´óÏó´«Ã½

We in ‘C’ Company, 7th Worcesters now knew that we would never get to Rangoon for it was not our job. The clearing of Japanese between here and Rangoon had been given to the Indian Tank Regiment. We had always led the way and we didn’t like being left behind to do the mopping up.

It was May now, May 1945, and the war was over in Europe. The news came on a sheet of message pad and was passed around. No one cheered about it. It was too far away, as if a war had ended on some distant planet, and we were conscious that we had to ‘soldier on’. We were glad it was over for the folks back home, but it made no difference to us except to again set us thinking about that far-off place that we had left four years ago.

We thought of England in spring, of fields of green grass, and gently falling rain. We longed for England with a desperate yearning, instead of this Burma heat, the sickness and the sweat. Almost everyone in ’C’ Company had dysentery caused by the flies and dust and foul water we had to use to wash away the layers of dust. We consoled ourselves by reminding each other that the end was not so far away.

Rumours had been going round that the Battalion was being flown out soon. It was said that that the engineers were levelling a strip of land less than twenty miles away. It had to be for us. 5th Brigade, which included the Worcesters, had been ordered to stay until last and mop up any Japs in that area. It meant that we were first in and now last out.

‘C’ Company dug in at Legyi where we were shelled by Jap mortars which destroyed our bamboo built headquarters, as we sheltered in our trenches. We saw planes in the sky but there was no word of flying out. Then trucks began to pass us on the nearby track… forty or fifty all heading in the same direction. It seemed that the Division was preparing to leave and we began to hope again.

It was eight days later that the Battalion moved on to the top of a hill to engage a party of Japs. It was here that we saw the unbelievable sight of aircraft landing and taking off. The next morning came the long awaited order. Tomorrow we were to be flown out of Burma and we were to be taken to a place called Lancharapara, a few miles outside Calcutta. It had been an American Army camp and we were promised every comfort.

Orders were given about the packing of such stores as we still possessed, and for the handing over of the transport to the 19th Division. Next day, the five mile march to the airstrip started at six o’clock in the morning, just one year and nineteen days after arriving in Assam. It was a noisy march, everybody was singing, laughing and talking. The old ‘Dakotas’, like grey geese, were waiting for us on the airstrip.

We loaded thirty men to a plane. It was like magic as we lumbered off the ground and climbed over the mountains and the Burmese jungles, over the Irrawaddy, over the Chindwin and the Brahmaputra, back to India. There was a cheer from everyone, as we landed.

We had come through the mud and the dust, the heat and the rain, and the days and nights of marching, fighting and digging and dying.

This was the end of a long, long journey.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.