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We often came across dead Japanese. One day we found a dead Japanese in a Chaung (a stream), there was a terrible stench of dead bodies, so we did was we burned them, set them alight. But that was a horrible smell as well. There was nothing else we could do with them; they were too far deteriorated to do anything else.

One Japanese soldier got a burial by our guys. They buried him because he was in a state they could bury him in.

Another time, we came across a massive shellhole and it was full of dead Japanese soldiers. It was at a place called Taugni - We called it the ‘Crater of Death’.

We slept not far from that place. That’s a railway station there, so some of us could get in for a bit of shelter. There was that terrible smell of death there. We burned some bodies which were lying around, but what happened to those men I don’t know.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Richard Jones and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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