大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War website by Jenny Graham n behalf of Edward Lewis and was added to the site with his permission

I wasn't with the regular troops in Burma. I was with a mob called the V-Force, a crowd of mis-fits if you like. I had been initially sent to the Punjab regiment from the pre-war territorial army but when I arrived I was senior to every other officer there. I was fed up so I joined the V-Force and although I dropped from Captain to Left-tenant I found some kindred spirits. We were all mad. Frank Owen, the editor of SEAS Deco Magazine described us as "A bunch of gentlemen adventurers" but we all agreed we were more a bunch of raving lunatics.

I'm sure everybody used to wonder who these comical people were. Usually coming in from the wrong direction, constantly in and out of Japanese lines with about fifteen or so gherker riflemen from the Assam regiment attacking Japanese groups and transport. We were reconnaissance and on foot the whole time - our nearest mode of transport was about 90 miles away. Although we were never involved in any of the big battles, we were right in the middle; Kohima was roughly to the north of us and there was nothing to the south of us except the Japanese and our own mob.

We were split up and each given a specific area to work in; my nearest colleague would be about 25 miles away and this you had to go along with otherwise it could jeopardise the whole operation. It was our job to watch the Japanese at their main base at Tuiking, which was only about 15 miles from where we were. We would patrol our individual areas attacking any Japanese soldiers, occasionally shooting their wounded up or simply sitting on the terrain waiting for a truck to pass by or a small group whom we would attack. It was a job, our job. It was what we did, we weren't particularly heroic we were just doing what we were supposed to do. Because we were under threat and alone for much of the time, we had to stay awake as much as possible. You didn't want to sleep for fear of being caught and it was almost impossible to do so, but so much time on your own was boring. Our only means of communication was by radio or by ordinary signal. I spent most of that year alone, shooting a few trucks, killing a few Japanese and waiting for food parcels to be dropped down from the RAF planes overhead.

It was an accident down the hatch of a lift that ended it all for me. I fell, taking a big chunk out of my knee and had to be hospitalised in a place called Osario. All I know of the hospital is that once I got there you couldn't wake me up. The Doctor told the Nurse I'd probably earned a good sleep so just let me get on with it! I contracted a disease whilst I was there and ended up staying in hospital for three months. My patrol was given to a comrade of mine, Jerry Woods and I heard afterwards that a Japanese ambush had wiped them all out. I was very lucky, somebody must have been looking out for me.

As I said it wasn't particularly heroic, we were largely stroppy individuals who didn't gel with the rest of the bunch, but I will say that four of my comrades did eventually obtain the military cross for their services.

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