大象传媒

At the age of 17 I decided to enlist in the Army instead of waiting until I was 18 when I would have been called up anyway. My mother was not very pleased as my brother was already in the Army.

My enlistment papers arrived in the morning post informing me to report to the barracks in Chesterfield. I had no idea where this place was or what to expect. Needless to say, when I arrived I soon found out. Arriving at the barracks I was told to report to the Orderly Room which I did and found five more lads waiting there.

We got talking about what we thought would happen to us next. Little did we know that the six of us were to be known as the 鈥楢dvance Party鈥�. Our job was to collect a pile of sacks from the stores and take them to a big shed which was full of straw and proceed to fill them till they looked like mattresses. Having done this we then had to report to the corporal again who then showed us to our barrack room which was up four flights of stairs. He then told us to carry the 36 palliasses (sacks full of straw) up and place one on each bed then report back to him.

Next we were taken to the stores to draw our kit, uniform and rifle, then upstairs again to deposit part of the kit on the bed and take the webbing and gaiters downstairs to be blancoed.

What happened next gave me an idea of what to expect in my next six weeks of training. I was shown how to put the Blanco on my kit by some lads who had already done two weeks training. This procedure involved wetting the block of Blanco until it became a paste on the top, then with a brush or sponge cover the kit with it then wait for it to dry. I was doing this when a corporal came up and said 鈥淔ollow me鈥�. We crossed the parade ground until we reached a set of steps. Standing on these was a man, he must have been well over 6鈥� 3, he wore a peaked cap and he had a silver topped cane tucked under his arm. He glowered at me and shouted in a voice like thunder, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 your name lad?鈥� I replies 鈥淛ames鈥�, he said 鈥淲here do you come from?鈥�, I answered 鈥淭ipton鈥�. He said 鈥淭ipton what?鈥� and stuck his arm out on which was a crown of some description. The look on his face when I said Staffordshire, it went RED then PURPLE. He then said 鈥淒o not ever let me see your face again鈥� then he stormed off. I later found out that he was the Regimental Sgt Major and that the answer he was expecting should have been 鈥淭ipton Sir鈥�. After my first day in the Army things could only get better or so I thought.

One thing I would like to point out is the fact that you can never win in the Army, what was then the Kings Rules and Regulations , or what they called KRR, can be adapted to suit any situation, no matter what it is. A typical example, which I have seen, is if a soldier back answers an officer or NCO he can be charged with insolence. If he says nothing but looks in a glowering or insolent manner, he can be still be charged with dumb insolence鈥︹�ou just can鈥檛 win.

Training was very tiring. Learning to march, rifle drill, PT and learning to shoot on the range with your rifle plus Bren-gun and grenade throwing. At the end of the day, after tea, your kit has to be cleaned and polished ready for morning inspection. Every single thing has to be spotless, even the back of your cap badge and buttons, also your bed has to be set out at all times, except at night. In addition you are expected to do Guard Duty and Cookhouse fatigues鈥ashing pans and peeling sack after sack of spuds. After six weeks we had a passing out parade and were now deemed to be trained soldiers.
My first posting was to Norwich and then Bedford. I think one of the worst places I was sent to has to be the Orkney Isles. Situated right off the tip of Scotland, it must be the coldest and bleakest place I have ever been. From there I was posted to a holding battalion in Leeds, then from there to Margham Castle in Wales for jungle training.
Although our officers assured us we would be going to Iceland (Ha-Ha!!), we moved to a place Miners Welfare Camp Gileston and were issued with KD and mosquito nets. KS is short for Khaki Drill, a thin cloth used mainly in the tropics. The normal issue per man is one pair of shorts, one pair of long trousers and two bush shirts. We had lectures about malaria and lots of other diseases which could be caught in the tropics, we also had quite a few injections We were now put on standby to move out.
Our next stop was Bombay in India and from there we had a five day journey by train to Calcutta. This may sound like heaven, but, after five days of sitting a sleeping on a wooden bench it was more like hell! We spent two weeks in Calcutta, getting used to the heat and some very strange smells. We then moved upcountry to a place called Barrackpore, spent a few days there then boarded a cattle boat which took us part of the way into Burma.

My platoon moved to several places, many of which I have forgotten how to spell, so I shall leave them out. We moved onwards to Mingaladon, here I suffered my first bout of malaria. Even though I had had taken my daily dose of quinine without fail, I still managed to get it. I should mention that the heat and short rations did nothing to help. Rations consisted mainly of American K rations the contents of which comprised of two very small tins of various items like cheese, Spam or other type of meat. These tins were approximately 2鈥� wide and 1鈥� deep, also in the carton were 2 biscuits, about 4 boiled sweets, 1 raisin bar, 2 cigarettes and 2 sheets of toilet paper. I may have missed an item as ones memory fails. These cartons were approximately 9鈥� x 4鈥� x 1陆鈥漝eep, this was 24 hours rations for one man. Water was also in short supply and had to be sterilized with special tablets before drinking, the daily ration was roughly 1 pint per man.

Most of the men that served in this terrain find it hard to explain just what the conditions were like. At times up to the waist in mud then to the other extreme, choked with dust and sweat. Most if not all of the men went down with malaria or suffered from prickly heat, ringworms or one of a dozen other types of disease. My weight was down to less than 8 stone along with a lot of the other lads.
We were now heading towards Rangoon. This was to be, we hoped, the last Japanese stronghold but, before we reached it, news cam through that the atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima in Japan. We still moved out to Rangoon only to find that the Japs had retreated which was a surprise to everyone. We stayed in Rangoon for a couple of weeks to recoup and replace some of the lost and worn out kit from a very meagre supply. It was good to rest but it wasn鈥檛 for long.

At 3am one morning we were told to get our kit together and return to Mingaladon where a Dakota was waiting. As we boarded one of the lads asked the Sgt Major if we were being issued with parachutes. His answer was 鈥淣o son, we have the names of your next of kin.鈥�
The Dakota had no seats so we just sat on top of our kit and ammo. I recall there was only about 1 foot between our heads and the fuselage when we lay down. Owing to the weight of kit and 38 men the pilot had a few problems taking off. Four times in all he tried but had to be towed back to try again. On the last attempt we made it, taking a little bit of the hedge with us. It was not long before we were shivering with cold as the aircraft gained height, we were still in jungle greens! We had no idea where we might finish our journey but it turned out to be Ceylon or, as it is now called Sri Lanka. This was to be just a short stop to refuel. Our final destination was to Singapore.

As we left the airfield in Singapore we saw so many of the poor souls who had been imprisoned in Changi Jail. They looked like skeletons, we thought we were thin until we saw them. I will never forget that sight.

A few yards further on we saw a platoon of airborne troops marching a crowd of Jap soldiers to be interned, one could sense that they would have liked to inflict on them some of the cruelty they had dished out to our lads. I think the officers and NCOs realised this and kept a tight rein on them.

We stayed overnight in Singapore and then made our way to the causeway which separates Singapore and Malaya. Once over this we entered a small place called Johores Bahru. This was to be our home for a while as we had a lot of work to do. We made our billets in the Sultan of Johores bodyguards barracks and tried to sleep while we could. Our job was to be providing petrol for the incoming troops.

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