World War II in Photographs
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1944
LEFT
The first phase of Operation Bagration,
began on June 23, and ripped the heart out
of Army Group Centre. In its second phase
the Russians exploited their advantage:
here T-34s strike deep into Lithuania in July.
RUSSIA ADVANCES
In 1944 the Red Army continued to its inexorable movement
westwards, taking Odessa in April and Sevastapol in May, and
destroying Army Group Centre in the great Byleorussian offensive
of June-July. Romania surrendered in August, Finland made
terms in September and Bulgaria changed sides the same month.
By the end of the year, the Russians had captured Belgrade,
encircled Budapest, and were braced for the final
offensive which would take them deep into Germany.
RIGHT
The Russians encircled Budapest by
December 26. Pest fell in mid-January,
1945, but it took the Russians another
month to take Buda. This tank has crashed
through a sewer in a Budapest street.
1944
315
RIGHT
Galahad, a US volunteer force often known
as Merrill's Marauders, captured Myitkyina
in Northern Burma in August. These men of
the Mars task force, including some of the
now disbanded Marauders, then advanced
from Myitkynia towards Mandalay.
LEFT
Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell,
Commander in Chief of US and Chinese
forces in the China-India-Burma theatre,
with Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill.
Stilwell's cantankerous personality earned
him the nickname "Vinegar Joe", but his
capture of Myitktkina opened up a
shorter air supply route into China than
the dangerous trip over the "Hump".
OPPOSI [ b PAGE TOP
No less than ninety-six per cent of
supplies to the 14th Army in Burma
went by air. Here a bullock is
loaded into a C-47 transport aircraft.
OPPOSITE PAGE BOTTOM
Although Indian troops had the lion's
share of the fighting in Burma, Africans also
played an important part. This photograph
shows
men of the
llth
East
African
Division near Kalewa on the Chindwin
during Slim's advance, December 1944.
314
LEFT
Sikhs of the 7th Indian
Division in the Ngakydauk Pass area.
RIGHT
A Hurricane being prepared for another
ground attack sortie, Arakan 1944.
LEFT
The little town of Kohima, 4,000
feet up in the Naga Hills, commanded
the main supply route to beleaguered
Imphal and was the subject of fierce, but
unavailing Japanese attacks in April and
May. This photograph shows the Naga
village, part of the Kohima battlefield.
1944
ABOVE
Troops scrambling up
an Arakan hillside, early 1944.
RIGHT
Tanks were useful for the close-range
reduction of Japanese strongpoints:
this Grant helps clear the Ngakydauk
Pass in the Arakan. It was passed
by the censor in May 1944.
312
1944
311
944
3ELOW
Chindits crossing a river. Bernard
Fergusson, a column commander in the
first expedition, wrote that only 95 of
his 318 men survived. More than 30
had to be abandoned on a sand-bank during
the night crossing of a fast-flowing river.
OPPOSITE PAGE
A Cecil Beaton photograph of a Gurkha
carrying a wounded comrade during the
fighting in the Arakan, January 1944.
310
1944
BURMA
In Burma the tide of war turned later than in other theatres, and
much depended on the level-headed General Sir William Slim,
commander of the 14th Army. In February 1943, Brigadier Orde
Wingate's Chindits raided deep behind Japanese lines, doing much
for battered British morale. In 1944 the Allies planned a three-pronged
offensive, in the coastal Arakan; with the second and much larger
Chindit operation; and with Chinese-American forces in the north-
east. However, the Japanese mounted a pre-emptive attack that
to fierce fighting in the Arakan and at Imphal and Kohima.
The Japanese army fell back in July after the most serious defeat
in its history, Slim followed it, crossing the Chindwin in December.
BELOW
Originally captioned as "Troops surveying the
destruction in a Burma village," this photograph
in fact shows Brigadier "Mad Mike" Calvert
(left), a column commander in the first
Chindit expedition and a brigade commander
in the second, with Lieutenant Colonel
Shaw and (right) Major James Rutherford
Lumley, father of the actress Joanna Lumley.
ABOVE
Allied airpower played a crucial role
in Burma. Here Hurri-bombers
attack a bridge on the Tiddim road.
1944
ABOVE
There was an active Italian resistance,
in which the communists played a
leading role: some 40,000 of its
members died. Here a German light
flak
gun
takes
on
partisans, winter
1943-44.
308
1944
ABOVE
Lieutenant General Mark Clark of
5th Army regarded Rome as the real
prize of the campaign, and duly took
it on June 4. A delighted Roosevelt
commented: "The first Axis capital
is in our hands. One up and two to go."
LEFT
Pisa, with its famous leaning tower,
fell in July, but another strong position,
the Gothic Line lay just to the north.
307