It was a terrible moment for the Japanese, one of the greatest had fallen, how would the rest of the war play out? 

This episode is the Japanese counteroffensive in Arakan

Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. 

 

Before we jump back into the CBI theater some action was heating up in New Guinea. The Okabe detachment was defeated during the battle of Wau seeing the Australians controlling the area from Waipali to Buibaining and much of the Mubo Valley. However the Japanese remained resilient and would not give up Mubo without a fight. Vigorous patrolling and ambushes were all the Australians could perform, because they did not have the necessary numbers to launch a major offensive. In early March General MacKay sent word to Blamey, advising him he believed the Japanese might try another shot to seize Wau. He believed even with the projected arrival of the 4th and 15th brigades they would still be outnumbered by the Japanese. MacKay estimated the Japanese had roughly 7500 men in the Lae-Salamaua area and were maintaining a formidable defense in the Mubo region. Therefore he wanted to continue to restrict their activity to patrols to prevent the Japanese from surprising Wau again and allowing vital time to build up the defenses.

The attack on Mubo in January had not accomplished its objectives, but it did show the Japanese at Lae and Salamaua how much of a hornet’s nest they had stirred up by attacking Wau. The Japanese were not done however and hoped to launch a counteroffensive. They planned to bring the 51st division in a large convoy across the Bismarck Sea. But as we saw in a previous episode this was met with catastrophe during the battle of the bismarck sea, denying the reinforcements, equipment and supplies the Japanese at Mubo desperately needed. 800 units, mostly from the 102 regiment held various positions at Mubo and they could not hope to launch a counteroffensive. 

The supply situation in New Guinea remained a nightmare for both sides. In January Blamey authorized the construction of a new jeep trail going from Bulldog to Wau and it would take months to complete the 68 mile path. By April the Australians improved their situation in the Mubo area by occupying the heights called Saddle and Vicker’s ridge. They began placing artillery on the heights and on the 20th began to bombard the Japanese position on Green Hill. On the 23rd, Major General Stanley Savige of the 3rd division established his Headquarters at Bulolo. Kanga force had been officially dissolved, thus henceforth the 3rd division was responsible for offensives in the Wau-Lae-Markham area. For months the focus had been on reinforcing Wau, expecting a major Japanese offensive. But the Australians had also maintained a small force 11 miles from Salamaua guarding the entrance to the Markham valley. The 2/3rd independent company was occupying in the vicinity of Missim village along the Francisco river between the Powerhouse and Salamaua. In early april they began performing reconnaissance of the area. On the 21st the ambushed a column of 60 Japanese managing to kill over 20 of them and wounding 15. Soon after their commander was notified by Moten that they were going to launch an offensive against Mubo finally set for the 24th.

The offensive against Mubo was actually part of something grander. General Blamey planned to capture Lae forming a plan codenamed Operation postern which was quickly approved by General MacArthur. For the plan to work, the allies needed to trick General Adachi that Salamaua was the primary target for a major offensive. Thus to accomplish this, the Australians had the ⅔ independent company operate just a few miles from Salamaua. General Stanley Savige would not even be aware of these grander planes until June of 1943. Postern called for a large pincer movement, involving an amphibious assault east of Lae and an airborne assault near Nadzab 50 kms to the west of Lae. Planning for Postern had begun in May, with Generals Blamey and Herring proposing to seize Nadzab as soon as possible with Brigadier Eather’s 25th Brigade and a parachute battalion, while the 9th Australian Division, now under the command of Major-General George Wooten, was to take Lae in early August. Nadzab was an obvious target, undefended and of immense value, not only for the Lae operation but also for extending the range of Allied air power. In the meantime Blamey had various forces drive the Japanese from key areas, but not to attack Salamaua directly. The Japanese were going to be in for a major surprise. But now we are turning over to the CBI theater.

Last time we were speaking about General Irwins Arakan disaster and the mad onion man Wingate’s operation Longcloth. Irwins blunders had cost countless lives and provided General Koga’s 55th division ample time to regroup. By March 20th, Wavell, Irwin and Lloyd were accepting they would have to withdraw the forces to the Maungdaw-Buthidaung line. Wavell was incredibly pissed off and decided to make Lloyd a scapegoat. Lloyd was dismissed and replaced by Major General Lomax who was ordered to simply carry on doing what Lloyd had been doing. Lomax came just in time to meet General Koga’s counteroffensive which practically annihilated the 47th brigade. Irwin looking to blame anyone and anything but himself, shifted the blame to the brigade itself rather than his tactical blunders and tried again to bring Slim into his mess. The British forces were forced to flee east of the Mayu river and this severely beat India morale which was already horrible to begin with.

