A battery of Ordnance SB 4.2-inch mortars firing. At Hlegu chaung (river or watercourse) vehicles are hauled up the riverbank. An Indian Army Public Relations officer, Captain Freddie Palmer, sits in his jeep as it is pulled up the riverbank. Men pulling on tow ropes. Colonel Jenkins, also of Indian Army Public Relations, lends a hand. A jeep fords the chaung.

The town of Pegu in flames. A milestone reads 'RGN 50' indicating 50 miles to Rangoon, the Burmese capital. The Chief Royal Engineer of 17th Indian Division measures the damage to a road bridge at Pegu, demolished by the retreating Japanese on 1 May. An infantryman crosses a road. An emaciated captured Japanese soldier, with a severe-looking head wound thickly bandaged, is carried out of a building and placed into an ambulance.

Scenes of the 17th Indian Division (IV Indian Corps) at Pegu, during the drive on Rangoon, Burma.

Notes

Pegu (now Bago) was the last major town on the road to Rangoon, and if its river could be bridged there would be nothing to stop IV Corps' advance on the city. The commander of 17th Indian Division, Major-General 'Punch' Cowan, who had led the division throughout almost the entire Burma campaign since 1942, had been desperate to reach Rangoon and five of his battalions had been forced to retreat all the way to India three years previously. Ultimately he was denied by a monsoon season that broke two weeks earlier than expected and Rangoon was taken after an unopposed amphibious landing by 26th Indian Division.

The 4.2-inch mortar battery may be of 82nd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, which was attached to 17th Indian Division.

The state of the Japanese prisoner may be taken as representative of many Japanese casualties, as by this point the Japanese Army's logistical infrastructure in Burma was approaching total collapse and many soldiers unable to march were simply abandoned to die of their wounds or disease.

The first 30 feet or so of this reel (showing the chaung crossing) were shot by the cameraman on 9 May 1945 as a means of finishing off his roll of film. The rest of the footage thereafter is from 2 May 1945 during the consolidation of Pegu, the Japanese having withdrawn the day before.