大象传媒

It was of course, my fathers reputation as a soldier and veteran of many Campaigns spanning 27 years from 1934 that encouraged me to also join the army at the earliest opportunity. Thus, when I was 15 years old in 1963 I enlisted into Boy Service and retired 40 years later!

Dad and his friends tried many times to get into the army in 1934 - he was only sixteen but told them he was older. Eventually they had to walk from Armagh to Belfast where nobody knew them, to enlist.

Dad went into the 'Somersets' and his other two friends went to other non irish regiments too. It was part of the lessons learnt from the WW1 experience of having too many casualties in the one town or village, from the one regiment, at the one time.

Anyway, he went off to India and did a spot of fighting the Pathans near Jellalabad, and always spoke highly of their cunning astuteness, and the sheer audacity in how they killed. Our rules were simple apparently, as long as they (the Pathans) walked on the road and did not veer off it, then they could carry their rifle and bandoliers, if they left the road, then we could shoot them (they were the original 'shoot and scoot' experts). Dad said we lost more than enough soldiers answering the call of nature behind a rock!

Up until 1939 his regiment 'The Somersets' were engaged in quelling civil riots that the nationalist or 'Ghandis' were stirring up. Then the war started.

It was after my father died of a massive heart attack on the 20th April 1985 at age 67 years that I found the following notes that he had made relating to Burma and the march to Berlin. I have kept them safe since then, but now I think it is time that I shared them, through this media, for the interest of others. Some of the place names etc may be slightly wrong or mis-spelt but I will leave it to the experts and historians among you to rectify that.

"1940. Moved to Burma via Calcutta (Chowring Baynor), a place filled with all kinds of troops and officers who you had to salute until your arm was sore. From there to Chuttagong across the Bengal Bay by boat, then the first sight of the jungle, also the Irawaddy river. Scared the living daylights out of me, Arakan, a steep sided ridge, thick jungle that you had to hack and cut to make any headway. Also the ridge was shaped like a saw - up,down up, down. The streams in between were called 'chaungs'. We lived in 'Bashas' made with leaves or Bivouacs of our own groundsheets on half rations as the whole works wasn't organised.

There we waited to help the British Army out who were in full retreat from Rangoon. We were 9th Brigade, 7th Indian Division. Somersets, Queens and KOSB, plus Indian troops.

The 17th Division were badly shot up at the Sittang river. Inniskillings, KOYLI, South Lancs, and they had to fight their way back to India. They were ambushed many times before they got to Prome. They were tired, worn out and low in morale - we all were.

The Japs appeared to be unbeatable, but for some reason the Japs stopped advancing, so we dug in around Baynor and started jungle training and Long Range Patrolling. Communication was nil, it was always up to yourself to get back to base - wounded would have to be left. The Japs made short work of any wounded they found - 'cruel bastards'.

The Japs were experts at roadblocks, they would hook around and attack us as we were fighting to clear the blocks. We had many fierce hand to hand battles - I killed 5 in one day. Well we copied that manouvre, trained at it, and became as good, if not better at it than the Japs. We even learnt about Bamboo sticks called 'Punjis', sharpened to a point, stuck in the ground and poisoned.

Every now and again the big lads like Slim and the Brigadier Frank Messency would visit us, have a look around, give us a pep talk, a rum ration, and then disappear. Also we had the Commanding Officer come and go. I once saw Mountbatten, but couldn't get near him as he was always surrounded by ass hole creepers and the like, looking for cushy numbers.

Journey continues on to do Chindwig, Basoli Bayaan, Kohima, the 'Basin', Imphal, Snipers Triangle, 'Broadway' tunnels hidden road, Nannydaw, Irawaddy Yore Battle, Nagesdank Pass, Jail Hill (many more - I forget). Admin Bn in Nagesdank Pass, Coppe Bayaan, then Akyab for Rangoon.

We would come up on Jap bunkers. Couldn't get at them. One bunker covered the other, well built. While we attacked them the Japs would roll down a bombardment on us as they were safe in their bunkers, even tanks were no use against them. Eventually we used the stick long flamethrowers, still hard to get near them but we roasted them finally at great loss of life in our battalion.

