WW2's bloody battle for Arakan

The forgotten war in Burma

0:00This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai slash Spotify. Hey, I'm running out to drop off a stack of letters and packages. Need anything shipped

0:31while I'm gone? Save the gas. Stamps.com lets you print postage and schedule pickups right from your desk. Sync your contacts into the address book, get detailed accounting insights, and get notified the moment your certified mail is delivered. All from my desk? All from your desk. Join the 4 million businesses using Stamps.com right now with code podcast and get your free welcome gift. Stamps.com code podcast. Taxes and fees apply. Get more from every job with Kubota construction equipment. From SVL compact track loaders to KX

1:02compact excavators, Kubota brings proven performance, smart value, and job site reliability to the crews who count on their equipment every day. Built for demanding work and backed by dealer support, Kubota equipment helps crews stay productive through long days, tight timelines, and tough conditions. Performance that pays you back. Get more from every job with Kubota construction equipment. This fall, build a wardrobe for the way you live with exceptional designs and personalized help from client advisors at Neiman Marcus. For weekly meetings, social events, and everyday luxury,

1:37Neiman Marcus has it all. From the refinement of Brunello Cuccinelli sweaters to the confidence of Christian Louboutin shoes and accessories, and the technical perfection of a Montclair down jacket. There's something for every style this fall. Discover an unrivaled variety of world-class brands. Shop Neiman Marcus today, in-store, or at neimanmarcus.com.

2:02Welcome to the History Extra podcast. In 1944, the Allies unleashed an offensive in Burma, a brutal campaign spearheaded by three commander brigade alongside the Indian and West African troops of 15 Corps. Against a ruthless enemy, and in one of the world's most unforgiving environments, these men launched daring amphibious assaults deep into Japanese-held territory, turning the tide of the Burma campaign and delivering a devastating blow to the Imperial Japanese Army. Military historian

2:35Lucy Betteridge-Dyson has written a book on this subject, titled Jungle Commandos, and Emily Griffiths spoke to her to find out more about some of the pivotal moments of this forgotten front of the Second World War. Thank you so much for joining me today to talk all about the experiences of the commandos and their allies in Burma, specifically those in the third Arakan campaign. Now, some of our listeners may be familiar with this, some of them may not be. How has this particular campaign been remembered,

3:07or perhaps might the right word be overlooked? Yeah, I don't think many of your listeners will be familiar with it. And that's purely because it has not been written about in depth, probably ever. It has been picked up in larger volumes about the Burma campaign, but usually is only afforded a page or two. And actually, the campaign itself in Arakan was huge. So, you know, for me, it was a real big passion to get into the weeds of it and write that definitive book about the operations there.

3:37And am I right in thinking that this has personal significance to you? Yes, absolutely. So, my grandfather was a captain in 4-4 Royal Marine Commando. So, I grew up hearing all about Kangor, Hill 170. And I remember at school when we used to talk about the Second World War, and I would say, oh, my granddad was in the commandos. And the response would be like, oh, was he at D-Day? And I'd be like, oh, no, he's in Burma. And you just get blank looks back at you. And that basically has continued into adulthood. Even in the military history world, very few people

4:11really are aware that 3 Commander Brigade fought out in the Far East and what they achieved. So, yes, it was a big mission of mine for his memory, because it was something he tried to do throughout his later years as well, to draw attention to what went on out there, for sure. This is quite a broad question. So, I mean, trying to ask you to answer this might be quite difficult. But why do you think this history has been overlooked, forgotten? Yeah, it's a tough one. And I think it kind of harks back to the general idea of why the Burma campaign as a whole and the theatre was known as, obviously, the Forgotten War. It's not a term I

4:46like, particularly, because I do think over recent decades, there's been some huge changes and so many historians doing amazing work to draw attention to the Burma campaign. But, you know, at the end of the day, VJ Day comes after VE Day, and the fighting went on far away. And when something is 5,000 miles away, and it's not on your doorstep, for the people at the time, you know, it's going to get forgotten about. And just that distance, it kind of just makes it feel a bit less, yeah, a bit less

5:16important. And when the men got back, which was, you know, my grandad didn't get back to the UK till 1947, things had moved on. So, how we remember that in the decades after kind of follows, I think.

Context of the Japanese invasion

5:28So, we are here to write the narrative, as it were. If we go right back to the start, let's get the context for this particular campaign. What was the situation in Burma in the lead up to 1945, this sort of period that we're going to be talking about? Sure. So, very briefly, just for listeners who aren't familiar with Burma as a field of battle, the Japanese invaded in 1942. We had this huge retreat, the worst in the British Army's history. They were completely kicked out of Burma, back to the borders with British India. And then it was

6:00really a case over 1943, 1944, of the British and Indian armies getting to grips with this new enemy, the Imperial Japanese Army. They hadn't faced them before. They hadn't fought an environment like Burma before, which isn't just jungle, by the way. It's mountains, it's open plains. It's got a bit of everything in there. And you've got to deal with the climate. So, you've got to deal with malaria, you've got to deal with the heat, the monsoons. And there was this huge learning process that the British and Indian Army went through. By the time we get to mid-1944, there's been a whole bunch of

6:32changes in British command. There's been an awful lot of learning, tactical innovation. We can't not mention General William Slim. And obviously, Bill Slim is a name I hope some of your listeners are familiar with and the work that he did, along with Mountbatten, to develop not just the tactics and the strategy in Burma, but also the morale, so that these guys really thought, we can win this. Because previously, they'd been told or rumours were around that the Japanese were these supermen, you know, these terrifying jungle fighters, and they didn't have a hope in hell. So, we'd kind of been through all of this. By 1944, and by the time of the third Arakan campaign,

7:07the tide is really starting to turn. We've had the great battles of Kohima and Infal, which really were the first big defeats that the British and Indian armies issued on the Japanese army. And now is the time to strike. It's the time to push for Rangoon in central Burma. And so, how we're going to do that, how that's going to happen, is really where my book begins. Perfect. So, it's fair to say, tides are massively on the turn in this time, right? Absolutely. It's all to play for. Now, what were the objectives of the British and sort of allied forces during this third offensive?

Strategic objectives and Allied forces

7:44So, lessons have been learned. What now? Okay. So, the British and the allies had two main objectives really during this period. In central Burma, 14th Army were striking out to Rangoon. But in order to do that, and to push the Japanese entirely out of Burma, they needed support and they needed logistical support, most importantly. And that's where Arakan and that region on the western edge of Burma really, really became important because there were air bases there. There were naval ports there. And it was these

8:16that were going to feed 14th Army in central Burma. So, the main objectives for 15 Corps, which was the corps that my book is mainly about under General Christensen, were to capture these air bases and ports. And they were the linchpin to success in Burma because without them, there was no way to feed the 14th Army and no way to get supplies. Burma is absolutely huge. I cannot underscore that enough, how big Burma is. There's no overground infrastructure at this point. So, the only way to reach these men is either by aeroplane, so supply drops, that was a huge thing, or by ship. But that is

8:54a bit tricky. So, really, really, it's all about aerial logistics. And without getting the places like Akyab in Arakan and Ramri and Chedua, there was no way that they were going to be able to push the army as far as Rangoon. Can you just give us a lay of the land here to help us situate ourselves? So, Arakan sits on the northwestern coast of Burma. It borders India, British India at the time, Bangladesh now at the northern end. So, it was really the jumping off point for future offensives in Burma. It's separated from central Burma by a mountain range called the Yoma Mountains. And

9:28this is an offshoot of the Himalayas. It is huge. And there are maybe two or three areas where you can pass through that into central Burma. So, it's pretty well isolated, but defending and capturing those passes naturally becomes extremely important as the campaign goes on. Talking about this Arakan front, who exactly is involved in this offensive? We've spoken about the commandos. Give us the specifics. So, in charge of the offensive in Arakan is General Christensen's XV Corps. And it's an amazing corps.

10:00It's raised in India and it's probably the most multinational group of men that you can think of. So, we've got the 25th Indian Infantry Division in there. They were newly raised, so these are new lads to war. We've got the 26th Indian Infantry Division. They've had a bit of experience in the second Arakan campaign, so they're a bit more battle-hardened. And then we've got the 81st and 82nd West African Division, and they are my favourites. These were guys that were raised in the British Empire over in West Africa, places like Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana, those kind of

10:33places. And they were raised in 1943, and they've travelled all the way to Burma. So, it's an incredible mix of units. Of course, there are many British units as part of these divisions as well. So, it's a real, real melting pot of not just fighting ability, not just experience, but also cultures, languages. I mean, it's incredible. And what was the camaraderie and cooperation like between these units?

11:03So, as Operation Romulus got underway, which is one of the main operations and part of the Third Arakan campaign, we see incredible cooperation between the units. But I have to say, from some of the commanders, they had preconceptions about some of the troops. So, you know, there was still this belief that troops in the Indian Army were maybe not as competent, that they still needed British or European officers because they weren't able to command themselves. And actually, the 25th Indian Infantry Division saw the 1st Brigade commanded entirely by Indian troops. So, that was

11:37amazing. And they smashed it out of the park. I mean, they proved themselves above and beyond, fighting through the monsoon, coming in ahead of schedule. I mean, if there was anyone after who had these kind of preconceived ideas that Indian soldiers were not good enough afterwards, then I would have loved to have met them because, you know, these guys were amazing. And of course, there were similar kind of preconceptions about the West Africans. In fact, Bill Slim actually had, I rarely disagree with anything Slim did or said, but he believed that these guys were not really suitable for battle,

12:14that they weren't competent because they had these large auxiliary units as part of their divisions where they didn't use transport, they head-loaded like traditionally you would do in Africa, you carry your goods on your head. So, they had these auxiliary units that went with them to do this. And Slim thought that this was a big waste of energy. You know, why have you got men carrying stuff when they should be with a gun, you know, fighting the enemy? And again, proved completely wrong because what they did in the Kaladin Valley, where they penetrated deep into this huge valley in Arakhan that had been

12:45completely uncharted, virgin jungle, and they were up against a very, very experienced Japanese commander called COBA. What they did there was, again, staggering. And they have not had enough praise over the years for their achievements because without their supporting role, what the commandos did, what the Indian divisions did, wouldn't have been possible. Now we've met some of the figures who were involved with this campaign. When we're talking about the Arakhan campaign, it starts with a series of daring amphibious operations. But we're not

13:16talking about nice sandy beaches here, are we? Could you tell us about where they're landing and how this went down?

Amphibious operations in mangrove swamps

13:23Definitely. So, I think when you say commando in the Second World War, we think of big open beaches. You might think of Normandy, D-Day. You might think of Operation Torch, North Africa. You might think of Sicily with Op Husky. In Arakhan, there's no, I mean, a lot of the times with these landings, the sea wasn't anywhere to be seen. When we look at the first landings, they went in completely unopposed. So, that was kind of like a nice training opportunity, although some of the commandos were a bit disappointed, let's be honest. You know, these boys wanted to fight,

13:55so they were a bit disappointed. But that was a nice kind of ease you into things. And that was onto an Asturial island. So, the coast of Arakhan is very fractured. It's made up of lots of tiny bits of islands and streams and inlets. There's not like this one big open beach. But the main landings that took place at Kangor and at places like Maibon, they were through these tiny tidal creeks and waterways known as Cheong's. And these are small rivers surrounded by mangrove forests. They were completely uncharted. So, there was a lot of work done by

14:29Naval Task Force 64, who did incredible work. And the COP, so Combined Operation Pilitage Parties, who went in first to a bit of reconnaissance ahead of time to scope out, you know, how they were going to get the commandos and the Indian troops into these places. And they landed into mangrove swamp forests. So, you've got these huge buttresses of tree trunks everywhere. I don't know if you've ever been, any of your listeners have ever been to the Far East and tropical places and seen mangrove forests, but they're terrifying. So, the idea of trying to get through those whilst

15:00potentially an enemy could be shooting at you, you know, you're wading through water, nothing like anywhere else in the war. The one landing that did take place technically on a beach was at Maibon. Not a beach of sand, though, a beach of black mud. And actually, what happened was there was a slight miscommunication, slight error with the tides, and the landing craft got stuck a long way out from the shore. Some of the commandos were forced to abandon their landing craft, jump into this black sticky mud, which, you know, was up to their chests, and wade to the

15:34shore, all while being exposed to enemy fire. You know, they were carrying their kit and their weapons over their heads. Men were forming scrums just to be able to get to the shore because they couldn't on their own get the momentum to get through this stuff. I think the last man who arrived on shore arrived completely naked because his clothes had literally been sucked off of him by the mud. It was amazing how few casualties there were considering things. I think that's an absolute testament to the physical and mental strength of the commandos and the training that

16:07they'd been through, quite frankly. So, we're talking about insane level of difficulty in terms of environment, in terms of conditions. It sounds unimaginable, I think is the word to describe it. Yeah, absolutely. And that's another reason why I'm like, why has this not been written about before? Because it's got everything in there. You know, it's got against the odds. You're not just fighting an enemy which knows the terrain really well. It's highly experienced in jungle warfare where you've had, you know, the commandos had maybe like a few months training, but before that they trained

16:41in Scotland, I mean, you can't get much different. You've got the disease, you know, the mental stress of being somewhere like that. I mean, imagine being on a landing craft on a tiny winding little river with trees towering over you, the sounds of the jungle, hearing rustling, you know, on the banks and not knowing is that a bird or is it a monkey or is it Japanese sniper? That combined with just the general living conditions in Burma, which affected obviously the whole of the theatre, but were particularly tough in Arakhan because the monsoon falls particularly heavily in Arakhan.

17:13Yeah, it was war on all fronts.

17:19This is an advertisement from Surfshark. From the Trojan horse to undercover wartime agents, history teaches us that threats can emerge from unlikely sources. And now, with our lives increasingly playing out online, those dangers are virtual, but no less real. That's where Surfshark comes in. It's an all-in-one cyber security suite that protects every aspect of your online life. Its VPN ensures your data is encrypted, making your online activity much harder to track, vital in a world in which every link you click and every site you visit leaves a trail. And

17:54its email scam checker uses AI to spot fake messages and scams before you even open them. Secure your entire digital life with Surfshark. It's completely risk-free with their 30-day money-back guarantee. Go to surfshark.com forward slash history extra or use the code history extra at checkout to get four extra months added to your plan. Again, that's surfshark.com forward slash history extra code history extra. This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude.

18:28Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai slash spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai slash spotify.

18:49Whether it's a movie night or just midday, Skinny Pop is a salty snack that keeps on giving. Made with just three simple ingredients for an irresistibly delicious taste and a large serving size that lasts. Deliciously popped, perfectly salted. Skinny Pop, popular for a reason. Shop Skinny Pop now.

19:13Having landed on the coast of Arakan, how familiar were they then with the terrain, what they were about to go into and perhaps even the Japanese movements once they'd landed? How much intel did they have? So I think this is particularly important when we consider the naval side of the operations. So obviously, when we look at combined operations, we mustn't forget the guys who actually get the commandos and the troops to where they need to be. And in this instance, we're talking about a naval task force 64. Again, a relatively unknown naval task force. And they had a very rough deal. Not only were

19:49they having to plan these operations, very last minute, some of them, they had just 24 hours notice, 48 hours notice in terms of where the landings were going to be. And it was completely uncharted, unmapped territory. There was some intelligence from the Americans who provided some kind of aerial intelligence of things, but the actual waters themselves, the depths, you know, where these landings could take place, the beachheads, where they were going to be, nothing whatsoever. So the reconnaissance teams, the combined operation, pilotage parties that I mentioned

20:20previously were very, very important. And these were highly skilled, just incredible men who were everything from engineers, geologists, divers, frogmen, commandos, like they had all of these skills rolled up in one. And they would go in in small parties of four or five men in the dead of night undercover to try and map as much as possible the surroundings and give the guys who were about to go in afterwards a little bit more of a heads up and give the naval planners additional information

20:51on things. And that was it in terms of intelligence, really. There was very little else that they could do, purely because this is a very difficult environment to live in. It wasn't heavily kind of built up in any ways. Yes, they had the hill tribes and you had your locals who lived there. But in many of these areas, nothing whatsoever. You know, it's complete wilderness. So enemy strengths relied on, say, the COP parties, also V4. So there were a number of clandestine allied SOE style operations going on in the area. SOE in Burma is a whole other thing, which I mean,

21:23colleague of mine, Richard Duckett's done amazing work on, but massively underexplored. But yeah, they were pretty much going in on a wing and a prayer with limited knowledge of what they were going

