The next day, he got from Mountbatten himself some of the recognition he sought for the achievements of air power. ‘No Army in history,’ said Mountbatten in a radio broadcast from London, ‘has even contemplated fighting its way through Burma from the north until now, not even in Staff College studies. The Japs came in the easy way and we pushed them out the hard way.’ To keep the troops supplied, Mountbatten had asked the air forces to fly at double the authorized rates per month. It has been by far the biggest lift of the war, ‘though heaven knows most other theatres had many more transport
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