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AN RAF WIRELESS OPERATOR ON THE BURMA FRONT (Part 2 of 3)

The very next day, Monday 21st September 1942, we left Karachi railway station by special troop train, destination Calcutta in Bengal Province approximately 2/3000 miles across India. What an experience living on a crowded troop train for a week, six to a compartment, bully beef, biscuits and anything we could pick up en route when we stopped at a station. That's all we had, tea was mashed in a large dixie can from the hot water in the railway engine. Washing and shaving done from hand pumps when we had the time and inclination, these were usually found on the station platform. If anyone saw the film "Bowhani Junction" starring Ava Gardner then you would get a very good idea of what life was all about on the Indian Railways. Our journey took us through Lahore, Amritsa (the home of the Sikh Golden Temple), Lucknow and Cawnpore. I remember crossing the river Ganges at Benares so vividly well. This is the Holy Hindu river and city where the Hindu faithful come to wash and bathe and burn their dead in ghats on the river bank. We reached Calcutta Sealdah station on Sunday morning at 6.00 a.m. on the 27th September. Looking back on the train journey, it was fun really and as I've already said, it's remarkable what you can do when you have to do it.

My first impression of "CAL", as we were to call it, was quite good. I wrote this at the time just after we had arrived. In the afternoon we all went to have a look at Calcutta, we got lost a bit but soon found our way through the native quarter to the more select European District. What a big surprise, marvellous wide streets, big buildings, lovely parks, all reminded me back home of Leeds and good old England. I had 2 eggs, bacon and chips followed by ice cream, bread and tea in the Services Club opposite Government House, all for one rupee 2 annas, about 2 shillings in English money, what a treat! Later we saw a beautiful white building, which turned out to be the Queen Victoria Memorial Building. In the evening we went to the Lighthouse cinema in Chowringhi, which was the Main Street. It was so beautiful inside and delightfully air conditioned and so nice to come out after the show into the warmth of a balmy night, mosquitoes, crickets and all, instead of into the cold, as we would have done in England. Life was to go on like this in Calcutta for several weeks more, visiting service canteens, usually manned by British expatriates who did every thing they could to make our lives more bearable. We saw a lot of films and visited local Christian Church and Chapel Services usually with a free meal and a chat afterwards. We also were kept busy doing fatigues, guard duties and keeping up with all the wireless and procedure instruction, in readiness for what was to follow. By the way I've never seen so many people on the streets, there were tens of thousands of them with overcrowding on public transport, it was just like Bombay but only worse with people riding precariously on tops of trains, hanging on for dear life, and cattle were everywhere. I've never seen so many hideously deformed beggars all crying out for "Baksheesh", they lived and died in their dozens here with the cattle in CAL. This was the other side of Calcutta, the squalor, the degradation, the poverty and poor living standards, like I've never experienced since. I did manage to fit in the sight of the infamous “Black Hole “ of

Calcutta" where dozens of British wives and families met their cruel deaths during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. On Saturday 31st October we were issued, that is the wireless operators of our unit, with a document asking for volunteers to man observation posts hundreds of miles away in the jungle hills of the Assam Burmese border. If the Japanese advanced we were to stay until the last, then take off and become guerrilla fighters under Army Officers and would become part what was to be called a special "V" Force army. We didn't stop to think what we might be letting ourselves in for, so we all volunteered and I've got the document to prove it!

