大象传媒

CHAPTER TEN

LINE OF COMMUNICATION
Summer 1943

"The Lifeline of an Army"
In May 1943 Ginger Ritchie and I were posted to a "Line of Communication" Company based in Gauhati, entitled "R" L of C Signals. It was part of the only communications and supply route stretching hundreds of miles from Bengal to the Front Line Forces holding the central and Northern sectors of the Assam-Burma border. ("202 Line of Communication Area")

Following the overwhelming Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, the British Burma Army made a fighting retreat over 1000 miles, in terrible conditions, to the mountains on the Assam border. This 700 mile long mountain range forms a natural barrier from the Chinese border right down to the Bay of Bengal.

Fortunately they reached the mountains before the monsoons broke, bringing 5 months of downpour. Roads were washed away, jungle tracks knee deep in mud. This brought the enemy to a halt. American and Chinese forces in the North, who had been trying to re-open the Burma Road to China, had also retreated to the Brahmaputra Valley at Ledo.

These armies were not being re-formed, re-equipped, and reinforced, and air strength built up and modernized. All supplies and reinforcements had to pass through Gauhati, it being a river port and standing on the only road and rail route. This naturally kept "R" of L and C Signals very busy.

In fact, almost my only memories of that unit are of the heavy load of work involved in keeping their lorries and motorbikes in running order. Apart from Ritchie and myself there were two Indian fitters; the Drivers and D.R.s were all Indian.

Our accommodation on first arrival was under canvas, on the extensive lawn of a large bungalow that had been taken over as Company Offices. On the lawn stood two banana trees, laden with ripening fruit. At first we only took single bananas as they ripened, then a whole bunch, finally we cut off a whole branch of about a dozen bunches and hung it to the centre pole of our tent.

We also acquired a taste for mangoes, thanks to a huge mango tree that shaded our workshop.

After a few weeks we moved to a basha, with charpoy beds, spacious enough to accommodate all members of the Maintenance Section.

We occasionally went out for a meal at the only cheap eating place, a Chinese restaurant, or to the cinema, which only rarely showed an English film.

Whilst at Gauhati I succumbed to a bout of dysentery, which put me in hospital for a week (perhaps too many mangoes!). For convalescence I went to Shillong, a Rest centre up in the hills among the tea plantations. One night I woke to find my bed rolling about like a boat at sea. A deep, rumbling noise like thunder grew louder, enveloped the house, then gradually faded away. It was similar to an underground train roaring through below the house. It was a small earthquake, not violent enough to cause any damage, but down the river valley it disturbed over 100 miles of railway, buckling rails and shifting bridges, which slowed up even more the leisurely pace of the Indian-run railway system. Early in 1944 the Bengal and Assam Railways were taken over by American Railway Battalions, with the result that the volume of traffic hauled up through Assam increased enormously.

FOURTEENTH ARMY

In October 1943 Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed Supreme Commander South East Asia Command. A new army was formed, the Fourteenth Army, under the command of Lieutenant General "Bill" Smith. All forces east of Bengal, on the Burma border, and all supporting units in Assam became Fourteenth Army.

By the end of 1943 all preparation had been made to withstand a major Japanese offensive into India, which they in fact were planning to make, or to launch a major offensive back into Burma. Imphal had been provisioned as the forward base, both for defensive and for offensive operations.

On Imphal Plain, lying 3000ft up in the heart of the mountains, they had built large depots, dumps, administrative establishments, hospitals, labour camps, two airfields and four fighter strips.

The forward stores base and reinforcement camp was at Dimapur, in the Brahmaputra Valley, 150 miles from Gauhati. From there, the only road was up to Kohima, over Kohima Ridge at 5000 feet, through the mountains then down onto Imphal Plain, a 100-mile lifeline.

In January 1944 more offensive actions were started all along the Front. The Americans and Chinese in the N.E. began pushing their way South into Burma, building the Ledo Road through jungle-covered mountains as they went.

