Du Yuming dictated:
On the morning of March 30, after the 200th Division broke through, I ordered the new 22nd Division to occupy the forward position at Yedaixi with one battalion that night, covering the main force to build resistance positions on the north and south banks of the Sva River, and issued a formal order on the 31st.
The purpose of this battle was to cover the concentration of the main forces in preparation for the Battle of Pingmanna.
Later, Pingmanna did not fight, because the east and west roads were in an emergency, Tangji and Wacheng were shaken, so they gave up the battle.
Therefore, it is called a successive resistance battle (or sniper battle), which is based on the current terrain (the pass road from Siwa to Pingmanna), the tactical characteristics of the enemy and us, the corruption of Burma's transportation, the unpredictable concentration of the main force, and the lessons of the siege of Tonggu, etc., so it is determined that the covering troops of our army do not stick to one position, and use the pass to preset the depth position to resist the attack of the superior enemy one by one;
When luring the enemy deep into our position and not yet gaining a foothold, the buried mines and bombs broke out together, and the snipers in ambush on both sides cooperated with our frontal troops to counterattack and destroy the enemy in one fell swoop.
This kind of position of our army must also be false and real, so that the enemy will not be able to grasp it clearly; in particular, after one or two strikes, the enemy will not dare to advance in a hurry.
As a result, the new 22nd Division held back the enemy for half a month (including the attack on Nanyang Station for about 21 days), during which fierce fighting lasted for as many as 12 days, causing the enemy to suffer heavy casualties and unable to move an inch.
However, our army has achieved the goal of defeating the many with the few and defeating the superior with the inferior. At that time, the enemy and us used the following forces:
Enemy: three wings of the 55th Division, two wings of the 18th Division, two battalions of mountain artillery, one battalion of heavy artillery, dozens of air force aircraft, and several combat vehicles.
On our side: three regiments of the new 22nd Division of the 5th Army, one combat vehicle, one battalion of mountain artillery, and two regiments of the guerrilla detachment recruit training office.
From April 1~4, the first part of the new 22nd Division and the first part of the enemy's 55th Division confronted Nanyang Station south of Yedai, with only small units searching for battles and intermittent artillery battles.
On April 4~10, the enemy's 55th Division combined with infantry artillery and combat vehicles to attack our new 22nd Division with all its might.
During this period, Ma Yushan, a plainclothes detective of our 5th Army Headquarters, disguised himself as Burmese and carried water and miscellaneous work for the headquarters of the enemy's 55th Division. One day, he found a map on the enemy's desk, with the location of the troops, and immediately boiled a pot of water, took advantage of the enemy's meal, sent it to the office, stole the map, and ran back to Pingmanna in the starry night.
I saw this map of the Japanese army with my own eyes, indicating that two new wings of the 18th Division, the 56th and 124th Division, and one battalion of mountain artillery and one battalion of heavy artillery, immediately transferred to the front.
The retreating armored units of the Anglo-Burmese Army The picture comes from the Internet
On April 11~16, the enemy's reinforcements attacked in turns, the artillery bombardment was more intense, and the bombardment of Pingmanna was continuous, and the new 22nd Division used sniper ambush and guerrilla warfare to deal a great blow to the enemy.
By the evening of the 16th, our army safely entered the existing position in Pingmanna.
During this period, our guerrilla commander Huang Xiang sent his troops to shuttle back and forth in the Bago Mountains, striking at the enemy's rear transportation and attacking the Tonggu airfield.
By 7 April, they detected that the enemy had increased by more than 3,000 men from Rangoon to Tonggu. Unfortunately, the regiment commander Wang Zhaozhong did not have enough experience, and most of the officers and men of the regiment were new recruits, so he did not disturb the enemy many times, let alone deal serious blows.
However, from all sides later, the information they obtained was basically consistent with the documents of the front-line troops that found the enemy.
In this battle, our army's tactics were flexible, making the enemy unpredictable and suffering heavy casualties. The enemy's 55th Division was so dilapidated that it had to add the 18th Division as the main force, and our new 22nd Division also suffered more than 1,500 casualties.
On the 18th, after the enemy detected that we had abandoned the plan for the Battle of Pingmanna, the main forces of the 56th Division of Tonggu were transferred to the Moltke side, and on the 19th, 48 enemy tank transporters were found in Paula.
On the same day, our temporary 55th Division lost contact, and Luo Yikao was lost. On the 23rd, the Japanese army entered Tangji and attacked eastward at the same time, and Lorim fell on the same day.
