大象传媒

鈥淣ottingham Journal鈥� Exclusive From Burma
(Tuesday 31st October 1944)

This Is What They Fight In
. . . And How They Fight

A Tale Simply 鈥� Vividly 鈥� and Arrestingly Told

During the five years of war many letters home have reached the Nottingham Journal office from Nottingham and Notts men serving abroad, but none to match the one which we are privileged, by kind permission of his parents, to print today. It tells in simple, moving and insistently modest terms, a story of British courage, tenacity and heroism鈥n epic that deserves to be reprinted and retold when 鈥渉istorians鈥� of the war seek to piece together the pattern of the global conflict. 鈥擡d, N.J.
By PRIVATE R. SIMPSON

First of all we were flown in by plane. The plane I was in had three ponies aboad. One of them managed to kick a hole in the side of the plane, but everything was ok. One or two of the boys were air-sick but in the dark no one noticed it.

Well we landed safe, gathered all our tackle together and got undercover quick. I must admit it gave me a queer sensation to know that I now was somewhere 200 miles behind the Jap lines. I won鈥檛 say that I was frightened; it was more or less a big thrill. That night passed alright and the next day we had the job of getting undercover the gliders that had crashed - this day I saw General Wingate himself (our big boss as he was then).

Two days later we started on a 50-mile march to our destination. Well it wasn鈥檛 easy. Altogether we had somewhere about 70 pounds to carry and a turn at the Bren gun, which put another 23 pounds on your back.
Everything went well. Some days we could travel a good ten to fifteen miles, others we had to cut and smash our way through jungle that one could hardly see through. Three miles a day was good going. When we started out we were carrying seven days鈥� American 鈥楰鈥� rations. We kept going on with sweat dropping off us like a running tap and always on the look-out for Japs.

The first Sunday I can well remember, because we had the chance to have our first bath and dip in a river, and didn鈥檛 I make full use of that! That night we had rations and mail dropped, but I had to be content with my rations. Off we started again late at night, until one day we came across our first village. Nobody was in there, so off we went again. A Burmese village is houses made out of bamboo, raised off the ground and called a Bashah. We came across quite a lot of these villages with people living in them.

I noticed that the Burmese were a 鈥︹�︹�� cleaner than the Indians; in fact we used to buy rice from them, that鈥檚 if they could spare it; they had to have enough for themselves and they had to hide it away from the Japs. I鈥檝e watched the women clean the rice; they bash it on wooden platforms with a hole in the middle, same as you ponch the clothes in the dolly-tub.

To continue, we had to cross over a mountain 4,500 feet, and was it tough? It took us a day to go up it and the next day to get down it; it was just as bad to go down as it was to get up it. This is where many fell by the wayside. I have always found it best to carry on and get it over.

We reached our destination after eight days of marching. This was to be our home for the next seven weeks. Our job was to blow up bridges and tear up the railway line, and we made a damn good job of it.

After this seven weeks of going out on patrols and doing a bit of fighting as well, we then stared to march out of Burma. We got as far as seven miles form the airstrip and we were told that we were not flying. General Stilwell was now in command of us. That put the lid on it so we set off again sweating and swearing with bamboo ticks getting all over one: these bugs bury their heads into your skin and you have to pull like hell to get them off. They mostly find their way to the private places of one鈥檚 body.

We kept on the march for another six weeks or so getting a wash or bath where we could. I can well remember one day we were swimming in a river and an Indian soldier challenged me to race him. I beat him up-stream, but when we came down-stream he was at the winning post before we had stared. You aught to have heard the row all his mates kicked up. These chaps are good fighting men. I鈥檝e seen them go into an attack, throw their raffles away and get their knives out. It鈥檚 a special knife they have called a kuckery (that鈥檚 not the right way to spell it but that鈥檚 what it sounds like). At one time I carried one for a long time until someone took a fancy to it. I used it for chopping wood so I could get a brew on.

At long last we came to our new destination. We had one or two little scraps on the way, but nothing of great excitement. They held us up for a while and that was about all, until one night we were on the side of a road and a patrol of Japs came along. Some of them got by. This particular night our officer congratulated me in getting one of our wounded chaps in. It was a terrible job and I was thankful when it was over.

One terrible experience I had was being left behind in the jungle with a sick man. I had to carry on the best I could with him; he would walk about 50 yards and then flop out. This went on for about three hours. We were now absolutely left on our own. He kept crying out for water. We had only got a bottle each and it鈥檚 never wise to drink it because you never know when or where the next lot is coming from.

