Tank Tracks to Rangoon (19 page)

Neale was killed almost at once, and Sanford was mortally wounded. The sudden chaotic chatter on the radio set at once informed Colonel Younger, listening to the tanks’ progress at
HQ 123 Brigade, of this disaster, and he ordered FitzHerbert to assume command and to press on with the attack. At the same time he despatched a further troop to the Pyramid, as a safeguard in case the attack failed and it was necessary to withdraw.

FitzHerbert ordered Neale’s and Sanford’s tanks to clear the way forward, and advanced along the ridge with SQMS Bran-stone’s tank in front of him, and Sgt Hannan’s behind. About this time, Sgt Doe, commanding the leading tank of Neale’s troop, was killed, and when Cpl Hubbard took his place in the cupola, he too was shot through the head.

This inevitably delayed FitzHerbert’s forward progress, but eventually he arrived with his three tanks in front of three bunkers built into the Northern Bump. Before he could engage, Branstone slumped dead into his turret, followed almost immediately by his gunner, Tpr Hopkins, who was killed as soon as he tried to take command of the vehicle. FitzHerbert himself was killed, and his tanks surrounded by crowds of Japanese, firing from close range.

The tanks on Nunshigum were now without effective direction, and Younger instructed SSM Craddock to assume command, and
to continue the attack.

The battle had now reached a point of balance. The Japanese had succeeded in holding the attack, had killed most of the tank commanders and their replacements, and had inflicted heavy casualties on the Dogras, both of whose company commanders were down. On the other hand, the tanks and infantry were maintaining their positions, and were still firing.

For the British, the steam had obviously gone out of the attack, and they were stranded in the middle of an unsubdued position without officers and without any clear idea what to do next.

In such circumstances, battles are won by the side with the strongest personalities, and in this case the British were blessed with two very strong personalities. Craddock was a long service professional, as was the senior surviving Dogra VCO, Subadar Ranbir Singh, with whom he conferred as to how to get the attack moving again. Craddock agreed to close in on the bunkers, while Ranbir Singh’s company, with two platoons from Subadar Tiru Ram’s company, prepared to close with the bayonet.

First, Craddock must clear the way ahead, and he ordered all tanks without commanders to move off his route. In the case of FitzHerbert’s tank this was no easy matter. With a dead commander
and the gunner’s telescope smashed, this vehicle was still hammering away at the enemy’s position, directions being passed to the gunner by the driver, Tpr Smith, who was observing through his
open
visor. On receiving Craddock’s order to move, Smith pressed his starter button, but found it jammed. Leaping out with a tow rope, he secured this properly, although the atmosphere was thick with bullets fired at close range, then scrambled back on board.

Craddock’s first attack stalled a few yards from the bunkers, and he conferred again with Ranbir Singh. They attacked once more, Sgt Hannan’s tank climbing a very steep slope to the top of the Northern Bump, the central feature of the bunker complex, whilst Craddock worked round to the right. Between them, they beat in the Japanese bunkers with their fire, and the Dogras, when they came in with the bayonet, slaughtered every Japanese on the hill. The battle for Nunshigum was over, and with it the end to the enemy’s hopes that he would be able to interfere with 4 Corps’ vital airfields. The Japanese tried to retake the feature that evening, but by then tie whole Dogra battalion were in position, and they were easily beaten off.

The margin between success and failure had been frighteningly thin, and the tensions of the day had left both Colonel Younger and his adjutant completely drained. To their surprise, when Craddock came down from Nunshigum that evening, he showed little outward sign of his experience, other than expressing himself to be a little tired.

Colonel Younger was told that his recommendations for decorations would be accepted at once and without question. Craddock received an immediate DCM, and Hannan and Smith the MM. Ranbir Singh was awarded the IOM.

Sergeant-Major Craddock died shortly after the war ended, but his action and that of his NCOs was commemorated by 3rd Carabiniers every year on the anniversary of Nunshigum, when the regiment’s B Squadron paraded without officers, and under the command of its Sgt-Major and NCOs. The tradition is maintained to this day by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, formed from the amalgamation of the Royal Scots Greys and 3rd Carabiniers. Few battle honours on the regiment’s standard have been as hard earned.

