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We had to cross the Irrawaddy, and it was a very, very wide river. The Japanese had been cleared from our side as far we knew — from patrolling around- we couldn’t find any more.

The 72 Brigade had to cross over first and swept up the river to see if there were any Japanese about, and then we crossed.

We crossed in all sorts of things: sort of rafts with motors on them, and boats which were commandeered from local villages and so on. Engineers would make the rafts for us, as supplies of things like that were very scarce out in the Far East, as the war with Germany was a priority really, and so we didn’t get too much.

Because the river was so wide it took a while to cross. It was quite scary because you were stuck out in the middle so to the Japanese you’d have just been sitting targets, so we were very pleased when we reached the other side.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Richard Jones and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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