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The January air battle for Rangoon

On December 28, General Hiroda of the 10th Hikodan (area air force) in Bangkok issued orders for the combat groups to move up-country and prepare for attacks on Tavoy and Moulmein and to support the 15th Army in its invasion of Burma. The following day, the 77th Sentai fighter group under Lt Col Yoshioka moved up to Lampang, east-southeast of Toungoo. (One squadron stayed in Bangkok for local air defense.] To prevent surprise attack, the 77th kept one hintai (flight of two-three planes) forward-based at Raheng near the Thai-Burma border. The hikodan headquarters and ground support forces also went to Lampang, while the 31st Sentai light bomber group went to Phitsanulok, due east of Moulmein and Rangoon.

Burma, January 1942. Large arc shows the range of JAAF heavy bombers at Bangkok; smaller one shows the range of the light bombers at Phitsanulok, Thailand. (The arc of Allied response is shown unshaded.) Note the Hanoi-Kunming battle area at upper right.

Yoshioka ordered an attack on Moulmein for the morning of January 3, so the 1st Chutai (squadron) of the 77th Sentai under Capt Toyo Eto moved to Raheng, where they evidently spent the night. They took off at 8:30 a.m. Tokyo time and reached Moulmein airport at 9:05, claiming one plane destroyed and three damaged out of four seen on the ground. (These were obsolete biplanes of 4 Coast Defence Fight, Indian Air Force, destroyed before it could get into action.)

The Ki-27s returned to Raheng at 9:55. The first hintai landed without incident, and the second was just touching down when three "Spitfires" attacked from behind, shooting down the Ki-27 fixed-gear fighter flown by Warrant Officer Yokoyama, who required two months to heal from his injuries. The third hintai then came on the scene and attacked the enemy fighters at an altitude of 400 meters, "skillfully catching them and shooting from the tail." Two of the enemy fighters were trailing white smoke. In the end, the 1st Chutai was credited with shooting down three "Spitfires" and damaging others(!). Besides Yokoyama's, a second Ki-27 was destroyed in this engagement and two more were rendered unflyable, but I can't tell whether these were air-to-air or burned on the ground.

The Allied fighters were Tomahawks of the AVG 2nd Squadron, of course, and none was lost. The Panda Bears were credited with three Japanese fighters shot down and four destroyed on the ground. Likely it was Tex Hill who sent W/O Yokoyama to the hospital. A footnote to this engagement is Jim Howard's report that he saw "crowds of people on a grandstand," scrambling to get out of the line of fire. Since the 3rd Chutai was returning from a scheduled raid, it is indeed possible that a ceremony had been laid on to greet the victors.

Mingaladon's turn

This was the unhappy afternoon when Bert Christman, Gil Bright, and Pappy Paxton were shot down, with Christman parachuting to safety and the others riding their Tomahawks to crash landings. The Panda Bears were credited with one kill.

And back to Raheng

Again, the attackers were Tomahawks, and one was indeed shot down: Charlie Mott, badly injured, taken prisoner, and doomed to work the "death railroad" until the war was almost over. The AVGs claimed eight planes destroyed on the ground--not far from the truth.

The following day, January 9, the Allies fighters were back in greater strength, to a total of seven AVG Tomahawks and six RAF Buffaloes. The strafing went on for ten minutes, destroying one Ki-27 fighter and a starter truck, and damaging two other fighters. There were no Allied losses in this attack, nor did the Japanese claim any. For their part, the Panda Bears claimed four enemy planes destroyed on the ground, and the Buffalo pilots were credited with two more.

Next day, the Japanese ground support troops completed the communcations system between Raheng and another advanced field at Mae Soht, enabling them to exchange information quickly. (Allied and Japanese accounts sometimes differ as to which of these fields was attacked on a given day. Adding to the confusion, the Allied fighters generally identified Raheng as Tak. I follow the Japanese usage.)

Also on January 10, three Ki-30 light bombers of the 31st Sentai moved to Raheng for an attack on Moulmein airport. They were still at the advanced field that evening, when four Buffaloes came over and strafed them on the ground, destroying two of the bombers and badly wounding one of the pilots.

During this two-week period, the 77th Sentai lost a total of ten Ki-27 fighters--nearly a third of its planes--but apparently only one pilot, W/O Yokoyama badly injured. A starter truck had also been destroyed, and the group had expended 1,257 tracer bullets, 2,573 armor-piercing rounds, 52,740 liters of gasoline, and 1,608 liters of lubricating oil--no small matter to resource-poor Japan.