大象传媒

AN RAF WIRELESS OPERATOR ON THE
BURMA FRONT (Part 3 of 3)

During December 1943 we were dispatched up to Karachi for further training and it was here on the 13th December that I got on a training flight with a Vultee Vengeance Dive Bomber. It was a two seater and I was in the wireless operator's seat at the rear, parachute and all. The flight took approximately 25 minutes and I got marvellous views of Karachi and the surrounding Sind Desert. Despite a most vigorous test, in which the plane was put through all its paces, by the Canadian pilot, I had emerged on landing, unscathed physically. I was recommended for aircrew training immediately and was further interviewed towards this end by a Wing Commander, but alas unfortunately or fortunately I was whisked away towards the Burma Front before my aircrew training in Southern Rhodesia could materialise. I still do not know to this day what really happened, my application particulars could have been lost or they must have thought I was going to be more use to the Royal Air Force as I was, who knows? Needless to say I was most disappointed!

I crossed the breadth of India once again on a troop train, the first time it was fun, this time it was awful. By this time we had changed into full khaki battledress, each of us had a rifle or sten gun and we were ready for action so we thought. The next couple of months we were in the thick of it and life became pretty grim. We were occupied servicing various types of aircraft including Beaufighters, Spitfires, Hurricanes and Curtis Commando Transport planes on different airstrips giving a helping hand from Chittagong down to Cox's Bazaar in the Arakan in the south of what is now called Bangladesh. Little did we know at the time that the Japanese were putting a lot of pressure on this particular front.

Two little incidents which come to mind were seeing a Jap bomber flying low over Chittagong and dropping bombs whilst on fire and the other was more light hearted, on one of the airfields at Chittagong. There was an American Squadron of Lightening twin boom planes and the Americans were a cocky arrogant lot. They seemed to be much better off than us; alas the British were always the poor relations. The Americans even had ice cream flown in and they had the audacity to put a placard inscription over their P.X. (N.A.A.F.I.) building which said "Through these portals pass the best god damn fighting soldiers in the world" to which we took exception to. So we decided to take it down one night when it was really dark. We left them a note of apology and told them how we felt about it all. It was all good fun I suppose, but at the time, we were very cross indeed!
On March 30th 1944 my unit was airlifted into Silchar nearer still to the Burmese border and it was here that I became hospitalised with body lice and suspected

malarial symptoms. It was here that I met men of the Chindits in the hospital who had either been wounded or had been stricken down with fever or with sheer physical exhaustion. I was to be here about ten days or so before returning to my unit.

Little did we know that the Japanese about this time had crossed the river Chindwin in very large numbers and had been given the orders to take the border towns of Imphal and Kohima at all costs. No one was to stay alive if they failed; this is why very few Japanese prisoners were ever taken throughout the Burma and Pacific campaigns. They fought with such fanaticism for their Emperor. They would rather die than surrender and that is why they treated their prisoners with such appalling cruelty as they did.

On the 14th April 1944 my unit was flown into Imphal where the Japanese held the high ground overlooking the airfield and fortunately we did not get hit but I saw other planes which did. We had landed right in the middle of it all. For the next few months we were besieged and living on skeleton rations. Our fighter bombers had to be rearmed and refuelled but we did what we had to do. It was here at Imphal that members of the Royal Air Force were to stand to and man the trenches we had dug, rum rations were given out and I distinctly remember being in a pill box and using a machine gun! Life became very grim indeed. Jap bombers used to come every morning round about the same time, drop their bomb load and turn back to their bases inside Burma. Many were caught by our fighters and never made it. One particular morning our ack ack guns opened up and I witnessed from the slit trench I was in, a spectacular piece of bombing from the enemy. I saw a Japanese Zero fighter bomber high up in the air trying to evade the shell fire being directed at it, then out of nowhere came another Zero at very low Ievel and planted a bomb directly on top of one of our Beaufighter bombers which was under a camouflage pen of netting. Needless to say the whole thing went up in a smoke and explosions, the two enemy fighters between them had done what they had set out to do and got away with it. We used to hear on the radio from Tokyo Rose that
Imphal had fallen and we had a good laugh to ourselves because here we were and so far we hadn't seen any Japs, not in our sector of the town anyway. They were near and never penetrated to where we were but they were being held and slowly the tide turned. Little did we know that a few miles up the road at Kohima the Japanese were being defeated and the town had been relieved by units of the 14th Army pushing up from Dimapur and that they were coming to relieve us. Thank God for the 14th Army, it was so close for comfort. I always reckoned that if the Japanese could have controlled the air, as Goering failed to do so over Britain, then the Japanese would have won the battles for Imphal and Kohima. There were approximately 40,000 British, Indian and Commonwealth soldiers along with a thousand or two R.A.F. lads in the Imphal area. It was a case of them or us. If we

had lost, we would never have returned home! As it was, the Japs retreated and were harried and slaughtered all the way back to Rangoon. Many of them died of beriberi, a form of malnutrition. It was to be their heaviest land defeat of the 2nd World War. I was to remain in the Imphal area until 1st January 1945.

