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Our Moth by this time had been replaced by a couple of Aosters to fly back the walking wounded. They were very small but neat high wing monoplanes with an enclosed cockpit and two seats, one behind the other. The pilots were still non combatant Americans, this time flying the plane from the front seat. They were unarmed but they did have brakes ! On the 9th of October I had my first trip in one and it turned out to be quite an experience. I wanted to get up to do a recce for one of my workshops at a village called Khampat where Div HQ would be moving to in a few day's time. Taking half a day to get a jeep through the tangle of jungle and mud was not funny versus a flight of about 30 minutes. So I scrounged a lift knowing that I may have to stay up there until something on wheels came back.
At that time there were quite a number of Jap Zero fighters around and so the Aoster pilots flew very close to the tops of the teak forest. The very much faster Zeros did not usually venture that low.. We took off and headed for Khampat, this time the pilot knew where he was going. We saw a couple of Zeros high in the sky above us but we were flying so low that I could distinguish the flutter of leaves in the tops of the trees below.
Chatting away the pilot asked me if I had ever flown a plane and I told him that I hadnÌt, but when at school, I had always wanted to. I said that at that time I had read Alan Cobham’s book ‘How to fly a Moth’ from cover to cover many times and always felt that I could get on board and fly one. The pilot bent forward to the floor and the next thing I saw was him passing the ‘stick’ over his shoulder saying, ‘Stuff that in the hole between you feet and see if you can’. We had a very ‘weavy’ sort of ride for five or ten minutes. At the time I thought that he had passed back his own column. When my flying got too hairy I quickly passed it back to him. Although I never did find out whether I was using the only one I suspect that mine was a spare.
On the 14th October Div HQ moved down to Khampat. During the next two and a half months the Division fought its way down the valley through Yazagyo and Kygon to Kalewa. There was one stretch of many miles around Yazagyo and Kygon where the jungle became deeply muddied. The only way to get any vehicle forward was to cut down saplings a bit longer than the width of a truck and lay them side by side to make a track a bit longer than the convoy. When the head of the convoy reached the head of the track it stopped and the poles from the rear had to be carried forward and laid down in front again to make more ËroadÌ. It took a very long time to go a very short distance.
Under these conditions any movement over the ground was painfully slow and dealing with the wounded and sick was a nightmare. Our little two seater Aosters could only handle those who were Ëwalking woundedÌ and then only one at a time. The terrain was such that it was impossible to make an air strip to take an aircraft of any size. So we used gliders. They could come in and sit down on a cleared bit of jungle not much bigger than a football pitch.
They were towed out to us by lumbering Dakotas on a long elastersised tow rope from somewhere way back. When they arrived overhead they disconnected the tow and the glider pilot spiraled down on to the landing patch. Very quickly the glider was loaded with a dozen or so stretcher cases of terrified Africans, many of whom had never seen an aircraft close to before. In the meantime the Daycota lumbered around overhead trying to keep out of the way of very much faster Jap fighters that had a nasty habit of turning unexpectedly.
While all this was going on a great big heavy rubber loop was hung up between two upright poles like rugger posts at the end of the landing patch. This loop was connected to the end of the gliderÃŒs extended towrope. When all was ready a signal was given to the tow plane, probably someone waved a towel or something. It then came down low over the trees just above stalling speed. With a hook sticking down out of its tail it snitched the rubber loop off the tops of the rugger posts opened its throttles and started to climb. It was quite an extraordinary sight to see the Daycota climbing away for what seemed several seconds while the glider remained stationary as the rubber stretched out and then, - whoosh the glider was up and away, usually missing the rugger posts by inches. Basically it was a system that worked very satisfactorily for some time. There were many times when there was a missed hook and the tow had to go round to try again. As far as I remember on only two occasions did the tow break on the way home. I believe that one crashed into the jungle while the pilot of the other managed to find a flat bit to land on by a river.