 

Now how bad was morale? By early April morale had plummeted to an all time new low. This was because of the series of terrible defeats, terrible casualties and growing more from malaria. The 6th brigade wsa evacuating 50 men due to malaria a day. Despite using mepacrine as a suppressive treatment alongside anti-moquito nets, cream and wearing long clothes at night, in 8 weeks the 6th brigade lost half its total strength. Desertions were on the rise from many units, causing the British commanders a lot of anxiety over their loyalty. 

General’s Slim and Lomax met at Chittagong as Koga was sweeping everything before him. Both generals scoured over the maps and agreed, Koga’s next logical step was an assault on the Maungdaw-Buthidaung line. To meet this attack, Slim and Lomax devised a stratagem for catching Koga in a box along the Mayu peninsula. The box was to involve 6 battalions, two on the ridges of the Mayu hills, two along the mayu river and two in the hills south of the Maungdaw-Buthidaung road. The idea was to let the Japanese advance through the most likely location, some tunnels on a disused railway track. Once the Japanese were along the tunnels, they would close the lid on the box using a force of brigade level strength. The hope was to achieve a perfect encirclement, chasing the legendary glory of Hannibal’s victory at the battle of Cannae. To do this they had exhausted and unbelievably demoralized men and would have to achieve a scheme of geometric perfection. 

The troops Lomax came to command were shaken badly, malaria riden battalions, departing the disastrous Arakan campaign at the point of exhaustion. There were no trained formations available in India to replace them, thus they would have to be retained in combat. By early April, Lomax had skillfully managed to stabilize the front at the Maungdaw-Buthidaung. On April 14th Marshall Wavell had appointed General Slim’s 15th corps to lead the British-Indian forces retreat. The Japanese sensing weakness amongst the allied forces continued their advance. On April 24th, the Japanese reached the British defenses at Buthidaung and Maungdaw. The 55th indian Brigade held the first attack at Kanthe while carefully preparing their entrapment box strategy, pushing the Japanese advance along the spine of the Mayu mountains; however it all went to shit. Two demoralized battalions gave way to Japanese pressure, breaking the box. This forced everything to come undone and soon the British-Indian forces were yet again performing a fighting withdrawal going north. 

It was reported that the fighting efficiency was so low by April 28th, the men of the 8/13th frontier force regiment had literally fired off all their ammunition at an imaginary opponent, and when they actually were attacked the next day they had no option but to retreat. The withdrawal culminated with the capture of Buthidaung on May 9th. The 55th brigade narrowly escaped annihilation by abandoning their vehicles and heavy equipment while limping by foot over some jungle covered hills to safety. Five days later the port of Maungdaw was evacuated and the British-Indian defenders began to take up defensive positions in the open rice-field country near Cox’s Bazar. As General Slim noted “Our only hope of stabilizing the front, if the Japanese really pushed us, was to hold the rice-field country. Our men were still untrained for the jungle; they feared it more than they did the enemy. We had to select areas where we could give our troops reasonable fields of fire and open maneuver.‘It was too much like 1942 over again, with the added bitterness that this time we had been defeated by forces smaller than our own.” Slim was very better about the entire ordeal. To make matters worse, the men only pulled out after Slim’s incessant pressure applied to Lomax, because Irwin was counter arguing they should toss the kitchen sink for a siege strategy.

All the way over in London Sir Winston Churchill had this to say “‘This campaign goes from bad to worse, and we are being completely outfought and outmanoeuvred by the Japanese. Luckily the small scale of the operations and the attraction of other events has prevented public opinion being directed upon this lamentable scene.” Churchill was writing at a time, after the Anglo-American victory in North Africa and the crushing soviet victory at Stalingrad. It was obvious to Churchill and the other allied leadership, Europe was won. Churchill was furious with Wavell, a man he never really liked. The Americans likewise were not happy with Wavell. Meanwhile Irwin kept blaming everyone except himself, even sending reports of how cowardly his troops were. Irwins last absurdity was to signal a recommendation that General Slim by removed from commanding the 15th corps. But Wavell, under severe criticism of himself by this point was determined that Irwin would be canned. Slim was ordered to report to Irwin’s HQ. Slim told his colleagues around him he was about to be dismissed as he made his way. When he got to Irwin he was met with this ‘You’re not sacked. I am.’ Upon hearing this, Slim remarked: ‘I think this calls for the opening of a bottle of port or something if we have one.’

