THE ROAD TO MANDALAY 

On Mandalay all force converge

As Campaign’s pattern showed;                                                                       

Behind great river Japs emerge -                                  

for Slim new problems posed.

Lieutenant General Leese was told

To hasten and seize Rangoon;

For to secure the Burma Road

Must strike before monsoon.

Mountbatten reinforced and planned

Amphibious fleet required;

And sea-borne landings quickly spanned

As he his men inspired.

Across charred bodies of the dead

And shattered foxholes reach;

Attacking soldier quickly sped

As shellfire blast and breach.

So Sutton and Christison met

And Lashio contain;

And Akyab and Ramree get

Secured where airfields lain.

Withdrawal of Dakotas meant

Entire offensive slowed;

But Browning increased supplement

To cross where river flowed.

And Japanese now concentrates

By Irrawady hides;

But Slim against rear infiltrates

To thrust hard with surprise.

The timber that grew on the bank

Slim’s men like shipwrights seem;

The boats they made were seldom sank

But floated fast on stream.

The Royal Navy now had ship

That by the Army built;

Where Bofors and Oerlikon spit

Their cannon up to the hilt.

A fake Corps H.Q. chose to use

So Japs massed high with gun;

Slim masked deception of the move

Then blasted as they come.

Now set for battle was the scene

With three Divisions crossed;

Both air and motorized between

So Japanese were lost.

As ‘Dagger Div’ surged southward fast

Leese hammered all the way;

Across the golden shrines of past

They fought for Mandalay.

The battle of the plain raged on

Until the tide was turned;

The British and the Indian throng –

Shot, bombed and hacked and burned.

So in the ‘City of the Kings’

Like butterfly in Spring;

A white flag fluttered like white wings-

Relinquished everything…

Shut in by bamboos’ forest cane

And sixty miles from sea;

The last Campaign of Arakan

Was of necessity.