The raid on Rangoon

On 25 November 1943 the American and British air forces in India launched their most serious attempt yet to paralyse Rangoon – the main port and railway junction of Japanese-occupied Burma. The plan envisaged six days and five nights of continuous attacks: by day American B-24 Liberator and B-25 Mitchell bombers would strike under fighter cover, and by night British Wellingtons. War chronologies record under this date that American heavy bombers bombed Rangoon. According to the American official history (The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. IV), the first day went differently: the Liberators were unable to bomb their targets over the city because cloud obscured them, and the only successful attack that day was a raid by B-25 medium bombers on Mingaladon airfield. The heavy blows proper against Rangoon came on 27 and 28 November and 1 December.

The port of occupied Burma

The Japanese had taken Rangoon in March 1942, and from then on almost all the supplies for the army fighting in Burma passed through its wharves, depots and marshalling yards. From the port, cargo went north by rail towards Mandalay and to the fronts in Arakan and on the Indian border. From 1 August 1943 the city was also the capital of the State of Burma, formally independent but in practice dependent on Japan, under the government of Ba Maw.

The American Tenth Air Force, based in India, had been bombing Rangoon since 1942. Its Liberators attacked the wharves, railway workshops and airfields, and from February 1943 they also dropped magnetic mines in the river mouth, which according to the official history markedly reduced shipping traffic in the port. The bombers, however, flew without fighter cover, since the fighters lacked the range to reach the city, and they suffered mounting losses to Japanese interceptors. Only at the end of 1943 did twin-engined P-38 Lightnings and P-51A Mustang fighters arrive in India, able to accompany the bombers all the way from forward airfields.

The plan for a joint operation

For the strike on Rangoon the air command in India gathered every available force. General Claire Chennault lent the 308th Bombardment Group of his Fourteenth Air Force from China for a short time, to operate together with the Tenth Air Force’s 7th Bombardment Group. The bombers were joined by the B-25s of the 490th Bombardment Squadron, P-38s of the 459th Fighter Squadron and – at the last moment – P-51As of the 530th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, moved down from Assam. Because the fighters and medium bombers lacked range, they were to refuel at forward airfields: the B-25s at Chittagong, some 780 km from Rangoon, and the fighters at Ramu near Cox’s Bazar.

The most important target chosen was the locomotive workshops at Insein on Rangoon’s northern outskirts – the only works in Burma capable of repairing the steam engines that attacks on the railway lines were destroying in growing numbers. The night targets for the RAF were the Mahlwagon marshalling yard, easy to find between two bends of the river, and, after that, the port wharves. On the first day the Liberators were to strike in two waves: the 7th Group at Insein, and the 308th Group together with the B-25s at the fighter airfields, in order to destroy on the ground Japanese aircraft refuelling after beating off the first wave. The operation coincided with the creation of Admiral Louis Mountbatten’s new Allied South East Asia Command, which was planning an offensive in Burma in the 1943–1944 dry season.

25 November

The weather that day was bad, but the 308th Group could stay in India for only a short time, so the command stuck to the schedule. Two Liberators crashed on take-off; their entire crews were killed. Cloud lay over the rendezvous point with the escort, and the fighters from Ramu failed to find the bombers, which flew on alone. Over Insein and Mingaladon the targets were completely covered; both waves turned back without dropping bombs on Rangoon. One B-24, circling in search of a gap in the cloud, was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed on the way home. Some of the bombers attacked airfields near Akyab on the way, with unknown results.

The first day’s task was carried out, in small part, only by the B-25s of the 490th Squadron, accompanied by the Mustangs of the 530th Squadron. Flying much lower than the Liberators, the Mitchells bombed Mingaladon, damaging buildings and dispersal areas and – according to American reports – destroying two aircraft on the ground. In combat with Japanese fighters, mainly Nakajima Ki-43s, the P-51 pilots claimed one aircraft shot down and four probables for the loss of two of their own; the B-25 gunners claimed one kill. The day’s balance was disappointing for the Americans: three heavy bombers and two fighters lost, Insein untouched, and the surprise on which the whole plan rested gone. The Japanese now knew that two heavy bomber groups were operating in India and could bring in reinforcements.

The following days: Insein, Botataung and 1 December

On 26 November all flying was cancelled because of the weather. On 27 November Liberators escorted by P-38s and Mitchells with Mustangs struck Insein. Despite fierce attacks by Japanese fighters just before bomb release, General Howard Davidson, who had commanded the Tenth Air Force since August, judged that at least 70 per cent of the workshops’ buildings and equipment had been destroyed. It cost four P-51s, two P-38s and three B-24s. Among those shot down was Colonel Harry Melton, commander of the 311th Fighter Group, who baled out over Japanese-held territory. The Americans claimed thirteen Japanese fighters destroyed; like all air-combat claims, these figures were probably inflated.

On 28 November the Liberators, now flying without the medium bombers because the few fighters available were not enough to cover two formations at different altitudes, heavily damaged the Botataung wharves in the eastern part of the port. Resistance that day was much weaker and the Americans lost no aircraft. On the night of 28–29 November RAF Wellingtons bombed Insein, and on the night of 30 November – 1 December the Mingaladon and Zayatkwin airfields and the port area. On 1 December the Liberators returned to Insein. The Mustangs, delayed by fog, did not manage to refuel at Ramu in time, and the bombers were accompanied by only fifteen P-38s. Within two days the Japanese had brought in reinforcements: some sixty fighters attacked head-on, out of the sun, aiming at the lead aircraft. The Americans lost six B-24s and one P-51, and five more Liberators returned badly damaged. The American part of the operation ended on 4 December with the mining of the approaches to Rangoon and Moulmein (Mawlamyine).

According to the official history, in the four daylight raids – on 25, 27 and 28 November and 1 December – the Americans lost twelve B-24s, eight P-51s and two P-38s. In this series, and in night raids on other targets in Burma in early December, the RAF flew 66 sorties, losing three Wellingtons.

A city under the bombs

In 1943 Rangoon was a depopulated city compared with the pre-war period: a large part of its inhabitants, especially those of Indian origin, had fled before the advancing Japanese in 1942, and those who remained lived by working in the port, on the railways and in Japanese-run works – that is, precisely where the bombs fell. Casualties among the Burmese civilian population and dock workers were unavoidable, but the available sources give no reliable figure for them; American reports concentrated on the damage to workshops and wharves, while the propaganda of Ba Maw’s government and of the Japanese used the raids to portray the Allies as the destroyers of Burma.

Significance

The official history of the American air forces admitted that the results of the November operation could not be assessed unequivocally. The Insein workshops were seriously damaged and the port was paralysed for a time, but a high price was paid, and above all it was confirmed that deep daylight raids without strong fighter escort were very costly in Burma. On the first day coordination had also failed – owing to weather that could not be waited out and to the lack of communication between bombers and fighters.

The experience of those weeks hastened the reorganisation of the Allied air forces in the region. In December 1943 RAF units and the Tenth Air Force were combined into Eastern Air Command under the American General George Stratemeyer, subordinate to Mountbatten’s command structure. At the beginning of December Japanese aircraft bombed the docks of Calcutta. In 1944, however, air superiority over Burma passed decisively to the Allies, which mattered in the battles of Imphal and Kohima and, in the spring of 1945, in the advance on Rangoon, which British and Indian troops recaptured at the beginning of May.