November 2nd, 1943
Burma and Malaya Campaign
Burma Front - The progress of the two brigades of the 19th Indian Division was slow but but steady. Major-General Wynford Rees, after the failure of the previous week, did not want to leave anything to chance and is especially keen to limit his losses. So the instructions are to use the air force as often as necessary.
Today, the support aircraft are still the Indian Hurricane III of Sqn 1 RIAF, but also some brand new Hurricane IVs, recently arrived in crates and which are re-equipping Sqn 2 RIAF. This fighter-bomber, equipped with a multi-use wing (machine guns, 20 or 40 mm cannons, 250 or 500 pound bombs, rockets) is gradually replacing the Indian Night Battles. At the same time, the doctrine changes: the squadron abandons night escapades for daytime close support. The pilots worked throughout the month of November with their brothers in arms of Sqn 1 to recover the right reflexes in this field.
Port Blair (Andaman Islands) - This morning, a large audience of British and French airmen and French sailors attend the official re-enactment of 10F Squadron (MN) and Squadron 211 (Coastal Command). It is on identical and brand new equipment that these two units will fly: Bristol Beaufighter VI C "Torbeau". There are now in the archipelago no less than four units specialized in anti-ship warfare and half of their aircraft have real defensive capabilities in case of interception by Japanese fighters.
The results are not long in coming. Less than a week later, a Japanese coaster - the first of many - is sunk off the coast of Kampong Ulu, not far from the estuary that marks the border between Burma and Thailand.
Indochina Campaign
Liberation
Bac-Muc prison camp (a little south of the city), Tonkin, around 03:00 - The night is clear. The rare clouds hide only the shreds of a sky with sparkling diamonds. In his watchtower, Kenishi scratches his left shoulder and makes an effort not to yawn. He is alone, but too well conditioned to show any weakness. At least with the moon so close it seems to be asking for a caress, an escape is unlikely.
The camp was built nearly a year and a half ago to accommodate the cowardly Europeans and their local commensals. The soldier suppresses a pout of disgust. He still can't understand why men would choose to survive their defeat. Sometimes he wonders if it would not have been better to do them the service of a prompt and healthy execution. It is true that Kenishi knows nothing about the Geneva Convention, nor of the existence of a city with that name.
Ignorance has always been the best weapon of tyranny. How can you question what you've been taught if you don't know anything else exists?
Kenishi shudders, suddenly drawn out of his reverie. He perceived a graze. He leans towards the camp, whose barracks are aligned in the half-light. His glance searches the edges of the shacks made of planks. It is unlikely that a prisoner - a slave would be a more accurate term - has the strength to stand up. All of them are stunned by the day's work, little and poorly fed. Almost every day men collapse and, in spite of the blows of the rifle butt, do not resume work. A guard then finishes them off with a bayonet, they are not worth wasting a round.
A new grazing, closer or stronger. The wind? Kenishi's suspicion has been awakened. He goes around the watchtower. On the opposite side of the camp, nothing but rice fields, the elevated road and the dark mass of the jungle in the background. He is about to turn back to the side of the camp when he hears the barbed wire creaking. He then leans over the parapet and sees several men ambushed at the foot of the watchtower - one of them has already raised his rifle. A shot rings out and Kenishi feels an excruciating pain in his gut before a second bullet erases the pain forever. He is already dead when he hits the ground.
"Let's go for it!" orders Lieutenant Delayen, smoking rifle in hand. As the men of the "Pirate" commando run towards the main door, the first shouts in Japanese resound. Armed with a Thompson, Adjutant Roger fires at the men coming out of the guardhouse, while his leader blows the padlock of the gate with a bullet from his famous Colt 45 decorated with mother-of-pearl plates*. The men, most of them Vietnamese irregulars, rush into the courtyard shouting the commando war cry: "Mort aux cons!" (or rather something similar, distorted by the Annamite accent).
