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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning on behalf of Alfred Allfrey and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was twenty years old in 1940 when I joined the 1st Battalion Royal Scots Regiment. I was sent to Penicuik, near Edinburgh, to train.
In 1942 I went to India for further training and in 1943 we were given the task of capturing the Island of Akyab for the R.A.F.
We failed to get the Japanese out of their bunkers but, as we had some ex-miners in our regiment who knew about explosives, it was decided we should blow them out.
This didn’t work out — the Japanese chased us and we retreated to India.
At one point on the way the Japanese came right through our regiment — we were either side of the road — we tried to stop them by using our guns but we could not. They were throwing hand-grenades.
In 1944, after the retreat to India, we went to Ameraga and then flew to Burma to try to flush out the Japanese. I remember the date we flew there as it was 4.4.44.
Whilst we were in Burma the Japanese destroyed the 6th Brigade of the Royal Scots which was frightening because we were only three miles away from this action.

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