Whilst the fighting on Nunshigum was taking place, B Squadron 7th Light Cavalry, who had already fought several engagements on the Ukhrul road, had provided a troop under Lt
Paddy Cudden as flank protection for the main operation.

No sooner was this troop in position than the Japanese made it a major target for their mortars, and the leading tank was hit twice in as many minutes, one round smashing a track and the other landing square on the front plate, mortally wounding the driver, Sowar Sher Zaman.

Whilst the remainder of the crew evacuated the vehicle, Sher Zaman, with both legs smashed and in terrible pain, somehow dragged himself back from the driving compartment into the turret, and onto the gunner’s stool. The 37 mm fired twice, and the Browning stuttered until the belt was exhausted; then Sher Zaman died.

Still under fire, Cudden hitched the cripple to his own tank and towed it out. His third tank bogged down, but was recovered within twenty-four hours.

The remainder of the squadron had spent the day on patrol, and had captured a prisoner. The man was photographed, sitting on the front of a Stuart between two grinning crewmen, and his posture is the epitome of the Japanese military philosophy; all prisoners, except possibly Italians, look depressed, but this soldier seems to have lost his very soul.

Following the recapture of Nunshigum, General Scoones decided to maintain the pressure on this sector, and push the Japanese 15th Division back along the Ukhrul road. During the Japanese advance, this had been the scene of heavy fighting, notably at Sangshak, where the independent 50th Parachute Brigade had maintained their position against heavy odds for so long that Yamauchi’s timetable was hopelessly disjointed before he had even reached the Imphal plain. 50th Brigade had had to break out in small parties, leaving their wounded behind, and the subsequent Japanese advance had been so rapid that the troop of Stuarts from A Squadron 7th Light Cavalry had had to vacate the Litan Saddle in some haste, leaving most of their stores behind.

On 17th April, the 3/5 Royal Gurkha Rifles assaulted the enemy’s forward position with the support of C Squadron 7th Light Cavalry and half of A Squadron 3rd Carabiniers. The assault was successful, the tanks remaining on the captured ground until the infantry had consolidated.
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The following day the 7th’s No 3 Troop helped the infantry mop up remaining Japanese pockets, and later followed up the retreating enemy along the road.

‘The Japs had blown a bridge over a deep nullah between the Saddle and Litan. Helped by a D8, Cyril’s
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nautical knowledge of knots, blocks and tackles, and Joe’s proficiency at rope climbing, 3 Troop got across and moved up to Litan, where they spent the night. During the night they mistook a cow for a Jap and shot it up. The next day they left the scene of this success, and rejoined the Squadron on the Saddle.’

For several weeks after this, the sector did not require active assistance from the tanks, although one of the 7th’s squadrons was always on call nearby. The Japanese having been pushed a safe distance from the plain, the British line remained static, with the main defensive position based on the Saddle itself, and several nearby features known as the Bastion, the Turret and the Beacon.

However, on 10th June the Japanese suddenly began shelling, and under cover of darkness launched a successful attack on the Bastion and the Turret. An immediate counter attack was ordered, supported by B Squadron 7th Light Cavalry.

During the engagement, Lt Elson’s tank was penetrated by an anti-tank gun, which killed the driver and wounded the operator. Elson managed to get the vehicle back to the infantry’s aid post, and then continued to give covering fire to the main attack.

A second tank was put out of action, leaving only two, but shortly afterwards Lt Ormerod arrived with another troop, which cleared the position with the infantry. A body count of sixty-five was made.

Almost immediately, Colonel Barlow detailed the tanks to assist in the capture of the Turret. During this attack one tank bellied in a collapsed trench, and another received such incessant machine gun fire that it was virtually blinded, all the episcopes having been smashed. The remaining tanks went forward with the infantry, over the crest and down the reverse slopes, where Captain Wright and Jemadar Fateh Khan blew in a number of Japanese funk holes.

A few days later, the squadron was employed again in a similar operation, this time against the Beacon. This was a much more difficult task for the tanks, as the Beacon was 1,700 feet high,
and the only way to the top was straight up. The only way to get the Stuarts to the top was to winch them up with a D8 tractor, and incredibly this was done, providing an example of cold courage which must be unique in the history of armoured warfare.