The camp guards are facing a hurricane. Few remain calm enough to act in a coordinated manner. Soldiers rushing to the camp's two caterpillars are knocked down by the precise bursts of an FM pre-positioned on the other side of the barbed wire. A few Nipponese take refuge in a barracks and manage to repel the first attack of the "rebels". Delayen spots a window and leans against a building, out of sight, before grabbing a hand grenade hanging from his belt. The young lieutenant rips out the pin, drops the spoon and forces himself to count to three before, in one motion, leaving his cover and throwing the grenade. The projectile enters through the window and detonates before it even hits the ground.
Still deafened by the explosion, Delayen watches his men spread out in small groups between the buildings. A few more shots are fired, but the battle is alreadypractically over. The losses of the commando are light.
It is then that staggering men, dressed in shreds of uniforms, start to come out of the barracks. The tears in their clothes reveal skeletal bodies, eaten away by vermin. Their condition is such that one can hardly distinguish the Europeans from the Asians. They are too exhausted to question their liberators or to express their joy. Faced with these incredulous spectres, Delayen clenches his fists until his knuckles turn white. All around him, the war cries have died down to give way to a heavy silence. The young man forces himself to speak in a loud voice: "I am Jean-Louis Delayen, a lieutenant in the French Army. You are free!"
There is a long moment of hesitation. The living skeletons come to life. Some of them clasp the hands of the commando men. None of them screams or collapses. A prisoner approaches Delayen and salutes with a strange stiffness. In the darkness, the whites of his eyes look like chasms of lunar clarity.
- You... you took a while.
- I'm sorry.
- Don't worry, Lieutenant, I'm sure you did your best. They are all dead?
- The Japanese? I think so! Well, there must be some injured...
- That's good... Could you give me a weapon, lieutenant? I'm going to finish off all those bastards.
Delayen wanted to say something, but he keeps silent, shrugs his shoulders and hands a gun to the man, who thanks him courteously and walks away. The lieutenant shakes his head, he has other things to worry about than the welfare of the bastards who kept this place.
- Adjutant?
- Lieutenant?
Roger materializes a step behind his leader as soon as he called him.
- Recover all the vehicles in the camp and load the weakest prisoners on board. No one is to be left behind.
- At your orders.
.........
Half an hour after entering the jungle, the lieutenant calls Warrant Officer Bui.
- Take fifteen men and set up a nice ambush on the road. We must keep the Japs from following us.
- How long will that take?
- Until you receive orders to join us. Sorry, but with the prisoners barely able to stand, we're moving too slowly.
- I understand, sir. You can trust me.
- I know I can. Thank you, sir.
No other words are needed between them. They were born a continent apart, but guerrilla warfare
guerrilla warfare in the jungle has made them similar.
.........
05:30 - Warrant Officer Bui's men are lying in the jungle with heavy smells, mixing vegetable perfumes and decomposition. Their posture is not very military, but it avoids accidents: their rifles are placed in front of them, they do not touch them. A shot fired by too nervous hands could give the alarm...
An engine noise! Bui grimaces. He had hoped to see the Japanese arrive in a compact column of infantrymen launched at a gymnastic pace. They had done so at first. But they were smart enough to have learned caution.
At the bend in the road - the track, rather - appeared a large crab with tracks that hesitantly moves forward. The 97 TK tankette is a fragile machine that the Japanese themselves consider obsolete and relegate it to secondary theaters. However, for infantrymen without anti-tank weapons, it is a formidable opponent. Bui looks at the edge of the track at a thin bamboo marker and raises a hand. The commandos grab their weapons and get ready. Behind the armored vehicle, the adjutant distinguishes a double line of men spaced quite far apart. At least two platoons, silent, rifles in hand, ready to fight.
The tankette reaches the marker and... Boom! It jerks, rises slightly and falls back down with a creak of crumpled metal while a thick black smoke escapes at the back. The explosion of the mine is the signal to open fire. The adjutant's FM sprays the road and its sides, his men adjust the Japanese soldiers. A dozen men roll to the ground, the others retreat, pursued by small arms fire.
Bui smiles, "Let's take down the ambush, boys!"
.........
