Operation "Buccaneer”

When the first plenary session of the Cairo ' Conference opened in the President’s villa on Tuesday, November 23, 1943, the topic 'for discussion was therefore South-East Asia in regard to China. Chiang Kai-shek did not stint himself with demands. He wanted an airlift of 10,000 tons over "the Hump” into China from India every month, an allied land offensive in 1944 aimed as far as Mandalay, and a naval operation to coincide with ground operations. In Chiang’s words, "the success of the operation in Burma depended, in his opinion, not only on the strength of the naval forces established in the Indian Ocean, but also on the simultaneous coordination of naval action with the land operations.” The "naval action” being considered by the British and American Chiefs-of-Staff was Operation "Buccaneer”, an amphibious attack on the Andaman Islands, which had replaced the now abandoned "Culverin” (an attack on northern Sumatra). The United States President, determined to bring aid to Chiang, was strongly in favour of "Buccaneer”; the American Chiefs-of-Staff, falling in with their President’s view, had submitted a paper before the Conference which urged that "Buccaneer” be mounted as soon as possible and that the Combined Chiefs-of-Staff direct Mount-batten to submit plans for approval. But the British were by no means so keen. They considered that the final strategy for defeating Japan should be drawn up before deciding on an incidental operation like "Buccaneer”, which might or might not fit in with that strategy. They also feared that "Buccaneer’s” need for landing craft would have adverse repercussions on the Mediterranean and "Overlord”. This question proved in fact to be the crux of the whole "Sextant” conference.