‘Mounted on a bulldozer, Trooper Thomson, a Yorkshireman, worked for eleven hours winching a troop of Stuarts up a long, steep and dangerous gradient. He drove from one comparatively flat ledge to the next, anchored the bulldozer and winched up the tanks after him. Then he repeated the process from a series of ledges. The chances he took were almost unbelievable. A slide down fifty feet just to get a better grip on new ground was a matter of course to him.

‘Finally, Trooper Thomson towed two of the tanks up to the start line under shell fire and sniping, which was so intense that everyone else dived for cover while he drove his conspicuous and unprotected bulldozer about on an open crest.’
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Tpr Thomson was awarded the Military Medal.

The four tanks, with Jemadar Anwar Khan on the right, Lt Elson centre, Risaldar Ali Khan left and Captain Wright controlling some way behind, moved off, blasting bunkers along the crest, and doing great execution. The rain and mist closed in, reducing visibility to five yards, adding to the unreality of the situation.

Unfortunately, this very bold effort by B Squadron did not have the ending it deserved. In engaging his second bunker, Ali Khan bogged down his tank in a shell crater, and later in the day, when the three remaining tanks were returning to their forward rally point to replenish their petrol and ammunition, Captain Wright’s tank lost a track running over a double mine, and Elson’s turret was jammed by an HE strike. The infantry, rather than go on without the tanks, decided to withdraw, so the machine guns and ammunition were transferred from the cripples to the fit tanks, which then withdrew.

Not long afterwards, the Japanese evacuated the Beacon of their own volition.

For his failure at Ukhrul, Lt-General Yamauchi was dismissed his command, but he was far from being the last Japanese senior officer whose personal ambitions vanished into the thickening mud of the Imphal monsoon.

Further south, on the Shenam Saddle, A Squadron 3rd Carabiniers had assisted 20th Division to consolidate its hold on various features, from some of which the Japanese had to be driven and was in action almost daily until it rejoined regimental headquarters at Wangjing on 6th April. On this sector, no further assistance was required from the tanks, although one troop remained on call, and the infantry succeeded in holding the line for the remainder of the battle, although fighting was extremely bitter and the casualties high.

On the Tiddim road, 33rd Division’s lack of progress had also cost Yanagida his job, and the division was now commanded by Major-General Tanaka, an officer picked for his drive and ruthlessness, who on one occasion ordered his officers to execute with their own swords any soldier who seemed guilty of anything less than suicidal enthusiasm.

The Tiddim road saw some of the most unpleasant fighting of the whole battle, and was the sector on which both sides employed a high proportion of their armour. Here Mutaguchi was determined to break through to Imphal, and here he provided a scale of artillery and air support that earned the envy of his other divisional commanders. When he found that Tanaka was unable to force his way straight up the road, he tried a turning movement through the hills to the west, but was again balked by hard fighting. When the monsoon broke, turning the low-lying area around Lake Log Tag into a morass, in which only disease-laden mosquitoes flourished, his chronic supply and medical services ensured that his once proud ‘White Tigers’ withered and wasted away.

Inevitably, most of the fighting along the Tiddim road took place in the villages, which consisted of a series of compounds each containing two or three houses, and possibly a well, enclosed by a cactus fence or bamboo paling standing on banks which were sometimes as much as seven feet high. Most of the houses were built on stilts and were made from bamboo matting or thin plank, but there were generally several brick or stone buildings, and in Burma proper one or more pagodas, as well. Most villages tended to straggle along a track or road.

It might be thought that the tanks were in their element fighting on the plain itself, but this was very far from being the case, as the village enclosures provided the enemy with ideal opportunities for digging in amongst the earth tanks, and the hedges
severely restricted the tank crews’ vision; in addition, the Japanese had a card up their sleeve.

On 20th April, a patrol reported that the enemy had occupied Ningthoukong, and two days later an attack, supported by eight Lees, was mounted to drive them out.

In this case the men wore in their berets neither the crossed carbines of the Carabiniers nor the crossed lances of 7th Light Cavalry, but the mailed fist and crown of a Royal Armoured Corps regiment. They came, in fact, from C Squadron 150 Regiment RAC, which had been formed from the 10th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment.