11 January 1942. Tavoy, Burma.
Victoria Point aerodrome, an important stop in the air bridge between India and Malaya, had fallen to a battalion of the Japanese 143 Infantry Regiment in December. The small garrison of Burma Rifles had been withdrawn as resistance would have been futile against such an overwhelming force. Although an alternative route for bombers was possible over Sumatra, the loss of Victoria Point, made shifting fighters much more difficult.
When the men of the Burma Rifles had pulled out of Victoria Point, there were still people able to keep an eye open about Japanese coming and going. The departure of much of the Battalion of Japanese troops that had taken the airfield was noted, and the information eventually reached Tavoy and Rangoon. Brigadier Arthur Bourke, (CO 2nd Burma Brigade) at Tavoy had been visited by Major Michael Calvert with one of his Special Service Detachments.
These ‘Commandoes’ were making their way down the Tenasserim region, Tavoy being the end of the metalled road from Rangoon. Moving south Calvert had orders to gain as much intelligence about the Japanese over the border in Thailand and particularly to find out the situation at Victoria Point. If it was true that the airfield was now thinly guarded, then the possibility of regaining it would be considered.
Bourke’s own intelligence was that they were seeing more of the Thai army on the border than the Japanese army. This confirmed what Calvert had been told by RAF photoreconnaissance. The arrival of 113 Squadron (Blenheims) from the Middle East had given the RAF the ability to reach out to the Japanese airfields that had been used to bomb Rangoon. The surprising thing was that instead of seeing a build up before an invasion of Burma, it seemed that the Japanese were being drawn south into Malaya.
The Indian troops in Malaya had been able to find intelligence that their attackers over the last month had been elements of a number of different Divisions. The Japanese 5th, 18th Infantry Divisions and the Imperial Guards Divisions seemed to have been the first wave of attackers. These all came from the Japanese 25th Army. More recently, elements of 33rd and 55th Infantry Divisions had been identified. The limited British intelligence assets in Thailand had identified these last two Divisions as being likely to be part of an invasion of Burma, as they seemed to belong to a different (15th) Army from the first wave. The fact that they seemed to have gone south to Malaya was of great interest to the British commanders in Burma, General Harold Alexander and Lt-General Bill Slim.
Slim’s fear was that some of the reinforcements he was expecting might be redirected to Malaya if that was where the main battle was taking place. General Auchinleck however, had tried to reassure him that once his forces had been built up, Slim would be leading them, not just in defence of Burma, but taking the war to the Japanese.
Calvert and his commandoes, acting in a similar fashion to the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa, would be doing the reconnaissance on the ground, preparing the way for Slim’s Corps to secure India, the Burma Road, and, hopefully, Malaya.