Yenangyaung

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Yenangyaung (Burmese; literally "stream of oil") is a city in Magway Division, Myanmar, on the Irrawaddy River. The dominant industry in the area is petroleum.

In World War II Yenangyaung was the location of a strategically and tactically important oil refinery. As a result of the speed and success of the Japanese advance up through Burma during the Burma Campaign and the Battle of Yenangyaung, the retreating Allied forces were forced to blow up the oil fields and refinery to prevent them falling into the hands of the Japanese. This difficult task was left to a small group of men who had experience with explosives and demolitions, some from serving with the Bombay Pioneers, part of the British Indian Army, in World War I. The oil facilities were destroyed at 2200 hours on April 16, 1942 [1].

Minute details of this retreat and demolition are found in the first half of "Retreat with Stilwell", by correspondent Jack Belden, Garden City Books, New York, 1943.

This group included Lt. Col. Arthur Herbert Virgin OBE, formerly of the 2nd Bombay Pioneers, who at that time would have been a Captain or Major in the 20th Burma Rifles, which later formed part of the Fourteenth Army under Field Marshall Sir William Slim. He and the rest of the men had then to escape through enemy held territory back to Imphal and Kohima in India, a distance of nearly 1,000 miles. This escape included swimming across the Irrawaddy River, as the only bridge had been blown up to delay the Japanese advance.