大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jane Pearson, a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of John Cook Montague (deceased), and has been added to the site with the permission of his daughter, Cilla Claire Maine. Mrs Maine fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

The following has been taken from a tape-recorded account (later transcribed) given by John Montague in 1991 to an American historian who was tracing and interviewing surviving members of the Jedburgh teams (SOE) that operated in France and Burma through the war.

(continued from Part I)
"After that I volunteered for the Armoured Corps, and started training in December 1941. I was commissioned in November 1942, and went out to the 2nd Battalion Royal Tank Regiment in December. They were a regular battalion in a curious position. They had been in France and came back from Dunkirk; then fought in the desert in North Africa, and were then sent with light tanks to join in the retreat in Burma. They were then sent back to the Middle East and were in Iraq, Palestine and Syria but virtually without tanks! We were guarding the Turkish border against Germans coming through. After a time I got impatient and in August 1943 volunteered for a semi-secret organisation training people to jump into Greece. A civil war, Communist against non-Communist, broke out in Greece so operations stalled there. They called for French-speaking volunteers to go back to England and jump into France. I volunteered for this 鈥� we were never tested for French speaking and in fact all I knew was schoolboy French.

Some of us went back to the UK in January 1944, and landed up at Milton Hall with the Special Operations Executive (SOE). As soon as we got there a bunch of 鈥渕edics鈥� put us through a long medical test 鈥� a complete hoax organised by Colby (who later became Head of the CIA) of the American OSS!

During all this time I had not seen combat. We had been fully trained, including parachuting, in Palestine, but were put through the whole training again in England 鈥� some of it less good than in Palestine. I started saying so and, before long, the CO (Colonel Spooner) told me to pack up and report to somewhere in Baker St, London. I believed I was sacked, but when I got there I was interviewed by General Gubbins who got me to explain it all and then said something like, 鈥淲ell, don鈥檛 do it again, and go back to Milton Hall!鈥� - I was very grateful to him. Then they called for volunteers to go to Algiers and into the south of France. Captain Granier from France, Sgt Cornick (RTR) and I went with them as a team. The first of us went by air, then some more by sea. Our team was to drop in the Ard猫che; our first attempt failed, as the pilot could not see any signal fires, but the second was successful. The timing was just right 鈥� it was just after the main landing in Normandy, so the Germans were too busy to rout us out: and some time before the southern landing, so that we had time to achieve something.

The operation did achieve a lot, in spite of two main difficulties. One was that we were under a Military Mission (a French Colonel and French/Canadian Major) who never got seriously to work against the Germans and did not want us. The other was that the Resistance was split between Communists and Non-Communists. The two halves did not help each other and the Communists were political rather than military. After some difficulties with the Mission we were able to help both halves, and encourage both to take action. We could not give orders 鈥� only make suggestions. But the Maquis were all eager to help 鈥� far more so than the Military Mission. There was little co-operation between the Military Mission and us which may have been caused by the struggle for power between different groups. However they counted for less and less as we got the Maquis to attack the Germans and a good deal was achieved.

We did get reinforcements from Algiers 鈥� some Americans with two 37mm guns. They were good but not properly used. My direct contact with them was attacking the Germans and their captured Russian troops who were moving north up the Rhone valley as fast as possible. The Germans were very efficient and we had some brushes with them at first, but later it was mainly Russian or Cossack units whom the Germans had made pretty effective too, though I don鈥檛 know how they did this. Some had a very bad reputation with the French. A whole battalion of Azerbaijanis under a Russian officer surrendered to us, but nobody complained about them.

We were with Communist Maquis, who were very young and untrained. They had these Americans attached, and we got them firing on the road and creating a hold-up. After a time things went quiet, and when I went round with their Commander to see how the sections placed in defence of the guns were getting on, they had all vanished. A little later we found ourselves surrounded, and had to hide in the undergrowth until dark 鈥� by then the Russians, under German officers, had retreated to the road and were moving again.

We would get messages from Algiers asking us to blow particular bridges but the French were unwilling to do this. When we tried to persuade the Maquis to do this, they would sometimes avoid doing it. I went with a non-Communist group and blew one bridge. The people on the ground were far more conscious than the staff in Algiers that bridges would be very useful again as soon as the Germans were gone. The non-Communists, especially the older and more experienced ones, were very ready to attack the Germans. At one ambush with them I chucked a bomb down on a small van 鈥� a front wheel flew up burning like a Catherine wheel. We took a Major prisoner, and killed two unfortunate troopers. (The training at Milton Hall to use a pistol was outstandingly good 鈥� by a Captain Fairbairn who had been with the Shanghai Police. He emphasised three points. The first was that you never sighted; second that you kept your right arm straight; and third that you always fired two shots as you brought your arm up. It was a very effective method, with practise.) The Major was handed over to their Intelligence Section, who were very well led by a French naval Commander.