On Monday 16th November 1942, we left Calcutta for Silchar in Assam by train, this
was to be the start of what we had come all this way to do. All the training in Wireless telegraphy and secret codes was going to be put to the test. The relative comforts of CAL were going to be left behind for what we didn't quite know. There were to be 7 of us, 3 W.O.P.'s, 3 Ground Observers and a cook to man one of several posts strung out at 20 mile intervals approximately along the Northern Assam Burmese Border. Our destination was to be a little bamboo village called Mualvuum situated in tribal territory in what was called the Lushai Hills. Little did we know that the forefathers of the peoples in this region had been head hunters only 25 years beforehand. Apparently the local sport at that time was taking heads from rival tribes in battle and putting them in the village square. That was the bad news, the good news was that these same people had now reformed themselves into something near to a primitive normal existence and indeed had by and large, become converted to Christianity by missionaries from the Welsh Baptist Church. To get here from Silchar was a problem, we were to take to the river at Lalagat, and this is where we had to become sailors for a few days. It was not a big river being approximately 100 yards across, we had three small sampan types of boats to carry us and all our belongings which were extremely light plus the wireless equipment. In addition we had the services of coolies to steer and help drag the boats over the rapids which we were to encounter on the way. It was to take six days on the river, pulling and hauling the boats over the rapids, feeding and sleeping and living in a rather cramped primitive style on these tiny sampans. We had our rifles ready and cocked for any eventuality. I couldn't believe all this was happening to me for real. There were films I had seen back home which had resembled something like we were experiencing but one could not smell the jungle or feel the "mossies" biting you on film. There were animal sounds and the heat was stifling during the day and balmy by night with the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen. It seemed that only Dorothy Lamour was missing! One night we had a bit of a scare, whilst we had pulled into the river bank to make a meal, a native villager from the village nearby came up to us and by what we could make out in sign language and pigeon English he intimated that a rogue elephant was terrorising his village and doing damage and had already killed one man, was there anything we could do? We couldn't let him think we were scared, could we? not us, the great White Men from across the water! Off we went into the village not wanting to lose face; actually we had no chance of killing this elephant with our 303 type Lee Enfield rifles, the bullets would have rebounded off it with little or no effect. We scoured the village but, thankfully, not a

sign of the elephant. We were glad to get back to the comparative safety of our sampans with the knowledge that at the very least we had tried and had left a good impression with the villagers. On Thursday 26th November 1942 we pulled into Sairang about 11.00 a.m., it had been a most exciting trip. Here was "tropical magic" at its best. Here we caught sight of the Lushai people, the people we were to live with for the next few months, they looked more like Chinese than the Indians we had left behind in CAL. It had been adventure all the way, despite the mosquitoes, snakes, leeches and the Elephant we didn't make contact with. We remained cheerful and in good spirits, no time to think of what they might be doing back at home. From here we went by jeep to our camp at Aijal where we were to stay overnight. Next morning we were up very early, all our equipment had to be loaded on to mules and off we went on a treacherous journey over very rough jungle tracks, having to deal with all the elements of a jungle environment. It took two days to get to Mualvuum where a rough bamboo basha had been prepared for us in advance by the villagers on top of a hill with the village below. Our immediate job was to set up this wireless station as quickly as possible and get on the air with our secret coded messages to be sent back to our headquarters at Chittagong. It was to be the receipt of our Morse code messages that would enable our few Spitfires and Hurricanes to scramble into the air and intercept Japanese bombers before they could do any real damage to our troop movements, defence installations and to the cities further behind into India. I was to be here about eight months in the Lushai Hills and although we lived in primitive circumstances and great difficulties, I really enjoyed being with these people. I tried to learn a little of their own language and we became very friendly especially with the village schoolmaster who could speak a little English. When I wasn't on duty I helped to teach the little children of the village as best as I could little bits of our language and tried to tell them how we lived back home. I went to their church, it was only a tiny bamboo affair, we sat cross-legged on the floor and sang hymns Lushai style to the beat of a tom tom drum. I remember giving mini sermons translated by the schoolmaster who was called Darchunga and when I told them I had been a Sunday School Teacher back home they started to call me naupang zirter tu which meant just that in their language. All the male names seemed to end in A and females end in I and so when the schoolmaster's wife gave birth to a baby boy he asked would we suggest a name. We thought a bit and came up with "Winstona" after Winston Churchill and everyone was delighted with our choice. Later I received a picture of Winstona grown up which had been sent to me from Darchunga. On a Sunday morning more often than not villagers and schoolchildren would climb the hill to our post, all dressed up in their Sunday best and would bring us fruit, chickens, eggs and garlands of flowers. They made us handkerchiefs with our initials on them, they would laugh and sing and dance for us, and it was wonderful to see them. Many of the girls were pretty and one in particular called Tangkimi whose mother tried to palm her off on to me, but I thought of Janet back home and no way was I going to get involved. She gave me a ring and a handkerchief but I lost them. It would not have been wise to get too involved with the women, we had already been briefed about this because ones head could easily have been chopped off by the men of the village if anyone of us dared get out of hand! All in all we made a very useful contribution to their lives in the village, they hated the Japs and they were glad we were there. They left an everlasting impression on me and I was sorry to leave when we had to and so was Tangkimi and her mother who cried their hearts out, needless to say I had a lump in my throat too. Now those of you who know me, will and one can understand why "South Pacific" is among one of my favourite shows. I tried to keep in touch with Darchunga and several letters were exchanged but contact all fell away with the passage of time. I understand to this day the Lushai peoples are still a little bit rebellious towards the Indian Government whose administration they live under and one can understand why these Lushai people wish to retain their own culture and language. Already the Indian Government has changed the name of Lushai to Mizio and the former hill town of Aijal which they regarded as their capital to Aizwall. But it all coincides with the unrest in present day Burma which in turn is called Myan War and sooner or later we shall see great upheavals in those respective regions. Living and just being amongst those Lushai people, all eight months of it, was the most enjoyable period of my service life. The hardest and more dangerous period was to follow.

