HQRS, TENTH AIR FORCE IN INDIA, BURMA -- Leading the first American troops into Rangoon four officers of a Tenth Air Force anti-aircraft battery recently completed a 780 mile, 186 day trek from Assam, India, to the tip of Burma. Their battery protected vital air supply routes used by the advancing British 14th Army.
The officers are First Lt. Robert L. Dillinger, platoon commander, Allentown, Pa.; First Lieut. Thomas M. Riley, platoon leader, Little Rock, Ark.; Capt. William G. Day, battery commander, Wilmington, N. C.: First Lt. Woodbury L. Berce. as, executive officer, son of Mr. and Mrs. W. L, Berce, Washburn.
Their anti-aircraft battery began its long journey to Rangoon when it was towed in 14 glider sorties from a base in Assam, India, to Yazagyo, Burma. It was the first glider movement of an anti-aircraft battery in the India-Burma theater and it was successful despite the fact that Jap bombers were blasting an airstrip within sight of the rice paddy where the gilders landed.
The mission of the battery was to protect vital airstrips which the British 14th Army was using as
the main source of supplies ammunition and reinforcements in their drive to cross the Chindwin river near Kalewa, Burma. While infantry troops battled the Nips only two miles away ack ack gunners protected the airstrip against enemy air attack while combat cargo planes landed an entire British air borne division.
Their next task as the British progressed rapidly through central Burma, was to guard the light plane strips in the front lines where American air commando planes were evacuating Allied wounded. By special permission of the 14th Army headquarters the American unit flew the first stars and stripes in Central Burma.
With the advance elements of the 14th, the battery protected strips at Imbuang, Kawlin, Ye-U, Shwebo, and Sinthe, Burma. At Ye-U alert gunners caught a twin engined Jap "Sally" in their sights, latter found it burning few miles away. Again at Shwebo, another twin engined Nip ventured too close to American guns and ended up a mass of wreckage full of anti-aircraft slugs,
At Sinthe, Burma, the unit took on double duties performing an anti-aircraft role by day turning infantrymen by night to fight off Jap attacks. But it was at Meiktila, an important communications and supply center, that units of the battery saw the most action. Dug in on the airstrip with rifles, machine guns and bazookas, every gunner, clerk and cook in the small detachment withstood artillery, mortar and withstood artillery motar and rifle fire, and drove back fanatical banzai charges. Under fire for 11 straight days the battery earned the reluctant praise of Tokyo Rose who broadcast "Nipponese troops were unable to take Meiktila because of a strong American force approximating a division." The only "American Force" there, it can now be revealed, was the tiny detachment of Tenth Air Force anti-aircraft gunners, numbering less than 100 men. During this engagement a, shell struck the command post, wounding Capt. Day and First Lt. Riley, though they remained there until the critical stage of the battle was over. Subsequently, Capt. Day and Lt. Riley were awarded the Purple Heart.
After Meiktila was finally secured by the Allies, the battery moved deeper into central Burma providing mobile anti-aircraft defense of vulnerable British truck convoys while protecting an airstrip at Payagi, they encountered 160 American prisoners of war who had walked 67 miles from their stockade in Rangoon. They were fed, clothed and housed by the first Americans they had seen in more than two years.
As a climax to an already climatic career the Battle weary unit were among the first troops to enter Rangoon.
First Lt. Berce attended Washburn high school, graduated from the University of Maine in 1940 before entering the service.