Pushing east and securing supply lines

21:34to be facing. From this, they're then pushing on eastwards. Where are they heading to? How do conditions change? So as part of Operation Romulus, the whole idea in Arakan is to basically sweep the Japanese 28th Army out of the area entirely, which, as you say, involves them pushing south through what was known as the May Peninsula, the Caladan Valley, and then east across to secure those paths over the Arakan Yomas and secure those air bases that Slim needed. And this was done basically in a series,

22:08as you've mentioned, of amphibious landings, because there was no way really to do it overground. There was some overground fighting and some overground progression. So obviously the Kangol blockade, which was all about blocking this main road, because there were so few lateral road links that, you know, it was a big fight between the Japanese and the British who was going to control these. They were very, very important. So that became a central point. And that's where the big Battle of Hill 170 took place. And then after that, it was almost hopping down the coastline. And that's where 26th Indian Division, again, proved themselves to be fantastic and very competent in

22:42combined operations, which hadn't been done before. And just carrying on, pushing down, securing those paths with limited resources, because the later we get into 1945, the more and more resources Slim needed in central Burma as he approached Rangoon. So Christensen found himself stripped of most of his aircraft supply, stripped of most of his landing craft, and it got harder and harder as he went on, because he was asked to do more and more with less and less. This whole story is one of absolute daring high stakes. As you've mentioned, the chaos really seems

23:14to hit its peak at the Battle of Hill 170. But before we get there, there is a precursor, isn't there? Can you lead us into the run-up of the Battle of Hill 170? Yeah. So the big kind of action for the commandos in particular during Operation Romulus are the landings at Maibon, which was known as Operation Pungent, which we discussed with the black sticky mud and all of that. What they were doing there was basically pushing up this little peninsula called Maibon and chasing the Japanese 28th Army, who had been broken down into sector units. So

23:48they had been given certain areas to defend to the last man. And so they were breaking down these sector units surrounding Kangor in order to then capture the Kangor Road, because they didn't want to leave these sector units in place, go into Kangor and obviously have the possibility of greater Japanese forces falling on them or even worse, surrounding them. So that took place first. And then it was all about, well, how do we get to Kangor? Because when you look at a map of the area, it's quite difficult to describe audibly, but you'll see that it's very, very broken up. It's

24:23very fragmented. And there are only a few routes where you're able to cross overland or cross chungs and rivers without, you know, huge mobilization. So how do we get there? How do we surprise the Japanese? How do we get through this environment without giving ourselves away? And the idea came to actually go back down to the bottom of Maibon after the whole peninsula had been secured and loop round a 22 mile circuit of Chung's. And so that was the plan. So it was the

24:54long way round, but they were kind of tapping into the Japanese back door and attempting to come round where the Japanese least expected them.

The brutal fight at Kangor

25:01So what was the objective at Kangor? What was the lay of the land? So the objective was to block this main road running south through Kangor village. The Japanese had been using this as a main route of communication, a main supply route, and it actually stretched to a pass over the Arakan Yomas into central Burma. So it was really important that the British and Indian forces could capture this and secure it. Kangor itself, the landing beaches that were decided upon, I use the term beaches, but I've already established it's not quite beaches, the landing

25:35areas. From there, there were a number of high features, so nine or so hills that blocked the way to Kangor village and to the road. So these all needed to be captured and secured because there was no way that they were going to be able to get in to put the blockade in place if these were left defended by Japanese in the Kangor sector unit. So the chaps came ashore. This audacious landing caught Japanese by surprise entirely, and they were faced with the first big feature, which was Hill 170. The second

26:10one was a hill called Pina, and that's where my grandfather fought, and that's where 4-4 Commando really had their first real brutal taste of Japanese tactics. And there were a number of smaller hills as time progressed and the days kind of went by that had to be captured alongside them. The battle at Pina actually took place before Hill 170. So what happened was one commando landed first, they went and kind of set up base on the southern side of 170. 170 is quite a long hill,

26:42got a little saddle in the middle, so it's kind of made up of two lumps. They set up on the southern side, Japanese were occupying the north, and 4-4 Commando were told to push past and catch a Pina. And that's where things really started to get nasty. Can you explain, what was the experience like for the men fighting at Pina? So when 4-4 Commando first reached Pina, they dig in. They find that actually there's not that much opposition. It's almost eerily empty. So tensions are quite high. They dig in, they start setting

