The long-awaited Jap breakthrough from the west over the main Rangoon-Mandalay Road, west to the
Sittang and into, they hope, Siam, was started four days ago.
He naturally concentrates on Wave11's unenviable task as Commander in Chief, the battles at Moulmein, the doomed defence of the Salween River followed by fighting along the Bilin River, the battle of
Sittang, the fight to defend Rangoon and its fall, the growing difficulty British authorities were having with some Burmese, the role of the Japanese navy and their attack on Ceylon, the loss of Mandalay and the retreat into India.
RICH Joseph William (Joe) Killed in action at
Sittang Bridge, Burma on February 23, 1942, aged 21 years.
In 1943, he was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery as Captain in commanding a counter offensive and bayonet charge against the Japanese troops on the
Sittang river.
The plain between the Pegu Yoma range and the Sittang mountains was part of the rice bowl of Asia.
The Pegu Yomas to the west and the much higher Sittang mountains to the east.
The
Sittang, lower Chindwin, and lower Salween Rivers are also used extensively by launches and other river craft, as is the maze of tributaries and creeks in the Irrawaddy Delta.
The British were defending the valley closest to India on the Irrawaddy River, leaving the Central Valley that straddled the
Sittang River to the Chinese army.
The heavily forested area around the
Sittang and Irrawaddy rivers comprised 32,250 square miles with a population of almost 600,000 people, divided into six districts (Rangoon, Henzada, Tharrawasddy, Bassien, Toungoo, and Prome).
Principal campaigns: Second Arakan (1944);
Sittang River (1945).
During the Second World War, he was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery as Captain for leading the counter-attack against the Japanese, when he sustained injuries from LMG firing on the
Sittang river.
Principal campaigns: Burma (1942); HA-GA (Arakan) (1944);
Sittang breakout (1945).
