Introduction

Colonel Brink, assisted by Lt. Col. Daniel E. Still, delegated supervision of training to the battalion commanders, who were encouraged to add their own ideas to the program. For slightly more than 2 months they prepared the men for the problems of operating in dense tropical jungles defended by a stubborn and skillful enemy.

Individual training emphasized marksmanship, scouting and patrolling, map reading, and jungle navigation. A normal amount of calisthenics was included in the daily routine, and the length and pace of marches were increased in order to make the men physically hard. Classes always marched to and from ranges and training areas, no matter how far they were from camp. Packs were worn whenever possible.

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Platoon tactics were stressed in every training operation. Company, combat team, battalion, and unit exercises were also held, but time was short and attention had to be directed mostly toward moulding squads and platoons into highly efficient and well-coordinated teams. Each small unit was familiarized as much as possible with the normal combat activities of other types of units. Rifle platoon leaders and noncommissioned officers were instructed in directing mortar fire, and all men were taught the rudiments of voice radio procedure.

In general, the heavy weapons, intelligence and reconnaissance, pioneer and demolition, and communications personnel were already

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well trained in their special functions. Taking part in all training of their combat teams, they became physically hardened to the same extent as the rest of the men. Rear echelon personnel, including parachute packers, riggers, and kick-out crews, were trained separately by the unit S-4.

Ten days spent on maneuvers with General Wingate's troops brought to light minor deficiencies. There was a shortage of pack animals, and the changes which had been made in organization and equipment required final adjustments.

After the commanders within the unit had been assigned, General Merrill was placed in charge of the entire force. He appointed Maj. Louis J. Williams as his executive officer, in charge of the Command Post group.

On 8 January 1944, the completely organized and trained unit was assigned to General Stilwell's field command in northern Burma.⁷ He expected to use it in conjunction with the Chinese forces which were beginning their drive against the Japanese 18th Division. In accordance with General Stilwell's concept of the use of long-range-penetration units, the 5307th was to be sent on bold missions against assigned objectives behind the enemy lines in order to facilitate the seizure of key points by the main Chinese forces.

General Stilwell's immediate orders to the 5307th were to close in on Ledo by 7 February and from there to march over the trail as far as Ningbyen. The unit started at once from the training area in order to arrive on schedule. The 1,000-mile trip by train and boat to Ledo consumed a month; the last 100 miles on foot took 10 days. On 19 February the 1st Battalion, head of the column, arrived at Ningbyen. It was followed 2 days later by the 3d Battalion, tail of the column. The men had been thoroughly tested by the 10-day march and were ready for their first assignment.

Area of Operations

Plans for the Ledo Road⁸ are the key to an understanding of the 1944 campaign in northern Burma (Map No. 4, page 17). Reopening land communications with China had become a main aim of Allied

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strategy, but only the total reconquest of Burma would give the Allies control of the old route from Rangoon. The Ledo Road constituted a daring effort to drive a new route from northeast India across north Burma, tapping the Burma Road at the frontier of China. The base of departure, at Ledo in the Brahmaputra Valley, had rail and water connections with Bengal. Nearly 300 air miles separated Ledo from the projected point of link-up with the Burma Road near Bhamo.

The plans for the Ledo Road included the laying of pipe lines, designed to relieve the road and air traffic of carrying fuel from Assam to China. Once the construction of the road was settled, it was decided that two 4-inch lines from Tinsukia, 30 air miles northwest of Ledo, would follow the road. They were to be fed by gasoline pumped from Calcutta to a station near their starting point.

Military conquest of north Burma was a prerequisite for operations of the engineers, and for either infantry or engineers, the area presented major difficulties in terrain and climate. Abutting to the north on the impassable ranges of the Himalayas, where peaks rise to 20,000 feet, north Burma is separated both from India and China by massive frontier mountains. On the India side, a continuous range runs southwest from the Himalayas along the Assam border in parallel ridges reaching heights of 10,000 feet; in the Patkai portion of this range, southeast of Ledo, the Pangsau Pass at about 4,300 feet leads into Burma, making a gateway for the projected road. On the east, the Himalayas curve south along the China frontier to the region of Bhamo. Boxed in on three sides by these main barriers, north Burma is essentially a rugged hill country divided into two compartments by the north-south Kumon Range, with elevations over 10,000 feet. To the east of the Kumons, the Irrawaddy pushes a narrow valley north from Myitkyina into the Himalayas; Sumprabum was the main enemy outpost in this valley. In the other compartment, the headwaters of the Chindwin River have carved out fairly extensive lowlands in the hill country; one of these plains, the Hukawng Valley, lies near the Pangsau Pass over the Patkai Range. Reference to the physiographic map (Map No. 5, page 19) will show the geographic features that governed both the plans for the Ledo Road and the plans for the military operations that would clear the way for this new route to China. Once over the Patkal Range, the essential problem was to get from the Hukawng lowlands over into the upper Irrawaddy

