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Preface

This story does not rely on the 60 year old recollections of a 83 year old War Veteran. It was written at the request of the Commanding Officer intended for a War Correspondent. I wrote the account as requested but no-one asked for it and it was never submitted. I still have the original written in pencil.

Because of the strict security in force, certain details had to be ommitted. The unit concerned was

13 Platoon - D Company - Royal Welch Fusiliers
2nd (British) Division.

Ex-Sgt Lewis P Williams R.W.F.

Typed version of a handwritten account of

Crossing the Irrawaddy prior to the XIV Army recapture of Mandalay.

The Platoon was allocated 5 collapsible canvas assault boats. There were 6 men per boat plus 1 RE.

We were the last string in our wave, and immediately we cast off the second boat got waterlogged and we had to put an extra man in each of the other boats to ease the weight and left only 1 RE and 2 others in the no. 2 boat.

The waterlogged boat prevented accurate steering of the first boat and in a short while all the others were out of sight and we were being swept downstream. The landing light on the shore had been extinguished by a Jap sniper.

When we were 30-50 yards from the south bank the Jap must have seen us (it was bright moonlight)and opened up with light automatics, spring grenades and rifles. A few blokes were hit with the first burst and one of the grenades landed in one of the boats and hit some others.

Fusilier Youd from Kidwelly, South Wales spotted the gun flashes of one of the Jap positions and pointed it out to Cpl. D.J.Williams of Cwmbwrla, Swansea, who let him have a burst of Sten. This position was also fired on by Cpl. Walker of West Bromwich with his Sten and Fus. Batsford of Stratford-on-Avon with his Bren. That Jap position did not fire again.

We were now about 20 yards from the south bank and the second boat sank, dragging the first and third boats down with it. Cpl D.J.Williams, with great presence of mind, cast off the fourth boat before it could be dragged down too. The people in the first three boats started struggling towards the bank. Most people had to throw off all their equipment or they would have drowned. At this time Fus. Barnsley of Walsall had a grenade with the pin out ready to throw, when his boat went down and he had to let go of it to get his equipment off. When it went off it lifted him and those near him right out of the water but did not hurt anyone.

We got to the bank and crouched tight up against it. The Jap could not fire on us there because it was sheer and about 8ft high so he started rolling grenades down on to us. Fus. Stokes of Merton Park, London got wounded in the eye and calmly put on his field dressing.

By now the other 2 boats had drifted downstream some 20 yards or more and were touching the bank and three of us swam downstream to join them. They got ashore alright with their weapons and started to climb the bank, it was very steep there but not sheer. There was another Jap position on the top here and he rolled some grenades down and kept hitting blokes back on top of each other. Fus. J. King of Hunslet was hit in the shoulder, though not seriously and insisted on carrying on. So did Fus. Strickland of Theydon Bois, Essex, was also hit and made his right arm useless but he still wanted to carry on but was ordered back to the boats still floating and handed over his tin hat and rifle to me. The people who landed here were led to the top by Cpl. Williams and were being continually encouraged by Cpl. Randles of Rhuddlan North Wales who kept shouting ‘Come on lads its cushy on the top we have got them beat on the level ground’.

We got to the top and found that the Jap had vacated that position and we found his track leading from it so we ventured along the track, Cpl. Randles leading and myself, Fus Batsford with his Bren, Fus King of Cardiff only armed with 2 grenades. We came to a bit of a clearing about 4 yards square so I got abreast of Cpl. Randles when over came a couple of grenades, they landed right in front of us and we got one each. Cpl. Randles got hit in the stomach, he got up to his feet again firing into the grass where he thought the grenades had come from. My grenade left me with no harm except a torn trouser leg. Cpl Randles got up, said ‘I’ve had it Sarg, I’m going back!’ While he was firing his Sten and I fired my rifle and couldn’t open the bolt, the Bren couldn’t open up for fear of hitting us and we couldn’t go another way because of the noise the elephant grass would make. Jap had the track covered so we went back to the Jap foxhole and enlarged it.

Whilst this was happening on top Cpl. L Smith of Woking was seeing that the wounded got back on the remaining boats before the REs took them back across the river. When they were safely away he joined us on the top.

We found another track and Cpl. Williams and I went along it and were followed by the rest of the Pln. We found another Jap foxhole and that was empty too so we pushed on a couple of yards further and sprung some sort of booby trap but no one got hurt.

Then I got the Pln. together and had a check up and found that we had 13 men left out of 30. There were 17 missing or wounded so we decided it was best to ‘stay put’ for the night, with the Jap in the elephant grass in front of us (He knew where we were but we didn’t really know where he was or his strength) and the fast flowing Irrawaddy behind us. So with only one shovel we enlarged the two Jap foxholes and did our turn of guard while the people not on guard tried to keep warm and quiet in the grass. Most of us were soaked and it was deadly cold and it was a ‘job and a half’ trying to stop our teeth chattering.

Nothing happened during the night, in our sector anyway, but there was quite a lot happening on our right about 2 miles away and on our left about half a mile away where the rest of the Coy. (Company) had landed. Then things quietened down and we though that we might be the only people ashore but put that aside ‘cos we didn’t think that the others would have turned back for the orders were ’make the bridgehead or bust’

Once during the night a sentry (Fus. Kingdom of Ystradgynlais, South Wales) came to me and told me that some of our own fellows were in the grass, he said he could hear them talking but some of the older hands knew this to be an old Jap trick of speaking English, so we didn’t fall for it.

Somewhere below us were some of our platoon who had swam ashore from the first three boats but didn’t swim downstream with us to join the others. They didn’t really know we were on top of them. They thought we were Japs, we didn’t know whether or not they had landed or made for somewhere else, but we guessed they were down there.

They spent a very uncomfortable night, chest deep in the cold water and only a revolver and a couple of grenades between them.

We contacted them at first light and were they glad to see it was us on top?

They were 5, the Platoon Cmdr among them, that made us 18. The Platoon Commander Lt Reynish of Cardiff, though soaked and almost frozen, decided to take a patrol out to look at the lay of the land. He took the only remaining Bren Gun himself and Cpl Smith with a Sten, Fusl. King of Cardiff with a couple of grenades and myself with a rifle, we set out. The country was quite thick with elephant grass and we couldn’t see very far in front of us. We found some more Jap vacated positions and came back and posted a couple of look outs. It wasn’t long before one of our patrols from B Coy. led by Sgt Alec Lawrence were spotted and were we glad to see them? I’ll say we were, they handed out their fags and led us back to join our company and they set us up with more fags and char.

We heard later that Cpl Randles had died from his wounds.

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