大象传媒

Billy Dalton

Following the stories I鈥檝e told about the Arakan campaign, on the 17th of January 1943, we were at a place called Thalindora. The battalion had been instructed to attack the features beyond Thalindora, leading into Rathidong. This was a densely wooded area with hill tracks and the plan was that C Company and A Company would go in as advance companies. B Company would be in reserve and the battalion would follow up. We crossed the chaung after a small bombardment of 2 by 2 Blenheims. C company met stiff opposition and so did A company.

So it was decided to advance through B Company and take up the attack against the Japanese. We crossed the chaung and I had no platoon officer, so I was acting as platoon officer with Sergeant Southworth as my platoon sergeant, and Billy Dalton a fusilier as my platoon runner. His position was in advance of me. We went through some densely wooded scrub land and he was perhaps 50 yds in front of me.

We鈥檇 just turned this corner coming out of the cover and he was going along this track towards the covered area again, perhaps 100 yds in front of him, Suddenly we saw , well we heard, as machine gun open up and I literally saw the bullets dancing along the ground, coming towards Billy Dalton. He was in front of me, and of course one struck him, it must have struck him and down he went.

So without thinking鈥ou don鈥檛 think about these things at the time, you just do it, I dashed out and grabbed him and pulled him in. What happened was that a bullet had struck him close up in his right groin and I think he was actually bleeding to death. I pulled his pants down and when I looked there was a gaping hole in the top of his groin and his eyes kept rolling in the back of his head.

We have a field dressing on part of your uniform, it鈥檚 a big piece of wadding. So I pulled this out and stuffed it into this wound. I know nothing about medical things but I just did that, and then called up for the medics. Percy Ely, who was our sergeant in charge of all the medical side, come running up, looked at this and he got a big wad out and filled it with vaseline and bunged that in this wound and then of course we shoved him back.

From then on of course we went into this battle. It was a battle of nothing actually, we advanced and reached stalemate as it were, because we laid up for that night till we decided what to do the following morning. As a matter of fact we were pinned down for at least 4 days before we moved again.

And that鈥檚 the story about Billy Dalton and his wounded leg.

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