Battle of Ramree Island

The Battle of Ramree Island (also Operation Matador) was fought in January and February 1945, during the Second World War, as part of the XV Indian Corps offensive on the Southern Front in the Burma Campaign. Ramree Island (Yangbye Kywan) lies off the Burma coast,  south of Akyab (now Sittwe). The island had been captured by the Imperial Japanese Army in early 1942, along with the rest of Southern Burma. In January 1945, the Allies launched an attack to retake Ramree and its neighbour Cheduba Island, to establish airbases on the islands for the supply of the mainland campaign. There have been reports of Japanese soldiers being eaten by saltwater crocodiles living in the inland mangrove swamps; the Guinness Book of World Records has listed it as "worst crocodile disaster in the world" and "most number of fatalities in a crocodile attack" but scientists and historians have dismissed this as implausible.

Background
The early capture of Akyab made the 26th Indian Infantry Division (Major-General Henry Chambers) available for an attack on Ramree Island,  to the south, the island being  long and  wide, flat and an obvious site for airfields. A plan was ready by 2 January, when it was clear that the advance of the Fourteenth Army (Lieutenant-General William Slim) would soon pass beyond the range of its airbases at Imphal and Agartala; replacements at Chittagong, Akyab and Ramree would be needed. On 14 January, the 26th Indian Division was ordered to attack Ramree on 21 January, as a Royal Marine detachment from 3 Commando Brigade occupied Cheduba Island. The Japanese garrison of Ramree consisted of the II Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment (Colonel Kanichi Nagazawa), part of the 54th Division, with artillery and engineer detachments to act as an independent force.

Prelude

The battle started with Operation Matador, an amphibious assault to capture the strategic port of Kyaukpyu at the north end of Ramree Island and the airfield near the port, south of Akyab across Hunter's Bay. The invasion force was led by three Joint Assault Commanders, Captain Bush RN, Major-General Cyril Lomax and Wing Commander H. Smith. Reconnaissance carried out on 14 January 1945, found that Japanese forces were placing artillery in caves overlooking the landing beaches on Ramree and the Royal Navy assigned the battleship , the escort carrier , light cruiser , the destroyers Rapid, Napier, Norman and Pathfinder, with the sloops Flamingo and RIN Kistna, to provide more firepower in support of the task force. On 21 January, an hour before the 71st Indian Infantry Brigade (Brigadier R. C. Cotterell-Hill) was to land, Queen Elizabeth opened fire with  of -shell from the main battery, while aircraft from Ameer spotted the fall of shot. Phoebe also joined the bombardment, along with Consolidated B-24 Liberators, North American B-25 Mitchells and Republic P-47 Thunderbolts of 224 Group Royal Air Force (RAF), under the command of HQ RAF Bengal and Burma, that strafed and bombed the beaches.

Battle

The assault troops were slightly delayed when a motor launch and a landing craft struck mines but landed unopposed on the beaches west of Kyaukpyu at  securing the beachhead by the afternoon. The following day, the 4th Indian Infantry Brigade (Brigadier J. F. R. Forman) landed, took over the beachhead and occupied Kyaukpyu and on 23 January, the 71st Infantry Brigade advanced southwards, down the west coast. Two days later Mayin was occupied and the troops reached the Yanbauk Chaung the next day. Resistance at the chaung from the troops of the II Battalion, 121st Regiment increased and on 31 January, the 71st Brigade was ordered to move inland, north-east towards Sane, then head south towards Ramree town. The 4th Brigade was to keep the defenders at Yanbauk Chaung under pressure and follow up vigorously should they retire.

(On 26 January in Operation Sankey, a Royal Marine force landed on Cheduba island, about  from the south-west coast of Ramree Island and found it unoccupied.) On Ramree, the Japanese garrison put up tenacious resistance but on 1 February, the 71st Indian Infantry Brigade reached Sane and parts of the 36th Indian Infantry Brigade, from reserve, took Sagu Kuyun Island and relieved the marines on Cheduba Island. When the British outflanked a Japanese stronghold, the  abandoned the base and marched to join a larger battalion of Japanese soldiers across the island. The route took the Japanese through  of mangrove swamp and as they struggled through it, the British encircled the area. Trapped in deep mud-filled land, tropical diseases soon started to afflict the soldiers, as did scorpions, tropical mosquitoes and saltwater crocodiles.

On 7 February, the 71st Indian Infantry Brigade and supporting tanks reached the town of Ramree and found determined Japanese resistance. The 4th Indian Infantry Brigade had advanced to Ledaung Chaung and was sent east to reinforce the attack; the town fell on 9 February. The navy and the 26th Indian Infantry Division then concentrated on blockading the chaungs (small streams) on the east coast to prevent the Japanese from escaping to the mainland. A Japanese air raid on 11 February seriously damaged a destroyer with a near miss and forty small craft were sent by the Japanese from the mainland to rescue the survivors of the garrison. Japanese resistance on the island ended on 17 February and the Allied blockade was maintained until 22 February, sinking many of the rescue craft and inflicting many casualties on the Japanese troops hiding in the mangrove swamps; about  managed to get away. Cheduba Island was not garrisoned and the 22nd East African Brigade was sent to hold Ramree Island.

Aftermath

Analysis
In 1965, the British official historian Stanley Woodburn Kirby wrote that the Japanese defence of the island and the escape of about  against "fearful odds", had been courageous and determined. It took until 16 April for the airfield to be used for transport sorties, Akyab having come into use on 1 April. It had been vital to complete the occupation of Ramree Island quickly, as Operation Dracula against Rangoon needed to commence in the first week of May at the latest, to have a chance of finishing before the monsoon. The experience in co-operation between the 26th Indian Division and the navy in the war of chaungs and small ports along the Arakan coast was intended to be exploited in the attack. An estimate put naval gunfire support from 4 January to 13 March for the land operations at Akyab, Ramree and Cheduba at  The navy also carried    of stores and

Crocodile attack

Some British soldiers, including the naturalist Bruce Stanley Wright, who participated in the battle, claimed that the large population of saltwater crocodiles native to the mangrove swamps on Ramree Island preyed on the trapped Japanese force at night and ate many soldiers. Wright gave a description in Wildlife Sketches Near and Far (1962), quoted by Frank McLynn,

If Wright was correct, the Ramree Island crocodile attacks were the worst recorded in history. The British Burma Star Association seems to lend credence to the swamp attack stories but appears to draw a distinction between the  survivors of one attack and the  who were left to fend for themselves in the swamp. There is no corroboration of the event by contemporary British military reports or from Japanese soldiers and local Burmese civilians. Wright is the only source for a mass crocodile attack and his figures have been disputed by other historians, who call the event an urban myth. McLynn wrote

The British official history (War against Japan volume IV, The Reconquest of Burma, 1965 [2004]) referred only to "crocodile-infested mangrove swamps".

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links

 Bruce Stanley Wright, 17 September 1912 – 19 April 1975

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Ramree Island
Category:Deaths due to crocodile attacks
Ramree Island
Category:1945 in Burma
Category:Naval battles of World War II involving the United Kingdom
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Category:January 1945 events
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