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Like many war veterans, my father did not tell our family much about his war service until relatively recently, when my brother and I had grown up. He told us the more palatable parts :- the anecdotes, the comradeship, soldiering in distant parts of the World. Even when, during the late 1980’s, he decided it was time to meet up with long-lost comrades after a 40-year lapse, he only sought the tight comradeship of his war-time group, rather than wider-based veteran associations such as the Royal British Legion, which he never joined and the Burma Star Association, of which he was briefly a member. As a boy in 1960's Scotland, I never knew exactly what he did in the war and even if he had told me, I wouldn't have understood. Other young boys my age told tales of their fathers' exploits on D-Day or else, grand stories of RAF bomber-crew dads and dads in battleships. I knew my dad had served in Burma. That was all I knew. Until that is, I was grown up and our family asked him to commit his story to paper, which he did. In doing so, recollecting certain events from those far-off days were to cause a re-awakening of old, terrible flashbacks which would haunt him once more, just as they had for some time after the war's end. Once again, he would awake in the night, bathed in sweat. My mother told me that just after they were married in 1947, he had nightmares whereby he struck out at her in bed, convinced he was in a life and death struggle with Japanese soldiers. After writing his book in the 1990's however, his GP referred him to a specialist who helped considerably, though the specialist was ashen-faced as harrowing stories slowly unfolded. Hopefully, his darkest memories may at last be consigned to the past.

My father, James William Gow, was born in 1923, in Tighnabruaich, Argyll. His father, a Perthshire gamekeeper, had been a Black Watch sergeant in the 51st Highland Division during the First World War. My father’s childhood was spent in the idyllic Highland surroundings of coastal Kintyre, his primary education being at the village school. It was here he learned of far-off parts of the World, including India, the Jewel in the Crown. He later earned a bursary scholarship to Keil School, Dumbarton. It was at Dumbarton that he had his first experience of the violence of war, during the Clydeside Blitz of spring 1941. From the school, he and his schoolmates could see docks, ports, oil storage tanks and industrial towns like Clydebank engulfed in flames, whilst bombs dropped and anti-aircraft shell-splinters fell like rain. The school soon evacuated to the countryside location of Balnakill, Kintyre, Argyll. He was back home. It was here, on the shores of Kintyre that further reminders of war invaded the otherwise rural scene, flotsam from torpedoed ships, lifeboats, crates of butter and — dead bodies. My father was not quite eighteen when he saw his first corpse washed up after floating many weeks at sea, a British merchant sailor whose only possible identification was a tattoo with a girl’s name. When his father’s health started to deteriorate, he retired from gamekeeping and the family moved to Kirkmichael, Perthshire for the fresh mountain air. During late 1941, my father decided to volunteer. Following a bus journey to Blairgowrie, he tried to enlist in a Highland regiment but, in view of his academic standards, the old recruiting sergeant put him down for a corps regiment, the Royal Corps of Signals. When the time came, he went off to a basic training establishment at a converted Pontin’s holiday camp at Prestatyn, North Wales. The disciplined, military nature of the camp was rendered somewhat surreal by the continued use of pre-war holiday camp street-names such as Crayfish Drive and Lobster Walk. After several weeks of training on the sand-dunes and squad rifle-practice on the shore (including an unfortunate instance of his squad firing at an escaped, live sea-mine !), they were ready for the next stage. God help Hitler !

His Royal Signals training centre was at Catterick Camp, Yorkshire. Earlier, when he had lived in Kintyre, my father was fortunate to be taught morse telegraphy by an ex-passenger shipping-line telegraphist. This now stood him in good stead in wartime and he reached his necessary grades without a problem. In time, many of the young gentlemen of the Royal Signals at Catterick became bored and looked for some action beyond Catterick. Various units advertised for personnel, such as the newly-formed airborne corps. My father did not fancy falling out of aeroplanes. He was, however, selected to enter officer training, but withdrew when the selection board refused to endorse his preferred choices - those Highland infantry regiments again ! But at least at Catterick, he met a certain ATS clerkess who would be the love of his life. My mother !

Then, one day, he became aware of an advert looking for soldiers interested in special duties. He applied, went for selection interviews and tests and was accepted. The special duties ? - he had become a recruit for the signals section of Special Operations Executive, Winston Churchill's cloak-and-dagger 'dirty-tricks' organisation. Like all would-be operatives, his specialist training covered all aspects of covert operations including silent killing, demolitions and raid techniques. The signals section was based in a commandeered country house, Fawley Court, outside Henley on Thames. The highly-specialised signalling aspects of his training required high speed, accurate morse transmission, using high-grade ciphers, which was considerably more demanding than the Royal Signals normally expected. But in time, he was ready. His future duties — clandestine operations behind enemy lines in Burma, as part of SOE's Force 136. Though we often associate SOE with its celebrated activities in France and occupied Europe, it was also very active in the Balkans and the Far East. Force 136 was based in India and was responsible for clandestine operations in Burma, Malaya, certain Pacific Islands and China. A sister unit was based in Australia, mainly covering the Pacific Islands. In Burma, Force 136 was used for deep reconnaisance missions to gather intelligence, carry out ambushes and supply dump destruction. Other groups trained and assisted local guerrilla groups and carried out sabotage missions and attacks on Japanese supply lines. The British and Commonwealth forces had been executing a fighting withdrawal through Burma since early 1942 and had since made localised counter-strikes in the Arakan. The Chindits had also raided inside Burma, but the Japanese still held the upper hand and in early 1944. were at the Indian border.

