大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of Alastair Stewart McGhee and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr McGhee fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was with the Signals Squadron at 254 Brigade HQ. In early March 1945, Mandalay was attacked and, simultaneously, troops of IV Corps had 鈥榪uietly鈥� crossed the Irrawaddy, south west of Mandalay and made a swift dash for Meiktila, which was a very important rail and road junction. The battle for Meiktila, mainly by tanks, took 4 days, during which General Slim was present, having been flown in by light aircraft.

Brigadier Scoones, who commanded 254 Indian Tank Brigade, and others, had been instructed to attend a Conference, called by 14th Army Commander, General Bill Slim, the RV being at Meiktila. It was on this occasion I was detailed to take a wireless jeep with another wireless operator and accompany Brigadier Scoones who was in another jeep driven by the Brigade Major. They had a Sikh bodyguard in the back cradling a Bren Gun on his lap.

We set off, apparently taking tracks across uncleared country. The weather being hot and sunny, I was mainly following a dust cloud stirred up by the Brigadier鈥檚 jeep. One track skirted a paddy field. Due to the dust, I failed to notice a large shell hole and suddenly found myself at the bottom of this shell hole, out of which I was unable to drive the jeep, in spite of selecting 4-wheel drive and low ratio gear. A short time later the Brigadier returned to find out why I wasn鈥檛 following him. He was unable to assist me and suggested that if I could not extricate myself, I was to smash up the wireless set and we were to make our way back on foot to our previous base.

We sat for a while, feeling somewhat despondent, when I noticed across the paddy field, a Burmese peasant leading an ox. I made my way across the field and persuaded, by sign language (and bribery), the Burmese to bring his ox across the field to us. Using our combined rifle slings round the neck of the ox, we attempted to pull the jeep back onto the track 鈥� to no avail. Again we sat and wondered what to do next !

A little while later we were surprised to see coming towards us on the same track, a 30 cwt Dodge truck driven by a Captain of Ordnance Field Park (OFP) of our Brigade. He stopped, looked, and laughed at our predicament. He smiled and pointed to the front fender of his truck, on which was fitted a winch. What a lovely sight ! Without more ado, he hooked up the winch to our jeep and with the greatest ease, hauled us out of the hole. Apparently he was also making his way to Meiktila, so we followed him, stopping on the way at the camp of another unit, where we met up again with our Brigadier. When we reached the unit, I pulled off the track onto the grass verge. Before I could get out of the jeep a chap waved at us to stay put. He strolled up to us and said they had encountered mines in the vicinity so would we stay put until he had a mine detector clear the area in which we had parked ! Then we set off again, following the Brigadier, and arrived at Meiktila without further incident. The return trip from Meiktila to Brigade HQ was unremarkable.

The Conference to which Brigadier Scoones had been called took place immediately after the battle for Meiktila. General Slim鈥檚 problem was how to reach Rangoon before the monsoons 鈥� due early June. Plans were made for IV Corps to take the short route from Meiktila via Toungou to Rangoon. IV Corps comprised 5th, 17th and 19th Divisions, plus 255 Tank Brigade. The longer route, following the Irrawaddy, was via Prome, and allocated to 33 Corps which comprised 7th and 20th Divisions, plus 254 Tank Brigade 鈥� one regiment of 254 Bde was the 3rd Carabiniers. I was with Tac HQ and operated a radio link via Corps to 14th Army HQ from whom orders were received direct to the Tank Brigade.

This campaign was remarkable in that it made the most tremendous use of airpower by having airdrops to supply both food and ammunition, and spare parts for the tanks etc. This made the units very mobile. We were moving so fast that we pushed the Japanese aside and often were in front of them. There was one time we were cut off from Main HQ by the Japanese. Then we were 2 weeks on hard tack 鈥� bully beef and biscuits. We had bully stew, bully rissoles, bully 鈥榓nything鈥� and we all had diarrhoea. If you went to the MO all you would get was a No 9 tablet. The only real cure for diarrhoea would have been a change of diet which was dependent on the next airdrop.

We worked very hard and had one night鈥檚 sleep in two. You got to a stage that you didn鈥檛 have time to be frightened. We were short staffed. You did a morning shift and then were off in the afternoon 鈥� but you still had to charge batteries and perform other duties. Then you were on the set again that night, all night until you were relieved the next morning. We used a 19 set 鈥� a tank set. This was used by all the tanks which were mostly Lee-Grants. The system was, that in the jungle, for an aerial, you got a length of cable and wrapped one end round a stone and threw it up into the trees. The other end you attached to the wireless set. If you couldn鈥檛 get through you didn鈥檛 bother pulling the cable down - just took another length of cable and threw it up in a different direction. In this way we established communications.

