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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the
2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Eric Payton and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In the spring of 1945 H.M.S. "Lossie", a river class frigate with a crew of 120, was a mile off the coast of Burma. We had been asked by the R.A.F. to provide a few men to help get supplies to the 14th Army. The R.A.F. were short of men through sickness. Supplies could go by parachute drop, though inevitably some would never be found, or by landing on an airstrip cut out of the jungle.

We awaited orders from the Petty Officer-of-the-Watch. He called for volunteers; those who did not want to go could "fall out". Nobody moved.

"Right" said the P.O. "Married men fall out". A few went. The P.O. tried again
"All men over 35 fall out". A few more went. The rest of us were landed on a nearby beach.

An R.A.F. corporal came, collected seven of us and took us to a Dakota plane already loaded with supplies; we were to land these for the army.

We took off and flew for an hour over a green sea of jungle treetops from horizon to horizon. Then we saw a matchbox size strip in the green sea. We dropped down to the strip, the plane's nose landing close to the edge of the jungle.

Everything was done at such a rush because the Japanese would have heard and seen the plane and would be pushing through the jungle to find us. We all got out and went to the tail of the plane and struggled to lift it bodily 180 degrees to face down the strip, ready for a sudden take off. Then we off-loaded the supplies – wooden boxes of ammunition, tinned food in canvas sacks, a precious mailbag, medical supplies.

Suddenly men came out of the trees. Scruffy men in dirty torn clothes, sunburnt, unshaven, boots tied on their feet. They were the 14th Army who took the supplies and disappeared with them into the jungle as fast as we unloaded. The R.A.F pilot started the engine, we scrambled aboard, shook hands with the army and were off down the airstrip straight for the solid wall of trees at the far end. Our speed increased but we were still on the ground! I stood behind the pilot as he pushed switches and muttered "up you bd, up"; but still we raced towards the tree wall.

I shut my eyes and waited for the crash. Suddenly the ground was falling away beneath us. We were airborne! The pilot turned to me and grinned, then shrugged his shoulders. It might be a dangerous mission for a sailor but it was all in a day's work for the R.A.F.

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