$tttnfr. 39196 1965 THIRD SUPPLEMENT TO The London Gazette OF 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 also covers the operations described in the other Air and Army despatches of the Burma Campaign from the 16th November, 1943 to 12th September, 1945. The following despatch was submitted to the themselves involved a great effort to maintain, Secretary of State for Air on 16th Novem- without it the campaign could not have been ber, 1945, by AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR successfully fought. Regardless of weather, KEITH PARK, K.C.B., K.B.E., M.C., climate, and distance, the air supply line was D.F.C., Allied Air Commander-in-Chief, Air maintained unhindered by enemy air opposi- Command, South East Asia. tion, which had been driven from the skies. 3. The Burma campaign should make its (PART ONE, mark in the annals of history as a triumph of FOREWORD. air power and air supply and as a feat of endurance of Allied land forces. 1. This Despatch is a review primarily of air operations in Burma during the last year be- COMMAND. ginning in June, 1944. During this period a 4. In June, 1944, the Allied Air Forces in fanatical and over-confident enemy has been South East Asia were under the command of driven back from his foothold in India at Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, K.C.B., Imphal over 800 miles, which included the D.S.O., A.F.C. Upon his relinquishment of complete rout of the enemy's field army in the the appointment on 26th November, temporary open plains of Burma and culminated in the command was assumed by Air Marshal Sir occupation of Rangoon by our forces on 3rd Guy Garrod, K.C.B., O.B.E., M.C., D.F.C., May, 1945. until my arrival on 23rd February, 1945. 2. The primary cause was the defeat of the Japanese Army. This achievement has been The Position in June, 1944. made possible by air power, which not merely 5. Two events mark the beginning of the took an intimate share in the ground attack, period. The major Japanese offensive against but also isolated the enemy's forces in the field. Imphal had been blunted and was in process Confronted by overwhelming air power, the of being broken by means of air supply on a •enemy's air forces withered away, and this hitherto unprecedented scale to the forces cut same air power helped to undermine the off from land communications with their base ; stability of his land forces, so that after their and second, the south-west monsoon was reach- decisive defeat at Imphal, although they made ing its full intensity over the operational areas. a tenacious stand on a number of occasions, It remained to be seen whether air forces could they were no match for our well-equipped field materially influence the land battle in weather "army—well equipped in large measure by the which had in preceding years prohibited their unstinted effort of air supply to provide their effective employment, and whether the enemy daily needs. Though air supply did not and defeat in Manipur was to prove the turning- could not supplant all other means which point in South East Asia strategy which would 1966 SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 12 APRIL, 1951 enable the primary tasks of the Command, the another advance from Imphal to the Chind- re-opening of the land route to China and the 'win and an airborne operation in the clearance of Burma, to be accomplished. vicinity of Wuntho. The furthest penetra- tion that was envisaged was the occupation 6. The dry-weather campaign which was of territory north of a line stretching between drawing to a close had brought few positive Kalewa and Lashio. results. Only in the north-east had any terri- torial gains been made, and here General l(ii) Plan " Y" intended to employ air- Stilwell's forces had cleared the Hukawng borne troops in the seizure of Kalewa, and Valley and were in possession of Myitkyina a second air landing at the point of debouch- airfield. Jn the Fourteenth Army sector, ment into the Mandalay plain to exploit the Imphal was still invested, though 33 Corps was confusion that would be caused. driving the Japanese from the Kohima-Imphal ((iii) Plan "Z" entailed an airborne road, and 4 Corps was attacking the Japanese (assault in strength with all transport aircraft in the Imphal plain. In Arakan, although in the theatre immediately north of Rangoon, one enemy offensive had been frustrated, the to capture the city. Japanese still held the Mayu peninsula and the (iv) General Stilwell's plan was for British rice port of Akyab. The other British forces forces to press forward towards Shwebo- operating on the offensive were the long-range Mandalay, while N.C.A.C.* profited by the penetration groups of Special Force. diversion to occupy Bhamo, whence they /7. The Air Forces, having just completed .could mount an airborne operation to a period of intensive operations, were envisag- capture Lashio. ing some retrenchment, a " reculer pour mieux 10. The part that the Air Forces were to sauter". An extensive programme of re- play in these operations was given in an Opera- equipment was in train which would convert tional Directive in which the order of priorities nine squadrons of Hurricanes to Thunderbolts, was interesting, putting as it did close support the two Wellington squadrons to Liberators, and transport operations very low in the scale. and four squadrons of Vengeances to In the event, a reorientation of tasks took place Mosquitos. The relative sparsity of all- which gave greater emphasis to the work of weather airfields in the forward areas entailed close support and air supply. The results of a withdrawal of these squadrons to bases in such a shift in the centre of gravity to a machine India for their conversion, and the monsoon geared to the classical form of air warfare in- campaign was undertaken with a total of 17 volved changes in organisation, control, supply squadrons out of the line, re-equipping, resting or training. Having regard to the nature of and maintenance which are discussed at more monsoon conditions and of the fighting in pro- length in the appropriate context. gress, the forces remaining in the line were 11. Plans " Y " and " Z " were approved in ample, nor indeed could any more be deployed. principle by the Chiefs of Staff in July and The net result was that the air component con- August, and called " Capital" and " Dracula " ducting tactical operations that culminated on respectively. Jn point of fact, however, opera- all three sectors in the capture of springboards tions in Central Burma progressed more for a dry-weather assault, was a moderate, quickly than anticipated. (Continually out- well-balanced force of experienced squadrons, flanked by Allied forces, to whom the manna versed in the ready identification of jungle of air supply gave an unprecedented degree targets and trained in close co-operation with of mobility, and continually harried by our the formations whom they were supporting. close support aircraft, the enemy was never allowed to consolidate the new positions that he occupied along the line of his retreat. Thus by January, the airborne aspect of " Capital'" Plans for 1944-5 Operations. had been rendered unnecessary, a fact which caused great relief to the Allied Commanders, .8. The broad mission of S.E.A.C. was formu- for it was increasingly evident that the trans- lated at the Octagon conferences as ..." the port aircraft to train for and launch the opera- destruction or expulsion of all Japanese forces tion, scheduled for mid-February, would be in Burma at the earliest date. Operations to difficult to find from existing resources. achieve this object must not however prejudice the security of the existing air supply to China, 12. Operation "Dracula" was to be the including the air staging post at Myitkyina and greatest airborne operation yet conceived, in- the opening of overland communications with volving a fly-in over a distance of 480 miles China ". by some 900 transport aircraft and 650 gliders. The necessity for retaining these forces in .-9. The plans that were prepared to this end Europe, and their high attrition rate in opera- during the monsoon of 1944 envisaged an tions there, precluded their re-deployment in elaborate series of airborne assaults that did this theatre as planned, and in October not appreciate the reliability and self-sufficiency " Dracula" was postponed with the prospect of an army supplied unstintingly from the air. of not being mounted until the winter of Indeed, had it then been suggested that 1945-46. Rangoon could be reached by an army travel- ling overland and supplied largely by air, the 13. The emphasis now lay on Central Burma proposal would not have received serious con- operations. An advance to the Monywa- sideration. The overall strategy can best be Mandalay area was considered to be the judged from the four main plans which were furthest point that could be reached before the formulated during the 1944 monsoon: — 1945 monsoon. Exploitation further south was not thought to be practicable in view of (i) Plan "X" involved an overland the difficulties of supply. In the event, the advance from the Mogaung-Myitkyina area to Katha and Bhamo, co-ordinated with * Northern Combat Area Command.