06:30 - The ambush has been moved a few kilometers, to another favorable point. It took the Japanese a long time to regain their advance. This time, none of the Imperial Army's precious armor opens the march. Bui smiles as he hears the soldiers of the first platoon, advancing in skirmishers, talking. Indeed, if they wear the Japanese uniform, they are not Japanese. These men belong to the Rhade ethnic group; they do not hold the Annamites in their hearts... and it is reciprocal.
The adjutant grabs his rifle and aims at the forehead of the non-commissioned officer who seems to be in command.
A third scarlet eye opens above his nose, sending him into a better world, while the other members of the commando open fire. Courageous, the Rhades spread out on either side of the road while returning fire with ardor if not with precision. The Vietnamese then pull another trick out of their bag: a small grenade launcher, a knee-mortar. Whether it's a hit or an intimidation, the explosion silences several weapons at once.
But the Rhades still have Japanese support. A Type 97 Te-Ke arrives to the rescue, preceded by the fire of its Arisaka type 91 6.5 mm machine gun and followed by a second platoon of infantrymen. Some of them go through the jungle to try to envelop the ambush while the others come to cover the Rhadès already engaged.
Bui swears, but that was to be expected - we fall back into a drawer, the FM and grenade launcher cover the retreating echelon.
.........
07:15 - Bui carries a wounded comrade on his back. Like every member of the group, he took him on his shoulders to cover a hundred meters. At the moment his turn ends and he passes the wounded man to one of his teammates, a modulated whistle, everyone freezes. The men stop, all their senses alert. A few steps ahead of them, the jungle opens up to spit out a Vietnamese man armed to the teeth and smiling broadly: "Warrant officer, message from the lieutenant! Put an end to the ambush and join us. We have reached the sampans."
The Battle of Bac-Me
Not far from Bac-Me, west of Cao-Bang (Tonkin), 07:00 - General Cazin cuts the radio with a furious gesture. The voice of the propagandist of Radio Hanoi - which the Franco-Indochinese called "Radio Bla-Bla" - is cut off. One of the officers breathes a sigh of relief that is a little too theatrical.
- What do you think, Blainville?
Colonel de Blainville takes a few seconds to think.
- With all due respect, General, it's the usual bullshit.
The expression draws a brief smile from Cazin. His subordinate, who is very well-mannered, is rarely so... direct.
- However, I find that they seem more confident than usual when they are promising us total annihilation at the end of a useless fight.
- General, the radio is a weapon like any other.
- I still prefer that you go and join your men as soon as possible.
Blainville hesitates: "Are you afraid of something in particular, General?
- Our informants have noted troop movements that seem to show that the Japanese have noticed that we are waiting for reinforcements. They may well attack before the 110th Vietnamese Regiment gets here.
- I understand.
Blainville salutes in the proper manner.
- Good day, General.
- To you too!
.........
The last fighting in this sector was more than a month ago, apart from a few skirmishes on the ridge line. The allied positions set up there do not constitute a defense line, strictly speaking. There are only a few bunkers and no continuous trenches, just short segments sheltering a few dozen men and individual holes. The position defends itself: the slope is too steep to climb it by force, except along a natural ramp about forty meters wide.
The Franco-Vietnamese are concentrating almost sixty thousand men in the area for a vast encirclement of Cao-Bang, the main Japanese strongpoint in this sector of Tonkin. But the offensive envisaged by the general staff had difficulty to materialize. The troops are numerous, but poorly organized and above all poorly armed - not much artillery, little ammunition and major supply problems.
Moreover, with the Hanoi uprising, plans had to be revised. The Vietnamese asked us to go and rescue the capital, or at least to try! But this means sending troops even farther away from the bases, compounding the supply and command problems.
.........
07:30 - Blainville shakes his head. He does not believe that an offensive can succeed in such conditions. However, he had been in Indochina long enough to understand that it is sometimes necessary for political imperatives to take precedence over the rules of military art, and even over sound logic. Well, we are not there yet.
The firing of a 75 mm gun pulled the colonel out of his reflection. Looking up from the map, he looks at Thien, leaning against the field telephone, then Captain Garnier, who is writing at the next table. As the cannon fire multiplies, Blainville signals the sergeant: "Thien, call the artillery headquarters."
