 The Champac, with its fragrant white blossoms on branches like candelabra, grows wild on the hill, along with the crimson red flowers over the feathery foliage of the Flame tree.Sunset over the river and the western hills as seen from Mandalay Hill can be a wonderful experience, and crowds of tourists may be encountered in the evenings enjoying it.In March 1945 the British Fourteenth Army's Indian 19th Infantry Division under the command of Major-General Thomas Wynford 'Pete' Rees, dubbed the 'Pocket Napoleon' by his men on account of his size and successful military career, was closing in on the Japanese in Mandalay where resistance was based mainly at Mandalay Hill with its pagodas and temples honeycombed for machine-guns, well supplied and heavily garrisoned.