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plains near Myitkyina. The best route was by a natural corridor, the narrow Mogaung Valley. This skirted the southwest side of the Kumon Mountains, then passed between them and the lower hills to the southwest to reach a tributary of the Irrawaddy River.

It was in this area of about 5,000 square miles, roughly the size of Connecticut, that the Marauders were to operate. When the three battalions of the 5307th arrived at Ningbyen, they had marched

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through a typical portion of north Burma and had experienced the regional conditions under which they were to fight. They had struggled over the ridges of the Patkai Range, where, even in the relatively low country of the pass, they doubted whether "those goddam hills would ever level out." They had been impressed by the tropical rain forests characteristic of western mountain slopes in Burma, where trees 20 feet in diameter at the base rose straight and clean of branches to a dense roof of foliage at 80 or 100 feet. Brush was scant in the gloom of these forests, but the footing was poor in a mould of rotting vegetation 3 to 4 feet deep. In the Hukawng lowlands, the Marauders entered the typical jungle country of north Burma, and veterans of Guadalcanal soon learned that this jungle outmatched that of the Solomon Islands for difficulty. Trees were smaller and more scattered than in the mountains, permitting a rank growth of underbrush, often briary and tangled with vines. Patches of bamboo were sometimes so dense that to chop a trail involved cutting away the lower part of the growth to make a tunnel under the matted plant tops. Growth in the occasional clearings might consist of kunai ("elephant") grass, 4 to 6 feet high and sharp-edged. Everywhere in this country, whether on hills or in the river flood plains, men found that their clothes were damp all the time, even in the driest period of the year, and that their weapons rusted if not disassembled and oiled daily.

In a country of many large and small streams, heavy jungle, and rough hills, the problems of movement and transportation were made even more difficult by the absence of roads. North Burma is an undeveloped frontier country, and native footpaths and cart tracks provided the only means of communication in most of the area. The one road suitable for motor traffic, and then only in the dry months, ran north from Kamaing via the Mogaung corridor and into the Hukawng plain. The nearest railhead was at Myitkyina, reached by a single-track line connecting with central and southern Burma.

Burma has a tropical monsoon climate with clearly marked wet and dry seasons. From June to the end of September the moisture-laden southwest monsoon brings extremely heavy rains to the western and southern flanks of the highlands; annual precipitation on the westernmost hills varies from 150 to 250 inches. In northern Burma, slopes which face the monsoon also receive abundant rain, ranging

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between 75 and 100 inches. In the months from January to April, many of the innumerable small streams dry up, and only the large rivers present difficulties for crossing. During the wet period, lowlands such as the Hukawng Valley and even the Mogaung corridor are flooded to the point where movement is greatly restricted; the Ledo Road was to provide the first all-weather route that northern Burma had seen. Temperatures are high throughout the year at lower altitudes but from October to February are not excessive, ranging from 60° to 90° in the lowlands, and during these months the weather is clear and pleasant. Though the dry season does not end until June, the weather becomes increasingly hot and humid from March until the monsoon rains finally break.

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The heavily forested hills and valleys of north Burma are thinly populated by pagan Kachins, who have lived in almost complete independence of the government in Rangoon. In 1931 Myitkyina, the largest town, had only 7,328 people in comparison with Mandalay's 134,950 and Rangoon's 398,967. Localities named on maps in territory where the Marauders operated might turn out to be less than hamlets; Lagang Ga has fewer than five houses, and Inkangahtawng, only a jungle clearing, has not a single basha (hut). The settlements usually consist of from 12 to 100 or more huts, built of timber uprights and bamboo. To protect the inhabitants against wild animals the villages are often surrounded by bamboo and wooden stockades. Many of the primitive tribesmen living in this area first came into contact with people of the outside world when their country became a battleground for Allied and Japanese armies.