27:13themselves up, but they're very, very anxious as to why the Japanese aren't making themselves known. And as night begins to fall on that first day, really things begin to deteriorate. And suddenly, the Japanese open up with this huge artillery shell bombardment from the paddy fields surrounding the hill. And you've got to remember that it's pitch black here because there's no civilisation around at all. And you're surrounded by the kind of sounds of, it's not jungle, but it's like rice paddy

27:46fields. It's the dead of night. So you've got kind of the birds, the wildlife, the scrub, if you will. And Pina is very heavily put a lot of trees on it. And as the shelling comes in, you get what's called tree bursts. So the Japanese are deliberately targeting not the ground, but the trees so that they explode essentially and make shrapnel of the wood. And this rains down on the commandos. There is a, you know, a very brief barrage and then it stops. It stops completely. And this is a psychological game. So they're trying to unnerve the commandos. They're trying to get them to break

28:18their position. They're trying to get them to reveal themselves. This happens once or twice. And then the big attack comes in and the Japanese send their infantry in. They're scrabbling uphill to try and dislodge the commandos from their foxholes of sorts on top of the hill. It kind of gets down to really nitty gritty, hand to hand fighting. You've got suicidal attacks from the Japanese. They're coming in with grenades on sticks and throwing themselves into the frontline trenches. And it's chaos. It's chaos

28:51all round because you've got the trees being completely destroyed. You've got shelling. You've then got the kind of psychological side of it as well. When you get these moments of quiet where the Japanese are preparing for their next attack and they're calling out things to the men, they're calling out to the commandos. The Japanese would use these things called jitter parties. The commandos would set up what's called a defensive box. So they'd set like, you know, tin cans and various things around. And they'd have heavily armed men on the corners of each area to defend. So the idea is you're boxed in, you can stand firm and you can watch. But the Japanese are going to

29:25try and get you to reveal your exact position. So fire discipline is incredibly important for the commandos because they've got to hold out until they can see almost the whites of the eyes of the Japanese attacking them. So when the Japanese are yelling things, when they're wearing the green berets of the men who they've already killed and they're trying to provoke, to hold your nerve during that, you know, it's incredible. And they did amazingly manage to do so. They waited. I think the only intruder into the kind of the real central area where the commandos box was, was a porcupine,

29:59which caused some disturbances. But, you know, this is after hours of fighting actually proved to be a bit of light relief among the men, as you can imagine. But yeah, it was a night of brutal hand-to-hand fighting and one that I know my grandfather, you know, remembered in detail for the rest of his life. It's so completely unnerving, the absolute psychological warfare, the extreme discipline. Does this sort of conflict reflect that on, say, Hill 170?

Psychological warfare and lasting trauma

30:31Yeah, very similar. I mean, the battle on Hill 170 is better known, in part because there was a Victoria Cross posthumously awarded there to George Noland of one commando. But the Japanese tactics remain the same. They would just throw men, endless amounts of men up the hill, huge attacks, even though quite clearly these tactics were not working for the Japanese. You know, the commanders are holding the higher ground. But this kind of all goes back to the different fighting ideology of the Imperial Japanese Army. You know, it's rooted in this idea of fighting to the last man, never being

31:02taken prisoner. The idea that death in service is the highest honour. So they're not afraid. And the psychological attacks, again, continue on 170. And the commanders had had training in this. They had had some experience in 1944 when they first got to Bermond, some smaller raids they did. So they'd come across this. But it still shocked many of the men, the brutality of the Japanese and crossing lines, which for British and Indian troops, one would never do, you know, you kind of wearing, as I say,

31:34the berets of dead enemy to try and provoke. For the guys in the commandos, that's beyond low. And it made them very, very angry. So be able to then fight and not let anger take over was a huge testament to their training. Did this shape their attitude towards this particular conflict, this particular enemy going forward beyond this moment in the campaign? I think, yeah, you're right. Facing an enemy like this that was so different, ideologically speaking, and use these tactics that were so different to what had been experienced by, say, one and five

32:08commando in other operations in Europe and North Africa, that did stay with the men. And you do find when you look through veteran accounts after the war in the years after, and certainly having been lucky enough to know veterans of the campaign, that that was one of the reasons why so many struggled to forgive the Japanese. They'd seen a different kind of brutality. And I think that does stand out when you look at the war in Burma, and you look at veterans of the Far East that, you know, my grandfather, he wouldn't buy anything Japanese. I remember my mum saying, so my mum is a black belt in

