大象传媒

This story has been submitted by Margaret Payne of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Frank Baldwin and has been added to the site with his permission.

In the summer of 1943, aged 18, I was sent out on a draft from my regiment, to join the Royal Gloucestershire Regiment in the Far East. The First Gloucestershires had just pulled out of Burma and were stationed in Calcutta,

I thought our draft was going to join the First Gloucestershire Regiment in Calcutta, but we were diverted onto a boat and sent to Chittagon, a port near Bangladesh. On arrival at the port, we were transported a few hundred miles by road and joined the First Battalion Wiltshire Regiment, in second line of defence. Four days after joining the regiment we were ordered into action when 5th and 7th Indian Divisions were surrounded by Japanese troops. We were sent over the Ghopy pass to relieve seven Indian Division who were surrounded and being attacked and cut to pieces by the Japs. We relieved 7th Indian Division at the end of February/early March, then we pressed on to gain the Mongdaw tunnels under the Mayhew range of mountains which was a motorway between Mongdaw and Boothdong. It was all hand to hand fighting. We had the dive-bombers once and the artillery for seven days and the tanks once. In the middle of May 1944, we gained control of the Mongobuttadong road. During that time from February to May, we were on survival rations dropped by the air force. The survival rations consisted of one very small tin of corned beef, four small biscuits which tasted like concrete, two squares of bitter chocolate, powdered milk, saccharin鈥檚, a small amount of tea, two chlorine tablets, and were given by the regiment five or six tablets per day, one mepacren, one salt and four vitamin pills. We did on two occasions have two spoonfuls of dehydrated powdered potato. We had a couple of tins of peaches during this period 鈥� and we had more Rossa Rum than we had food!

The 26th Indian Division, which consisted of 1st Battalion Wiltshire Regiment, the Lincolnshire Regiment and also Indian Regiments, were the first in history to drive the Japanese back into the jungle as the Japs were known as the supreme jungle fighters 鈥� the 鈥淢arauding Tigers鈥�.

Part 2

Burma 鈥� Arakhan 1944, the end of May 1944, 1st Battalion of Wiltshire Regiment was sent to Central front Burma, where they carried out long range patrols all during the monsoons up until November when they were called out of Burma and sent across India to Rawapindy for three months convalescence. During that time we were doing the patrols we were fed on Yankee K rations. After the bully beef, we thought we were eating in a seven star hotel, but not living in one!

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