South Burma falls to the Japanese

Rangoon occupied

On February 28, 1942, General Alinuma of the Japanese 15th Army visited General Obata and told him that the British had 30,000 troops in South Burma, plus two Chinese divisions between Pegu and Rangoon and a "very proficient" tank brigade. Pointing out that the British air force was very cooperative with the army, he asked for similiar cooperation from the 5th Hikoshidan, especially in the planned offensive against the British and Chinese at Pegu. Obata agreed, assigning the 8th Sentai medium bombers and 50th Sentai fighters to work with the 55th Division, while the 31st Sentai light bombers and 77th Sentai fighters worked with the 33rd Division. However, the army tended to move at night and along mountain paths, making air support very difficult, so concentrated instead on suppressing enemy air attacks. Heavy weather early in March also hindered the ability of the fighters to provide close air support. However, on March 3, the 33rd Division crossed the Sittang River under fighter cover from the 77th Sentai. The Shokis of the 47th Independent Chutai were also active, attacking Blenheim bombers at the Sittang and shooting one of them down.

By March 7 the 15th Army was at the outskirts of Rangoon. The air force was planning to cooperate "with all their power," but Lampang was socked in by weather, obliging the fighters to stay on the ground. In the afternoon, however, the 50th Sentai and one squadron of the 8th Sentai from Moulmein managed to go to the Mingaladon area and attack the British armored brigade. According to reports, the British had six fighters still based at Mingaladon.

March 8 was a repeat, with rain holding the fighters at Lampang. However, the 31st Sentai light bombers advanced to Mudon airport and from there attacked enemy tanks and a motorized convoy. The 33rd Division entered Rangoon at 10 a.m. that day.

With Rangoon in Japanese hands, additional forces joined the Burma attack. Army headquarters had already ordered the 18th and 56th divisions to get ready to join the Burma campaign. (They would come in by sea.) Three more fighter groups were also assigned to Burma: the 1st Sentai with two squadrons and a total of 15 Ki-27 Nate fighters; the 11th Sentai with two squadrons and a total of 14 Ki-27s; and the 64th Sentai, newly arrived from the Dutch Indies with 15 Ki-43 Hayabusa retractable gear fighters, 2 Ki-27s, and two captured British Hurricanes. The two fixed-gear groups would be assigned to the Rangoon airfields, which were made ready with unprecedented speed.

On March 9, Colonel Takeuchi was sent to Mingaladon airport outside Rangoon with instructions to rebuild it and to look for additional airfields in the area. He found that Mingaladon, though pitted with bomb craters, could be fixed immediately for planes to land. Of three hangars, only one had been destroyed; the barracks were damaged but fixable. Its three runways were each 1,200 meters long. He then went to Hlegu and found a runway 1,800 meters by 50 meters, surrounded by woods that would make a good dispersal; the British had thoughtfully left 800 barrels of gasoline behind to fuel the Japanese fighters. He also inspected the former RAF dispersal, but deemed it unusable in the rainy season without a month's work, and the same was true of the other dispersal fields. However, they could be used as emergency fields.

The reconstruction work at Mingaladon and Hlegu was begun on March 13, and the craters at Mingaladon were filled in within two days.

Meanwhile, the long-range Hayabusas would be stationed across the border in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Also scheduled to move to Thai bases were the Ki-21-II heavy bombers of the 12th and 98th Sentais and the reconnaissance planes of the 51st Independent Chutai, all of which had taken part in the Christmas raids on Rangoon. When this reinforcement was complete, Japanese aircraft committed to the Burma campaign would total 251, including 115 fighters, 66 heavy bombers, and 70 reconnissance planes and light and medium bombers.

The Allies strike from Magwe

From Magwe, in the early morning of March 18, two AVG P-40s made a strafing attack on the Moulmein airfields. (One Japanese account says there were three P-40s, while naming only Ken Jernstedt and Bill Reed of the AVG 3rd Squadron Hell's Angels.) There were "many shots and broken pieces [of aircraft] flying in the sky." The pickings were rich, because the 31st Sentai light bombers and (apparently) some Type 99 reconnaissance planes had moved to Mudon from Lampang, Thailand, just the day before. At Moulmein, two Ki-21 heavy bombers and a Ki-15 reconnaissance plane were destroyed, plus a Ki-48 medium bombers either destroyed or put out of commission. The raiders then moved on to Mudson, where (according to another Japanese account) even worse damage was done. The 31st Sentai had three of its Ki-30 "Ann" light bombers destroyed and two more badly damaged, leaving it with only one servicable aircraft. In addition, another Ki-15 was burned, for a grand total of 10 aircraft put out of commission by just two roving pilots. (Jernstedt and Reed were credited with destroying 15 aircraft at Moulmein and Mudon.) There was more to come: even as the JAAF was preparing to destroy the Allied air forces at Magwe, nine Blenheim bombers of RAF 45 Squadron took off from the mid-Burma base on the morning of March 21 for an attack on the Rangoon airfields. The defenders managed to put up only six fighters, three from the 50th Sentai and three from the 77th. Lieutenant Nagoshi of the 77th Sentai was mortally wounded in this engagement, though he managed to put the plane down at Hmawbi; in turn, he was credited with destorying one Blenheim. Meanwhile the British bombers fought their way through to Mingaladon, where 60 planes were massed together on the runways. There was "much shooting and bombing," and one Ki-21 heavy bomber was destroyed on the ground. The five remaining interceptors continually attacked the Blenheims as "super-low speed" in a very difficult situation. Nonetheless, the Japanese pilots claimed a total of Blenheims shot down. (Seven of the raiders were damaged, but all returned safely to Magwe. For their part, the Blenheim gunners were credited with shooting down two Nates.)

Meanwhile, 10 Hurricane fighters also made a sweep of Rangoon. An unknown number of Nates from the 50th Sentai came up to repel them. The Japanese pilots claimed five Hurricanes shot down; the British in turn claimed three Nates destroyed. Apparently none was lost on either side, though one of the Hurricanes made a forced landing as it attempted to return to Magwe, its pilot forced to hitch a ride home with 7th Armoured Brigade.

It's not possible to sort out the Japanese losses at Mingaladon. In addition to the Ki-21 destroyed by the bombers, at least one other plane (type unknown) was also destroyed and 11 more badly damaged, whether by bombs or by strafing Hurricanes. (It is also possible that the planes supposedly destroyed at Mingaladon actually included those burned up by Jernstedt and Reed at the Moulmein airfields.)