My father's experiences started with a hair-raising convoy through the Mediterranean in early 1943, during which 11 ships out of 33 were lost. He eventually arrived in India, was familiarised with the organisation's methods and undertook jungle survival and warfare training at Force 136's centre in Ceylon. After a period of receiving out-station transmissions from a forward base at Tollygunge, near Calcutta, he went on his first live operation. It came in mid-1944. British and Indian troops had defeated a Japanese offensive during the ferocious defence of Kohima, in North East India and the enemy had retreated and dispersed into the dense jungle,. However, it was believed they were re-grouping for further offensives. My father was sent to a reconnaissance group of 40 Gurkhas, led by an officer. The main mission was to search an area of the Burmese jungle to spy on Japanese movements and report back to Force 136 HQ. Setting ambushes and destroying supply dumps would be undertaken where feasible. My father would send a morse report or ‘sked’ every day, using a daily-changing code from a silk code book, back to HQ Calcutta. As well as sending reports and taking fresh instructions, he also arranged vital Dakota air-supply drops. Being so central to a mission’s success and the intelligence-gathering aspects, the Japanese would consider capture of an SOE operative a plum-catch. They knew the British conducted covert missions behind enemy lines and were keen to take a Force 136 operative alive, to torture then use under duress to misinform the British. To that end, my father, and all Force 136 field-operatives, were issued cyanide pills to be used in the event of capture. Force 136 allowed some latitude in dress and equipment for its operatives and typically he preferred a Gurkha 'double-terai' bush-hat, British jungle-greens and Special Forces high-legged canvas/rubber jungle boots - though after 'liberating' a Japanese supply dump, he took to wearing a pair of Japanese canvas/rubber split-toed tabi boots. He carried an American 300 cal M-1 carbine and shouldered a Special Forces Bergen pack, plus ammo bandoliers and personal equipment. Gurkhas carried his morse-radio set, batteries and accumulator. His first mission started near Dimapur, slipping out of the allied lines into the jungle-clad hills on the Burmese-Indian border. They were soon slowed by the dark, damp, still jungle. Paths were a dangerous luxury where ambushes awaited the unwary. It was often necessary to cut fresh routes through the virgin jungle. Fires were often unavailable, due to risk of detection. Jungle water was overgrown and required purification pills. Men sweated, toiled and were bitten by mosquitoes and leeches. Clothes and watch-straps rotted. Feet struggled with foot-rot. Men could often only communicate in whispers, due to the close vicinity of Japanese patrols. Risk of discovery was an ever-present danger. The operating area was a series of deep ravines and high steep ridges, clad with thick jungle, which had to be climbed each evening to reach a suitable elevation in time for the morse-sked. Missions like this would take several weeks and on return to base, the men would have lost considerable weight, might be feversome, be sporting shaggy beards and ‘unmilitary’ hair. On his first mission, his Gurkha group avoided an ambush and later set successful ambushes themselves, the Gurkhas using the kukri where gunfire was to be avoided. He also spent his 21st birthday in the jungle, stalking the Japanese. On later missions, dumps were destroyed. On occasion, the Japanese were so close that my father was once sniped at as he answered the call of nature, caught with his trousers down ! Following several months of such missions, by mid-1945, Force 136 was advancing along with XIV Army, the Japanese now in retreat. In early May 1945, he took part in amphibious landings on the Burmese coast, as part of the drive to liberate Rangoon. As Rangoon was falling to British and Commonwealth forces, my father’s Force 136 group was sent ahead to reconnoitre and set up a TAC-HQ, which they did in an recently abandoned Japanese HQ on the shores of the Royal Lakes. After mopping-up operations as the Japanese retreated, his unit was withdrawn and he pondered his next mission. It seemed Force 136 would likely be landed in Malaya to operate against the Japanese, a pity considering the war in Europe was already long finished. In the event, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. The war was over.

He returned to India, then later sailed for Blighty. He was released from SOE and returned temporarily to the army, prior to demobilisation. After being demobbed, he married that ATS girl, my mother. He kept one or two small wartime souvenirs but had to hand over a Japanese officer’s katana sword and Nambu pistol to British authorities before leaving India. Today, apart from his medals, the only personal wartime artefacts he has kept are a khaki bush-hat, a SEAC shoulder insignia and a hi-speed morse-key, and of course, his Royal Corps of Signals cap badge which he wore at the start of it all. I still don't know what really happened in Burma and shall not ask. If he ever wishes to tell me what caused his violent, sweating nightmares, I shall be ready to listen. Otherwise, let it be. I'm proud of my father.

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