The vegetation in north Burma is limited almost entirely to large trees and dense underbrush. Wild nuts, fruit, or edible growths, usually found in quantities in jungle areas, are rare in the Hukawng and Mogaung valleys. In small clearings around the villages only enough rice is raised to provide food for the local inhabitants. Cultivated areas increase as southern Burma is approached, where the densely populated valleys and coastal plains show an intricate pattern of paddies producing the great staple crop of the country.

The Kachins are active as traders and mine the amber and jade found in the Hukawng Valley and around Myitkyina. They practice nature worship, in contrast to the Buddhism of the more civilized Burmans who occupy the lowlands to the south. When organized by Americans and British, the Kachins proved very helpful as guides and auxiliary troops in the campaign against the Japanese.

In the hot and humid climate of Burma, disease was a greater peril to our men than the enemy. Almost everywhere malaria and dysentery were endemic. Many of the volunteers from the Pacific theaters had malaria before they reached India, and very few men were uninfected by the end of the campaign. Immunization treatments were not effective against a variety of typhus fever, communicated by mites. The Marauders' long and exhausting marches in rain and tropical heat, their inadequate nourishment, and their inability to take even the simplest precautions against infection resulted in a high percentage of casualties from disease.

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The mountains, forests, and rivers of north Burma often seemed imposing and sometimes beautiful to our men. But hard experience proved that the land was no tropical paradise. It literally swarmed with enemies. Diseases and hardships of war in the jungle combined to sap the strength of the Marauders until they reached Myitkyina too exhausted to continue as a fighting force.

Supply

Normal methods of supply were impractical for a highly mobile force operating behind the enemy's forward defensive positions. Any attempts to maintain regular land supply lines, even if adequate roads had been available, would have greatly reduced tactical mobility and would have made secrecy impossible, contradicting the express purposes of the operation. Air dropping of food and munitions, though still in an experimental stage of development, had been satisfactory for General Wingate's expedition of 1943 and was adopted for the long-range-penetration missions of the Marauders.

The experience of General Wingate's expedition had disclosed both the possibilities of air supply and the major difficulties to be overcome. Adequate air and radio equipment, as well as competent air liaison and communications personnel, were absolute essentials. If air supply was to be a success it had to be planned with the utmost care and foresight. Adequate quantities of supplies had to be available at a base for shipment on a moment's notice. Means must be provided for accurate and quick radio communication between the units in the field and the supply base, since exact information regarding requirements, dropping area, and time of drop was necessary. Correct and careful packaging and loading of the supplies, whether to be dropped with or without parachutes, were required if safe delivery was to be assured. The actual dropping called for skilled pilots and crews who could approximate low-level bombing accuracy over the small jungle fields. Cargo planes had to be of types suitable for the kind of work anticipated, and fighter protection was necessary because interference by enemy planes was to be expected. Success would depend on attainment of the closest cooperation between air and ground forces. Air force and supply personnel had to realize that the outcome of the whole enterprise was completely dependent on teamwork of the highest order. The needs of the ground troops for food and ammunition could not wait on good flying conditions.

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Bamboo warehouses at Dinjan, 32 miles west of Ledo, were made available to Maj. Edward T. Hancock, supply officer for the 5307th. Good air strips were nearby at Chabua, Tinsukia, and Sookerating. Arrangements were made for coded communication by SCR 284 from General Merrill's headquarters to Dinjan through Combat Headquarters at Ledo. Eventually the base at Dinjan monitored all messages from General Merrill to Headquarters, thus eliminating the loss of time involved in relaying requisitions. Standard units of each category of supplies, based on estimated requirements for 1 day, were packaged ready for delivery. Requisitions were submitted on a basis covering daily needs or were readily adapted to this basis.

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At the beginning of the Marauders' operation the 2d Troop Carrier Squadron and later the 1st Troop Carrier Squadron carried the supplies from the Dinjan base to forward drop areas. They dropped by parachute engineering equipment, ammunition, medical supplies, and food from an altitude of about 200 feet; clothing and grain were dropped without parachute from 150 feet. They flew in all kinds of weather. During March alone, in 17 missions averaging 6 to 7 planes, they ferried into the combat area 376 tons of supplies.

