Last week, we witnessed one of the most pivotal moments of the Pacific War: the Fall of Java.
The surrender of the Dutch island not only brought the total collapse of the ABDA Command
and the Malay Barrier, which had failed in every one of its missions; but also consolidated
the position of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific, having achieved supremacy over the
two main resource hubs of the East: Singapore and the Dutch East Indies.
With the completion of the Malayan campaign and the Dutch surrender, new objectives appeared
for the Japanese on the horizon…
And today, we are going to focus on one of them: the British colony of Burma, with its
key port of Rangoon, and the last of the Chinese lifelines, the Burma Road.
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With the disaster at the Sittang Bridge , the Japanese had managed to break through the
meager British defenses and had thus opened a clear way to Rangoon by February 23.
In response, General Hutton had ordered its evacuation, thinking that Rangoon could not
be defended against the Japanese behemoth.
General Wavell himself considered this to be defeatism, and so had him replaced with
General Harold Alexander as head of the Burma Command, although Hutton continued to act
as his Chief of Staff.
With the collapse of the ABDA Command, Wavell had also resumed his position as Commander-in-Chief,
India, but he was out of touch with the situation in Burma and continued to demand more offensive
actions.
By February 28, however, Rangoon had become a dreary city of silence, with clear signs
of looting and rioting, and no hope of a real chance at defending it.
Meanwhile, the Japanese were already preparing to march on the city.
By March 3, General Iida had ordered the 112th and 143rd Regiments to advance on Waw, with
the objective of encircling and destroying the British defenders at Pegu, while the rest
of the 55th Division protected their rear at Daik-U and the 33rd Division marched west
through the densely wooded hills of Pegu and then turned south to seize Rangoon with speed.
The fall of this port would prevent the Chinese from receiving further aid by the Burma Road,
since most of the supplies arrived from there.
Cutting off the Burma Road would thus erase the last of the Chinese lifelines and leave
the regime of Chiang Kai-Shek in a very precarious position, making it a crucial objective for
the Japanese Empire.
After a long series of negotiations with Wavell, Chiang had agreed to send an expeditionary
force to Burma to protect their last lifeline and aid the Allied effort to defend Burma.
By the start of March, the CEF , under the command of Lieutenant-General Joseph Stilwell
, was stationed at the Burma Road and the Shan States and had a division at Toungoo
along the 1st Burma Division . At the same time, the remainder of the Burman defenders
reconstituted at Pegu and new reinforcements arrived at Rangoon.
Yet before it could even enter into action, the 63rd Indian Brigade was ambushed on the
evening of March 5, suffering heavy casualties and the loss of its commanding officers.
The following day, the Japanese attack on Pegu started with a heavy bombardment.
Then, the 143rd Regiment began its assault.
South of Pegu , the 7th Hussars was ambushed by Japanese anti-tank guns, but managed to
counterattack and overrun the invaders.
The M3 Stuart tanks, nicknamed Honey’s then encountered some Type 95 Ha-Go tanks and got
to destroy four of them before retreating to Hlegu.
While the British units retreated, Alexander then decided to commence the demolition plan
of Rangoon, executing a scorched earth tactic to deny the Japanese the use of its facilities.
In the morning of March 7, the Allied force found Hlegu occupied by the Japanese.
They fought fiercely to escape and eventually broke through a Japanese roadblock, albeit
with many losses.
After the engagement, many British units began to retreat in disorder, but Iida decided not
to hotly pursue them, allowing the Burmese defenders to escape .
At this point, Rangoon was under a cloud of billowing smoke after the destruction of its
port and oil facilities.
The final withdrawal from the city was ordered and the Allied force then departed towards
Tharrawaddy, but ran into a roadblock set up by the 214th Regiment at Taukkyan that
was meant to cover the flanks of the 33rd Division . With a tenacious resistance, the
invaders managed to repel three consecutive assaults by the bulk of the British army,
forcing them to adopt a defensive stance for the night.
The scene at Taukkyan was of confusion and congestion, and soon the Japanese launched
a heavy counterattack during the night resulting in hand-to-hand combat, but the allied battalion
held its place, which inflicted many losses on the British.
Yet General Sakurai of the 33rd Division didn’t expect the defenders to abandon Rangoon so
quickly, and so decided to prioritize the capture of the port over the destruction of
the British army, ordering the 214th Regiment to start its withdrawal.
