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| Sunday, 27 June 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Snatches of the Second World War by Sharm de Alwis Sixty years ago the carnage of the Second World War came to an end. My father, father-in-law and uncle were actively involved in the Theatre of the 2nd World War. All three of them were in the King's VIIIth Army. Whilst the first two were in the back-up divisions. H.S. (Rajah) Kadigawe was decorated with the Oak leaf for valour and courage. The Oak Leaf is the overflow of the Victoria Cross which has a stipulated number for decoration. H. S. Kadigawe was a paratrooper in the Burma (Miyanmar) skies and, because of his excellence, he was sent to the War Theatre in Europe. It was there that he was awarded the Oak Leaf. When Gen. Geoff was killed, Gen. Montgomery took command but the greatest British Field Commander of the Second World War was the 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis. He fought victories and also brought to safety under the heavy muzzle of the German armies, the forces from the beaches of Dunkirk, more than 338,000 troops were evacuated within eight days. When Japan entered the War at the end of 1941 and invaded Burmar it looked as though the British would withdraw from the frontier. Alexander was immediately sent out to take command of the British and Commonwealth forces. He found on arrival that the situation was beyond recovery. Ill-equipped troops and non-existent lines of communication. With the help of General Slim, Alexander withdrew troops northwards past Mandalay to launch a re-conquest of Burma two years later. The brilliant campaign of survival impressed the allied High Command and when Rommel the Desert Fox, was poised at El Alamein, to strike at Cairo, Alexander was rushed to take over the Supreme Command of the Middle East from Gen. Auchinleck. Simultaneously Gen. Montgomery took command of the King's Eighth Army in which my father and father-in-law fought. My uncle was immediately brought from Burma to operate in the Middle East skies. Although the victory at El Alamein belonged to Montgomery, the over-all Middle East strategy was Alexander's. With the use of superior air support in which my uncle, H.S. Kadigawe shone, to be awarded the Oak Leaf, Alexander finally compelled the enemy to surrender on 13th of May 1943. Thus ended the Tunisian campaign. The invasion of Sicily followed. Here, too, H.S. Kadigawe was on frequent paratrooper forays. Airborne and seaborne landing after the paratrooper reconnaissances proved to major factor in the heavily defended manouvres of the European war theatre. Alexander's XVth Army, Gen. Patton's American Seventh Army and King's VIIIth Army joined together to occupy the island within five weeks. While the eighth Army crossed the Straits of Messina to land on the Italian mainland, Gen. Mark Clark's American fifth Army landed south of Naples in an attempt to cut off the German forces in the South. The element of surprise was lacking at Salerno and the German forces acted swiftly to put the invaders to the beach-head until reinforcements were rushed for the finishing job. The eighth Army overcame resistance in the south of Italy but by the time the slow advance reached for the 5th and eighth Armies to join up, the Germans were well garrisoned from Volturno river on the West coast to Termoli on the East. This was a powerfully devastating line. Alexander decided to break this line before Winter set in within two months. Using the American fifth and the King's eighth Armies, he broke through on the Volturno front but came up against a prepared line fifty miles further on. The eighth Army, now under Gen. Leese, swung north beyond Termoli but found that Kesselring had created another strong coast to coast line, known as the Gustav line. But here the American General John P. Lucas made a technical blunder, which eased the pressure on the Germans. This failure to maintain the offensive was a great drawback and it was left to the gallant Polish troopers to save the bacon for the Allied Forces. The rest of the Italian campaign was a lengthy pursuit of the retreating German armies. The final phase was played out in April 1945 when the eighth Army attached itself behind the flame-throwing tanks and broke through southern Bologna. A few days later the German forces in the Italian theatre surrendered. And that marked the end of the second World War of which the final curtain came down on June 6, 1944, for Churchill to predict, "When the war of the giants is over, the wars of the pygmies will begin." Cullings from war heroes biographies |
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