Motor transport of IV Indian Corps seen passing through the Oktwin area, south of Toungoo, on the road to Rangoon, capital of Burma.

Motor transport moving down the Meiktila-Toungoo-Rangoon road south towards Rangoon. A burned-out Japanese lorry lies by the roadside. A man in a jeep pauses to talk with local Burmese civilians.

Notes

The dopesheet identifies the area as 'Ortwin', but this does not correspond to any known place in the relevant area of Burma. The cameraman also remarks on his dopesheet that at one point during the filming of this material he drove for 20 miles without finding a break in the traffic.

These vehicles form part of a headlong Allied rush for Rangoon which was motivated by two considerations, namely the need to reach the city before the onset of the monsoon, expected in mid-May, and the impending withdrawal on 1 June 1945 of US Army Air Force transport squadrons supplying 14th Army. Ultimately successful, Rangoon fell without a fight to a combined airborne and amphibious invasion in the first week of May 1945.

The official history records that by nightfall on the day this film was shot the leading elements of 5th Indian Division had reached as far as Penwegon, approximately 50 miles south of Toungoo, and less than a hundred miles from Rangoon.