The squadrons using C-47's had only one complaint about their transports. Because the planes lacked a drop port in the floor, the supplies, "kicked" out of the side door, sometimes struck the left horizontal stabilizer if the pilot could not maintain level flight. One plane was lost and two were damaged by parachutes catching on the stabilizer. Fighter protection was seldom requested for the drop planes, and only two were lost by enemy action during the campaign.

Where no open space or paddy field was available for the drop, it was necessary to prepare a field, but in the majority of cases the route of march and the supply requirements could be so coordinated that units were near some suitable flat, open area when drops were needed.

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This was an advantage, not only because it relieved the troops of the hard work of clearing ground, but because it enabled the pilots to use aerial photographs and maps to identify their destinations.

The packages, attached to A-4 and A-7 parachutes,⁹ weighed between 115 and 125 pounds. Containers of this size were easily manhandled. As soon as they reached the ground, two of them were loaded on a mule and transported to a distributing point in a relatively secure area. There they were opened and the men filed by, each one picking up an individual package of rations or ammunition. Rations, wrapped in a burlap bag, contained food, salt tablets, cigarettes, and occasionally halazone tablets for purifying drinking water.

The rations delivered to the Marauders were 80 percent "K," 5 percent "C," 5 percent "10-in-l," and 10 percent "B." A variety in this diet was provided only once when the rear echelon prepared a mess of fried chicken and apple turnovers which was dropped to the 2d Battalion during its darkest days at Nhpum Ga.

When the situation permitted, the practice was to send back to the Dinjan base in the evening the radio request for supplies to be dropped the following afternoon. In emergency cases the service could be speeded up. Special material not available at the Dinjan base was sometimes procured, transported, and dropped 12 hours after the original request was made. The shortest time for a supply mission was recorded on 6 May when a C-47 reached the drop area, 128 miles from Dinjan, just 2 hours and 22 minutes after the message had been filed in the field.

Tabulations were prepared for determining readily the weight of each delivery so that the air liaison officer would know how many planes were needed at any time. A situation map, posted in Major Hancock's office, was kept up to date, and, in a number of instances, anticipatory planning was carried to such an extent that ammunition was actually loaded on trucks kept ready to dash for the airfield. At the destination, air-ground communication with the unit being supplied was used to achieve the greatest possible coordination of effort.

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Careful planning, supplemented by speedy adoption of lessons learned from experience, paid big dividends in terms of efficient operation of the air supply system. About 250 enlisted members of the 5307th, including packers, riggers, drivers, and food droppers, were responsible for the job; everyone realized the importance of his role and felt a personal obligation to get the supplies to his comrades in the field at the time and place and in the quantities required. Major Hancock, commander of the base detachment, was assisted by Capt. Willard C. Nelson who was executive officer, Lt. Robert O. Gardiner who supervised the packing of parachutes, and 1st Lt. Marlan E. Lowell who handled air liaison. These officers and their enlisted personnel never allowed any obstacle to interfere with the delivery of supplies. Their outstanding performance and that of pilots and air crews resulted in a smoothly functioning supply system. The high degree of mobility and secrecy which resulted from air supply was one of the chief reasons for the success of the Marauders.

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Evacuation of Casualties

The 71st Liaison Squadron, using L-4's and L-5's based at Ledo, evacuated the great majority of Marauder casualties from the combat zone after they had been treated by Medical corpsmen or surgical teams. The light liaison planes, landing on drop areas, rice paddies, or gravel bars along the rivers, flew the wounded, often within a period of a few hours after injury, to rear air strips or to collecting and clearing companies along the Ledo Road. From the air strips, ambulance planes (C-47's) transported the casualties to the 20th General Hospital, the 14th Evacuation Hospital, or the 111th Station Hospital in the Ledo area. After the capture of Myitkyina airfield bothC-46's

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and C-47's, landing on the strip, were regularly assigned to evacuating Americans. Speed in carrying the wounded where they could receive hospital treatment saved the lives of many men who could not have withstood the journey overland through the jungle.