Our 6th Army was divided and used, and each battalion and regiment were broken by the enemy, and the worst thing was that as soon as they came into contact with the enemy, they left the road, and the commanders at all levels lost their grasp, so that the gate of Lashio was wide open and the enemy was able to drive straight in.
Jingdong, on the other hand, never made contact with the enemy.
During this time, the British army had all assembled on the western route. On April 1, he abandoned Prome, and on the 5th, he abandoned the temple of Aran, and then retreated day by day.
The Anglo-Burmese army is retreating The picture comes from the Internet
On April 13, the British army demanded that the Chinese troops take over the defense of the British troops on the British side, such as Saswar, Don Dewenyi, and Magway, and cover the retreat of the British army, which was tantamount to handing over all the defenses to us, without mentioning the future tasks of the British army.
By the 17th, about 7,000 British troops of the 1st Division and the Armored Brigade at Ringanqiang were surrounded by a battalion of the enemy, which was the biggest joke in the history of the war.
Since our new 22nd Division came into contact with the enemy on 26 March, it fought with the enemy for 21 days until 16 April, and our troops attacked first and then defended, and fought fiercely for 12 consecutive days with the tactics of resistance and superiority of the enemy (five wings successively), not only accomplishing the task of covering the main force, but also attritioning and striking at the enemy and leading the enemy deep into the decisive battle area favorable to us. It can be said that this is a rare example in the history of our anti-Japanese expedition.
Wang Chuying dictated:
After the plan for the Battle of Tonggu failed, Stilwell and Du Yuming, commander of the 5th Army, jointly planned the plan for the Battle of Pingmanna, the gist of which was that with the cooperation of the British troops on the Western Front, the Chinese Expeditionary Force concentrated its main forces on the central front in the area of Pingmanna in central Burma, killed and wounded a large number of enemy troops with stubborn resistance, lured one or two Japanese divisions to the preset positions of our army, and then surrounded and annihilated them.
On April 5, Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Meiling and his wife, accompanied by Stilwell, approved the "Battle Plan of Pimphana" and asked Stilwell to persuade the newly arrived British commander-in-chief, Alexander, to fulfill the promises they had made:
Hold the key points on the Western Front so that the Chinese Expeditionary Force can fight the Japanese army in a decisive battle at Pingmanna.
Alexander was no idle man, and in the European theater he was famous for successfully directing the Dunkirk retreat, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent him to Burma with self-evident intentions.
Sure enough, Alexander not only did not support the plans of the Chinese expeditionary force, but, in turn, asked the Chinese to send a division to the Western Front to support the British in the battle.
Chiang Kai-shek found that the British army had no intention of participating in the Battle of Pingmanna, and judged that the British army was likely to retreat without authorization, so in order to enable the 5th Army to fight a decisive battle with the Japanese army at Pingmana as planned and break through its way first, Chiang Kai-shek decided: With the Chinese Expeditionary Force as the mainstay, the Battle of Pingmanna should be continued.
From a purely military point of view, I think that Chiang Kai-shek's decision to hold the Battle of Pingmana and put forward specific guidelines and requirements for the battle was very thoughtful and the measures were very appropriate, and this battle was originally a sure chance of victory.
The key problem, however, was that the British not only had no intention of participating in the Battle of Pingmanna, but also "did not want to see the Chinese army win the battle in Burma, creating a reason for the Chinese to rely on not leaving Burma."
On the night of February 28, 1942, when Bago said goodbye to me, Colonel Anderson, deputy chief of staff of the British 17th Division, and Major Derivation of the armored battalion, revealed to me what Wavell, the British supreme commander in Burma, had said to the two of them.
In fact, the British army's heavy equipment such as tanks and artillery was obviously stronger than that of the Japanese army, but they had no intention of fighting and feared the enemy like tigers.
Just when the Chinese Expeditionary Force was launched on the Pingmanna front, the British army began to withdraw northward on April 4, and by April 6, the right side of our army's Pingmanna front was completely exposed to the threat of the Japanese army, forcing Du Yuming to rush to Magway on the 13th to meet with Lieutenant General Slim, commander of the Anglo-Burmese 1st Army, and once again asked the British army to hold the current position and not to retreat;
He also hoped that the British artillery and tanks would send a unit to support the Battle of Pimpana.