At dawn on March 8, Alexander then ordered a new attack against the Taukkyan roadblock,
with the 7th Hussars breaking through the Japanese positions and allowing the Allied
force to escape . By March 10, Rangoon had fallen into Japanese hands, but at least Alexander’s
army had managed to escape complete annihilation.
And to the south, another operation was planned to mop up the remaining Allied presence in
Sumatra.
General Yamashita had planned to send his Imperial Guards Division to occupy central
and northern Sumatra , where the Dutch were still holding after the 38th Division was
finally contained at Moearatabo by March 2.
Heavy fighting ensued the following days, but with the surrender of Java on March 8,
General Overakker decided to retreat with his remaining 9000 soldiers to concentrate
on the north of the island and thus start an evacuation.
Yamashita’s plan was to land one strong detachment at Sabang Island and Koetaradja,
one small detachment at Idi to secure the Langsa and Pangkalanbrandan oilfields, and
the main force of the division at Laboehanroekoe to rapidly occupy Medan.
By March 10, the invasion force, escorted by a large fleet under Admiral Ozawa, had
departed Singapore en route to its objectives.
On March 12, one battalion of the Kobayashi Detachment landed on Sabang unopposed and
rapidly seized the island, while the remaining two battalions landed at Cape Pedro and quickly
captured the Kotaradja airfield.
Further to the south, the Yoshida Detachment landed south of Idi and captured its objectives
facing no resistance; and at Tandjoengtiram, General Nishimura sent two battalions south
to cut off the withdrawal of the Dutch defenders while the rest of his division drove north
to seize Medan and its airfield.
At this point, the Dutch were already retreating to their designated positions south of the
Alice Valley, so they would only execute delaying actions to gain as much time as possible alongside
destroying their airfields and harbour facilities along the way..
On the night of March 13, three Dutch companies at Simpang Raja were assaulted by Japanese
soldiers.
The defenders held until dawn but in the end had to retreat in disorder towards Tiga Roenggoe.
Unfortunately, they found the Japanese already there and were eventually routed by the superior
Japanese firepower.
The invaders would then overrun the Dutch defenders at Prapat, Porsea and Balige, hastily
pursuing the survivors to Koeta Boeloebenteng and successfully occupying Siborongborong.
Thus, the Dutch soldiers that were retreating from Moearatebo were effectively cut off and
had to surrender on March 15.
In the meantime, Nishimura’s main force swiftly seized Medan without opposition and
then started to raid the Dutch positions at Tiga Binanga for the next couple of days.
By March 23, Koeta Boeloebenteng was under heavy attack and in grave danger of being
overrun, so Overakker ordered a general evacuation towards Liang before this position was captured.
As night fell, the Japanese attacked Koeta Boeloebenteng, but the fierce Dutch defenders
managed to hold them off.
Yet despite their bravery, many natives in the Dutch army were beginning to desert and
the state of Aceh began to rebel against Dutch rule, so Overakker quickly ordered them to
start their withdrawal on the night of March 24 while the rest of his forces fell further
back towards the Alice Valley.
Nishimura followed suit in hot pursuit and captured Kotatjane on March 25, but the Dutch
were receiving more damage by the amount of desertions.
By March 27, the Kobayashi Detachment had reached the Dutch headquarters at Blangkedjeren,
which was virtually undefended, so Overakker had no other choice but to surrender with
his remaining 2000 soldiers the following day.
And with the end of organized resistance at Sumatra, we want to mention that back on March
4, the Japanese launched Operation K , an unsuccessful air raid carried out by two Kawanishi
H8K flying boats against Pearl Harbor.
They failed to gain intelligence over the state of Hawaii and the Pacific Fleet and
they only caused minor damage on the islands.
A followup to this raid was launched on March 10, but one of the flying boats was shot down
by a Brewster F2A Buffalo near the Midway Atoll, provoking the eventual cancellation
of the operation.
In turn, the Americans launched a naval bombardment of Wake Island followed by an air raid on
February 24, causing severe damage to installations of the island and sinking two patrol boats.
Admiral Halsey then turned to the northwest and launched another air raid over Minami
Torishima on March 4, again inflicting heavy damage on the island’s facilities.
Now, we turn to the island of New Guinea, where the Japanese were planning their first
offensive operation after the fall of Rabaul.