- Aye, aye, sir.
Blainville gets up and walks behind the sergeant, who hands him the handset: "Maurice, may I ask why you are having a fireworks display?
- The Japanese are attacking, sir," replies Captain Maurice Legrand.
- I understood that! Suspend fire! At this rate, we will have exhausted our reserves in two hours.
- But if I stop firing, colonel, the Japanese will break through. It is a mass attack!
Blainville is startled, incredulous: "En masse?
- Colonel, I thought that Commandant Mercier had warned you, he must not have had the time, go and see him in the front line, you will understand!
- I'm coming.
Blainville hangs up: "Garnier, you stay there! Thien, with me, and don't let go of me more than a meter."
08:15 - The ascent to the front line has everything to please those who love thrills. Japanese guns spray the Franco-Vietnamese positions with a low intensity rolling fire. For the last hundred or hundred and fifty meters before Mercier's bunker, Blainville, a colonel, ran, bent over. A threatening whistle threw him into a manhole, already occupied by a Vietnamese soldier. They cling to each other as a new crater opens up not far away. The colonel breathes, pats the soldier on the shoulder and resumes his run, followed by Thien, who emerges from another hole! The colonel and the sergeant will have to take shelter twice more before they arrive.
Warned, Mercier waits for them at the entrance of his headquarters. Without saying a word, he passes his binoculars to his superior, pointing to the bottom of the slope. A human anthill divided into four clearly separated waves is progressing towards the top. Legrand's shells make large holes in it, which are immediately filled in.
- You see that Legrand did not exaggerate, colonel.
Blainville looks at the most advanced enemy point. The Japanese have entered thee area of twisted traps devised by the Vietnamese to cover their positions.
- On a bridge of corpses... This is how they want to get past our defenses.
Three shells crash in quick succession not far from the tree-trunk casemate which shakes, spraying the officers with dust.
De Blainville sighs: "It is going to be a very long day...".
08:45 - The difficult situation leads to a request for air support from Dien-Bien-Phu, but the support to the combatants in Hanoi monopolized the available means and Colonel Devèze cannot promise anything for the time being.
.........
11:30 - Six P-51s from 340 (B) and I/40 relieve General Cazin's men by shooting 250 lbs at the Japanese before firing their Browning.
13:00 - The Epervier aircraft had not left for a long time, when the Wild Eagles show up. Three poor Ki-48 Lily escorted by five Ki-43 Oscar - for the Japanese, too, the first priority is to fight for Hanoi.
17:00 - Eight P-40s of the 76th come to spray the Japanese positions with small but fragmentation M41s, before carrying out a machine-gun pass.
As the Americans finish their strafing, a formation of six Ki-51s covered by seven Ki-43s appears in turn. Knowing they are outgunned by the Curtiss, the bombers unload their cargo before turning back. The Nakajima interfere to give them time to flee. The fight results in the destruction of two P-40s, two Oscars and a Sonia.
.........
21:00 - Complete darkness falls over the hills. Indeed, clouds have masked the moon, masking the Japanese movements in the valley. From time to time, a shell falls on the French positions but, on the whole, the calm returns. In the front line, Blainville still occupies the trench where he had spent most of the day in the front line - excellent for the morale of the men.
The entrenchment is equipped with an old Hotchkiss 1914 machine gun and a dozen Vietnamese soldiers now occupy it. Pale with rage, they listen to the loudspeaker installed by the Japanese that broadcasts a propaganda message in a loop:
"Vietnamese! Desert the ranks of the oppressor! You will be welcomed by your liberators. For one Frenchman who dies in Indochina, ten Vietnamese give their lives. Do you really want to die for your colonizers? What have they brought you except prisons?"
Blainville begins by walking the trench from one end to the other several times, listening carefully for the source of the sound and getting his eyes used to the darkness. Then, calmly, the colonel takes his place behind the machine gun, aims and sweeps the suspect area with a long burst. The chorus of propaganda falls silent brutally. Listening to the Vietnamese soldiers' ovation, Blainville smiles: "Well, it wasn't wasted ammunition after all!"