Sometimes I had to move my wireless truck outside the camp perimeter to establish communications, and therefore had no protection from the troops who patrolled all night. We were usually in touch with the Signal Office by telephone line. If you received a message over the set you 鈥榩honed the Signal Office who sent out an orderly to collect it. Conversely, if the Signal Office had a message for you to send they would 鈥榩hone you to say an orderly, usually an Indian, was on his way with it. I was in possession of a Colt 45 revolver which I kept on top of the set. Ammunition for the revolver needed rimmed cartridges to fit in the chamber. The only .45 calibre cartridge we could use were those for the Tommy Gun which were rimless. Hence we had to wrap paper round each cartridge to jam it in the revolver chamber. One time I heard a scrabbling at the back of the truck. I thought it was a Jap. I grabbed the gun just as the back flap was raised and there was our orderly. I don鈥檛 know who was more frightened, him or me, as he was suddenly confronted by the muzzle of my revolver and shouted, 鈥淥h, Sahib!鈥�. Fortunately I recognised him before I could pull the trigger. On this occasion the Signal Office had omitted to 鈥榩hone me.

We camped near Prome for 2 or 3 nights. A few of us went down to the Irawaddy River for a wash and a swim. I swam well out into the river and turned to go back. Suddenly there was a crack, and a spout of water in front of me. I dived and swam towards the shore, keeping under as long as possible. But I had to come up for air, and there was another shot. Again I dived down and swam underwater. The next time I surfaced there was someone on the shore waving at me and shouting, 鈥淚t鈥檚 all right Mac鈥�. My colleagues had dashed up the river bank to stop our protection troops from firing at me. They thought I was a Jap !

One day I was on the set when I felt unwell, so signalled to the Station to whom I was working to 鈥淲ait Five鈥�. I then pretty well fell out of the truck and on all fours clambered up the little rise to the Signal Office to get someone to cover for me on the set. They then reported me to the MO who sent me to a Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) as he had diagnosed malaria. The CCS was some miles away in a Buddhist Temple that had a magnificent reclining stone Buddha. In the short time I was at the CCS, a Ghurka soldier was brought in with shrapnel wounds. I was in the bed next to him. They draped white sheeting round his bed but I could see the Surgeon in silhouette, because of the strong lighting being used, operating on him, and could hear the clink of bits of shrapnel being dropped into a bowl as it was removed. Though I was still suffering from hallucinations due to the malaria, when the surgeon had finished, the sheeting had been removed, and a blood transfusion bottle had been set up for the Ghurka, I was asked to keep a watch on it and tell someone if it emptied. I was quite mesmerised by this bottle, and worried that I would fall asleep 鈥� thus perhaps putting the Ghurka in danger. After about a week I was discharged and put on a truck travelling south to rejoin my unit. I was not dropped off at my unit but at the roadside and told to wait for another vehicle coming along. I was unarmed and alone in hostile territory. Fortunately another vehicle did come along which again, after some miles, dropped me off and told me to 鈥渨alk down that path and you will find your unit鈥�. Still unarmed I obeyed instructions and found my squadron just as they had predicted.

We were soon in Rangoon where we stayed for a little while. In Rangoon I paid a visit to the magnificent Shwe Dagon pagoda where I bought two white and one blue sapphire, which are now on my wife鈥檚 finger 鈥� her engagement ring. The Burmese had hidden their gems from the Japanese - who would not have paid for them - but brought them out when they found the British would do.

In late July 1945 the Brigade was shipped back to Madras in India, thence to Ahmednagger near Poona, where the Lee-Grant tanks were replaced by the British Churchill tanks, in preparation for an assault on Malaya 鈥� to retake Singapore. A week or two later, the Americans dropped the Atom bomb on Hiroshima, and the Japanese finally surrendered. We were no longer required to set off for Malaya. Our Brigade was then moved from Ahmednagger to Risalpur, near Peshawar, in the North West Frontier Province. Risalpur was the Indian Armoured Corps Depot, equivalent to the RAC Depot in Bovington, England. The 254 Brigade became 3rd Indian Armoured Brigade and set about the process of replacing British personnel with Indian personnel. When my turn came I was posted to Wazirastan Signals where I spent several months in a camp called Gardai which was comprised of mud walls and tent roofs and a surrounding barbed wire perimeter. Gardai was one of two camps between Bannu and Razmak 鈥� known as the last outpost of the British Empire. I was there for about 5 months. Then my demob papers finally came through and I made my way back to Blighty (by sea to Southampton and then to Fulford Barracks, York) via the infamous Dolali Camp, near Bombay 鈥� if you were 鈥榙aft鈥� you were sent there en route for England. (This is where the comment 鈥渉e鈥檚 gone do-lally鈥� comes from). I was 20 years old and had a Demob group of 56, so I had had to wait until August 1947 before I was repatriated and demobbed.

I consider I was fortunate in coming through my Burma service unscathed, apart from contracting malaria shortly after my trip to Meiktila with the Brigadier in spite of our daily dose of Mepacrin tablets. I had recurring bouts of malaria for many years after returning to Civvy Street. It wasn鈥檛 until 1978 that I was given clearance from the disease.

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