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This story is from Wally Burns of the Burma Star Association in Cardiff, and is added to the site with his permission.

I joined up in 1942 — well you didn’t join anything. You were sent. To Copthorne barracks in Shrewsbury where you did your basic drill. Everyone thought this was a bit stupid because Sergeants shout at you and you jump. But the idea of that was that when they shouted, you jumped. And it might be that someone was going to shoot you but the sergeant shouts down, you went down — you didn’t ask why - and the bullet went over your head and it missed you. I did six weeks there of basic training .. I had one drill sergeant who was a KSLI sergeant when they did 120 steps to the minute and the other was a North Staffs sergeant where they did 80 steps to the minute. . So when you went on drill square if you had the wrong sergeant you had to march twice as quick!

Then I went up to Marske by Sea training….I was actually trained on the lorries and then they asked for volunteers for despatch riders and I volunteered for that. I did three months training after Christmas and then went back to the Midlands on two weeks leave. When I went back they gave me my first posting to Cromer and when I got there they immediately sent me back on leave, which was an embarkation leave.

It was fourteen days….I was only away a week from mum and then she started crying because I was on embarkation leave and was going abroad. But when I got back, I did manage another weekend pass, which was the best weekend pass I ever had in my life...

When I got on the train at Paddington there was a WAAFI getting in the same carriage and I never saw her again for three years, but I married her and I’ve still got her. . I work quick. I went from Paddington to Birmingham. She got off at Birmingham and I got her address to write to her …but then when I went back I couldn’t write for six weeks - more than six weeks — we were at sea and then in Capetown and then back at sea to India….and I couldn’t write because we didn’t know where we were going. But when I got there, there were 23 letters waiting for me. So you see I make an impression!

She lived not far from our house and became friends with my sister, and so it went on throughout the war. I did have a period up in Burma when I thought….oh I don’t want no-one waiting for me….in case I come back with bits missing. When we came out of Inphal I met up with my sister’s husband in Calcutta and he told me that his wife, my sister, and my girl were still friendly…so I started to write again then. I came back in the March 1946 and we were married in September. I met her on the 3rd of the 4th 1943 and we were married in the 9th month of 1946. and they’re my lottery numbers now. You know it could strike twice, it’s magic and I could win a million.

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