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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Graham Lewis for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr Edward L. Hancock and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Hancock fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

After being appointed Staff Captain (Ordnance) of the 17th Indian Division I made my own way from Calcutta to Tiddim in Burma — part of the way in a cattle van, and with lifts in lorries. I had no rations except hard biscuits which had to be made into a porridge to eat. They were too hard to bite and chew. It was also a highly dangerous journey as there were plenty of anti-British Indians who were prepared to do away with British servicemen if the opportunity presented itself.

From Calcutta I went to the railhead at Gauhatj on the Brahmaputra and on to Shillong in Assam where I arrived shivering with cold and in pitch darkness. The next morning I was allocated a16-year-old bearer (or servant) by the name of Lila Dhur. We made our way to the railhead at Dimapur, then to Kohima, where a vital battle was later fought, and so to Imphal, where I was when another even more vital battle was fought. We then travelled a further 170 miles to the outpost at Tiddim where the 17th Indian Division faced the Japanese 33rd Division.

After a lull in the action we were ordered to dig bunkers as information filtered through that the Japanese were preparing for a large-scale attack. Our orders were to resist to the last man. Suddenly, however, our commanding officer, Maj. General ‘Punch’ Cowan, changed the orders and we set off to reach Imphal to support the garrison there before the Japanese arrived.

Slim, commander of the 14th Army, and Scoones, commander of 4 Corps, had not expected the Japanese to attack before March 15, 1944. However, the Japanese placed a block at Milestone 100, to prevent our withdrawing. On March 7 Cowan was quicker than Slim or Scoones to see that it was more important to get back to Imphal and prevent a Japanese invasion of India. He got no credit for his foresight.

So the 17th Indian Division, with 16,000 troops, 2,500 vehicles and 3,500 mules fought its way to Imphal, taking three weeks to cover some 170 miles. The Japanese constantly blocked the road but the Gurkhas of 48 Brigade beat them off. We reached Imphal by April 14 and our 1,200 wounded were flown to India.

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