大象传媒

Chapter 3

So, I left another unit. The 4 Dorsets were later heavily involved in Europe and suffered many casualties at Arnhem where they were the only British troops of 30 Corps to reach the Airborne forces. 350 of them crossed the Rhine and all but 75 were killed or captured. They were in 43 (Wessex) Division.

After embarkation leave I was sent to Greenock (Glasgow) where I boarded SS Orbita. She was a real wreck, 25,000 tons and rumour had it that she was in the 鈥渂reaking up yard鈥� before World War I. She had a sister ship, the Orduna, that sailed alongside us in the convoy.

On the ship, there were two infantry battalions, The Royal Scots and The Norfolk Regt. They were part of 2 British Division and were to distinguish themselves against the Japanese, at Kohima in Burma. I was part of a draft of young officers and as subalterns we were crammed into cabins. There were six of us in ours, together with our kit. On three walls there were two tiered bunks where we slept. The other wall was a door and a washbasin supplying sea-water. We used sea-water soap which I seem to remember was pretty useless.

The troops鈥� accommodation was awful. They were packed below in mess decks and slept in hammocks. The stench was pretty bad and as we approached warmer parts, it became worse. There was no air-conditioning and large canvas wind-scoops were supposed to provide fresh air in the bowels of the ship. I think I now know why they refer to the bowels of a ship.

It was exciting at first as we sailed down the R. Clyde, being cheered all the way to The Firth of Clyde. Here the huge convoy that had gathered was a fantastic sight: great liners and fighting ships as far as the eye could see.

Bag-pipes played across the water and made it all the more impressive. Bag-pipes on our ship were a different matter. It seemed that the officers of the Royal Scots were required to learn to play and every day some of them were making revolting noises on chanters.

At this stage in the war these troop ships were not 鈥渄ry鈥� as they were later and these troops were regular soldiers who could drink. The Scots particularly were often in trouble and the Military Police were busy and the brig was always full.

To miss the U Boats the chosen route was westwards and then down the American coast before turning north to end up at Freetown, in Sierra Leone. To me it seemed a wonderful place because like most people at that time, apart from Northern Ireland and an Easter trip to Belgium, I had not been abroad. Sierra Leone was called the 鈥渨hite man鈥檚 grave鈥�.

South African airforce planes 鈥榖uzzed us鈥� and the Captain of our ship gave an order to fire at them. Everybody rushed to one side to see what was happening and the concentration of weight moved the ballast so that we developed a distinct list, which remained with us all the way to India.

From Freetown, again by an unusual roundabout route, we arrived at Cape Town in South Africa where we were allowed ashore. Here we were given a very good time; young officers being entertained by University Students.

Finally after two months, awful weather at the start, an engine failure and extreme boredom, we arrived at Bombay. From here, the unattached draft officers were taken to the Dehra Dun, a beautiful semi-hill station. We were then carefully checked and allocated to different regiments. I was fortunate in being posted to the 4th Prince of Wales own Gurkha Rifles.

4 G.R. Regimental headquarters was at Bakloh in the foot-hills of the Himalaya. If you want to learn more about it, you can read John Masters 鈥淏ugles and a Tiger鈥�. In this he describes his journey up the mountain 鈥渙ne-way control鈥� road to reach this wonderful place.

The mess was a beautiful building that appeared to overhang the plateau. The view was out of this world. Overlooking the Punjab one could locate all the major rivers.

Here we were required to learn to speak Urdu, which is the language of the Indian Army. Gurkha recruits from Nepal speak Gurkali, which is similar to Urdu. They start learning Urdu too and afterwards speak a mixture of both, if required when they are in an active battalion.

The 14th Army had between two and four Corps. The Corps can contain any number of Infantry or Armoured Divisions. An Infantry Division like our 19th Indian dagger Division is fairly constant in make-up with three infantry Brigades which in their turn contain 3 infantry battalions, like our 4/4 GR of about 800 men or so. In addition a Division has 3 regiments of field gunners or equivalent.
Sometimes there is also an anti-tank and an anti-aircraft unit. The machine gun battalion and the reconnaissance battalion are divisional troops and are used piece-meal as required. There are engineers, vehicle repair and recovery units, and medical personnel. The main fighting is done by the 9 infantry battalions and each of those contains 4 infantry companies. These break down to 3 platoons of about 30 men each, and a platoon has 3 sections of about 8 men.

