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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 1165.PDF
JUNE 14TH, 1945 FLIGHT WHISPERING DEATH The Japs were fighting from interior lines of communica- tion based on a gooji port. The 14th Army was not. As we have seen in l*e two previous articles, the i4th's diffi- culties were overcome by the use of air power, and it was also air power which was to deny to the Japs the benefits of the many roads, railways and rivers she controlled between her bases and the front line. The Beaufighters ntted-in as the central piece in the pattern of this offen- sive air strategy. Far beyond Rangoon, the Liberators pounded the bridges of the prisoner-built Bangkok rail- way. Close to the line of battle the Hurribombers, the Vengeances," and, later, the Thunderbolts and Mustangs all dropped on the browned-off Japs—but the big area in between—that was Beau-land! ^a Optimum Height From the first the sorties were flown in pairs. It was no easy bujMneBS this interdiction flying. The pilots had to keep a Dalance between the absolute nought feet which achieved complete surprise, and the minimum height at which they could see far enough to get guns on the target before it flashed underneath. Local tactics, therefore, had to be devised for the various day-to-day targets. The Rangoon-Mandalay railway, for instance, demanded that the Beaus patrolled about half a mile or so from the track itself, sticking to nought feet—with an occasional pull up to 200ft. for a "look-see." This procedure avoided the light machine-gun fire which was plentiful along the rail- way itself, and gave a good chance of achieving the all- important surprise. Once surprise was gone, and the word was passed along the sector that the Beaus were in the area, trains had^i habit of staying in stations which were ' defended from all angles by light ack-ack. To attack a train under those conditions was '' dicey '' and not recom- mended. But, caught out in the open, a train was a lovely target, and one which couldn't run away, or hide in the jungle. The usual practice was to stop the engine with a cannon burst, and then deal with the rolling stock at leisure. Two Beaus working together could usually keep light machine- gun fire down and make a thorough job of the strafe. One train of 14 coaches, which was hit by rockets, was blasted right off the rails and rolled down the embankment. It was not long before the pilots noticed that drivers usually stopped their trains as soon as a Beau appeared, and made a dash for cover. One sees their point. The occupational risk of being train crew in Burma in 1943-45 QrtJst have been high. One wonders if they had an "ops- Cur " of so many round trips, or if there were many cases of L.M.F. In the early days train targets were fairly plentiful— there was one pilot who had three on his first sortie—but later the laws of diminishing returns made a "loco" a prize of such rarity as to call for squadron rejoicing. The battle of the railroads was, as was all the Beau work, a battle of wits between our pilots and the Japs. The enemy didn't take their continual beatings-up quietly and devised several counter measures. Chief among these was the loco-shelter. The Japs built these shelters in a number of places all along the line, and their main use was to provide such a plethora of potential targets that the Beaus wouldn't be able to spare ammunition for them all. This was a good idea, as theoretically it would be impossible to tell which of many shelters held a ' prize, and a game of "hunt the loco" among all the shelters would have been wasteful and difficult. In the event our pilots were able to solve the problem in a daring and resourceful way, which I can't reveal in case they have need of it again farther down the line. Camouflage, too, was abundantly used-but you really can't camouflage a train, and this netted a nil return for the Jap. Their only real defence was the obvious one of light ack-ack which soon became the major hazard of OIL FIRED : A huge column of smoke rising from burningoil trucks after a railway attack by Beaufighters near Kyaukpadan. train busting. A Beau coming down in a dive from 500 or 1,000 quickly gained feet was not a hard target, and our aircraft were frequently hit. Soldiers with rifles afe#=- added their quota—but, despite this, it was not often that we lost aircraft or crew. The light machine-gun fire, how- ever, did give a great deal of work to maintenance crews, and several aircraft had to crash-land on return because of failure of hydraulics or electrics due to a lucky bullet. Punctured tyres, with their vicious and sudden influence on- an unsuspecting touch-down, were one of the dangers attendant upon every sortie. The light machine-gun fire, incidentally, was mainly placed alongside the railway and seldom on the train itself. Bridge Fords The Japs eventually built up quite a good repair organi- sation on their much-attacked rail system—though it wa,s never quite good enough to keep the supplies moving-trTa rate which repaid the effort. In some cases they left broken trains where they were as permanent monuments to the Beaus, and built loop-lines around the wreckage. With broken bridges (some the work of Beau rockets), many devices were used. In one or two places where the defunct bridges had been over rivers, roads were built which were " forded " through the water—giving a road link between the broken ends of the railway. Traffic was switched from rail to road and back to rail again, but the machinery for doing this was also given adequate attention from the Beaus. In their attacks on the roads, the Beaufighters had a more difficult job. There 100 per cent, surprise and " snap shooting'' were called for. A car or lorrjff if not hit on the first run, had time to pull into jungle before the Beau could turn through 180 degrees, and come back again on the target. There was no full answer to that one—so, in
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