大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Website by a volunteer from Derby CSV Action Desk on behalf of John Smith and has been added with his permission. He fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

The Allied invasion of France in June 1944, with the subsequent exciting stories of advances on all fronts against the Germans, served to all but eliminate the Burma story from the English news. However fierce fighting in atrocious conditions went on in the Imphal/Kohima area all during the monsoon season of that year. The Japanese intention was to burst through and march on Delhi. Against them were long lines of communication, and the troops of the 14th Army led by General Slim with their backs to the mountains. There were no roads to supply our troops 鈥� everything had to be flown in.

I was serving in No 20 Squadron which was an Army Cooperation Squadron and we arrived on the scene just after the rains finished, about September 1944. The Army had cleared a large glade in the jungle of brush and rocks and had laid a large strip of heavy gauge steel mesh as a base for the planes to land on. We carried a minimum of kit, no comforts, not even food as such. Our diet was hard tack, two biscuits a day, about 4 inches square and half an inch thick, and hard as iron. We lost weight, but the biscuits were packed full of vitamins and kept us going. We had our bed rolls and sometimes we were under canvas and sometimes in bamboo 鈥榖ashas鈥�, huts made bamboo, with a roof of bamboo leaves, there being no shortage of that plant in this area.

The Army鈥檚 objective was to head more or less southeast in a direct line to Rangoon, pushing the Japs back the way they had come. Due to the terrain, our troops could not be supplied with artillery, so that was to be our job. Some of our planes had two 40mm cannon fitted, one under each wing, replacing the 20mm cannon with which the rest were fitted. Each morning at first light two of our planes would take off and blast the enemy positions, allowing the army to move forward, and when they had secured the area we moved our planes forward too, just behind them. We were the Army鈥檚 heavy artillery. Throughout the day our planes took off on twos keeping up the pressure. Fortunately we had complete control of the skies and never saw a single Japanese plane.

The Japanese were soon in retreat and it was not long before we moved forward to Monywa. Here we were housed in bashas up on stilts. Someone suggested that this was to deter wild animals as this was tiger country but I guess it was to escape floods in the rainy season. Anyway I always slept very lightly and kept my khukri and loaded gun by my side just in case. Actually it was something very much smaller that caused me trouble.

One night I awoke in desperate pain about 2.30 and felt something biting into the small of my back. Whichever way I tried I could just touch it with my fingertips and no more. Two bugs had dropped from the roof and were digging their way into me, sucking blood as they went, and swelling bigger and bigger under the skin. I stood up, struggling to squeeze them out. I should have gone to the medical orderly, but his caravan was right across the other side of the camp and I did not want to wake people up. However, my movements woke the sergeant in the next bed and as he reached for a cigarette and lit it I had an idea. I pleaded with him to burn the bugs out with his cigarette. It would hurt but not as much as the bugs, I thought. I expected him to jab me quickly, but he brought the cigarette very slowly to the middle of my back so I could feel it getting hotter and hotter. Presumably the bugs did too as they dug deeper. 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry鈥� he said, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 do it鈥�.

For nearly three hours I endured the pain, and as soon as the camp began to stir I went off to the medical caravan. The orderly said I should have come at once, I expect he was right. He simply wiped the place with a swab of ether鈥攕oaked cotton wool and the bugs came out like magic. The relief was unimaginable.

One of our biggest problems all the time was water, especially for drinking. We each carried a hip flask which we filled when we could, but water safe to drink was not easy to come by. On arrival at Myingyan our MO went into the village to inspect the water supply which consisted of a single well in the village centre. He drew up samples and tested them. They were full of bugs, he poured down some chemicals and tested again, and repeated this exercise until he was satisfied that the water was safe drink.

I think it was here that we shared an airstrip with the US Air Force, the only occasion when we actually met up with them. We did not envy the way their officers and men all mucked in together, sharing the same mess etc. Although our discipline was much more relaxed than in peacetime, and there was now camaraderie between all ranks, we still observed a respect for rank and we preferred it that way. We did however envy their food rations. Ours had improved a little with corned beef supplementing the hard tack sometimes, but they seemed to have endless variety and quantity, even with chocolate in their daily rations, but when it came to aircraft maintenance we were quite scornful. Men like myself were trained to do any job on the plane, with men under us who were either fitters or riggers apart from specialist armament, electrician or instrument men. In the USAF there were more specialists, which was a bad handicap in practice. When one of their planes was grounded with propeller trouble it could not be repaired, as they had no specialist to do the job and they had to wait for one to be flown out from Calcutta. If we had had the same problem I would simply have done the job.

