The two keys to successful campaigning in Burma were the conquest of tropical diseases and the ability to supply food and ammunition over long distances. 400 tons a day used to be thought necessary for a division. The army had to invent river shipyards for ferryboats, use tar-soaked hessian to carpet the roads and grow its own vegetables. The army did everything, and the RAF and US Transport Command carried everything: men, guns, monocles, mules. Air power was the major factor. Douglas C-47 Dakotas became the work horses of the Burma campaigns, moving whole divisions. There was much leeway to make up. Most supplies came originally along the Bengal-Assam Railway, which in 1942 had a capacity of 600 tons a day. US experts were flown in from Persia, and the load transported by 1945 rose to 8630 tons daily.

Vital supplies are parachuted into the Arakan.


Douglas C-47 Dakotas