Mandalay hinged on one call: drop the frontal assault, lay siege
In March 1945 British forces attacked Mandalay in Burma; against Fort Dufferin's thick walls and deep moat, the frontal assault failed. The division commander refused to keep storming it and switched to a siege, and the Japanese eventually abandoned the fort.
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Mandalay was attacked to take Rangoon before the monsoon
In March 1945 the British 14th Army was pursuing retreating Japanese forces through central Burma. Mandalay was Burma's second-largest city and strategically placed; the British believed that taking it would let them liberate the capital, then called Rangoon, before the monsoon arrived in May. The Japanese were dug in at the Mandalay palace fort, which the British called Fort Dufferin. The host explains that this episode works differently from the usual format: instead of finding a survivor to recall the events, it uses the original audio that BBC correspondent Douglas Claverdon recorded at the front line in 1945.
— Tim O'CallaghanEight feet of brick plus a moat left no frontal answer
Standing by the flagstaff at Fort Dufferin, Claverdon describes the defences: the fort is more than a mile square, walled on all four sides in dark red brick roughly 30 feet high, the brickwork 8 feet thick, with earth banked up behind it 30 feet wide at ground level; outside that runs a moat 70 yards wide and 10 or 11 feet deep. On the afternoon of 9 March the Frontier Force Regiment, supported by tanks and artillery, pushed to within 100 yards of the wall, but the Japanese sheltering behind the wall and the moat could not be driven out, and the British could do no more than consolidate the ground they held.
— Douglas ClaverdonMen cresting the bank became silhouettes against the brick wall
On 10 March Reese, commanding the 19th Indian Division, launched a full assault. A 5.5-inch gun fired directly at the wall from about 250 yards for more than an hour. The BBC recording van pulled up behind a small concrete building 300 to 400 yards outside the north wall, and a senior officer recorded a live commentary from the spot: the troops were going forward, the tanks were firing hard, but the formation was a little bunched. Even so, nothing got in: the Japanese had sited their machine guns close to the waterline of the moat, and the brick wall behind made the British clear silhouettes as they came over the bank, so they were shot down one by one.
— Douglas ClaverdonThe division commander called it a hornets' nest, not worth storming
With the assault beaten, Reese ordered a withdrawal. The next day he told war correspondents that he had never seen braver men than the Frontier Force Regiment; but as he saw it, Fort Dufferin was nothing more than a hornets' nest, and he was not prepared to spend the lives of large numbers of his soldiers on a fort that could only be taken by frontal assault. So for the next two days the 19th Indian Division worked forward step by step through the wrecked houses of the city, while night patrols kept probing the walls for weak points. The tactics shifted here from assault to siege, and what followed proved the choice a sound one.
— Douglas ClaverdonThe siege did not go smoothly: the boat crossing the moat sank
Parked under trees at the roadside, the BBC van recorded an infantry company advancing under enemy fire while it waited for another company to work around from the left. The recordist says he spent most of the time lying underneath the van, wishing he had a steel helmet. On the night of 16 March the 15th Punjab tried to cross the moat by boat and get into the fort, but one boat sank, drowning the leading troops of the second wave; to avoid further casualties the unit pulled back before dawn. This stretch shows a siege going badly, with the Japanese still resisting.
— Douglas ClaverdonOnce the ring closed, the Japanese pulled out that same night
On 19 March the Allies threw a heavy attack at a pagoda commanding the east gate: bombers went in first, then heavy artillery, and then two companies of the Worcestershire Regiment took the objective with tank support, bringing the encirclement of Fort Dufferin close to complete. The Japanese evacuated the fort that night. Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, then announced over the radio that Mandalay had fallen, noting that Japanese propaganda had called it a position they would fight to hold; he thanked all the services and the British, American, Indian, African and Chinese troops.
— Douglas ClaverdonMandalay's fall was one link in the chain to Japan's surrender
After Mandalay fell, the 14th Army entered the Burmese capital in May 1945, and Burma was then liberated, which is seen as one of the links that pushed Japan to surrender to the Allies in August 1945. The host closes by recommending other oral histories from the same war: Norwegian fishermen rowing small boats across the North Sea to support the resistance, a woman recalling the Japanese invasion of Malaya when she was a little girl, and the Japanese occupation of Shanghai.
— Tim O'CallaghanIn their own words · checked verbatim
I am standing by the flagpo of Fort Dfferin.
Douglas Claverdon2:02
The fort is over a mile square, and along its four sides, there runs a formidable wall of dark red brick. About 30 feet high. The brick work is 8 feet thick.
Douglas Claverdon3:04
The first thing you heard was the gun firing.And the second was the shell bursting on the wall.
Douglas Claverdon4:05
Fort Dufffferin was no more than a hornoret's nest.And he wasn't going to risk heavy loss of men's lives in order to take it by direct assault.
Douglas Claverdon5:07
I spent most of the t ime lying underneath the car and wishing that I had a thin hat.
Douglas Claverdon6:08
British, American.Indian.African and Chinese.I send my grateful thanks.
Louis Mountbatten8:11
Figures
| Fort Dufferin wall height | about 30 feet | 3:04 |
| Fort Dufferin brickwork thickness | 8 feet | 3:04 |
| Moat dimensions | 70 yards wide, 10-11 feet deep | 3:04 |
| Direct-fire gun range | about 250 yards | 4:05 |
| Date the east-gate pagoda was taken | 19 March 1945 | 7:09 |
| Japanese evacuation of Fort Dufferin | the night of 19 March | 7:09 |
| 14th Army reaches Rangoon | May 1945 | 8:11 |
Glossary
- Fort Dufferin
- The British name for the Mandalay palace fort, ringed by high walls and a moat, where Japanese troops held out in March 1945.
- 19th Indian Division
- A divisional formation of the British Indian Army, which led the attack on Mandalay and ultimately laid siege to Fort Dufferin.
- Frontier Force Regiment
- An infantry regiment of the British Indian Army, which made the first attack on Fort Dufferin on 9 March.
- 14th Army
- The main British army in the Burma theatre, made up of units from Britain, India, Africa and elsewhere.
How to listen
Second World War enthusiasts who want a few minutes of real battlefield sound, and readers who follow the Burma theatre and the history of Commonwealth forces.
The ad from 0:00-1:00 and the trailers for other programmes after 9:12 can be skipped.