But ammunition, his men had consumed a lot of it, during the day. Of course, that's what the Japanese wanted. To force them to empty their stocks. It is difficult to go on the offensive without shells! The Emperor's soldiers paid the price, but now, the 75 mm of Captain Legrand are hardly more than harmless metal tubes.
.........
22:00 - Three E7K2 seaplanes [Alf] come to drop randomly some projectiles on the allied lines.
23:30 - Two Lysanders of the GB Louvre come in turn to spoil the sleep of the Japanese. They also divert the attention of the flak, preventing it to focus on a Dakota that comesto drop ammunition and medical supplies.
Air strategies
Dien-Bien-Phu, 18:00 - A good news brings a smile to the faces of the people in charge of the Épervier base. The expansion and redevelopment of the runways are finally completed. It will allow the base to receive more planes and especially more large aircraft. The Belgian airline group (CAFP), still mainly deployed in Burma and China, will be able to move to Vietnam.
Singapore, 18:30 - Partially disfigured by last year's fighting, the Raffles Hotel still retains its presence despite the visible impacts in the walls. It is within these prestigious walls that the headquarters of the 3rd Kokugun [Air Force] is established. In one of the suites, its chief is inwardly pestering in front of a large map of Asia. Despite his samurai discipline, Hideyoshi Obata is enraged!
It has not even been two weeks since some of his squadrons were withdrawn from Thailand and redeployed around Saigon, and already General Rikichi, military governor of Indochina, is pressing for their use against the rebels in Cochinchina. Andou Rikichi considers this to be a priority mission. Almost all of the 3rd Hikodan is already committed to cover the Hanoi area, i.e. also the ports and the Navy airfields. The only remaining planes available in Cochinchina are a handful of obsolete aircraft and a few small Ki-76 [Stella] observation aircraft.
However, at the same time, Vice Admiral Okawachi expresses his "deep concern" about the use of Navy aircraft based at Cat-Lai and Cam-Ranh in the fight against the rebels.
aircraft based at Cat-Lai and Cam-Ranh. He said the Navy should not see its aircraft too often diverted from their role of protecting maritime traffic. The fight against Allied submarines must remain their main objective!
The orders from the Imperial General Staff in Tokyo are clear. The Anglo-American threat in Burma must be contained in order not to see them sweep through Malaysia and as far as Indonesia. Distracting a single plane to go and police the Mekong peasants is therefore absolutely excluded. But, at the same time, it is difficult to reject General Rikichi's arguments. Neither the Army nor the Navy can afford to lose the bases on the Vietnamese coast, from Haiphong and Hanoi to Saigon and Cam-Ranh.
Finally, it is an aide-de-camp who suggests the solution to Hideyoshi Obata. A delivery of twenty Kawasaki Ki-43-Ib Hayabusa [Oscar] fighters and Tachikawa Ki-36 ground support aircraft [Ida] destined for the RTAF are still stored on standby at Tan-Son-Nhut. Tokyo was supposed to deliver them to the Thais to compensate for the losses suffered in recent months. But the new Thai government has deprived itself of this support by choosing a shameful neutrality.
Quickly, Hideyoshi Obata has a message drafted to the Sanbō Honbu, the army headquarters, in Tokyo.
.........
Tokyo, offices of the Sanbō Honbu, 21:00 - An officer on guard duty presents himself not without apprehension in front of the office of Hata Hikosaburo, deputy chief of staff of the Army. Breaking into two with the usual courtesies, he brings a missive requiring the attention of the chū-jō (lieutenant general). The latter takes note of the message, then consults the wall map and various papers. After a few moments of reflection, he calls a secretary on duty to dictate his reply. He gives his agreement in principle. Since these planes are collecting dust unnecessarily, they might as well be used for something useful! At the same time, another message of the same vein is transmitted to Hanoi to the attention of General Kuwana.
And too bad for the Thais if they dared to claim their planes! Their attitude (to remain polite) will force them to make amends the day the Westerners are defeated...