Behind us on the same route, in territory now clear of the enemy, the Royal Engineers of a British Division, the 1st I believe, were doing a fantastic job with bulldozers and scrapers. They made a raised earth road right down the valley, waterproofing the top with some kind of tar felting to prevent it being washed away by the rain. They were being helped by ‘Elephant Bill’. He was a fantastic bearded fellow originally from Cardiff I believe. He had come out to Burma as a young man to harvest the teak. He became very interested in training the elephants that were used extensively in moving the enormous teak logs with their tusks and hauling them along in the mud with a chain harness. Somehow he had managed to spirit quite a number of his charges away from the Japs and the REs were more than a little grateful for the ‘elephant power’ he was able to give in the making of their road.
While all this was going on Wingate with his Chindits was going down parallel with us on the other side of the Chindwin River ahead of the 7th Indian Division. It was, I believe the same Division that ‘partnered’ us when we took Gondar in November two years previously.
We reached Kalewa and Kalemyo in mid December 1944. For the time being fighting in our area stopped as all the Japs in front of us were either drowned in one of the rivers or on the other side of them. It became now a question of’ ’all hands to the pump’ at Kalewa to build a pontoon bridge across the Chindwin. At this point the river was probably getting on for half a mile wide and flowing pretty fast.
It was about this time that ‘Fluffy’ left us as Divisional Commander and went back to East Africa. He was replaced by a Brigadier Radford from the 7th Indian Division promoted Major General to take us on. He was a very able chap and extremely nice as well. He soon became very popular with all ranks both black and white, but regrettably he stayed with us not much longer than a month. The general commanding the 7th Indian Division was killed in a plane crash and Radford was posted back to take over the command of his old Division.
With the swift current and enemy troops on the other side it was not practicable to build pontoons one after another from one side of the Chindwin to the other. What we did was to build the bridge by connecting up all the pontoons end to end in the river Kaladan at Kalewa. When completed, two hefty outboard motors, hitched on to a canvas framed dinghy, hauled the whole length across in complete darkness and made fast on the other side. The whole operation took a very short time and two of our three brigades were established on the other side before daybreak.
We had been operating for almost four months in the thick jungle of tall teak trees and scrub where we had seldom seen the sky from one day to the next. It was such an enormous relief to get across to the other side of the river. Here it was open country with paddy fields and a good sprinkling of Buddhist temples. We pushed on a few miles to secure the area and then watched as the whole of a heavily armoured British Division thundered through on its way to Rangoon. In a few days on their ‘felt topped’ road, they had been able to move down the valley that had taken us nearly four months to clear for them.
The word was out that we had done our part of the job and were now going back for rest and a refit. I think that everyone including the Africans, who had done a magnificent job all along, was disappointed that we were no going to be able finish it off and get into Rangoon. But it was not to be and on the day before Christmas Eve 1944 I set off back in a jeep, up the felt topped road now rather tatty, with Joe Baysting my small arms officer. We were heading back up the valley for Bokajon where I wanted to choose a suitable site to gather all my workshops and LADs together. I had planned to form an advance Base Workshop in the field to handle the divisional refit. When I had proposed this rather novel idea to the General, he told the three brigade commanders of my intent. They all three raised merry hell because up to this point each of my three brigade workshops had worked for and moved with each brigade exclusively. They did not want to lose what they considered to be exclusive rights. However I won the day. It became evident to the Div Commander that a central workshop with over 1000 bodies, albeit in the field, would be more effective in a refit situation than 15 much smaller units all with different priorities.
We certainly needed the rest and believe it or not the rains stopped and the sun came out. I had a good camp area with the three brigade workshops and 9 or 10 LADs forming an integrated base workshop working under trees. They were a very good crowd and the Divisional refit went ahead as fast as we could get spares and bits and pieces from Base and anywhere else.

We got started here early in January and four or five weeks later word started to circulate about time spent abroad on active service and ÌrepatÌ. Up to this point nobody had really thought much about repatriation, we had been too busy clearing out the Japs. However every one started to tot up how much time, since 1939, they had spent out of the UK and I was a bit surprised to find that I almost held the record. I had spent only 2 months in the UK since 24th September 1939 which meant a total of five and a half year of continuous overseas active service. The upshot of all this was within 5 or 6 weeks of getting my Ëbase workshopsÌ established and really ticking, - the novel idea had proved a good one, - I was told to get ready to hand over my command and prepare to ‘go home’! The hand over in fact never took place as my successor did not arrive before I left.