From Imphal 20th Div. And 17th Div. Probed forward to the Chindwin River and down to Tiddim. In the Arakan, the Southern Front adjoining Bay of Bengal, both sides made major attacks at the same time and met head-on. Desperate and bloody battles followed, but the British held on, well supported by RAF fighters and bombers. When units were encircled by the enemy transport planes kept them supplied with parachute drops of food, guns and ammunition.

Eventually the British gained the upper hand, broke up the Japanese force and dispersed it into the jungle. This was the first significant British victory against the Japanese, and it denied them the shortest and easiest invasion route into India.

SPECIAL SIGNAL COMPANY
March 1944

On March 1st 1944 I was again posted to another company, this time to "The Assam and East Bengal Signal Company". A new Unit situated in a new permanent camp 2 miles east of Gauhati, so I was still no nearer to the front line.

The Wireless and Teleprinter Operators worked at the local Corps HQ in Gauhati, from where their instruments were connected by underground cable to tall, powerful masts at the Camp, built for long-distance transmission and reception.

It was a small Company, with only 25 British personnel and 30 Indians, mostly Sikhs. I was the only British fitter, with an Indian assistant. Besides lorries and motorbikes to look after there were several "Iron Horses" - portable charging engines - and a large powerful diesel-engine generator, for emergency power supply. Apart from the one British Driver all Drivers and DR's were Sikhs.

Indians can be difficult to work with if you don't know their language, even though some of them have a smattering of English. If you try to tell them to do something they don't want to do they plead ignorance of English, "Nay mallum, Sahib", meaning "not understand".

I had already picked up a lot of their phrases, but now I bought myself a textbook on Urdu (Hindustani), the most commonly used of many Indian languages. Soon becoming quite fluent at it I could hold intelligent conversations or arguments. This helped tremendously in getting the work done, in getting to know more about the sepoys, and it gained their respect and co-operation.

We were now seeing large numbers of American troops, airmen and vehicles passing through Gauhati. Several airfields had been built in Assam, from which large American transport planes - mostly Dakotas - were carrying supplies over the "Hump" to China. The "Hump" was the eastern extension of the Himalyas, rising to over 20,000ft high, that formed China's boundary with Assam and North Burma. British Spitfires and Hurricanes and Vengeance dive-bombers occasionally flew over us, and the American twin fuselage P-38 Lightning fighter plane became a familiar sight.

I had only been with the Company about 2 months when, in May, I was rushed into hospital. The lorry engine that I was working on suddenly burst into flames, petrol spraying everywhere from a disconnected fuel pipe. Shouting "Fire! Fire!" I grabbed an extinguisher and after a few minutes got the flames under control. Then I realized that my overalls were on fire too when I found two sepoys trying to put out the flames, shouting "You burning, Sahib, you burning!"

The Section Officer took me to hospital in Gauhati, but with pain from the petrol burns increasing and delayed shock coming on, it was 2 hours before I was attended to. We had got there just after the arrival of a hospital train from Dimapur, loaded with hundreds of sick and wounded soldiers from the Front Line, where desperate battles were being fought. Imphal was under siege, Kohima had been surrounded and cut off, Japanese forces had been within a few miles of Dimapur.

At last my burns were cleaned up, to reveal that all the skin had been burned off my left arm from elbow to wrist, and the left leg from knee to ankle. By now it had become too painful to put my foot to the ground, so I was a stretcher case.

That evening I was carried on board a river steamer, given two blankets, and found a space to lie on the deck. After sailing down-river all night we were transferred to a hospital train, and traveled for 2 days across India to Mysore in the South-East, a journey of about 1250 miles.

I can remember very little of my stay in the Krishnarajandra Hospital in Mysore, except that most of the Nurses were English and that the skin burns were dressed with Vaseline Gauze.

Fortunately, my Commanding Officer pulled strings in the right places, and in June I was restored direct to my former Unit, thus avoiding going through the reinforcement camp routine again.

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