大象传媒

BURMA STAR ASSOCIATION

Eastern Ontario Branch

By Armament Q.M.S Lawrence Brooks

I enlisted in the Territorial Army in Belfast in June 1939, and was called up on September 3rd. 1939. I was posted into the Royal Army Services Corps and shortly after recruit training found myself serving with a Supply Company in France in the vicinity of Boulogne, Le Havre, and Rouen. Four days after Dunkirk I returned to Falmouth through St. Nazaire, and after a brief period of leave, was posted to a unit at Paignton. Shortly afterwards I joined a draft at the Marylebone Hotel in London, issued tropical kit and given needles against tropical diseases. We were then taken to Glasgow from where we were shipped to the Gold Coast (now called Ghana), to train native troops. As there were no docking facilities at Accra, where we were to land, the disembarkation was done in small boats, through heavy surf on to open breaches, by natives who waited for a suitable wave then drove the boats ashore with as much power as possible, leaving us high and dry on the shore.

We were allowed to travel to England on leave, and one time I went to Liverpool on the Polish ship 鈥楤atory鈥�. In Liverpool I recognised an American soldier as an acquaintance of mine who had left our village (Grey Abbey in Northern Ireland), seventeen years before. He had lost contact with is relatives and I was able to bring him up-to-date. I heard later that he went on leave to Northern Ireland and saw his relatives again.

On board ship on our way back to Accra I met an RAF Squadron Leader, who had been my geography teacher in High School. He was on his way to Takoradi to fly aircraft to the Middle East area. Shortly after my return to my unit, a new Commanding Officer arrived who turned out to be the officer who had inducted me into the army in Belfast.

I was transferred to a unit in the West African Division which was being readied for service in Burma, and went from the relative comfort of the training camp, where we played a lot of soccer, and were treated royally by the Europeans in the area, to the rigours of living under tented field conditions.

We completed training in Nigeria and then took ship to Lagos, and on to Freetown where we joined a convoy which sailed through the Med. The Suez Canal and on to Bombay. After a six day train journey we passed through Dacca and finally arrived at Chittagong. We then went on to the Arakan in pursuit of the Japs who were in retreat. One of the frequent attacks by enemy mortars resulted in many casualties at our Division Headquarters.

We slogged through the jungle quagmire during the monsoon, maintained mostly by our Quartermaster, who seemed to have an almost endless supply of issue rum. After er passed the Bithidaung Tunnels I was laid low by an attack of amoebic dysentery and was evacuated by the 鈥淎kyab鈥� navy to Chittagong and then to hospital in Dacca. The treatment seemed to me to be as bad, if not worse, than the disease. However, I was back to my unit in three weeks, and went on a week鈥檚 leave to Calcutta. On my return I was informed that as I had spent five years in the tropics I was eligible for repatriation, and after another very long long journey, I wound up in Glasgow from where I was 鈥渄emobbed鈥� in May 1946.

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