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The Battle of Ramree Island was fought for six weeks during January and February 1945, as part of the Indian XV Corps 1944/45 offensive on the Southern Front of the Burma Campaign during World War II. Ramree Island (Yangbye Kywan) lies off the Burma coast and in 1942 the rapidly advancing Imperial Japanese Army captured the island along with the rest of Southern Burma. In January 1945 the Allies launched an attack to retake Ramree and its neighbour Cheduba, with the intention of establishing sea-supplied airbases on the islands. The Japanese garrison of Ramree consisted of the 121st Infantry regiment, part of the Japanese 54th Division. The regiment's commander was Colonel Kanichi Nagazawa. The battle is also associated with reports of many Japanese soldiers being eaten by the thousands of saltwater crocodiles lying in wait in the inland swamps. The Guinness Book of World Records has listed it both as "Worst crocodile disaster in the world" and "Most Number of Fatalities in a Crocodile Attack". == Battle == The battle started with Operation Matador, an amphibious assault to capture the strategic port of Kyaukpyu – located at the northern tip of Ramree Island, south of Akyab across Hunter's Bay – and the key airfield near the port. Reconnaissance carried out on 14 January 1945 disclosed Japanese forces busily placing guns to sweep the landing beaches on Ramree, so the Royal Navy assigned a battleship and an escort carrier to provide heavy naval support to the task force. On 21 January, an hour before the 71st Indian Infantry Brigade was to land, the battleship opened fire with her main battery while planes from the escort carrier spotted for her. The light cruiser HMS ''Phoebe'' also joined the bombardment, along with B-24 Liberators and P-47 Thunderbolts of No. 224 Group RAF, (under the command of HQ RAF Bengal and Burma), which strafed and bombed the beaches. The assault troops landed unopposed on the beaches securing the beachhead. The following day, the 4th Indian Infantry Brigade landed. On 26 January in Operation Sankey, a Royal Marine force landed on the Cheduba, which lies to the south of Ramree, to find that it was not occupied by the Japanese. On Ramree the Japanese garrison put up tenacious resistance. The 36th Indian Infantry Brigade landed with RAF and Royal Marine units. When the Marines outflanked a Japanese stronghold the nine hundred defenders within it abandoned the base and marched to join a larger battalion of Japanese soldiers across the island. The route forced the Japanese to cross 16 kilometres of mangrove swamps. As they struggled through the thick forests the British forces encircled the area of the swampland. Trapped in deep mud-filled land, tropical diseases soon started afflicting the soldiers, as well as encountering scorpions, tropical mosquitoes and saltwater crocodiles. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Ramree Island」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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