By this time the Japanese were pushing up through Burma and our forces were retreating. The objective of the Japs was to capture the border towns and villages on the Burma/Assam frontier in the North so they could prepare themselves for a direct onslaught into India itself. I was sent back to Calcutta after leaving the Lushai Hills and went on leave to Darjeeling which stands 5,000 feet above sea level in the foot hills of the Himalayan Mountains. Here Mount Kanchenjunga the third highest mountain in the world seemed to tower over us whilst we were there even though it was forty five miles away. Here were the friendly Nepalese people, where the Ghurka soldiers come from with their fearsome Khukri knives, where also Sherpa Tensing came from when he conquered Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary. Here I was to see Mount Everest with the naked eye approximately 100 miles away.

After returning from Darjeeling to Calcutta I was to learn much to my dismay that I had been drafted to an R.A.F. type commando servicing party unit. I learned much later that we were going to be sent into the thick of it, perhaps behind Japanese lines to operate and service aircraft on jungle make shift airstrips. We were to be a small unit of approximately 30 men of differing trades from Armourers, Fitters, Instrument specialists and a couple of Wireless blokes of which one of them was me!

The irony of it all was that all of my colleagues had volunteered for this unit and I had not! I was to lose, temporarily, as it eventually turned out, my wireless operating skills to become a radio telephone servicing operator looking after wireless equipment in our Spitfire and Hurricane fighter bombers. Not only that, I was to assist with rearming and refuelling the aircraft and generally making myself useful. Also I was to undergo a most rigorous Army type of training, given battledress and a rifle. I was to learn how to throw a hand grenade, how to use a machine gun and how to bayonet a man. I thought I was in the Royal Air Force and not the Army! I would have been better flying in Lancasters, so I thought. However all this was to be done in the space of a few weeks with our Headquarters at the Royal Air Force Assault Wing in Bombay.

The Chindits were now operating behind Japanese lines and were causing a great deal of havoc blowing up bridges etc. Apparently there were one or two nondescript airfields behind enemy lines and had code names like, Broadway, Aberdeen and Chowringhee. Rumour had it that we were destined for one of these, meanwhile we had exercises down the West Coast of India and I remember one particular exercise we were on. It was during the first week of November 1943 we went down by truck or gharry, as they were called, to a place called Kholapur about 300 miles south of Bombay. It was not too far away from where Goa is. We were busy making dispersals with fuel and other supplies in readiness for the landing of No. 6 and No. 20 Hurricane squadrons. I had the job of guiding them in and sat on the tail of two of them in order to put additional weight on the rear. The day the exercise commenced we were on the airfield at 6.00 a.m. One plane crashed on landing, another plane made a forced landing on the beach and another failed to return and all this was a mock exercise and not the real thing!

I must tell you about this. I had been trying to get a posting to what was then Southern Rhodesia because they were asking for volunteers for aircrew. Apparently they were losing Lancasters rather heavily over Europe and were wanting more men to be trained in Southern Rhodesia. I had been nattering about all this to my C.O. as I was already half trained anyway. So I had another strict medical in Bombay for aircrew and was successful. All this was happening during the course of my training for the Burma Front.

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