There is also a Headquarter company containing specialists like a doctor and stretcher bearers, the mortar platoon, Bren gun carrier platoon, signals, intelligence section, snipers, transport, mules and vehicles. The Admin. company contains the quartermaster鈥檚 people like cooks and storemen. The adjutant and battalion clerk were included here as was the battalion second-in-command. We lost our Bren-gun carriers when we entered Burma. The tactical headquarters embraced the C.O. and Intelligence Officer, and his section together with some snipers.

There were 10 Gurkha Regiments and in the War they each had four battalions of about 900 men each. So our battalions were 1/4, 2/4 etc. I ended up in the 4/4. The number of British Officers in a battalion was about 14 only. In a British Battalion there were thirty odd officers.

In an Indian Battalion the numbers were made up by Viceroy Commissioned Officers called V.C.O鈥檚. The only difference was that ours were called Gurkha Officers or G.O.鈥檚. Although G.O鈥檚 and other ranks could probably speak or understand English, we never used English but struggled on until we became quite fluent. We received a lot of help with the language from regular British officers as well as the Gurkhas themselves.

Apart from Urdu there was much to learn. We had to learn so much about the Gurkhas and their ways - their taboos, religion, and different tribes. We were also taught much about the other Indians such as Pathans, Dogras, Mahrattas, Punjabis etc. who make up the Indian Army. The Indian Army included British Regiments too.

Hockey and soccer were played on the 2 large parade grounds. My training with recruits at the Rifle Brigade Depot, PT course at Aldershot and Small Arms Course at Hythe made me a valuable acquisition. New officers were nearly all used to ordinary rifle drill and had no training as riflemen. I was made PT officer and taught drill to the officers. One nasty job that I acquired was that of Cipher Officer which often meant working late into the night.

Whilst in the Depot we celebrated Dashera, a Hindu festival when the unit鈥檚 arms are blessed, buffaloes are slaughtered and there is much feasting and drinking of Ruckshi which is Gurkha rum. It tastes a bit like orangeade and is about four times as strong as whisky. I never liked it much but we were expected to drink it.

I passed my Urdu exam, for which I was financially rewarded, which was a great relief because subalterns were not well paid and mess bills could be nasty. At the same time one became eligible to join a fighting battalion.

One day in May 1943, Capt. Shamus O鈥橣lynn, 2/Lt. Davis and I received very special invitations to dinner from Mrs Owen the wife of Colonel Owen, the Commandant. This was rather a frightening ordeal. I am sure she was a very nice person but she was a Mem Sahib of the highest order. We had our legs pulled in the mess before we set off for the C.O鈥檚 bungalow. During the meal, Davis, a very excitable character, was recounting his experience in the Norway Campaign, in a lively way, when he described how the vehicle he was in, went over the cliff side. Unfortunately, he also used a soldiers鈥� adjective that one did not use in such company.

At this point, I had just taken a mouthful of soup and choked. I had to leave the table and went onto the veranda to recover. When I returned expecting the worst, Col. Owen smiled and said 鈥淲ent down the wrong way my boy.鈥� Davis was still gabbling away, unaware of the cause.

Whether it affected our postings or not, I don鈥檛 know, but Shamus and I were consigned to 4/4 and Davis to the 1/4 which was a very dangerous place to visit at that time.

The first Battalion, 1/4 was in 17 Indian division. They were heavily involved in Burma having retreated back from R. Sittang to the Imphal plain. Their casualties were awful. The complement of British Officers was 15 and they had had 17 killed and 18 wounded! The total complement for their type of battalion was 794 and they lost 308 killed and 703 wounded, a total of 1011. Davis actually survived.

The 2/4 were in the Desert and were to run into trouble at the 鈥渂attle of the Cauldron鈥� where the survivors were all captured. The third Battalion, 3/4 were jungle training and eventually became 鈥淐hindits鈥�.

