The Battle of Ramry Island (also known as Operation Matador) is a battle during the Burmese campaign of World War II that took place for six weeks between January 14 and February 22, 1945 between the Anglo-Indian (XXV Indian Corps) and the Japanese ( The 121st infantry regiment of the 54th division), on the island of Ramri (Yangbye Kywan) located off the coast of Burma 110 km south of Akyab (now Sittwe), which was captured by the Japanese Imperial Army in early 1942, along with the rest of South Burma. In January 1945, the Allies launched an offensive to recapture Ramri and the neighboring island of Chaduba and establish air bases there on the islands to communicate with the mainland.
| Battle of Ramry Island | |||
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| Main Conflict: World War II , Burmese Campaign | |||
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| date | January 14 - February 22, 1945 | ||
| A place | ramri island | ||
| Total | UK victory | ||
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The British victory over the Japanese besieged on the island did not have much strategic significance, but went down in history due to the massive attack by infamous combed crocodiles on Japanese soldiers wading through the swamp. The British soldier and naturalist Bruce Stanley Wright , who participated in the battle, reported that of the more than a thousand Japanese soldiers who were on the island, the British captured only 20 in a state of shock. According to Wright, 1215 people were burnt alive by crocodiles while trying to get through the swamps of the island [1] .
Battle
The capture of Akyab began the 29th Indian Infantry Division, which landed on the island of Ramri in a place well suited for the creation of airfields [2] . The plan was ready by January 2, when it became clear that the offensive of the fourteenth army would soon require the creation of new air bases, including on about. Ramry [3] . On January 14, the 26th Indian Division was ordered to attack, while on January 21, a Royal Marine squad of 3 Commando Brigade occupied Cheduba Island.
The Japanese garrison of Ramry Island consisted of the 2nd battalion, 121st infantry regiment (Colonel Kanichi Nagasawa), part of the 54th division, artillery and engineering units, acting as an independent force.
The battle began with Operation Matador, an amphibious attack to capture a strategically important port on the northern part of Ramri Island and an airfield nearby. Reconnaissance, carried out on January 14, 1945 , found that Japanese forces deployed artillery in caves leading to the island's take-off and landing beaches. Therefore, several ships were assigned in order to provide fire support support for ground forces. January 21, an hour before the 71st Indian Infantry Brigade sent as reinforcements was supposed to land, shelling of the beach began. The assault troops were slightly delayed, but entered the battle in the afternoon. The next day, progress was made forward.
On January 26, the capture of the island of Chaduba began about 10 kilometers from the Northwest coast of Fr. Ramry On about. Ramry's Japanese garrison, meanwhile, was still resisting. But on February 1, when British troops approached, more than a thousand defenders - the sabotage corps, considered unsurpassed to repel mobile infantry attacks, left the fortress and moved to provide support to a larger battalion of Japanese soldiers on the island. After several days of travel, the route was to come through 16 kilometers of mangrove swamp, and while they were moving through it, the British had already surrounded the area. The uniform and armament of the British soldiers was not intended for passing swamps, unlike the Japanese, which were equipped with special suits and a decent arsenal of cold steel, and therefore in this case there were no armed clashes. Despite this, Japanese soldiers very quickly began to suffer losses due to tropical diseases, mosquitoes , scorpions , snakes and especially combed crocodiles inhabiting the mangroves.
On February 7, the 71st brigade, with the support of tanks, reached the city on about. Ramry met a certain Japanese resistance. A Japanese air raid on February 11th severely damaged some British ships blocking the island. The resistance of Japanese troops on the island ended on February 17, but the blockade of the island continued until February 22 β many rescue ships were sunk and many Japanese soldiers hiding in mangrove swamps were killed; but approximately 500 troops managed to escape [4] .
Crocodile Attack
British soldiers, including naturalist Bruce Stanley Wright, who participated in the battle, claimed that a large number of combed crocodiles living in the mangrove swamps of Fr. Ramri attacked the Japanese soldiers crossing the swamp. Despite the presence of weapons, Japanese soldiers could not oppose something substantial to reptiles that unexpectedly attacked from the slurry. At the same time, the main massacre began at night ... British scouts noted in reports of panic in the ranks of the enemy, indiscriminate gunfire. Wright described this case in Wildlife Sketches Near and Far (1962) [5] :
That night of February 19, 1945, the worst thing happened that any of the fighters could ever experience. The scattered rifle shots sounded in the pitch darkness of the swamps, but they were drowned out by the screams of the Japanese, crushed by the jaws of huge reptiles, and the strange alarming sounds of spinning crocodiles constituted the cacophony of hell that could hardly be heard anywhere else on Earth. At dawn, the vultures flew in to clean up what the crocodiles had left ... Of the thousands of Japanese soldiers who entered the swamps of Ramri Island, only about twenty remained alive.
In the Guinness Book of Records, this attack of crocodiles is recognized as βthe worst disaster associated with crocodiles around the worldβ and βthe largest number of people who died from the attack of crocodilesβ [6] . The reliability of this fact in itself is not in doubt among most historians [7] , it is also confirmed by the words of the British soldiers who survived and observed [8] , but with regard to the accompanying descriptions, for example - the involvement of βthousands of crocodilesβ in this case, are quite allowed some nuances. So, Francis James Macklin wrote [9] :
Most likely there is one zoological problem. If these same thousands of crocodiles were involved in the massacre, as in some urban myth, how did these ferocious monsters survive here before, and how will they survive after this attack? The ecosystem of mangrove swamps, scarce by large mammals, simply would not allow such a huge number of huge lizards exist before the arrival of the Japanese (animals are no exception to the laws of overpopulation and hunger).
Notes
- β The most massive attack of crocodiles . Date of treatment February 19, 2016.
- β St G. Saunders, H. (1975) [1954]. Royal Air Force 1939β45: The Fight is Won. III (repr. Ed.). London: HMSO. ISBN 0-11-771594-8. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
- β McLynn, Frank (2011). The Burma Campaign: Disaster Into Triumph, 1942β45. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-17162-4.
- β Woodburn Kirby, Major-General S. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO: 1965]. Butler, Sir James, ed. The War Against Japan: The Reconquest of Burma. History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series. IV. Uckfield: Naval & Military Press.
- β Bruce S Wright. Wildlife Sketches: Near and far. - 1962.
- β Russell, Alan, ed. (1987). The Guinness Book of Records 1988 . Guinness Books.
- β Wall of Fame Bruce Wright . www.chebucto.ns.ca. Date of treatment January 9, 2017.
- β The Horrific Crocodile Massacre of Ramree Island | Mysterious Universe (English) (unopened) ? . Mysterious Universe. Date of appeal April 20, 2017.
- β McLynn, Frank (2011). The Burma Campaign: Disaster Into Triumph, 1942β45. Yale University Press.