大象传媒

Following 2 or 3 months of quiet isolation, we were awakened at about 3am and told to take everything including our charpoys (bamboo beds) as we were having a rehearsal, just in case the Japs, who were only 14 miles away, were to cross the border into India. It was patently obvious to us that this was no rehearsal particularly as they had chosen the monsoon period in which to do it. The Japs had already crossed and cut the road at Kohima.
It has been said that faith can move mountains. Well, we could certainly have done with her in our unit as we must have shifted half that geographic pile and concealed it with tree branches, etc to conceal our presence. So efficiently did we perform our tasks that it took us all our time to find our tents in daylight. Our efforts, however, were rather nullified by the British sense of fair play. Not wishing to make it too hard for the Nippon, they had arranged for white scrubbed tablets to be placed in the dry paddy fields as our mess halls. One table in one paddy field was the officers Mess, about 4 tables for the Sergeants Mess and about a dozen for the other ranks.
Being non combatant, I am not sure what the ruling was for us to be carrying arms but, in the true English spirit of compromise, we had been issued with Sten guns. In order that our infringement was not too blatant, though, we had only been given 5 rounds of ammunition. This we guarded jealously for about 3 weeks before some army bloke let a round off and, despite the fact that we knew that little, we would have probably let the whole 5 off at once, our proliferation of ammunition was taken off us and locked in the ammunition store. Any enthusiastic Jap would have had to contain himself in patience whilst we obtained it. I joke now, but we found that one Jap patrol was only about 2 or 3 miles away before being intercepted by a Ghurka patrol.
During his lifetime and that of 鈥淐ountdown鈥�, Richard Whiteley tried all ways to popularise a catchphrase. We had no difficultyin adopting the C.O鈥檚 often repeated command 鈥淜eep off the Skyline鈥�!! In this hilly country we would have had some difficulty identifying the skyline never mind keeping off it. This important command lost it鈥檚 urgency one morning at breakfast time, (strange how most unfortunate events seemed to occur at breakfast time). As usual we were queuing up, an art perfected in the forces, when an argument arose as to whether the three planes above us were Vengence dive bombers or not, which regularly strafed Jap position on the ridge opposite. The argument was soon settled as one of them turned and we saw the rising sun on the fuselage. Picking up my porridge filled mess tin and enamel plate containing, youv鈥檈 guessed it, Soya bean bangers, I sprinted around the coils of barbed wire seemingly designed to prevent an ealy retreat to the safety of the slit trenches, kindly placed on the summit of the hill to confirm our presence to the Japs. Had I been a casualty of this encounter I would not have been the first. This would have been the unfortunate gent on whose back I landed in my haste to obtain safety. My natural desire for self preservation, I am told, was only exceeded by that of the C.O. who turfed his dog out of one such shelter so that he could occupy it. This was a double whammy as besides ridiculing the C.O., nobody liked the mutt either.
The Bofor gun situated on the little hill known as 鈥淭he Pimple鈥�, which was supposed to signal the presence of enemy aircraft, rather belatedly signalled their presence to us as we snuggled in our shelter clearly able to see the faces and goggles of the leading aircraft鈥檚 pilot as the bullets ricocheted off the trees. This being a horseshoe shaped ridge, the army on the other leg of the horseshoe were more in danger of hitting us than the enemy, whilst the R.A.F. Regiment, responsible for our defence, had 2 machine guns stripped down and the third jammed on opening fire. To be serious, we learned later, that, thanks to units like ourselves, aware of the home location of these planes, all three were shot down before landing. This, of course, would not have been a lot of use to us had they been more successful in their attack. As it was, the only real casualty was a young airman who was on the nearby airstrip.
At this time the allied air superiority was so overwhelming that transport planes were landing at Imphal with an almost bus service frequency. Thinking about it, though, they were probably more frequent and reliable than our present bus lottery. This also coincided with my second bout of Malaria which, fortunately for me, landed me in 19C.C.S. (Casualty Clearing Station) at the same time as some of the heroic Chindits who, under command of Brigadier Orde Wingate, had come out of the Burmese jungle after giving Tojo a bloody nose and proving to both the Japs and the rest of the world that they were not invincible. Needless to say, after their long and arduous jungle warfare, they were pretty emaciated. It was no surprise, therefore that I, in the same emaciated state, was mistaken for one of them. I had thought of enlightening the caterers but one day on the sumptuous fare which they received quite rightly, persuaded me to keep mum.

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