For the rest of 1945 I do not intend to go into too much detail, my unit No. 2 Servicing Party was disbanded, there was not much need for us now. The Japanese were on the defensive throughout South East Asia and reinforcements were beginning to come from Europe as the situation with the Nazis was getting better everyday. I went back to 221 Group Headquarters in Calcutta back to work on Wireless Telegraphy, a comparatively cushy job with lush surroundings and good food with a good bed to sleep on at night, we called them "charpoys", an Indian description for bed. Even the good beds were nothing like the ones we had back home, they were usually made of bamboo with jute twine as body support. We had the luxury here of having white sheets and always with the inevitable mosquito net to be slung over the bed supports. I was determined to make the best of it here in Calcutta, which I was beginning to call my second home, visiting the cinema, the various service clubs, watching cricket matches at the Eden Gardens cricket ground, watching the Bengalis playing excellent football in their bare feet on the "Maidan", bargaining with locals in the Bazaars, etc., etc. Beginning to catch us up was the political undercurrent, the unrest, Mr. Gandhi's Congress Party with Pandit Nehru at the helm were making themselves heard and no more so than in Calcutta. "Gandhi Wallahs", we called them, dressed in pure white dhoti clothing with hats to match were squaring up to Mr. Jinnah's Muslim League Party. There were riots in the major cities of India and we the Brits were caught up in the middle of it all. "British pigs" go home they were saying and we were bewildered. We had just prevented the Japs from the big take over of their country. Mind you, we were too young at the time to worry too much about any Indian political intrigue. We were more concerned about getting home, though the prospect of that happening now, was remote.

My hopes of being able to stay in Cal were dashed, I was posted to a newly formed unit called "The Jungle Target Research Unit", somewhere in the wilds of Assam, and goodness knows what it was all about. I remember operating a Morse key again from a bamboo basha in close co-operation with an Army Unit and that's about all I remember. Then it happened. On the 6th and 9th August 1945 atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with devastating effect and finally on the 15th August 1945 the Japanese surrendered. The loss of civilian lives was a tragedy but it had to be done, it definitely shortened the war. If those bombs had not been dropped the Japs would have fought for every inch of their homeland and thousands of Allied lives would have been lost. After being away from home

for over three and a half years at that time, I could now definitely see the light at the end of the very long tunnel. Needless to say, we were overjoyed to say the least, but it was to be another six months before I was to be reunited with the folks back home.

Married men, I suppose were quite rightly given preference for being repatriated back home and I was to be further stationed at R.A.F. Amarda Road and R.A.F. Dalbumgarrh, both I believe were located somewhere in Orrissa Province due south of Bengal and far away from the forward areas. Here I was to continue my duties in a more relaxed fashion. It was on the 30th December 1945 that I left Bombay on board the "Strathmore", sister ship to the "Strathaird" which I had come out on, even in more cramped conditions than before, but who cared, I was going home at long last.

We docked at Southampton on the 14th January, 1946, the weather was bitterly cold and you can imagine how we felt having been out in a hot climate for almost four years! I married Janet at Rehoboth Congregational Church on the 2nd February a fortnight after landing back in this country. The Royal Air Force had not yet done with my services and I finished up at R.A.F. Chicksands Priory in Bedfordshire before being demobbed at R.A.F. Cardington on Thursday 20th June 1946 having done approximately five years in His Majesty's Forces. I was a war veteran at the age of 25! For all my labours and pains plus untold other things I received a paltry War Gratuity plus a Post War Credit payment of 拢72 and 11 pence. On top of that I received four war medals but I had to be grateful that I survived and had come back alive. What was most annoying was that no one apart from our families seemed to understand what had actually been going on out there in India, Burma and the Far East. We had become the "Forgotten Army" and it wasn't until V.J. Day 15th August 1995 that the nation became fully aware what had happened. On the brighter side I had seen and visited places I had only dreamt and read about and I had the wonderful experience of living amongst those loveable Lushai people.

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