Then I took malaria, no wonder, as it was monsoon weather, but I never got sent back, instead they had set up a First Aid Station just behind the Front, where we lay on stretchers, and they filled us up with Methadine tablets which would turn our skin yellow - our eyes too, but in no time we would rejoin the battalion to get away from the tablets. We were also afraid of them making us impotent, there were many rumours about that.

Finally they started weeding out the burnt out lads - the jungle ones and replaced them with fresh guys and Africans. I got back to Dum-Dum Camp at Calcutta, then they put me on a boat for England and the D Day landings - but that's another life story!

Back to Blighty and D-Day.

I arrived back in England in 1944. It wasn't what I had left in 1937, bunged full of foreign troops. They were all having great times with the women etc. I thought to myself, 'this is great, better make up for lost time'. However, I was sent on leave from Colchester to Armagh for 3 weeks, it took two weeks for me to get used to civilisation again, in no time I was back in Colchester and then forwarded to a camp in Norfolk. It had previously been a Butlin's Holiday Camp, but in winter it was a cold place, the huts were freezing and right on the shore.

I met up with lads I knew there and we started training at sea landings, and galloping up the sandy beaches in full kit. The Americans were further down the coast from us, I suppose doing the same thing.

I did hear they were caught out at sea doing a practice landing by the Germans, who sank a lot of boats, killing a lot of them. It was all hushed up, but we kept finding bodies on the beach for days after it.

Then I was sent to 7th Bn SLI in the New Forest at Bielieu, practising getting onto LCT (Landing Craft Troops), at a place with the name of 'Bucklers Hard'.

Then the invasion started. The area became a hive of industry. Battalions pulling out, tents going up and down, trucks, tanks, all sorts on the move. The forest became more and more quiet as troops pulled out. Then the Welsh Division started to move off and onto the boats, soon the 43rd Wessex Division, my Division.

By this time the troops were well into France from the landing beaches. Red Beach was ours, also I think Gold Beach, only this time I was bringing up the rear and got no fighting at all - just strolled off!

The Germans fought hard at Caen and the British 2nd Army was held up, the fields were ripe with corn, and if you laid down to fire, you just couldn't see as the corn was too high.

At a place called Caumont I was sent back to England, why, I do not know. Unless they thought I was getting 'bomb happy' for I had just been through the Burma Campaign too. Anyway it was short lived as I rejoined the Battalion at Nimegen, loads of strange faces, all very young looking. I realised I was getting old. Then I must have been 25 or 26 - not sure now.

Anyway I wasn't happy with them, because I hadn't trained with them, they were an unknown quantity to me. I didn't know if I could trust them in a tight spot because they were conscripts, press-ganged into soldiering. They had a totally different attitude to war and fighting, and they were also more intelligent than pre-war soldiers like myself.

But in the end I did get to understand them more, so much so that when were moving up and a halt was called, it never bothered me if, when we moved on again, a few were missing. Just thought, 'Well, good luck and I hope you get back home, safe and sound'.

I heard the sound of horses hooves approaching. We were Advance Battalion, Advance Company and it was just before dawn outside a Dutch town. It was dark, and I had took cover on the roadside. Every now and again a star-shell would light up.

The horse stopped just beside me, I thought it was a booby trap and I froze, then I walked over to it, I was going to shoot it. The reins had entangled in the legs, and that is what had stopped it. He was a beautiful horse, Belgian type maybe, but the cart he was pulling was piled high with dead bodies. Civilian or German soldiers, I never knew, my heart almost stopped with fear, and shock.

I then hit the horse. I had fixed the reins so that he could move on, which he did. I heard him clip-clopping on up the road in the darkness towards the town and someone shot him. I was very sorry, for I liked horses".

My fathers notes end there. He married my mother in 1946 and they had seven children. He went on to fight in Korea (while we were in Berlin). One of his last postings was in Taunton and we lived in the house right beside the barrack gate called 'Mount Pleasant'. While he was there he became the soldier in No 1 Dress on front of the Regimental Magazine 'The Light Bob' - we always thought it was pretty apt seeing as he was known as Bob!

His remarks about the horse and his regard for it, have always struck me as quite poignant, because it reminds me of just how gentle a man he was as a father to us all, and how, at that particular time, he must have been so sick of killing.

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