大象传媒

The Shambles at Rathidong

This is a story from the first Arakan campaign in 1943. At this time, I was a sergeant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. Information had come to us that the Japanese had vacated a place called Rathidong which was on the river Mayu just above Akiam island. It was decided to send down a standing patrol from B Company under the control of Lieutenant Pierce. I was the senior sergeant. A flotilla of 6 sampans sailed down the river Mayu on an ebbing tide, to stand and patrol in Rathidong with the idea that the battalion would follow the following day. If we met opposition, we would vacate Rathidong and rejoin the battalion. We sailed down the river for some time till we reached the bend where Rathidong was. As we reached the jetty, we found that the Japanese had now occupied Rathidong town and they opened fire on us. The main body of the patrol managed to land, but my sampan wallah ( the man who rows the boat) was shot in the head and fell overboard. My sampan floated down the river, past the jetty, and I managed to steer it into what they call a chaung, which is tidal from the main river. I steered it further around the chaung, and met up with another sergeant, Jack Hallowes, who had managed to get into this area. As we sat there, we heard firing going on in the town, so I decided to leave the sampans where they were, with one sampan wallah, dump our blankets (we only carried a blanket), and join the main body.

We left the sampans there and we moved towards where the firing was taking place. As we did so, I was suddenly halted by a Lancashire voice saying, "Halt, who goes there?" I recognised this voice as Sergeant Ron Southworth, so I said, "Don't shoot, its Robbie, me!" and he said, "Advance to be recognised". After he recognised me, I advanced and asked him what was going on. He said that the main body were now engaged with the Japs who were in the town. So I said the best thing to do would be to join the main body and see what was going on. So we joined the main body, which was roughly in the centre of the town and met up with Lieutenant Pierce

All this time, there was firing going on, up and down the village at various points. At the top of this road where we were talking, there was a temple, and I understand that it was occupied by the Japs with some of our soldiers inside as prisoners. So I asked Lieutenant Pierce what he intended to do. He said that our instructions were, if we met opposition to make our way back to the battalion. He had already sent one sampan back, but he'd heard firing in the river, and we could only presume that they'd met trouble. I said that I'd left 2 sampans up the chaung at the south end of the town, and I suggested he took as many men as he could back with him and rejoin the battalion. I would go back to my 2 sampans with Sergeant Southworths platoon, go back down the chaung, and rejoin the main river.

We decided that he would give me a signal, like a whistle, when he was clear of the river so that we could then move off ourselves. After some time, we got the whistle blast so I moved off then to where I'd left the 2 sampans. But lo and behold, they'd gone. The sampan waller had obviously had taken them, with all the blankets. So for a time I was in a quandary, wondering what to do, because we had no means of transport. I thought the best thing to do was to cross the chaung at the bottom of Rathidong, move due east, then cross the chaung further up and strike north back towards the battalion position, which was further north.

We gathered the party together, which was approximately 20 people. There was Sergeant Southworth, Sergeant Hallowes, approximately 17 fusiliers, and myself. As Senior Sergeant, I took charge of this party. We then moved on and we came to a concrete raft across the chaung, which we crossed and walked south for perhaps 10 minutes. Then I decided to strike east. This was taking us away from the Japanese positions. After moving this distance, I decided to follow the chaung eastwards. This would take us as far away from the Japanese positions as possible, and into some shade which was provided by some wooded areas. We did this for some time, and then perhaps after about an hour and a half, I decided we should lay up. So we positioned ourselves into a defensive area and laid up for perhaps half an hour. After this we struck off again up this chaung till we came to a man made bamboo bridge, which was a ramshackle affair which crossed the chaung at a narrower point. The tide was now ebbing, and these chaungs used to flow down and leave mangrove swamps at each side of these. I sent as many as possible across the bridge - most of them got across - and it left me and a fusilier, Joe Carter, on this side. I had my rifle and Joe had the bren gun. Anyhow Joe decided to try and get across this bridge, and he got so far and fell off. Of course, he fell off with the bren gun. I pulled him out of this mire, and I carried the bren for a time.

We eventually struggled and got across the bridge. We were now across the chaung and the obvious thing now was to get back to the battalion. The only way to do that was to strike north. Having no compass and no means of directional finding, I decided to work on the stars which were now well up, and the time must have been perhaps midnight. Anyhow, we located the north star in the sky and we worked on that for quite some time, keeping into the shadows of this heavily wooded area. We must have worked on this for 2 or 3 hours, then we decided to lay up again. It was kind of open scrub, and the sky was getting lighter. I decided to let half of the party have a sleep while we kept guard in a defensive area, laying down, providing as much cover as possible.

After a time we went to sleep, and when I wakened up everybody was asleep....if the Japs had have come, they'd have had the lot of us! But fortunately they didn't. We set of again and it was now getting light, and we crossed open scrub again for some time, not meeting anything or anybody in any areas, till eventually we came to another chaung Luckily there was a boat at this site, on its keel, upside down. So giving 3 sharp cheers we turned it over on its side, put it in the river, and it sank right to the bottom! There was a hole in it!

On the other side of this chaung was a village which we came to know later on as Thalindora and we managed to entice 2 of the villagers across. They got us 2 sampans, which we needed for approximately 20 people, and we decided to get back to the battalion that way. So we sailed out of the chaung into the main river Mayu, and by now the tide had changed so fortunately it was taking us up stream. So we started making our way up the river Mayu. We got so far up - we were making slow progress - when suddenly from up north, a British Spitfire came. We gladly waved to him, and what did he do, he decided to fire on us!! So he fired on us and we were over the side like wild ducks! Fortunately, he didn't hit any of us, and he merrily went on his way.

We got back in the sampans and made our way further up the river. It was now getting late again so we made very slow progress till eventually we joined up with the battalion at about 9 o'clock at night in a place called Zedidong. The RSM welcomed us quite freely with cups of tea and something to eat. They told us all to get our heads down, which we did.

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