Operation Ha-gō

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The operation Ha-gō was 3 to 24 February 1944, the newly formed Japanese 28th Army carried out and was in World War II, part of the Burma campaign . The British also speak of the Battle of the Admin Box or Battle of Ngakyedauk with this company from the Second Campaign in Arakan . The aim of the Japanese army command was to divert and bind the allied troops of the British-Indian 14th Army during the more important starting Operation U-gō .

prehistory

In the months following the defeat in the Arakan campaign, the Allies reorganized their troops. On May 26, 1943, Sir George Giffard was appointed to succeed General Irwin as the new chief of the Eastern Army, and General Wavell was also replaced on June 20 . Giffard ordered training in jungle combat and prepared a counter-offensive for the spring of 1944. The Japanese were confident that they would be able to repeat the previous year's success in a local counterattack and perhaps even advance to Chittagong, the port where the supplies of the XV. Corps based. The newly established Japanese 28th Army, which was commanded by Lieutenant General Shōzō Sakurai , stayed in Arakan and southern Burma. It was planned in the first week of February 1944 to force the Allies to send reinforcements to Arakan from the central front.

Attack planning

The aim of the high command of the Japanese regional army Burma was to divert and bind troops of the British-Indian 14th Army during the more important starting Operation U-gō . The Japanese 28th Army faced the superior strength with only one division , the Japanese 55th Division under Lieutenant General Tadashi Hanaya was reinforced with only 80 aircraft from the weak 5th Air Force Division (Lieutenant General Tazu). The 54th Division deployed to the south secured the coastline south of Akyab for supplies and against Allied landings. General Philip Christison had pushed his troops south across the Mayu Peninsula in November 1943 in order to attack the Japanese position line between Maungdaw-Razabil-Letwedet-Buthidaung in January 1944. The RAF Battle Group 224, which was stationed in Chittagong , brought absolute air superiority and supported fighters and fighter-bombers with 14 squadrons, a total of almost 200 aircraft.

Frank Messervy

British-Indian XV. Army Corps (General Officer Commanding Philip AF Christison)

Reserve :

The Indian 5th Division (Major General HR Briggs), which had already fought in East Africa , attacked the coastal plain of Arakan. The well-trained Indian 7th Division attacked Buthidaung and in the Kalapanzin Valley. The Mayu Peninsula consisted of a coastal plain, a fertile valley of the Kalapanzin River, which was separated by the jungle-covered Mayu range of hills. On January 9, 1944, the Indian 5th Division captured the small port of Maungdaw. The corps was preparing for the next major target, the Japanese positions east of the port at Razabil. This section was already part of the Mayu Range, where two disused railway tunnels led a road through the hills that connected Maungdaw with the towns of Buthidaung and Letwedet in the Kalapanzintal. To reinforce the troops and resources for the anticipated attacks, pioneers of the Indian 7th Division improved a narrow path over the hill, known as the Ngakyedauk Pass , while near the east end of the pass at Sinzweya, called the Admin Box "was prepared as a fortified space. The West African 81st Division (Major General CG Woolner) advanced as cover in the east in the valley of the Kaladan River, tied up enemy troops, but later had no direct influence on the battle. Two other divisions served as reserves: the British 36th Division was only brought in from the Calcutta area during the fighting, the Indian 26th Division was at Chittagong.

course

The advance of the Japanese 55th Division (Lieutenant General Tadashi Hanaya) on the Maya Peninsula began cautiously, but steadily gained momentum. Two battalions secured Akyab and one battalion guarded the coast of the Mayu peninsula. Colonel Doi's combat group (two battalions) had to hold the front between the Mayu River and the coast. General Hanaya had only five battalions under Major General Tokutaro Sakurai to carry out an encirclement for his attack, which began on February 3.

Fight at Ngakyedauk and Sinzweya

On February 4, Major General Tokutaro Sakurai's combat group broke through the front lines of the too widely dispersed Indian 7th Division about 19 kilometers to the north and occupied Taung Bazar. There they crossed the Kalapanzin River and swung west and south behind the Allied front. The headquarters of the Indian 7th Division was dug up, there was heavy fighting, the signalers and clerks of the division had to destroy their documents and equipment and split up into small groups and retreat to the attached admin box. General Messervy narrowly escaped capture. A battalion of the 213rd Regiment (Kampfgruppe Kubo) crossed the Mayu Range to lay ambushes on the coastal road that supplied the 5th Indian Division. The bypassed divisions of the XV. Army corps had to dig in to hold their positions. By noon on February 5, Sakurai's troops were already behind the Indian 5th Division and had occupied the Brisasco Bridge.