32:45karate. She was one of the first women shodan in the UK in the 1980s. And when she got her black belt, my granddad went with her. And it was the first time that he'd really faced Japanese of his generation there. It was obviously my mum's sensei and the people involved in the karate community in the 1980s in the UK. They were of that age, a lot of them. And my mum said, you know, he was visibly uncomfortable being in the room. And he tried to be polite, but you could just tell he could, he just couldn't stand to be around them. And I think that's because the memories of the

33:21brutality and what they faced on those hills in Kangor never faded and were so difficult to comprehend. And not only that, but, you know, after the fighting in Arakan, the commandos went to Hong Kong for peacekeeping duties, and they saw a lot of the POW camps, you know, they were involved in the liberation of those camps, and the aftermath of what it meant to be under Japanese occupation. And that was true as well of, you know, the men in the Indian and West African divisions, when they were fighting through the Kaladin and the May Peninsula, they would meet the hill tribe people and the locals

33:53who'd been brutalised by the Japanese. So it's a very, very, very visceral memory that stayed with many of them, I think is different and stands out perhaps a little bit from some of the fighting that went on in other theatres. What was the fallout from these battles over the hills? What was the result? What impact did that have in the wider campaign? So the Kangor blockade itself was successful. The men of the 25th Indian Infantry Division and three commando brigades successfully managed to block this road and forced Colonel Moirama,

34:28who was in charge of the Kangor sector unit, to eventually concede that the land had been lost and to retreat. Many of his men were captured, many of the artillery and their kit was captured because the road had been blocked. But they did know these kind of back paths around. So they took these huge jungle treks basically to reach the rest of the units in further south. If we look at the third Arakan campaign as a whole, and how one by one these units were dismantled, we see an amazing success because what happened was the 28th Army, who'd been tasked with defending Arakan, were unable

35:03to supply as many troops as they had hoped to face Slim's advance on Rangoon. And of course, having lost all the airfields, the British were then able to supply what was needed for the final assault on Rangoon. So, you know, it is often seen as a sideshow, I think, Arakan, but without it, the whole thing wouldn't have been possible. And you could argue, indeed I do, that actually, if there had been no success in Arakan, there'd be no success in Burma, or certainly it would have

35:37been delayed by a long time. And then, you know, you look at the long term implications of that, you know, who's to say, but certainly, it was important in, you know, that final victory in terms of getting Burma back and liberating Rangoon. So we could say that it very much paved the way for Allied victory elsewhere. Absolutely.

Why this campaign matters today

35:58So this is the question. This is a terrifying moment in history. It's shocking. Why do you think this third Arakan campaign is still important for us to remember today? Well, I think it's important to remember it because in the media and in the press, when we think about Burma and we talk about VJ Day, you know, the narrative is generally quite limited. We tend to focus on the Chindit operations, which there is an argument that however brave those men were, they didn't have a huge strategic impact on things. Or we might focus on obviously the horrors

36:34that the Japanese inflicted on prisoners of war, might focus on the Burma-Tai railway. But how are we looking at how victory actually occurred? Because let's not forget that the Japanese were defeated in Burma. And if we aren't remembering how that occurred, then we're doing a disservice to all the men that fought there. And the Southeast Asian command, so the overall kind of operational command in Burma, there were something like 1.6 million men involved. It was utterly huge. You've got the

37:07Indian army, the largest volunteer army in history. So, you know, what are we doing if we're not remembering as much of what went on in the theatre as possible? And certainly with 3rd Arakhan, it is so pivotal to the final victory there that, yeah, as I said, I can't get over the fact that it's kind of just been pushed to the sideline and not explored in this depth before. That was military historian and author Lucy Betridge-Dyson speaking to Emily Griffith. To find out more about this campaign, don't miss Lucy's book, Jungle Commandos.

37:43This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai slash Spotify.

38:13Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply.

38:45Get more from every job with Kubota construction equipment. From SVL compact track loaders to KX compact excavators, Kubota brings proven performance, smart value, and job site reliability to the crews who count on their equipment every day. Built for demanding work and backed by dealer support, Kubota equipment helps crews stay productive through long days, tight timelines, and tough conditions. Performance that pays you back. Get more from every job with Kubota construction equipment.