 

The British-Indians forces had  916 dead, 2889 wounded and 1252 missing; the Indian high command had suffered another heavy blow, with the myth of Japanese superiority, excellence and skill as a jungle fighter being strongly reinforced in the minds of British and Indian troops, something that gravely affected their morale General Slim held a rather remarkable ability, mental toughness with some extraordinary resistance to stress. The frustrations of all the defeats and the constant shuffling between HQs and the front was a lot to bear. Slim actually found something positive about the Arakan disaster. The British battle casualties were high, but they could have been a hell of a lot higher, given Irwins insistance to perform endless frontal attacks. The British had learnt valuable lessons about the Japanese and the lack of their own training in specific areas. There had been over 7500 cases of malaria and they were only truly learning on the spot how to deal with the pesky disease. Troops heanceforth would be routinely issued with mosquito nets, repellents and by autumn of 1943 a wonder drug was developed, Mepacrine which significantly helped with the symptoms of malaria. 

But by far and large the most significant long term development in 1942-1943 was the gradual reasseration of allied air superiorirty. By the end of 1942, 150 new airfields were constructed, RAF pilots and aircraft began to arrive to them in large numbers and the Americans had sent 10,000 air force personnel to serve in the CBI theater. Heavy B-24 Liberator bombers began to appear at the battlefront for the first time and in November of 1942 some made the spectacular 2760 mile return trip after bombing Bangkok. The Japanese quickly realized their proposed Burma-Siam railway was very vulnerable. When the war in the middle east came to a close in early 1943, the US army airforce transferred a ton of their heavy bombers to the far east. Bombing raids on Bangkok, Rangoon and Mandalay were increased significantly by Christmas of 1942. The Japanese were gradually losing their air superiorirty and this was deeply troubling for them. 

During the Arakan campaign a Japanese colonel issued the following orders ‘There must be no fear of aircraft. As long as you are not discovered you must seek to remain so. If once our position is revealed, the enemy planes must be shot down. It is not permissible to suppose that our soldiers are no match for aircraft.’ The Japanese were forced to yield the skies over Arakan even though they had taken its ground. The RAG would conduct search and destroy missions over Thaitkido, Buthidaung, Sinho and Akyab island in June. 6 Hurricanes would escort some Blenheim bombers on a long range raid against Ramree island, even though they were not safe. Allied air superiority would eventually become the crucial factor to win the struggle over Burma.

Now we cant talk about Burma without talking a bit more about the mad onion man Wingate. While the Arakan campaign was coming to its disastrous conclusion, Operation Longcloth had reached its own. The last remaining columns made their way back to allied territory. 2182 returned out of the original 3000 men that entered Burma; an estimated 818 men had been killed, taken prisoner or died of disease. There was a ton of criticism tossed at the operation and the effectiveness of the Chindits, but the operation was moderately successful. To be brutally honest, the Burma campaign had basically no success stories except for the Chindits, thus it got inflated quite heavily. Wavell was very pleased with the performance of Wingate’s forces, so much so he put in an order to form the new Long Range Penetration group, the 111th Indian Brigade. Wavell handpicked their commander, Brigadier William Lentaigne who would come to hate Wingate and Wingate hated him haha. The success of the Chindits would be tossed in all the major headlines of every newspaper from England to India. The British had to do something to raise morale and the Chindits kind of just fell into it.

Now one last major event that occurred during all of this was a major conference. Wavell had been flown to Washington to partake in the Trident Conference which was carried from May 12-25th. The main focus of the conference was on the European theater, in fact there was an obsession over the Mediterranean cross channel invasion plans. When it came to theaters like Burma there was little interest. In fact Churchill would often only talk about Singapore when the east was brought up, showcasing full and well he only sought to revitalize the prestige of the British empire over other things. Churchill was quite in favor of bypassing Burma which he viewed as only being beneficial to China, a subject he could not understand why FDR obsessed over. It seemed the Churchill FDR regarded China as the emerging dominant power in the far east, while he only regarded CHina as a pacific power, ignoring China’s claims over Tibet, Mongolia and northeastern Burma, and of course Churchill would completely ignore any mention of Hong Kong. FDR was seen to be extremely Pro-Chiang Kai-shek, almost maniac by British accounts. The British began to adopt a machiavellian stance of supporting Chiang Kai-shek and Chennault's airpower idea, thinking it would surely fail, which served Britain just fine. 

