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 ON MARCH BEHIND JAPANESE LINES, BRIG. GENERAL MERRILL (WITH MAP) CONFERS WITH STAFF. SECOND FROM RIGHT IS LIEUT. COLONEL CHUN LEE, CHINESE LIASON OFFICER. |
In northern Burma American ground troops are fighting a particularly ugly kind of war.In other parts of the world they have fought against greater numbers and better arms.But in this inaccessible segment of Asia (see map below) they have their hardest battle with geography.Every offensive effort is terribly circumscribed by dank climate, mountainous terrain and matted jungle.Raiding columns, which do much of the fighting in Burma, walk for weeks on the jungle trails, living on K rations dropped to them from the air.Tiny shelter tents strung up on bamboo poles are their only protection from the drenching monsoon rains.Horrid leeches hang from trees to snag men as the pass by.Even without the Japanese, the Burmese jungle is a grim, unpleasant place. In spite of these hazards, the small force of U.S. troops fighting in Burma has accomplished some military prodigies.Under the command of Brig. General Frank Merrill, they hiked over one mountain range in March to cut off the Japanese facing Lieut. General Joseph Stilwell's main forces in the Hukawng valley.Last month, accompanied by Chinese, they crossed another range into the valley of the upper Irrawaddy, marching 100 miles in 25 days to take a key airfield south of the big Japanese base of Myitkyina.Today U.S. and Chinese troops are battling inside Myitkyina, which the Japanese have turned into a minor Cassino.On this page is shown the photographic record made by LIFE's Bernard Hoffman of Merrill's great march and the capture of Myitkyina airfield. |
 SAME DAY THEY PASSED UNMOLESTED WITHIN MILE OF BIG JAPANESE ENCAMPMENT. |
 Marauder patrol, eyes searching the bamboo underbrush with feral alertness, walks down the jungle trail to protect the main column.All of these men carry automatic weapons for quick firing in case they should meet any Japanese.Second man also carries curved Gurkha knife.Little groups like this continuously patrol around columns to prevent possible surprises. |
 At first-aid station in bamboo thicket a Marauder is treated for foot injury.Two medical units, one led by Lieut. Colonel Gordon Seagrave (author of Burma Surgeon). traveled with columns.Their supplies were carried on horseback in big boxes like one patient sits on above. |
 Horse rises after slipping at edge of clearing.Although wearing a saddle, horse is being used as a pack animal.On much of march soil was so perniciously wet that men sank into mud up to show tops.Even on 3,000-foot hills the mud sapped strength of walking troops. |
 Marauder blows on tiny fire to warm his breakfast in canteen cup.Breakfast, like every other meal on Merrill's march, was canned K ration.The men wake stiff and sore from dampness of nightly rains and humid expirations of the heavy underbrush.During march over hills and down Irrawaddy River valley to Myitkyina, they traveled light.They even discarded all of the mess kit except cup and spoon.They carried no towels, toothbrushes, bedrolls, raincoats or extra clothing.Each man had only his weapons, ammunition and a "shelter half," or pup tent. |
 On stony Myitkyina airfield a dead Japanese lies where he was shot down.A C-47 transport takes off while another burns from strafing attack made by four Zeros five minutes previously.Airfield, two miles south of Myitkyina, was captured on May 17 when Merrill's men hooked around city from the north at end of 25-day march.On May 23 the Japanese, still within sniping distance, made one big try to take it back.At the time, LIFE Photographer Hoffman was the only correspondent there.When the attack began, Hoffman was sleeping in a wrecked C-47.Weakened by a terrific Japanese machine-gun barrage, he left the plane in a violent rainstorm and spent the rest of the night with three other men in a slit trench filled neck-deep with water.Marauders beat off Japanese, moved on to Myitkyina itself, where they are still fighting. |
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MAP: IN BURMA where the monsoon rains bogged down the armies, there was fighting for Myitkyina.The allies were trying to open a new supply route into China.General Stilwell was still advancing down the Ledo Road and Merrill's Marauders were already in Myitkyina.To the west the British, having stopped the Jap advance into India, were moving slowly eastward.They cleared a Japanese road block 16 miles south of Kohima.To the east the Chinese had crossed the Burma Road and Salween River. Crippled C-47 is towed off runway by midget bulldozers immediately after crash.Bulldozers small enough to be carried in a transport are special size for airborne operations.Everything brought to Myitkyina field by Merrill's men was flown in or carried by men and animals. |
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 AFTER A SNIPER'S BULLET PINGS BY. -MORE- |
 General Stilwell, reflectively fondling his Winchester carbine, talks with two of General Merrill's officers at Myitkyina airfield.The man at the left, armed to the teeth with carbine, pistol and dirk, is Captain Dick Young, an Hawaiian-born Chinese who is Stilwell's personal aide.Two hours after Stilwell flew out, Japanese fighters made fierce strafing attack on the field. |
 Like most good generals, Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell likes to see what his men are doing at first-hand.He flew in to Myitkyina airfield the day after it had been captured, when the Japanese were still close and full of fight.The wounded were coming in so fast that Colonel Seagrave's medical unit was set up in the open, without shelter or camouflage.For Joe Stilwell, Myitkyina is more than just another tactical objective.It is the last hard core of Japanese resistance in northern Burma.When the Japanese are driven out of their last foothold there Stilwell's men will have cleared the Jap salient which has barred him so long from China. |
 Three Japanese were killed at edge of airfield an hour before this picture was made.Headless body in foreground, bleeding on pile of stones, was mutilated by grenade explosion. |
 Merrill's artillery shells Japanese falling back into Myitkyina itself.Gun is U.S. 75-mm howitzer, a fine little weapon which may be carried in planes or in pieces on backs of pack animals. |
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LIFE'S COVER: The day American soldiers landed in Normandy to win back France's liberty, the great symbol of freedom that France had given America shone brightly again in New York harbor.Since Pearl Harbor, the Statue of Liberty has been dark except for a small beacon.At sunset on D-day, Liberty's light went on in full glory for 15 minutes, then went out once again until the war is really won.