The Officer Commanding for the area was Group Captain Don Findlay, who won the gold medal for hurdling on the 1932 Olympics. Every morning at dawn he could be seen outside his caravan doing press ups and other exercises to keep fit. The story was that if he caught anyone in a misdemeanour he would have them out there with him, no one took the risk that I heard of.

We had to watch out for snakes and wild animals all the time. I had two close encounters with snakes and on one occasion a rogue elephant wrecked some officers鈥� tents and a cookhouse tent before charging back into the jungle, but luckily no one was hurt. One day when we were on stand-down I led a party of men on an exploration of the surrounding jungle in order to give them something to do. We went well armed (against wild animals rather than Japs) but although we saw plenty of spore we saw no animals, the jungle was as dead and unexciting as the desert.

Again we moved forward, away from the jungle at last, this time to Meiktila. Here we were on the edge of a different sort of forest - pampas grass more than twice my height, and stretching endlessly, miles and miles of it. Just for the experience I took a walk in it and others did the same. The silence was eerie, and it would have been easy to get lost in it.

Here we had two visitors.

The first was Vera Lynn. A rough and ready stage was erected in a clearing by the camp and soldiers and airman appeared from all around and squatted on the ground. A spotlight had been organised to shine on the stage and Vera was introduced by an Army officer. Dressed in a khaki bush jacket and skirt, she brought a breath of home to that faraway place. We loved her!

The other visitor was the Officer Commanding South East Asia Command, Lord Louis Mountbatten. One morning at very short notice everyone was ordered to gather at the end of the airstrip, where we were joined by men from the nearby army units. Right on time Lord Louis鈥� plane, a big Liberator, landed and taxied up to where we were. Alighting in sprightly fashion, he walked to the centre of the gathering, his white uniform gleaming in the brilliant sunshine. Standing on a tree stump he called everyone closer, and briefly told us how the war was going and what the prospects were. It was a morale booster, and we all liked and appreciated him. Having given his talk he looked all around and asked if anyone had any problems. A soldier, looking very troubled, stood up and said yes, he was worried about his wife at home, whom he suspected of having an affair. Lord Louis immediately gave the order, 鈥滸et your kit and get on my plane. I will take you to Delhi and see that you are home within 48 hours.鈥� And it was so and the men鈥檚 spirits were lifted a bit higher.

At last came the day when we earned a little niche in history and really knew why we were there. As usual we had sent our relays of planes on their sorties from 6am. Sometimes they had a strike; often they came back having seen nothing untoward. This time, about 9am, one pair had barely been gone for half an hour when they came back in a state of high excitement. They had found the whole Japanese armoured force, tanks and gun carriers and armoured cars, out in the open. They had attacked and then hurried back to re-arm. The pilots could not get into their planes quickly enough. Off they went, attacked, returned, reported and, re-armed, they were off again for further attacks. It was non-stop for the ground crews, refuelling and re-arming and getting the planes in and out again. Some 5 or 6 hours later the pilots called it a day. There was nothing more left to blast at, just a heap of tangled metal. What possessed the Japs to let themselves be caught like that we shall never know, but we were grateful that they did and we made the most of it.

We moved on to Yamethin with a strong feeling that the war was being won. We were flown across the Irrawaddy to establish an airstrip on the other side. The Japs were retreating fast now and we were following closely, travelling down the main Mandalay/Rangoon highway from Touagoo to Pegu. Evidence of the war was everywhere, with no buildings left intact, vehicles abandoned and the road pock-marked with shellfire. It was early in May 1945 when the army re-captured Rangoon, almost coinciding with VE day in Europe. Victory in Europe meant more men and arms would be available for the war against the Japanese. There was still a long way to go to Tokyo, but with the capture of Rangoon we had virtually regained Burma which had been our immediate task.

No.20 Squadron never actually got to Rangoon, we stopped a few miles short. For the moment our job was done and we were to go back to India to rest and recuperate. What a gaunt scruffy-looking lot we were by this time. We kept ourselves as clean and smart as we could in well nigh impossible circumstances, but the anticipation of real baths, clean clothing and proper food made our eyes sparkle.

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