When Shamus and I arrived, the 4th were destined for Africa, and were training in desert warfare with 19 Indian (Dagger) Division. Very soon afterwards our role was changed and we were to train to enter Burma by sea, in combined operations. We started training on landing craft operations off Mhud Island near Bombay. Many Gurkhas had not even seen the sea before and they were not good sailors until they were given seasickness pills. These were incredibly effective. Although we were also given them on very rough days, they had no effect whatsoever. After this they decided they had not got enough equipment to carry out sea landings so we were to go into Burma as an Airborne Division!

All the time we did jungle training in sometimes appalling places, sometimes in beautiful ones.

Someone found a jungle area near Bombay, which was completely uninhabited. It became clear why when the whole division of about 20,000 men developed foot-rot and we had to paint our feet with something called 鈥渂lue unction鈥� (I think).

After all this specialised training it was decided that we would walk into Burma after all!!

In action it was a superb division as the Japs found to their cost. It consisted of the following:-

19th Indian (Dagger) Division
Major General Rees CB CIE DSO MC
Divisional Cavalry: 7th Cavalry
Divisional Machine Gun Battalion: 11th Sikhs
Divisional Recce: 1/15 Punjab

62 Brigade 98 Brigade 64 Brigade
Brigadier Morris Brigadier Gerrard Brigadier Bain
2nd Welsh Regiment 2 Royal Berks 2 Worcestershire Regiment
3/6 Rajput Rifles 8/12 Frontier Force 5/10 Baluch Regiment
4/6 Gurkhas Regiment 1/6 Gurkhas
4/4 Gurkhas (us)

Gunners
115 Field Regiment 25 pounders (a Leicestershire Territorial Regiment)
4 Indian Field Regiment 25 pounders
20 Indian Mountain Regiment Mountain guns carried on big American mules.
33 Anti-tank Regiment. These people also had 5 inch mortars. The largest we had were 3 inch in the mortar platoon. Our companies also had 2 inch mortars which were quite useful weapons. Our infantry also had an anti-tank weapon called a PIAT (projectile infantry anti-tank).

Our training took us into Southern India near Madras, a very humid place. On one defensive scheme around Madras, the conditions became appalling and a large number of men, including Indians, died of heat exhaustion. (They used to call it sun-stroke). The rotten thing was, that Shamus O鈥橣lynn was one of those that died. He was a wonderful chap who had actually fought on both sides in the Spanish Civil War.

The Intelligence officer, Ginger McLeod, a cheerful character with a shock red hair, was sent to the first battalion in Imphal as a reinforcement. Ian Lyall Grant describes on page 135 of his book 鈥� Burma the Turning point鈥� describes the action in which he was killed the day after his arrival.

The 鈥淲ater Piquet鈥� was attacked but staunchly defended by Subedar Birsuba, who commanded the platoon there. However, on the night of the 12 / 13th May a neighbouring Piquet was lost after the Japanese had shelled it and its Jemadar Commander had been badly wounded. Lt Col Oldham, the C.O., decided that it must be retaken and mounted a counter-attack at first light. Major Hammond and two Gurkha officers were wounded at once and the attack stopped. Lieutenant McLeod went forward to get the attack restarted but was killed doing so. Captain Frankenburg went forward and renewed the assault but he too was killed. The very experienced Major Brodrick-Prittard then tookover but was killed as he reached the wire and the attack petered out. In this one little action, three British officers and six Gurkhas were killed and one British officer, two Gurkha officers and thirtyone other ranks wounded.

19 Indian (Dagger) Division under the leadership of General Rees, became a most impressive affair. We developed and practised time and time again 鈥榙agger鈥� drills so that even the humblest sepoy or rifleman automatically took certain action when presented with a given problem.

I was promoted Intelligence Officer and sent on an Intelligence course in Karachi, hundreds of miles away. It was most exciting, including flying in Catalina flying boats and small planes over the Sind desert. Again I did well, qualifying as a GIII int., (Divisional or Brigade I.O). In the event as I was promoted to Captain, I opted to stay in the battalion. I was now aged 26.

The Division was ordered into Burma and we moved North and East into Imphal. Part of the journey was by river steamer on the R. Brahmaputra. At last we were in action and would remain so for nine long months. In that time, according to our 鈥榖attle diary鈥�, apart from about 6 days, we were either in contact with the enemy or marching to make contact.

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