Chindit 2 General maps, including Strongholds and Landing Grounds.

Discussion in 'Burma & India' started by mikky, Sep 20, 2010.

  1. Matt Poole

    Matt Poole Member

    Nuts, HC, I don't have that image! At some point in the eventual future I'll reorder that can of film, as the flight line seems to follow the rail line. Can you provide a lat/long for Namkwin? I can look on-line for it tomorrow, unless you find it first. Just for my records.
     
  2. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Here are two of the more famous photos showing the construction of White City, sorry about the quality. These 'suggest' the major work was taking place eastside.

    White City Airfield 1944 copy.jpg White city:1944. copy.jpg
     
  3. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    111th... I just have a lot of 77 files too, but not the inclination to get too embedded... I have my sanity to consider...

    Matt... Namkwin was the station the 111th were supposed to be blocking at "Blackpool" but there was no direct safe point to straddle the line... they were to the west of the station by 1/2 to 1 mile... the locations for "Blackpool" will give you a fairly close lat/long marker... if you found anything in that area that would be almost more than anyone has ever seen... there are just 7 images in total that are known to exist, including an aerial shot from before the event...

    Steve... the second of your shots shows a pair of L5's jungle-side of the line...
     
  4. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Hi HC,

    You're get no argument from me there mate!!! ;)
     
  5. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    Images of White City and Broadway from Joe Milner's book
     

    Attached Files:

  6. Matt Poole

    Matt Poole Member

    Thanks for the maps, HebChin. Well, Steve's photos in Post #54 and the sketchmap sure do present strong evidence of a light plane airstrip on the east side of the rail line at White City. All I can say is I don't see it in the images I shot at the Archives. My goal will be to study additional frames from the same photo recon flight, and also to order separate imagery covering the rail line. It won't be for a while, but I'll come up with more, before London is swamped by rising sea levels.

    I'm mushy between the ears at this early hour (6:30 a.m., at work...), but I think I posted somewhere that there was no imagery for Blackpool at the Archives. I'll review things and get a handle on it, but there is a chance that the US National Archives just doesn't hold the imagery.

    Back to WORK I go!

    Cheers,

    Matt
     
  7. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    That would figure... ;)
     
  8. Matt Poole

    Matt Poole Member

    Home again...and still mushy between the ears, but at least I have my reference images of the flight overlays from the US Nat'l Archives in front of me. And I was WRONG -- there are images of Blackpool, of varying scales. There could be some very detailed images, such as the 14 Aug 1944 ones -- see the attached, where the blue "+" indicates the approx. lat/long for Blackpool. And another flight, 14 July 1944, oblique images that seem to cover the Blackpool location, looking from an overflight of the railway line. The guide isn't accurate enough to know, at this time, if the image shows the landing ground.

    Hopefully the film cans are not missing.

    There's other imagery, as well. ONE DAY, HC, you will have Blackpool photos.

    A lot of good that does you now, eh? The wait should be worth it.

    Cheers,

    Matt
     

    Attached Files:

  9. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    There's a story dad wrote down, at a point post his 2nd of 3 injuries at Blackpool, when he was on point with the Bren when 13 Platoon emerged from the jungle and onto the strip, carrying their wounded; he was blood spattered from too close proximity to a Jap grenade... an American was on the strip and saw them emerge, grabbed his camera and began snapping away...
    He never saw any image of Blackpool and this was the only time he remembered seeing a camera whilst in Burma...
    70 years in the can... that's some constipation... ;)
     
  10. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

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  11. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    This is one I'm surprised is not more readily available, considering it is within Calvert's Prisoners of Hope... his own map (no drawing credit) of "White City"...

    Both strips clearly identified...
     

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  12. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Thanks for posting HC, I always forget that there are fold out maps within the book. :rolleyes:
     
  13. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    A rather fascinating item in Col Barton's Narrative, pt. III (CAB44-184), is this a linear drawing of Ferguson's 16 Brigade's route for February 1944 - the attached is four higher resolution images of this item for the chart I'll post below...
     

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  14. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    There are glitches on the image stitch - better software might do a better job but not on my laptop...
     

    Attached Files:

  15. Matt Poole

    Matt Poole Member

    Yes, HC, thanks for that map!

    It is absolutely clear now that there were two separate landing strips at White City.

    AND...how soon I forgot what had crossed my eyes...It was only back a little over two months ago (18 Oct 2014) that Eric Vogel posted his photos of White City on this forum, in a separate White City thread entitled "White City visit, March 2014". His "now" photos show the same narrow strip of land just east of the rail line that is seen in Calvert's book.

    Eric, I hope you don't mind, but I'm reposting one of your 2014 photos here, showing the light aircraft landing strip. The available distance clearly is within the parameters of small aircraft.

    You can see this light aircraft strip in the first of my White City images from 15 Oct 1944, posted earlier in this thread. I don't have a good zoom on it, though, and I can see no aircraft in any of my digital images.

    One problem with the Calvert map, though. The Dakota landing strip, while on the west side of the rail line, is not as tiny as shown. The map version's runway length, when measured on Google Earth, is only about 560 yards. Not even close. A Dakota takeoff typically needed something like 900 yards, while a landing run for a Dakota could be over 1600 yards (according to the never-in-error Wikipedia...). So, consider the Calvert book a tiny bit off in this regard. A wonderful map otherwise!

    Cheers,

    Matt
     

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  16. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    I have just been re-reading Calvert's 'Fighting Mad'. The American light-plane pilots told him that they no longer had to use their instruments to find White City; there were so many enemy corpses strewn on the blocks barbed-wire defences, they could now find the stronghold by smell!!
     
  17. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    Barton's Narrative is in four parts; the first detailing the 1943 operation, the remainder covers Operation Thursday... the following is most of the maps to be found in the second book CAB44-183...
    The first is a general overview map for Burma, January 1944 identified as Map B...
    The next is an undated general overview map of Northern Burma identified as Map 5
    The third, identified as sketch 2, is an associated map dated 2nd to 7th March and entitled Advance on Maingkwan and Walawbum
    The fourth is identified as sketch 4 and is an undated map of Myitkina (as spelt)...
     

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  18. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    I have mislaid the map reference number (presumed A) but this is an overview map that covers the Chindit areas...
    Scale is 1:4,000,000
     

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  19. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    Sketch 3 comprises four smaller sketches... Associates... concerning 2nd and 3rd Battalions and 5307 Comp...
    Nhpum Ga Perimeter dated 28-31 March...
    Isolation of force at Nhpum Ga 31st March...
    Progress towards Nhpum Ga 4-7 April...
    End of siege at Nphum Ga 8-9 April...

    The last is Map E, entitled Advance to Kamaing and Myitkina... again associates...
     

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  20. Hebridean Chindit

    Hebridean Chindit Lost in review... Patron

    Matt... agreed re the Calvert map...

    I feel it is best to build a composite from all available maps. utilising a "real-time" modern map and the old ones overlaid, to try and create as truthful a map as possible...
     

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