大象传媒

As a private soldier with the 13th Bn, Kings Liverpool Regiment, we crossed the River Chindwin in January 1943 with the First Wingate Expedition, later to become known as the CHINDITS. There were seven Columns in this operation, mine being No5 column commanded by Major Bernard Fergusson, the whole constituting the 77th Independent Brigade. (The Brigadier would get very annoyed when this was abbreviated to the 77th IND Brigade and so mistaken for the 77th INDIAN Brigade.) He quite often used this Independence which, at times, made him quite unpopular with some of his superiors.
Once across the River we were behind the enemy lines and had to keep on the move. We travelled East towards the River Irrawaddy, and, apart from a few minor scuffles and blowing up the Rangoon-Mandalay railway line in many different places, we arrived at the Irrawaddy and crossed at TIGYAING. Having completed the crossing the Japs arrived in the village and sent a few mortar bombs and small arms fire after us but did not attempt to cross. We were now in a small triangle formed by the confluence of the Irrawaddy and the Schweli and they probably thought that they had us exactly where they wanted us. After a few weeks we were ordered back to India and rendezvoused with Brigade on the banks of the Irrawaddy, but when we attempted our recrossing were met with heavy mortar and machine gun fire. Wingate decided that recrossing under the circumstances was impossible and so ordered us to break up into groups of about thirty and make our own way back to India. I was with about thirty others under the command of Captain Astell of the Burma Rifles who decided we would not attempt a recrossing of the Irrawaddy but would go East and try the Schweli. This we carried out successfully without any opposition.
After about ten days of marching my boot had broken in half and I found it impossible to keep up with the group.The Captain decided to leave me and Private Carless in a village called SIMA which had been a British garrisoned Fort before the evacuation. We thought at least we would have a roof over our heads, but thr Headman would not let us stay in it as the Japs sent regular patrols and they used it as a bivouac. We were placed in the jungle outside the village and were joined by another B.O.R, namely Pte Baxter. He was very sick and unfortunately died within a few days. I was officially reported missing on April 4th 1943 and Carless and I reached PAOSHAN in China sometime in early October. We reckoned we had walked about two thousand miles since January.
We were survivors, but the real heroes of this story were the ordinary villagers of small places in the Kachin Hills who watered and fed us and harboured us in the sure knowledge that if they were caught doing this they would have been crucified to the floor of their huts.

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