Evening star., 1942-05-12
Burma
CONTINUED From First Page.)

p0AOcD tI1dt Chl Uc AcSOtAhtCu ny
motors.
Despite half q century of British
rule, upper Burma never was linked
to neighboring India by even one
good road. II there had been, the
Burma disaster might not have
happened.
Instead Of one lone battalion sent
to Burma from India by air after
the loss Of Rangoon, several di-
visions might have been hurried
across by road to throw back the
reinforced Japanese.
Thirteen days ago on military
order left the bomb town
of Shwebo. 90 miles northwest Of
Mandalay, coincident with the
transfer of British Army headquar-
ters to Myitkyina, which is halfway
from Shwebo to the eternal SHOWS
Of Tibet.
Defeat that had stared the British
Army In the face since the enemy
broke through to the Rangoon delta
in February was no longer a prob
ability. It was an acknowledged
fact. s4
Escaped in Army Jeep.
In q thunderstorm before dawn
! drove past Q ramshackle school
where the bomb wounded lay groan-
ing on bare tables.
In an American Army jeep, whose
four-wheeled drive was taxed by
the drowned trails through the
Chindwin valleys and bogs and
nearly perpendicular mule routes
over the Chin hills, / chauffeured
a wounded British captain into
Assam, thence by miserable bullock
cart roads to Bengal and Calcutta.
Thirteen hundred miles, 13 days.
Warned that Japanese patrols
might already have cut my cross
country track, my newsman's luck
kept me driving southwestward to
Monywa to try to catch an up
stream Chindwin River steamer.
Japanese patrols would have beaten
me there; besides the steamers
quickly suspended service.
OIL QOh llOl WCSlW dl " O1i q llCW
trail hacked out of the jungle and
followed the river beds miles on
end, thankful that the monsoon had
not yet filled them with more than
q few inches of water
Highway Was Cart Trail.
I got the jeep ferried the last few
miles to Kalewa. Supposedly, an
ambitious highway extended from
Assam to Kalewa. Actually 1t was
q boggy cart trail.
Compared with that tiny, gal
liant British rearguard drunk with
fatigue and battling toward tempo
rary rest in Assam, I Travelled in
velvety luxury.
I rode. They are walking, slog-
ging afoot in desert dust, in oozy
flooded paths, through dank teak
forests, swimming muddy streams
In the desert and jungle patch
work you are tortured one day by
rain the next.
Now with the Calcutta streetcar
banging prosaically past my hotel
room in the city, city that has
never heard the ear-splitting crash
of enemy bombs or seen women and
children smashed to pulp by high
explosives, I feel in an unreal world
Troops Fighting for Lives.
This Is a world I had almost for
gotten during my months OF cover
ing the Burma invasion 1t is 9
cushy, wen-fed, comfortably beddec
world.
Yet at this moment. back ir
Burma, the dwindling columns o.
dirt-caked troops are fighting fol
their Investigating on as they hav'
been doing ever since early Januar!
when they were given the impossible
task of defending Burma's wide
open eastern frontier against al
enemy more numerous, more skilled
In jungle warfare, continually re-
tnforced by land, air and sea.
Fresh forces Of the Indian Arm.
are manning the Assam frontier
They appeared calm, determined
mentally ready for the first clasl
with the enemy.
In reply to an inquiry from then
as I passed, I said:
Get your men of the road.
out into the jungles, accustom then
to living there, forget you ever ha
an army truck, camoufiage you
hideouts, study ways to ambush tn
other fellow, demand tommygun
~~I x.1r%or. <ro,,a ordnor,a D;aa
and machine guns are all right, bu
tommyguns and mortars are muc
betted and the Jap has plenty