133 - Tumbling Capitals - MacArthur on the Run - WW2 - March 13, 1942

by Panzer
Wait, the emperor said they’re eating fruit too quickly?
Fruit?
Who?
Okay, the Japanese, but...
Are you sure that’s really what he said?
Okay.
March 13, 1942
It was less than a month ago that Singapore, the Gibraltar of the east, fell to the Japanese,
and this week they take another major prize.
This week comes the fall of Rangoon.
I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week saw coastal raids on France and Marcus Island, an air raid on Australia, and
the Japanese invasion of Burma continued while landings were also made across Java in their
campaign to take the Dutch East Indies.
This week on the 12th the Dutch forces formally surrender the Dutch East Indies to the Japanese
at Bandung on Java, some 100,000 Allied troops are taken prisoner.
“The Japanese were by no means unwelcome in the East Indies: the Dutch, unlike the
French, had never found the knack of tempering colonial rule by offering cultural and intellectual
equality to a subject people’s educated class.
Educated young Indonesians- as they were shortly to call themselves- responded readily to the
message that the Japanese brought co-prosperity, as they certainly brought liberation from
Dutch subjugation…”
The Japanese are moving against even more targets this week.
Already the 8th, they land in New Guinea, beginning their advance on Port Moresby and Australia.
“By this date (...) the Japanese had also attained a number of other objectives of their
initial plan.
They had landed on the east coast of New Guinea and, striking south from their bases
in the Mariana and the Caroline Islands, had moved into the Northern Solomons, and perhaps
more important, the Bismarck Archipelago which included the best harbor and most important
base in the area: Rabaul.
This series of barely contested victories gave the Japanese the southern and southeastern
anchors of their projected defense perimeter, placed them in an excellent position to threaten
Australia, and did so at what looked like very little cost to themselves.”
Not only all that, this week the Japanese take Rangoon, the Burmese capital.
British General Harold Alexander leaves Rangoon the morning of the 7th, okay?
He heads north and the road forks, like, 35 km north of the city.
To the east the road goes to Pegu, and to the west to Prome.
The Japanese have now blocked the western road.
We saw last week that they’d sent the 33rd division north around Rangoon as their 55th