Slim immediately spoke to Alexander to discuss the matter, and Alexander, known as the "retreating general", repeated his old trick again, instead of supporting the Chinese army in battle, he asked the Chinese army to send elite troops to cover the retreat of the British army.
Du Yuming immediately flatly refused, saying: "Since you must retreat, then please do it! We will fight the Battle of Pingmanna alone." See you soon!"
After saying that, he left angrily, and Du Yuming's first meeting with Slim ended unhappily.
As the saying goes, the British army retreated again and again, and soon it was out of control, and finally, in just ten days, its most important strategic energy base, Ren'anqiang, was exposed to the blade of the Japanese army.
Ringanqiang is the largest oil field in Burma, with an annual output of more than 1 million tons of oil, and the Japanese army invading Burma has long coveted it, trying to seize this extremely important strategic target as soon as possible and plunder its rich oil for the urgent needs of its war of aggression.
Ringanqiang is bordered by the Bago Mountains in the east, the Irrawaddy River in the west, about 250 kilometers away from Mandalay, an important town in northern Myanmar in the northeast, 450 kilometers away from Yangon in the south, and only 45 kilometers away from Magway Air Base in the south.
The place is bordered by the Yin River in the south, the Bin River in the north, the inner desert area, the oil production derrick towering everywhere, the 510 Plateau near the Bin River (the west side of the river highland is named Baita Mountain) and the 510 Plateau (the name Miaofeng Mountain) near the Yin River in the south is the commanding heights of the control oil field area.
In the oil field, there are two asphalt roads in the east-west and north-south directions that intersect between Baita Mountain and Miaofeng Mountain, one road leads from the oilfield wharf on the Irrawaddy River to Na Maung on the east railway line, and the other road connects from the Bin River Bridge to the Magway Air Base in the south through the western foot of Miaofeng Mountain.
On the 14th, the British abandoned Magway and immediately blew up the Ringanqiang oil field. Slim personally led the 13th Brigade and more than a dozen tanks to retreat to Guiyu and Xiaobu via Ringanqiang, the Anglo-Burmese 1st Division and the Chariot Battalion retreated from Magway to Ringanqiang, and the British 17th Division and the Armored Brigade retreated north from Dong Dunzhi to Na Maung (aka: Natuk).
On the 15th, the commander of the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army, Lieutenant General Sakurai Province, learned that the Ren'anqiang oil field had been bombed by the British army, and looked at the fire in the sky, and the sound was moving, so he ordered the commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 214th Wing, Takashi Takashio, to lead his unit, a team of light armored vehicles, mountain artillery, and rapid-fire guns to gallop to the north bank of the Bin River by car.
Soon, the Japanese army took control of the bridge, cut off the British retreat in one fell swoop, and captured 280 officers and men of the British logistics unit and the 13th Brigade.
The Japanese army attacking the Ringanqiang oil field The picture comes from the Internet
The main force of the 214th Wing and the 3rd Mountain Artillery Brigade tracked the British 13th Brigade to occupy the area near the intersection of roads in the oilfield area, and sent troops to extinguish the fire and rescue the oilfield facilities.
Before dusk, Major General Scott, commander of the 1st Anglo-Burmese Division, led the 1st and 2nd Brigades and the Tank Battalion, a total of 7,683 people, under the pressure of the Araki Detachment of the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army, to retreat from Magway to the Ringanqiang oil field.
The Araki Detachment consisted of the 213th Wing commanded by Major General Infantry Commander Shoji Araki, the main force of the 33rd Mountain Artillery Wing, the 33rd Engineer Wing, and the 3rd Rapid-Fire Artillery Squadron.
As soon as the British troops entered the road intersection area in the oil field area, they were blocked by the main force of the Japanese 214th Wing and the 1st Brigade of the 214th Wing who arrived by boat from the Irrawaddy River, and the Araki detachment, which was following the pursuit, attacked from behind the British troops.
The division immediately fell into the encirclement of the Japanese army, and they launched several attacks on the Japanese army, but to no avail.
At the same time, the British 13th Brigade, supported by tanks, armored vehicles and artillery, also launched an attack on the Japanese Gaoyan Brigade on the north bank of the Bin River, but it was met with a strong counterattack by the Japanese army, which not only failed to drive the Japanese army, but lost dozens of officers and soldiers and several tanks and armored vehicles, and returned in vain.
Subsequently, Slim ordered the British 17th Division and the 7th Armored Brigade to attack Ringanqiang with all their strength and rescue the encircled British and Burmese 1st Division.