Agriculture is another essential component of the economy, with the major crops being sesame, groundnut, onion, sunflower, and beans.

[2] The following year, when Captain Hiram Cox, the East India Company Resident in Rangoon, visited Yenangyaung, he found '520 wells registered by government'.

[3] The oil fields at Twingon and Beme, close to Yenangyaung, were in the hands of a hereditary corporation of 24 families, each headed by a twinzayo (တွင်းစားရိုး).

In pre-colonial times, these individual well owners, known as twinza, were usually relatives of the twinzayo and paid a monthly rental for their site.

[8] However, the earliest extant records date to 1755, attributed to an English captain, George Baker, who wrote of an 'earth oil town' of 200 families by the Irrawaddy River.

This difficult task was undertaken by a small group of men who had experience with explosives and demolitions, some previously serving with the Bombay Pioneers (part of the British Indian Army) in World War I.

[9][10] 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 Marshal Sir William Slim.

He and the rest of the men had to escape through the enemy-held territory to Imphal and Kohima in India, a distance of nearly 1,000 miles.

The first to strike were USAAF North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, followed moments later by British Hawker Hurricane fighters, with long-range tanks, bombs, and 20 mm cannon.