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After having a medical in Hull I received a travel warrant to report to the Barracks at Penny Pot Lane in Harrogate, to join an artillery training depot. So at the age of 19 I set off after saying farewell to my parents on the 22nd February, 1942. After general good drill and then training on 25 pounder artillery guns, I was posted to a unit which trained us for an overseas posting. We were eventually issued with lightweight clothing so we knew it would be somewhere hot. I then found myself travelling through the night by train. At daylight we arrived at Greenock and embarked on a troopship which was joining a convoy on a sea journey….but we didn’t know where!!!! After nearly a month at sea on a journey which is a story in itself, we arrived at the gateway to India.
We then travelled by train to a depot at Deolali and after acclimatisation went further into India for jungle training. I was then ordered to report to the 115 Field RA who were in action with the 19th Indian (Dagger) Division in Central Burma. Like most other units in Burma periods of extreme action were followed by quiet periods, but the incident I witnessed was a bit different. As night approached we were always put on a state of being prepared, which was called ‘standing to’ when nobody had to make a sound. We contacted our mates by simply tapping them on the shoulder and this state of readiness lasted until daybreak. We had already drawn a card from a pack by then, to tell us what time we would be signalled to do our guard duty during the night. If it was quiet those who weren’t on the first guard tried to get some rest and we slept if that was possible. We were in our slit trenches and always fully clothed. We had a Scottish lad with us in the gun crew who was to do a guard duty in the early hours of the morning, so he got down in the trench and was given a shake to do his duty. The following morning we all shook ourselves down to get rid of any soil and sand from our clothes and blanket. The Scottish lad did this and a cobra dropped out of the blanket! We had been issued with machetes at the time and one of the lads reached over and killed it. We can only think it had gone into his trench during the night and by miracle hadn’t bitten him. Subsequently we were all warned to watch out for other snakes and from then on took great care.

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