288 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
Dhillon, a flamboyant Sikh of fi cer who commanded many Tamil re-
cruits of the Nehru brigade. Bose’s military secretary, Prem Kumar
Sahgal, was sent to the front at Mount Popa, while the youn ger Meh-
boob Ahmed, who had distinguished himself in the Haka- Falam sector,
took his place at Bose’s side.^108
On February 10, 1945, five waves of American B- 29s dropped con-
ventional and incendiary bombs on the INA hospital in Myang, six
miles outside Rangoon, and completely razed it. The hospital was
clearly marked with a large Red Cross sign, but the Japanese had
an ammunition dump in the woods not too far away. Many patients
were killed in this raid by the American fly ing fortresses, four- engine
heavy bombers, and the survivors with severe burns were evacuated
to the general hospital in Rangoon. Swami and Ayer had rushed in
Bose’s car to the site of the attack and narrowly escaped serious injury.
When the attack ended, the supreme commander’s car lay upside down
at the edge of a ten- foot by six- foot crater left by one of the bombs.
Aziz Ahmed, the commander of the INA’s second division, received a
head injury and was at least temporarily put out of action. For the next
week, Netaji visited the burn victims at the general hospital two or
three times a day, and personally made sure they got the best medical
care available. He came back from these hospital visits feeling mo-
rose.^109
On February 18, Bose departed Rangoon for the battlefront to the
north. He had given his soldiers an opportunity to leave, if for any rea-
son they did not wish to fight. He wanted only the fully committed
among his followers to make a brave stand against the British advance.
He inspected the Imphal veterans who had taken up a defensive posi-
tion at Pyinmana, and forged ahead to Meiktila with Shah Nawaz.
Meanwhile, on February 14, the Nehru Brigade under Dhillon had
thwarted the first British attempt at crossing the Irrawady at Nyaungu,
sinking many of the boats and in flicting many casualties on Slim’s
South Lancashire Regiment. Initially, the British crossing at Pagan was
blocked as well. These dogged rearguard actions delayed but could not
prevent William Slim’s well- planned assault by the 7th British Indian
division on the Japanese and INA defenses on the eastern banks of the
Irrawady.^110