Box Brownie (pp John Dunbar DFC (RIP), #9385,
This is perplexing in the absence of place names and dates. To start with, I had a root round Google Wiki to try and get in the picture. So, "from the top":
...That was the beginning of it. We were dispersed around the airfield and asked if we had got our tents etc, to which the answer was no, they were back in Calcutta. Another example of administrative excellence confronting us...
"The administrative tail wags the operational dog" - again. 'Twas ever thus... What airfield ? When ?
...I had to report to a Major Gibson who was G ops 4Corps...
Again, Dates ? Place ? Wiki helps on 4 Corps:
...Central Front 1944/45[edit]
Main article: Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay
The Fourteenth Army, now consisting of IV Corps and XXXIII Corps, made the main offensive effort into Burma...
Now we must have broken out of Imphal and got across the Arakan Yomas into the central plain of Burma, where our armour could operate effectively. After my time, I'm afraid (I was carried out
hors de combat at the end of February of 1944, at the beginning of the Second Battle of Arakan).
Wiki helps again:
...In July 1943 Messervy was appointed GOC Indian 7th Infantry Division which was sent to the Arakan in Burma to join XV Corps in September. In the Japanese offensive in February 1944, despite having his headquarters overrun and scattered and his supply lines compromised, Messervy's brigades conducted a successful defence whilst being supplied by air...
This, of course, was the famous "Battle of the Admin Box", Surrounded by Japanese, Messervy held his position, supplied by the Dakotas of the RAF (and C-47s of the A.A.C.?) (This was where the L-5s were doing the casevacs referred to in my #9377).
Now the tables were turned, it was the encircling Japanese who were starving and cut off from supplies, their advance collapsed, Messervy steadily pushed on South until Akyab was retaken without a fight in the New Year (and without the need for the planned amphibious attack) [details from Wiki].
Arakan was cleared of the Jap, the tunnels through the Yomas (which we'd bombed shut early on) must have been reopened and the "Okeydoke" (Ngakyedauk) Pass freed. Messervy's tanks (15 Dvn - the "Crossed Hockey Sticks") could now trundle through into Central Burma. The victorious end was now in no doubt.
And where was the Vengeance (which had done so much to help the 14th Army up to the Monsoon of 1944 ?) Pulled back out of the line then, kicking its heels and frittered away on odd jobs all over India, when it could have helped so much more in the End Game...
Ah well. (there is a lot more meat in #9385 - but let's get the details from that Logbook, BB, please - and we can start putting all this in a timeframe).
Danny.