Operation Dracula - Dracula Launched

Dracula Launched

Before the order was given to reinstate Dracula, South East Asia command had been preparing to attack Phuket Island off the Kra Isthmus. (The operation was codenamed Operation Roger.) The naval and air elements for Dracula were therefore already in place. Indian XV Corps HQ, under Lieutenant General Sir Philip Christison, was to control the ground forces.

Although the British knew by 24 April from Ultra radio intelligence that Burma Area Army HQ had left Rangoon, they were not aware that the Japanese were about to abandon the city entirely. It was believed that the landings would meet strong resistance. Under the modified plan for Dracula, the Indian 26th Division under Major General Henry Chambers would establish beachheads on both banks of the Rangoon River. The British 2nd Division would follow up through these bridgeheads several days later to launch the main assault on the city.

The Indian 26th Division and other forces sailed in six convoys from Akyab and Ramree Island between 27 April and 30 April. The naval covering force consisted of 21 Carrier Squadron of four escort carriers, two cruisers and four destroyers, and the 3rd Battle Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Walker, consisting of two battleships: (HMS Queen Elizabeth and the Free French battleship Richelieu), two escort carriers, four cruisers (one Dutch) and six destroyers. Another flotilla of five destroyers was responsible for the destruction of the main Japanese evacuation convoy. 224 Group of the Royal Air Force, under Air Vice Marshal the Earl of Bandon, covered the landings from the airfields around Toungoo and on Ramree Island.

On 1 May, twelve squadrons of B-24 Liberators bombed known Japanese defences south of Rangoon. An air force observation post, a small detachment from Force 136 and a Gurkha composite parachute battalion landed at Elephant Point at the mouth of the Rangoon River in the middle of the morning. They eliminated some small Japanese parties, either left as rearguards or perhaps forgotten in the confusion of the evacuation. They themselves suffered thirty casualties from inaccurate Allied bombing.

Once Elephant Point was secured, minesweepers cleared a passage up the river, and landing craft began coming ashore in the early hours of the morning of 2 May, almost the last day on which beach landings were possible before the heavy swell caused by the monsoon became too bad.

Meanwhile, an Allied reconnaissance aircraft flying over Rangoon saw no sign of the Japanese in the city, and also noticed a message painted on the roof of the jail by released British prisoners of war. It read, Japs gone. Extract digit - Royal Air Force slang for "Get your finger out" or "Hurry up". Boldly, the crew of the plane tried to land at Mingaladon Airfield, but crashed. They walked to the jail, where they found 1,000 former prisoners of war who informed them of the Japanese evacuation. The air crew then went to the docks, where they commandeered a sampan and sailed it down the river to meet the landing craft.