To fully control the seas north of Australia and completely cut off the British dominion,
the invaders were now planning to invade Port Moresby in British New Guinea and Tulagi in
the Solomon Islands; but before that, the Japanese first needed to occupy the Salamaua-Lae
area to establish an air base for the support of further operations in the region.
Back on February 8, the invaders had expanded from Rabaul with a naval landing at Surumi
and Gasmata, capturing the airfield there without opposition.
With Gasmata firmly under their control, the Japanese would then prepare for the invasion
of Salamaua-Lae.
The plan was for a battalion of the South Seas Detachment to capture Salamaua and its
airfield while 620 SNLF marines landed at Lae and rapidly secured the area.
They were to be escorted by a fleet mainly consisting of two light-cruisers and six destroyers,
under the command of Admiral Kajioka.
Back on February 20, the 4th Fleet had also been subjected to an air raid by a US aircraft
carrier task force under Admiral Wilson Brown that forced Admiral Inoue to delay the launch
of the invasion.
Although Japanese bombers were launched to intercept the American task force and they
succeeded in their objective of forcing the Americans to turn back, the loss of 23 aircraft
was enough reason to postpone the operation.
To prevent another air raid over the 4th Fleet, Inoue dispatched a support fleet consisting
of 4 heavy-cruisers, 2 light-cruisers and 2 destroyers under the command of Admiral
Goto.
Finally on March 5, the invasion force departed Rabaul heading to the Salamaua-Lae area.
Under a violent storm, the Horie Unit landed on Salamaua in the early hours of March 8,
while the SNLF marines landed at the coast to the south of Lae.
Prior to their landings, the 200 Australian defenders had already retreated to Wau after
executing demolition operations to prevent the use of their facilities for the invaders.
After only a couple of hours, the Horie Unit captured Salamaua, its airfield and the town
of Kela, while the SNLF marines did the same for Lae and its airfield.
In the meantime, two task forces were assigned to Admiral Brown to carry out a new air raid,
this time over the recently-established Japanese presence in the Salamaua-Lae area.
The Americans had achieved great success on their previous raids over the Gilberts, the
Marshalls, Rabaul, Wake and Minami Torishima, and Admiral Chester Nimitz, new Commander-in-Chief
of the Pacific Fleet, believed that this attack would have the advantage of surprise and could
thus be deadly.
By March 10, Brown’s forces had advanced undetected to the Gulf of Papua off the southern
shore of New Guinea, where he ordered the SBD Dauntless bombers, TBD Devastator torpedo
bombers and F4F Wildcats to lift off and prepare for the incoming attack.
At about 08:40, 104 American planes were in the air, preparing to head for their objectives.
This time, they found no opposing enemy fighters, so the element of surprise was on their side.
The Lexington group arrived at a position above Lae around 09:20 and immediately started
to bombard shipping there.
Three large Japanese transports were at Lae, and they were repeatedly strafed by the fighters
while dozens of bombs fell around them, resulting in their complete destruction . The Lexington
group then headed to Salamaua, while some bombers approached targets of opportunity,
damaging the cruiser Yubari, two destroyers , the minelayer Tsugaru and two more transports.
Meanwhile, the Yorktown group, following on the heels of the Lexington group, repeatedly
assaulted the Yubari, causing severe damage to Kajioka’s flagship.
Although the Americans believed the cruiser to have sunk, the Yubari had managed to control
the damage after evading 67 bombs and 12 torpedoes.
The Yorktown group then strafed Salamaua, inflicted severe damage on a seaplane tender
and got to sink a minesweeper.
Following Brown’s strike, eight B-17 bombers from Townsville arrived on March 11 and bombed
the area as well, causing further damage on the facilities and on the Yubari.
This was the first time the Allies had inflicted large-scale damage during a counter-attack
since the start of the war, and was a portent of the future direction of campaigns in the
South Pacific Area.
The Japanese had lost four vessels and had to send seven more to be repaired , but the
issues raised by the successful counter-attack were hidden in the shadow of the fall of Java.
Despite the success of Brown’s raid though, the Japanese had achieved a foothold over
the island of New Guinea, and the Allies had much to fear if Australia was cut off.
While Tokyo was still celebrating the capture of the Dutch East Indies, further operations
were already being planned, but you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for that.
Next week we have a special episode prepared for your excitement, so make sure you are
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