The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1943-03-19
BURMA
BY Daniel De Luce
(WNU Feature Through special srranEsnben
with Golfers Weekly

power to whip the Japanese lies in
free, unoccupied China. For five
years the Chinese soldier has
proved himself every bit as coura-
geous and clever as his japanese
enemy. He has hung on in the face
of discouraging odds, lacking mod
ern weapons and an air force.
Anglo American arsenals
should eventually be able to fur
nish him with these new arms
and give him the support Of .
combined armada Of airplanes.
However, "the day" is indefinite.
In 1913? Perhaps longer. There is
q lot of spade work to be done, for
a great Allied offensive on the Ash
attic continent.
1t is required chiefly in Burma.
And 1t is being planned right now
by Generalissimo Chang Kai-shek,
General Wavell and General Still
well.
Allies Need Burma.
The transfer of a thousand bomb
ers and thousand fighting planes
from America to China could be
made in seven days. But once hav-
ing got the air fleet to China, the
Allies would be little better off than
before, unless they had Burma.
For the air force would need fuel
not few thousand gallons flown
laboriously over the Himalayas, but
MANY thousand tons.
And where Is the oil for the
future planes Of China? In Bur-
ma. "Oh," you say, weren't
the Burma fields scorched by
the British? Or was that just
another newspaper story?"
Yes, the Burma fields were
scorched, thoroughly scorched. At
the moment they're useless. But
listen to the man who did the scorch-
ing.
''If the japanese brought in $4,000
specialists and $4,000 tons of equip
ment and machinery, they could get
Burma producing again within few
months. But they have neither the
specialists nor the equipment. We
have both. We can soon have the
wells fowing-if and when we re-
capture Burma"
Searching Of Burma.
For the story of the scorching Of
Burma, let's begin looking into
little red cloth-covered notebook
which this itinerant war correspond
ent bought in Mandalay for ten an
mas, before the ships were bombed
and burned down on Good Friday
last year. had it in sweaty pock-
ct of my khaki shirt when ! jeeped
through Yenang-tuang, oil capital of
Burma, on Thursday, April 16, 1912.
Yenang-taung in Burmese, means
"stream of the smelly waters"
Some centuries ago, silk-skirted ma
tives scooped up the pungent black
liquid and burned it in crude lamps
at home.
Came the white man. In the
last 60 years thousands Of der
ricks sprang up on the drab hills.
Burma oil, a million tons every
IL months, began lighting many
q lamp in greater Asia.
Then came the Jap. He was about
80 miles south of the oil capital and
pressing hard last April when I
walked into the main oil-field head
quarters and met a lean, hard,
eagle-nosed English civilian load
ing his .38 army revolver.
He was Walter L. Forster Of the
Shell Oil company at Cairo. He had
supervised the demolition Of the
Rangoon refineries the previous
month, then calmly departed and
was now in central Burma to finish
similar assignments here.
At work or play, Forster likes
dynamite. Knowing his specially,
the British government had sent him
late in 1941 to Russia, to advise the
Soviet engineers in their program
Of scorching the earth. He quickly
decided that the Russians knew
more than he did, but he stayed to
learn their methods, and visited
secret areas of the Caucasus.
He remarked afterwards that the
Reds had carried out factory wreck
ings in one day that Anglo-American
experts had forecast might take six
months.
"But wish the Russians could
have seen our job at Rangoon," he
unused. Smoke up to $4,000 feet.
vapor up to $4,000 feet. Not a drop
Of oil left for the Japs, nor piece
of workable machinery"
After Rangoon was gone, Forster
tackled the pipe line which had run
more than 300 miles down-country
from the Burma oil fields. He
plugged the pipe with cement at riv-
er crossings, smashed the section
pumps, wrecked bridges. Then he
turned to the oil fields.
The last job, he said, was blowing
up the big powerhouse.
"I've got $500 gallons Of oil in
drums stored above the transform
ers," he said. Got oil piped in here
to the main room, too. And the jets
will turn on after the explosion. Nice
fire we're cooking up!'