Meanwhile, Vinegar Joseph Stilwell also at the Trident conference, kept trying to persuade his president that Chiang Kai-Shek was cunning and quite evil. He stressed the danger of American becoming a solitary atlas bearing the burden of the world because the British were outplaying them. He underlined Chiang Kai-sheks ambitions to get rid of him and replace him with a “yes man”, so he could acquire lendlease material for his own ends without any pushbacks. Stilwell recommended sending US troops to the CBI theater; to get Chiang Kai-shek to make specific commitments and stop wiggling around issues and above all to stop Chiang Kai-sheks stab-in-the-back secret diplomacy antics. Stilwell would find the British at Trident very unimpressed with him and his opinions. Stilwell also chose to bitterly argue with Field Marshal Alanbrooke, the chief of the imperial staff and a rampant Americanphobe. It got so bad, George Marshall told Stimson ‘Stilwell shut up like a clam and made an unfavourable impression.’ 

During the conference FDR did ask Stilwell in private what he thought of Chiang Kai-shek to which Stilwell said ‘He’s a vacillating, tricky, undependable old scoundrel who never keeps his word.’ By contrast Chennault, when asked a similar question, replied: ‘Sir, I think the generalissimo is one of the two or three greatest military and political leaders in the world today. He has never broken a commitment or promise made to me.’ Meanwhile Chiang Kai-sheks representatives including his wife were threatening to pull out of Burma and to make a separate peace with Japan, unless the British finally took action to seize Rangoon. Instead it was agreed, more supplies would be tossed over the Hump and for the future operation Anakim to be shelved, to which Stilwell argued that if the allies waited another year before launching a land-based campaign, China would collapse. 

Trident was chaotic as hell. Admiral King slammed the table with his fists many times violently supporting Marshall and Stilwell. King and Marshall wanted the land route to China open, but the British kept tossing their support for the Hump operations. Stilwell was not having a good time, but then he had a surprising victory. Stilwell met with Churchill privately, complaining about the abysmal situation in Burma, and Churchill 100% agreed with his criticisms. Churchill acknowledged the high command in India was terrible and that he was going to replace Wavell. As Stilwell wrote after the experience.

 

“With Wavell in command, failure was inevitable; he had nothing to offer at any meeting except protestations that the thing was impossible, hopeless, impractical. Churchill even spoke of it as silly. The Limeys all wanted to wait another year. After the Akyab fiasco, the four Japanese divisions in Burma have been scared to death. The inevitable conclusion was that Churchill has Roosevelt in his pocket. That they are looking for an easy way, a short cut for England, and that no attention must be diverted from the Continent at any cost. The Limeys are not interested in the war in the Pacific, and with the President hypnotised they are sitting pretty. Roosevelt wouldn’t let me speak my piece. I interrupted twice but Churchill kept pulling away from the subject and it was impossible.’

Thus Wavell was as they say “kicked up stairs”, promoted to viceroy of India and replaced as commander in India with Sir Claude Auchinleck. Stilwell returned to China and participated on a celebrity tour arranged by George Marshall to heighten his profile. Once that was done, Stilwell fell into a depression writing this 

“‘Back to find Chiang same as ever – a grasping, bigoted, ungrateful little rattlesnake.Any Jap threat will put the Peanut in an uproar, and if they are wise they will repeat their attempt, for this if for no other reason. And if they seriously want to gain the game, they can attack Kunming or Chungking, or both, with five divisions on either line and finish the matter. If we sting them badly enough in the air, they are almost sure to try it . . . The Peanut’s promise of picked men for India is so much wind; last year 68% of the men sent were rejected for trachoma or skin disease . . . This is going beyond all bounds. This insect, this stink in the nostrils, superciliously inquires what we will do, who are breaking our backs to help him, supplying everything – troops, equipment, planes, medical, signal, motor services, setting up his goddam SOS, training his lousy troops, backing his dastardly chief of staff, and general staff, and he the Jovian dictator, who starves his troops and is the world’s worst ignoramus, picks flaws in our preparations and hems and haws about the Navy, God save us.”

Stilwell’s frustration was a bit understandable as Chiang Kai-shek had still not replied to FDR about if or when he could commit forces into Burma again. Stilwell was baffled by his nations continued support of what he saw as a fascist regime in China, while simultaneously fighting the fascist regimes in Europe. What Stilwell really wanted was to be made field commander in China, and if he ever got that position, the first thing he would do was cancel the lendlease. Things were not going so well for the married couple of Vinegar Joe and Peanut.

I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.

Things were not going well in Burma to say the least. Well except for the Chindits minor success, but that simply could not overcome the incredible low morale of the far east allied forces in the face of what seemed an unstoppable Japanese goliath.