Pacific Southwest Campaign
Operation Transom / Exporter
Tokyo - This time, the imperial staff is seriously concerned. The sailors have a lot to say and do, they would have to mobilize a force capable of helping Timor. Even Yamamoto has to obey. But the Navy is not going to hurry... Yamamoto seems to sense what is coming in the Central Pacific.
First, a grandiose plan is hatched. The three fast battleships Haruna, Hiei and Kirishima, based in Truk, are going to leave at the same time as the light carriers Zuiho and Chitose, and join the large carriers Hiryu and Soryu... But they are in the Sea of Japan, training their air groups. There will be a long delay before this force, finally reunited, can come to Timor's aid.
It is therefore decided to reinforce the 5th Cruiser Division with the aircraft carrier Junyo, which will go "to support the Army's planes operating in Indonesia". But for this, the heavy cruisers have to turn back to pick up the Junyo at Truk. And as the Junyo is not the fastest ship in the Navy (it does not exceed 23 knots)...
.........
Kupang - The fight turns into a tropical street fight... But the local buildings resist much less well than the European ones. While two of the KNIL regiments, supported by naval artillery, advance meter by meter, the third one covers the siege on the one hand, the airfield on the other hand, against the infiltration attempts of small Japanese units which, scattered in the jungle or coming from Dili, trying to rescue the besieged troops.
For its part, the KNIL divisional engineers are working to make the airfield usable again. Its task is facilitated by the participation of a number of personnel who had worked on the construction of the airfield before the war and had been evacuated in early 1942.
.........
Dili - Confusion and the absence of the 48th Division commander increases the disorganization of the defense. A number of elements of the 47th IR Oita receive a message which they interpret as an order to abandon the city and to withdraw into the jungle while waiting for a rescue convoy. In fact, it seems that the Navy is indeed assembling a large force to rescue Timor was misinterpreted...
In the immediate future, the Australians' task is made easier by this unexpected withdrawal!
However, the groups of Japanese who manage to retreat into the mountains will be the cause of severe nuisance for the allied troops. We know that the last defenders of Timor will not surrender until years after the end of hostilities.
New Guinea Campaign
Salamaua-Lae Campaign
Mount Tambu area - General Savige and the 3rd AMF Division are relieved by the 5th AMF Division under General Edward Miford.
The reasons for this replacement are multiple. The first, and most obvious, is simply the state of exhaustion of Savige's men. Second, the appointment of Savige to lead the operation to retake Salamaua is now being decried even in the newspapers. Moreover, Miford is an artillery officer.
However, the Allies want to reduce Salamaua by bombing rather than by a direct assault.
Savige, bitterly disappointed by his replacement, leaves the front the same day, accompanied by Major-General Berryman. Berryman inspected and evaluated the work of the 3rd Division. Although his poor opinion of Stanley Savige was well known, his report was very favorable to him. He credited him with "breaking the back"of the Japanese defense, but also for having succeeded in supplying his units in appalling conditions. The victories of Mubo and Komiatum are directly attributed to his "well conceived" battle plans and his "energetic" command. This report will undoubtedly have a lot to do with Savige's elevation to the rank of Companion of the Order of the Bath in January 1944 - a somewhat belated consolation.
Upon his arrival in Port Moresby, Berryman gives his report to Blamey and Heering.
Surprised by its very positive content, they question the Major-General, who admitted that he had initially misjudged Savige. Back in Australia, he even said that he had "never thought [until he had been there] that Savige was right."
In the immediate future, this report, whose main points will (as if by chance) be leaked a few days later, will contribute to calm down The Herald and Weekly Times, always very critical of "Thomas "Running like rabbits" Blamey".
Sino-Japanese War
Operation Zhulin
Jiujiang (Jiangxi) - The Japanese 15th Division begins to dig in. It is joined by the 39th Division, which has come down the Yangtze from Wuhan.
* That's how the film that recounts his exploits describes the scene. In reality, Delayen used an iron bar, a more prosaic tool but less risky to use.
