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Led by the partly reorganized 15th Division, the Japanese, ferrying fast in any kind of vehicle left to them, made for Toungoo, and it looked as if they might beat us to it. But I still had a shot in my locker for them. As they drew south, their way led them through the country of the Karens, a race which had remained staunchly loyal to us even in the blackest days of Japanese occupation, and had suffered accordingly.
Over a long period, in preparation for this day, we had organized a secret force, the Karen Guerillas, based on ex-soldiers of the Burma Army, for whom British officers and arms had been parachuted into the hills. It was not at all difficult to get the Karens to rise against the hated Japanese ; the problem was to restrain them from rising too soon. But now the time had come, and I gave the word, 'Up the Karens!'
Japanese, driving hard through the night down jungle roads for Toungoo, ran into ambush after ambush; bridges were blown ahead of them, their foraging parties massacred, their sentries stalked, their staff cars shot up. Air-strikes, directed by British officers, watching from the ground the fall of each stick of bombs, inflicted great damage.
The galled Japanese fought their way slowly forward, losing men and vehicles, until about Mawchi, fifty miles east of Toungoo, they were held up for several days by road-blocks, demolitions, and ambuscades. They lost the race for Toungoo.
The Karen people were our faithful allies during the Second World War when the Japanese invaded Burma. Many were brutally tortured and killed for their loyalty to the British.
How have we repaid them?
—By allowing British companies to get rich on their backs.