There are two things about that site and that short period that I still vividly remember. The first was horrifying and in hindsight so unnecessary. One of my brigade workshop COs had put one of his Africans under arrest for some serious offence. As the African had become violent and as he had no secure quarters to hold him his CO had asked for him to be held under guard by one of the infantry battalions nearby pending court martial. His request was refused by the battalion commander. My chap had intended to come to me the following morning to seek Divisional support for this request. Meanwhile the prisoner was held in a hurriedly built guard room of poles and palm leaves with an armed sentry posted outside.
By this time we were all pretty comfortable well back away from hostilities. Most units had their own Messes under cover of EPIP tents (European personnel Indian pattern). That evening we were in the middle of dinner in the Div HQ Mess when the sound of sustained machine gun fire startled everyone. Almost at once the field telephone rang and the chap who answered it called out to me " Ken, an African with a Bren has run amok in your No.3 Workshop NCO’s Mess". I jumped into a 15 cwt truck and tore down there followed by several of the others and found absolute carnage. Some of the nearby battalion’s officers had got there first including their doctor.
The African prisoner had broken out of the back of the rudimentary guard room, overpowered the sentry and with the sentryÃŒs own panga slit his throat. He had then taken his Bren gun run across to the NCO,s Mess, burst in and sprayed shots everywhere. He himself was shot by another sentry who came running from his post when he heard shooting. Two of the British sergeants were killed on the spot, another died on the way back to the casualty clearing station, several others suffered lesser gunshot wounds.
The other thing I remember well was a very well kept secret. One of the artillery regimentÃŒs 25 pounders had been suffering from some minor recuperator trouble really needing a spare part. I was pretty sure the part would not be available anywhere nearer than Woolwich. I had said as much to the CO whose workshop was refettling the gun. I suggested that perhaps he could get one of his more skillful fitters or an armament artificer to make the bit from a piece of phosphor bronze rod. I learned later that was just what they did do. However much against my better judgment he persuaded me to let one of his junior officers scrounge a flight with the RAF back to Delhi to try and get the part from 14th Army stores there.
He was away for three days. He came back rather glumly reporting that he had not managed to get the bit we needed. What he had brought back however was presented to me a few days later at a farewell party that the whole of the Divisional EAEME gave me on leaving on repatriation. It was a silver cigarette box beautifully engraved. On the lid were the flashes of the 14th Army and the rhinoÌs head of the 11th East African Division in the top corners, the EME cap badge centered with the presentation inscription below. On the underside of the lid, ‘Presented by the Officers, WOs and NCOs etc. of ‘my lot’.
With this they gave me a Swiss Camy stainless steel wrist watch with a luminous dial and brown face. It was engraved with my name and rank on the back. It is waterproof, shockproof, antimagnetic, you name it and it has it. They told me after the party that he had not even tried to get the spare part as he too knew it was probably impossible to get. He had just collected the contributions from everyone and worked out his own plan of getting to Delhi to buy the box and watch and getting them engraved. I imagine that it would not have been very easy to find something like this in Delhi in those days.
It is difficult to describe one’s emotions in finding yourself quite suddenly about to start off on your way home still in one piece after so much intensity over a very long period. Saying good-bye to everyone was not easy. Particularly as a few of them had been with me since I first arrived in Africa, my ‘boy’ Muindi for one and my Sudanese driver was another together with Hugh Collinson the ADOS and several of the KAR.
Anyway I got packed up and by some means or other made my way back to civilisation, as far as I remember via Imphal, Kohema and Jorhat ending up in Calcutta. The distance is probably around 300/400 miles. As I left on the 1st of March and arrived in Calcutta on the 2nd, I must have travelled most of the way by courtesy of the RAF. I remember none of it.
The train journey across India from Calcutta to Bombay took a full 4 days. Two or three hundred troops in a train with no Ëstop offsÌ other than at the sides of the track. We arrived in Bombay in the dark at 10 o’clock and herded into Deolali Transit camp. For two weeks we remained there. On the 23 March 1945 we embarked on the HMT Ranchi, which I think was yet another ex P and O liner. We sailed for home on the 25th. This was the point where, for me, the Burma Campaign ended

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