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IN BURMA WITH THE MULES

Gordon Jones
I was born in 1920 and I learned my trade at home. My Father was there for 40 years and he was a horseman. We were always breaking horses in on the farm. He would buy a horse and break it in. He would go to the sales in Hereford.

We broke them in according to their temperament a bit, some of them had a lot better temperament than others. It would take time, usually about 4-6 weeks, and that is working with them every day, and if he was a bad tempered horse, well it may take you 3 months, but you could always tell when you put the long reigns on him and drove him along walking behind him down the lanes whether he would take to it or not.

It isn’t everyone that takes to driving, you have got to have very light hands for driving, very light, and I learnt that from my Dad, and the more long reigning you do the better. We had working horses on our farm, we used to put the aged horses on the farm at about 10yrs old. They never worked many on the farms after about 12 yrs old because they worked all day long and every day and when they became 12yrs old that was about their limit. They got joint problems if they had done hard work on the road, and we used to give them every Sunday, Epsom salts for the blood. The main thing was to keep their blood right, if you did you didn’t have half the trouble, we used to use a tremendous amount of Epsom salts, and all the medicines used to come from Days of Crewe They used to give you a little book costing 2s/6d with all the ailments in it and what to do with them. They used to get ‘lampas’, and we used to rub salt into the pallet and give them very young gorse to eat. Lampas is a condition where the pallet goes soft and red and you can press your thumb into it and if they were in in the winter you used to chuck a mangel into the manger and they would chew at it and it would harden the palette.

Another thing we used to use was a lot of was rock salt, until the war started and then we used to have the brown rock salt, we used to chuck it out in the field for them and they would lick that.

There were very few vets about in those days so we mainly doctored them ourselves, and there was a vet in Brecon, named Cattell and I used to go out with him. He had a lot of Shire horses and one good mare there always had a good foal, but it would always die, and he came there one day and it was snowing and he said to turn her out to foal, and they did, and it was the best foal she ever had and it lived, and he was born in the snow.

I broke my leg in 1940, a horse kicked me, and I broke it again in 1941 and I got called up then and I went to Towyn with the 57th Heavy Ack Ack

We went to India and got to Bombay. There they posted us to Assam. General Wingate had an expedition into Burma to find out how he could cut the Japanese lines, and after he came back they wanted volunteers to go on another expedition with General Wingate, and we went to a place called Janze and we got right into the middle of the jungle and that’s were we did our training, and they had the mules, and a few of the big horses. We did very hard training there every day - 30-40 miles cutting our way through the jungle and it paid in the long run, and my job was to look after the mules and the ponies and then they put me in with Capt Fife, the Veterinary Officer, he was a Scotsman and was a very good man. The horses were our life line, you would have American K rations, a bit of tinned meat and biscuits and if you got separated from the rest of them, a bit of chocolate. I suppose to keep you alright for about 3-4days and learning how to make porridge out of biscuits,- get some water in a Dixie and pour over the biscuits, light the packet and it would just be a flame and just enough heat to cook the water.

The horses got mostly bamboo leaves to eat. They had colic now and again and we used to give them an anoretic ball, and you got it between your fingers and got it down the back of their throat. That sorted them out, and you would put your hand in the back end and clean them out, and you only had soap and water, no gloves, then you had to keep them walking for 5-10 mins. We never lost a horse from colic or anything; one was shot on the way out, because it got a bit weak.

After we finished the training we went to Infal, and the Japanese were coming towards Infal then, and the Dakotas (DC3s). We loaded the mules up at night and the Dakotas carried 6 mules and the ammunition, and 6 men, and away we would go. The gliders went in first and they made a strip for us to land, and the Engineers they went to a place called Merleau, where the great big bridge was, on the way to Infal which was only about 20-30 miles from India.

The Japanese were amassing supplies to invade India, and they would have gone out through Pakistan , Afghanistan and Russia and out through that way once they got into India. General Wingate got hold of Churchill and Churchill said it was suicidal; he didn’t want him to go behind the lines.

There were four of us and four mules and four great big trunks of silver rupees; they were for bribes to buy our way out. The Engineers had blown up the bridge at Morlieu and we made our base there to White City. Once the bridge had been blown up they were finished, and they couldn’t get anything else through because there were no roads, only tracks and we just stayed there and kept quiet until they came for us, and we were in there 6 weeks before the Japs did find us. When they couldn’t get through they started then from Infal, and we used to have air drops every so often.

They made White City the base and we even built an aerodrome there, and White City was a great big hill and you were overlooking everything and we made our base there. The Japs found out we were there and we were going to hold that at all costs. We had a drop of fire water, the Ghurkhas were there and they polished everything up and they chanted, and that was the night they were going to attack the Japanese. The Japs came in and they were fighting all night, and everyone had their own position and Mad Mike (our Brigadier) said ‘don’t fight until I fire’, because if we had fired the Japs would have known exactly where we were. What they didn’t like was the flame throwers.

The Japanese planes came in and they bombed where we were and we had mules in the bushes, and a big crater came where we had our own dug out and these mules were tied just outside, and the crater when we saw it the next morning was 20-30ft deep and it had lifted the whole of the soil up, bushes and mules, and carried them 10-15 yds on. There wasn’t any injury except cuts and bruises. There were Japs dead, some of our own were dead, it was a terrible sight on he hill, and then they said we had been there long enough.

General Wingate flew in to see us and he walked round and said we had done our job, and we were to make our way back, then we had to clear up and all the money we buried. They said if we wanted any we could have some if we could carry it. One or two started piling up their haversacks with it but after they had gone about a mile they were throwing it out because it was getting heavier and heavier.

We had a drop of fire water again and bread, it was the first bread we had had for about 3 months, everybody was filling their Dixie’s up and drinking the fire water. The Irawady river was in full flood because of the monsoon , I don’t know how it happened but Captain Fife had fallen into the river and they found him next morning about a mile further down, drunk and drowned, it was a bad way to go and he was a good man.

To cross the Irawady they had to make rafts, and it was about 75yds wide. We got the mules and tied them behind, and they swam across, and we made our way to Michener, and who should be there to entertain us but Judy Garland.

We flew out from there and then we went back to India and we were put into different hospitals for checkups. I went to Secunderabad and I met a boy from Bilf there and I meet him now and again in the markets. I had leaches and I used to get a cigarette and put on them and they would fall out, otherwise they would be sucking your blood which would give you paralyses. I had semi paralyses and they would stick needles in you and you couldn’t feel them. They tried in India with skin grafting and it wouldn’t take and I then went to hospital in Chester and it still wouldn’t take and then they sent me to Swansea and do you know it took there.

I went back home after I was discharged, and we had a big welcome home in every village. After I got back home I never really settled, I wanted to be in the move, and that’s why I’m living in a caravan now. My wife died in 1987, and I started going off buying and selling horses. I used to go all over the place, and I was always on the move. I appeared one day here, where I had a pony and trap, and June Williams had a little spotted pony and wanted it broken into harness, so I said I would break it in. When I came here I said to Phil that I had broken this pony in so he said I might as well break in the big horse, Prince and after I had done him Phil said did I mind doing Monty, and then I did him, and we had the two going, and it went on from there and then he said I might as well stay here for a bit so I’ve been here ever since. I think I’m too old now to settle down.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by June Woodhouse (volunteer) of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Gordon Jones (author) and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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