The attack on the British storage facility in Sinzweya failed, however, because it was successfully defended by staff troops from headquarters and intelligence troops with the help of the 25th light anti-tank regiment. Corps commander General Christison ordered Brigadier General Geoffrey Charles Evans , the newly appointed commander of India's 9th Brigade, to retreat to the fortified admin box and repel all Japanese attacks there. When Maj. Gen. Messervy and several of his staff officers reached the admin box, he left Evans to defend the box while focusing himself on regaining control of the scattered parts of India's 7th Division. Evans joined the Box's defenders with the West Yorkshire Regiment's 2nd Battalion and the 24th Mountain Artillery Regiment. The main support consisted of two squadrons of M3 Lee tanks from the 25th Dragoon Regiment. The defenders were later joined by a split off part of the 4th Battalion of the 8th Gurkha Rifle Regiment (from the Indian 89th Brigade) and the artillery of the 8 (Belfast) Artillery Regiment. The size of the so-called admin box had a diameter of about 1.1 km on both sides. The rescued ammunition depots piled up at the foot of a 46-meter-high central hill on the west side of the box.

On the night of February 7th, some Japanese troops infiltrated the wounded station. In an undoubted war crime, 35 medical workers and patients were murdered. This massacre reinforced the resolve of the defenders, who now knew what fate would threaten them if they surrendered. Japanese fire on the Admi box caused heavy losses in the overcrowded defenses and triggered two explosions in the ammunition dump. All Japanese attempts to overrun the defenders were foiled by Allied tanks, which the Japanese could not fight without heavy weapons.

Air supply to the admin box

Meanwhile, Dakota transporters were already depositing rations and ammunition for the Allied defense above the admin box. They flew a total of 714 sorties and deposited 2,300 tons. The first planes met resistance from Japanese fighter planes, some transport planes had to turn back first. However, three squadrons of Spitfire fighters operating from airfields around Chittagong quickly gained air superiority. In the weeks of aerial battles that followed, 65 Japanese aircraft were shot down or damaged, losing three Spitfires. The Japanese were already running out of supplies, while the Indian formations always had enough ammunition and supplies due to the air supply. The Japanese tried to organize supplies with pack mules and Arakanese porters, but this convoy was ambushed by the allies and the supplies were lost.

The Indian 26th Division had relieved the 5th Division, which sent a brigade that passed the Ngakyedauk Pass to relieve the 7th Division. On the night of February 14th, the Japanese attempted one last major attack and were able to capture a hill on the edge of the admin box. The 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment was able to take back the position with the support of tanks the next day, although they suffered heavy losses. Colonel Tanahashi, commander of Japan's 112th Infantry Regiment, stated that his regiment had been reduced from its original strength of 2,150 to 400 and refused to carry out further senseless attacks. As of February 22nd, the Japanese who had been cut off were already starving themselves. On February 26th, General Sakurai had to abort the loss-making operation and prepared to fight for his troops to retreat.

consequences

The numerically far superior British-Indian XV. Army Corps had proven itself in repelling the Japanese attack, but suffered losses of 3506 dead and wounded. The failed Japanese attack was led with only 8 battalions (about 8,000 men), but was able to tie up 27 Indian , 18 British, 7 West African and 5 Gurkha battalions and thus supported Operation U-gō. In other words, one Japanese division held and tied nearly five allies in check.

At this time, however, the operations of the XV. Corps are limited to free transport planes and troops for the more important battles at Imphal and Kohima. General Giffard wanted to free the Indian 5th and 7th Divisions from the Arakan front as quickly as possible in order to transport them by air to Manipur . When the monsoons began, it was found that the lower-lying battlefield of India's 7th Division around Buthidaung was contaminated with malaria. The XV. Army corps then withdrew their troops from the area in order to avoid the threat of epidemics. On February 28, the Japanese moved three battalions under Colonel Koba (leader of the 111th Regiment) opposite the West African 81st Division in the Kaladan Valley. With the support of a unit of the Indian National Army and local Arakanese, these troops successfully counterattacked the isolated West African division and finally forced them to retreat from the valley.

In the second week of March, the Indian 161st Brigade (part of the Indian 5th Division) captured the "Turtle" and the other fortifications around Razabil with a flank maneuver before the division was pulled out of the front. The Indian 26th and British 36th Divisions resumed the offensive in late March and early April. The 36th Division captured the so-called tunnel section by April 4. On April 6, troops of the Indian 26th Division captured the important hill point 551, which ruled the area and where the Japanese had won an important victory just under a year earlier.

literature

  • Eddy Bauer: The Hell of Burma , Lekturama, Rotterdam 1978, pp. 67–71
  • Roy Conyers Nesbit: The Battle for Burma , Pen and Sword Books, Barnsley 2009, p. 107 f.
  • Peter Young (Ed.): Atlas for the Second World War. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1974