大象传媒

On the 8th May 1945, I was in a jungle camp in south east Asia. As far as I am aware it had no name, just a map reference. My regiment at that time was the 9th Indian Field Regiment Indian Artillery. I was a Warrant Officer Class 2 (BSM), one of a small number of British officers and Non-Commissioned Officers who had been drawn from various units of the Royal Artillery, mostly in Burma, to train Indian soldiers in the many skills required to take a regiment of 25-pounder guns in an invasion force to retake the Malayan peninsula back from the Japs, who had occupied it since 1942 in one of the surprise shocks of World War II.
The environment in which we were serving was one of the most hostile imaginable. Apart from the steaming heat, there were also the tropical diseases like malaria, dysentery, dengue fever and jungle sores to name but a few. There were also the creepy crawlies like snakes, scorpions, centipedes, spiders as big as your hand, white ants that could eat through the sole of an army boot overnight, and many more. We had had a typhoon the night before, which is a severe tropical storm. It had uprooted trees and bent over huge coconut trees like toy bows. Straw huts (bashas) had blown down, kit and equipment had to be retrieved from far and wide.
We had not seen the ration truck or water wagon, our only means of communication at the time was by our transmitter/receiver sets. We had been on wireless silence but kept them on 'receive', and that was how one of our operators 'twiddling' the dial picked up the crackling voice of 'All India Radio' which said 'The war in Europe is over.' We all rushed out of our various shelters cheering and, to a man, threw our bush hats up in the air. Our drivers - already in their vehicles - started sounding their horns, we were all ecstatic. Most of us had been in the Far East since the fall of Dunkirk and were due for repatriation, some long overdue.
For me, it would be November 1945 before I returned home. You see, nobody had told the Japs that it was all over, but little did they know their days were numbered. They finally surrendered in August 1945, except for some scattered units.
The surrender of all Japanese forces in South East Asia took place in Singapore at 11am on 12th September 1945. Present were Lord Louis Mountbatten (Supreme Commander), Admiral Sir Arthur Power and General Sir William Slim.

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