 The Sittang was unfordable and was therefore a significant military barrier, as it had been in 1942 during the first Burma campaign.General Heitarō Kimura, the commander of Burma Area Army, ordered the Thirty-Third Army to cover this break-out by a diversionary offensive across the Sittang, although the entire army could muster the strength of barely a brigade.In support, the Fifteenth Army were to co-ordinate their efforts with the Twenty-eighth Army, if the operation was failing to meet its objective.