We came across some stagnant water; he wanted to drink that, but all I could do was to fill my hat and cool him off with it. All we had got with us was my five days 鈥楰鈥� rations and my rifle. Things were not looking too good what with animals knocking about and goodness knows where the Japs might be. I wasn鈥檛 feeling too well. I hadn鈥檛 got a map and didn鈥檛 know where we were going to. All I could do was to stick to the trail.

Very soon we came to where the trail forked, so the sick man flopped out again while I went to satisfy myself which way to go. That didn鈥檛 take long because following a trail that a good many men and mules have made is not a hard job. About ten minutes later I came back, and I never had such a shock in all my life. There were about twenty of our men on the trail that I had just left. One of the officers was attending to the sick man while another one started asking me all about it.

I told him the situation I was in. He then asked me did the officer who left me with this sick man realise the danger, so I said 鈥� I don鈥檛 know if he did or not鈥�-but I did.

Well we rigged a seat up on one of the mules and off we went. It took us an hour and a half to catch the rest of the column up. They happened to have stopped at a village.

I heard afterward that we had both been reported missing. If we had been lost, there is only on thing we could have done, and that was to stop at the nearest village and stay there until we were picked up; that鈥檚 been known to have been done before. After that only an N.C.O. was allowed to stop behind with a sick man. That wasn鈥檛 the only time I had to stop with a sick man; I鈥檝e done it many a time. Some of them used to drop out on purpose for a rest. The sick man I had with me was so ill that he was flown out by plane, so I never came across him again.

Two or three weeks went by and the rain started to come, days on end we were just wet through, never knowing when next you would be dry. This is what we had to fight in. To make it worse leeches were getting on one everywhere. I鈥檝e had four on me at one time and they don鈥檛 half get some getting off. The best thing is to burn them off with a fag-end.

At the place where we were now 75% had got trench feet. I bet Dad knows what that means, and it took us all our time to walk at all. We blew up 24 of his ammo dumps. It was like a great big firework display. We captured a hospital, which we used later for ourselves. From this hospital I picked up a lovely Jap coat. It fitted me down to the ground. Only wished I could have kept it, but it was no good carrying extra weight. Some of the parachutes we had dropped to us were taken by the villagers who made clothes out of the, so they didn鈥檛 do so bad. Various colours where dropped containing different things we needed; in fact everything was dropped, including all our clothes, boots, food, wirelesses, guns etc.

During a bit more fighting (we had the Chinese with us) I had one or to narrow shaves, but I suppose I just happened to be one of the lucky ones. We lost some of our boys but Japanie had lost a lot of his and we were sent back for a rest. It was still raining cats and dogs and everybody was just about fed up and browned off with it all. Then off we start on the march. We had to cross a river by motor boat; then we had to march (one really can鈥檛 call it march), through mud often up to one鈥檚 knees, wading through water up to any depth; I鈥檝e been up to my neck in it. This state of affairs carried on for 28 miles. Sometimes we came across good roads but only for a mile or two at a time.
We reached an airstrip but couldn鈥檛 fly from it because the rains had damaged it. Americans were working on this strip and they treated us real well. At this camp I saw my first picture in the last 19 weeks. It was good to get a wash and a shave (my first for the last three months) and some clean clothes to put on. We stopped here a couple of days and pushed on again, but this time we had motor transport. We were about five miles from our destination, another airstrip we were to fly out from, when it rained so hard that the trucks couldn鈥檛 move, so we had to march the rest.

At this airstrip the Americans treated us just as well as at the previous strip; in fact all the stuff they gave us to eat we couldn鈥檛 get down us. The next day we were flown out to somewhere in India where I had my first hot bath in nine months. My five months adventure had now come to an end, and wasn鈥檛 I glad of a rest!

There are lots of things I鈥檝e done but haven鈥檛 written about them: they can鈥檛 be written: you can only talk about them sitting by the fireside.

I鈥檝e tried to make this letter as interesting as possible with just the bare outline of facts. There鈥檚 nothing more that I can add to it, so I will close still thinking of you all every day and night and hoping that all this lot will be over soon.

I鈥檝e now been away from home for over four years, just four years wasted-it鈥檚 bound to finish one day and then the real story can be told.

From your ever loving son,
ROBERT

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