World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF ASIA: Until October

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The British fingers which have been trying to claw into the western flank of Burma slipped a little.

Reinforced Japanese troops switched last week from defense to attack. Three divisions of Japs, by their usual method of wily infiltration, moved north through Burma's matted jungle, over Burma's ragged ridges. British troops fell back up the Mayu River. In a parallel retreat, Indian troops withdrew along the Kaladan River, hurriedly cut across the Mayu Peninsula to avoid encirclement.

At week's end the British stiffened up. British naval units in the Bay of Bengal helped by shelling the Japs along the seacoast. Allied planes bombed the Jap port of Akyab and pounded communications. But the Jap hold on Burma was unshaken.

In about six weeks the rainy prelude to the summer monsoon, which hits Burma in mid-June, will begin along the coast. It is unlikely that the British can clean up the area now and gain the comparatively dry central sector before the Burmese jungles are turned into a pesthole of mud and malaria. Not until some time in October does the monsoon end. Not until then could the Allies launch a major offensive to reopen the Burma route to famished China.