Finally we were overrun by the French and American invasion in the south. We, like other SOE, were debriefed at Grenoble and then travelled to Paris and then back to England. However, I was on a charge for losing my .45 Webley automatic that had been stolen, I believed, by one of the Maquis during or just after an ambush, but I had no proof.

Anyway, volunteers were being called for to go to the Far East to carry out Jedburgh work there, and I volunteered. A number of us were flown out to Ceylon where the training camp was near the west coast. We had talks by people who had been in Burma in operations, but no parachute-jumping nor much weapon-training. We formed a Jed team and I was in charge with Captain Sell and Sergeant Carey, both of whom had been on operations in France. The SOE HQ in India combined us with Lt Col Peacock and his unit 鈥� to go in together, but then operate independently. This was not, in our opinion, a workable idea. Colonel Peacock, who had been in the Forestry Service in Burma before retiring to farm in Rhodesia, had formed his force from Rhodesian officers with Burmese and a few Karen riflemen, and carried out special operations behind Japanese lines. They were jungle-trained and knew Burma, and had been parachute-trained in India. We all travelled from Ceylon to Calcutta on a British cruiser and during the voyage we put to Col Peacock our willingness to come under his orders, making it a one-command operation. This was accepted by SOE, and that was how we went in.

It was December 1945 and we were grouped in three teams 鈥� Lt Col Peacock and the biggest party, including our Jed team, to cover the Toungoo-Mawchi road and south of it; Major Poles and others of Peacock鈥檚 Force north of it; and Major Turral and the rest of it south of us, down to Papun. We, Peacock鈥檚 party, were to be dropped blind in an open area near Kemapyu. Happily the pilot saw fires lit all over the area, and decided not to drop us. It turned out later that this was a Jap transit camp. Maj Turral鈥檚 party had dropped safely at a small village called Pyagawpu, so we were dropped there instead.

At first there was great hesitation on the part of the Karens about taking up arms again, but when we arrived to strengthen Turral鈥檚 party, they decided to rise. We had several supply drops quickly, and were able to start arming them. One of our greatest persuaders was Major Sam Butler MC 鈥� a Karen who had escaped to India, and then fought with the Kachin resistance in the north. He was a very good man, who played a great part in guiding the Karens and encouraging them.

I have several memories of this time 鈥� before Cyril Sell and I moved westwards to open up a sub-area towards Toungoo. One was the very peculiar feeling in one鈥檚 stomach when one first realises that one is surrounded. When the Japs attacked they were mercifully too short of men to clear us off. Another memory was when a young Karen beside me was shot through the head. He was about 15 years old. I wondered then whether we did right to arm Karenni so young and younger. Then there was the astonishment one early morning at finding a tiger鈥檚 pug marks a few yards from our tent.

Other memories I have are of fairly acute hunger at a time when monsoon weather prevented supply drops, and refugees fleeing the Japs had eaten what little stores of rice the villagers had. Another, also worst during the monsoon, was leech bites turning to ulcers on my legs and our sulphanilamide proving ineffective. A village medicine man cured these with compresses of leaves.

The area was mountainous, jungle-clad and with only a few roads. At that time the important area was from Kemapyu, through Mawchi to Toungoo. This connected with another road coming south from Bawlake, and a ferry crossing over the Salween river to Siam (now Thailand). It was therefore the route for Japanese troops moving south after their defeats in the north, and for reinforcements from Siam, to strengthen their next main resistance round Toungoo on the Sittang river. They were retreating and it was our job to prevent them getting back and reinforcing their lines of communication. We were marching through jungle country and we were successful in blowing bridges, ambushing and firing on the Japs. We had assembled about 50 men in a few days. Some of them were ex-Burma Rifles, well trained, but most were simply villagers and our job was to train them in our spare time.

The mountains were over 6000 ft and we were up and down them. They were full of wild life and elephants were used a lot 鈥� they are tremendously sure-footed and could haul tremendous loads. I used to ride them and I remember on one occasion, when I was hiding in the bush a few feet from the jungle track, I saw one of the Jap鈥檚 elephants coming down the track towards me and I didn鈥檛 dare move. Elephants have a powerful sense of smell and this one could have 鈥渋nvestigated鈥� me. It started to do so, but then suddenly went on its way and I was able to breathe again!

When the war ended the first thing we had to do was break the news to the Japs and they didn鈥檛 believe us until two Japs were flown in to speak to them. Then we went down to Calcutta and then Bombay and were flown home from there.

I always thought that the war was not one for Democracy, but for survival 鈥� and from start to finish I regarded it as that.鈥�

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