Communications

Before entering the area of operations, the 5307th arranged to carry long- and short-range radios providing constant communication with higher headquarters for orders, supply arrangements, and air cooperation, and within the unit itself for control of the columns. Since the battalions were to be always on the move and most of the time behind enemy lines, it was necessary to carry wherever they went even the heavier, more powerful radio sets. They left Ledo equipped with six radios (three long-range AN/PRC-l's and three SCR 284's)¹⁰ mounted on mules. Each battalion had an AN/PRC-1, for communication to the base station at Dinjan and to the liaison station at General Stilwell's forward headquarters, and an SCR 284 (20-mile range), for signaling transport and fighter planes flying missions for the ground troops. During the latter part of the operation the unit used an SCR 177-S,¹¹ converted for mule pack, to contact rear and forward units and the temporary command base then located at Naubum. From Ledo to Myitkyina all headquarters within the battalions had SCR 300's (Walkie-Talkie).¹² Since this voice instrument proved most reliable for distances up to 3 and sometimes 10 miles in level country, the headquarters used it for quick column contact, supplementing their runners. Except on long marches, the men packed these 32-pound sets on their backs to relay information about enemy movements and to direct mortar and artillery fire.

The communications men found the long-range radios more difficult to transport and operate satisfactorily. These powerful sets required from one to three mules for carriage; their range was limited by the dense jungle growth and the uneven terrain, and they func-

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tioned best only in the daytime when the signals of other stations were generally silent. The AN/PRC-l's required manpower, not always available, to crank their hand generators.

The operators, at first an inexperienced cross section of the services, learned to get the messages through. They often marched all day and then worked most of the night sending out and receiving communications or repairing their equipment. Upon the communications sections rested the responsibility for keeping channels open to coordinate the unit's operations with those of the main Chinese force, to requisition food and ammunition for the unit's existence in the enemy's jungle, and to call for air support at critical moments. All this they did effectively.

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Notes

1. The "Burma Road" extends from Rangoon to Chungking, approximately 1,445 miles. It is actually made up of a railroad from Rangoon to Lashio, a new motor road from Lashio to Kunming, and an old highway from Kunming to Chungking. The new section, constructed in 2 years from 1937-39, was the first link between Burma and China for heavy traffic. Before the Japanese conquest of Burma, the road carried vital supplies to the Chinese armies fighting the Japanese. Great Britain, acceding to a request from Japan, closed the route from July to October, 1940 but reopened it when Japan joined the Rome-Berlin axis.
2. Admiral Mountbatten was appointed Supreme Allied Commander, Southeast Asia Command, at the Quebec Conference of August, 1943.
3. Almost all equipment had arrived before the troops started up the Ledo Road. Among the essential pieces lacking were Browning automatic rifle clips, which were supplied to the unit from theater stock.
4. Commanding Officer to 6 April 1944.
5. Commanding Officer to 4 April 1944.
6. Each battalion commander arranged a division of his organization into combat teams, so that only a general table of composite parts can be given here. For instance, the 1st Battalion was so divided that one combat team had a rifle company and rifle company headquarters and the other combat team had two rifle companies.
7. The 31st and 33d Quartermaster Pack Troops, a detachment of the 835th Signal Service Battalion, and a platoon of the 502d Military Police Battalion were added to the unit early in January.
8. On 28 January 1945 Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, announcing the completion of the Ledo-Burma Road, renamed the 1,044-mile route to China the "Stilwell Road" in honor of General Stilwell. The first Allied convoy was on its way from Ledo to Kumming.
9. The A-4 is a canvas container approximately 12" x 24" x 30" inclosed in a reinforced webbing harness and lined with two corrugated pasteboard boxes. The parachute is attached to the webbing harness. This container is used primarily for dropping of medical supplies, signal equipment, and other similar semifragile cargo.
The A-7 consists of two 6-foot adjustable webbing straps sewn together at right angles to inclose boxes of supplies. The parachute is attached at the junction of the two straps. This container is used for dropping small-arms ammunition and other items of a durable nature.
10. The AN/PRC-1 is a lightweight, high-powered radio set having a normal range of from 200 to 2,000 miles. The SCR 284 for pack transport weighs over 100 pounds and has a normal range of 5 to 20 miles.
11. The SCR 177-S operated very well in jungle but was extremely heavy to carry. It weighs about 700 pounds and has a range of 30 to 100 miles.
12. The SCR 300 is a portable 32-pound set with an expected range of 5 miles.

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