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This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Don and Betty Tempest of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of John Pickett and added to the site with his permission.

In 1939 I was living in London with my family and I spent my 17th. Birthday in an Air-raid shelter.

In 1940 our street got bombed and we were persuaded by relatives to go the Melton Mowbray, where I worked in a Foundry. Then I got called up to join the Army and was posted to the 4th. Field Regiment and finished in Burma and joined the 5th. Indian Division.

When we got to Burma the monsoons were on. I was stationed with 1466 Battery, which was stationed at the top of a hill. We had to carry our pack with rifle and field equipment. Because of the monsoons everything was muddy and we walked two paces forward and slipped one back. Eventually I got to the top of the hill, and a Scots fellow called John said to me, ‘Get yourself a bed’. ‘The bed!!!’ Was a piece of corrugated iron, it was the only thing I could find.

The place we were on the hill was called Bishenpur, Burma and at that time we were cut off on three sides and didn’t get a slice of bread for seven weeks. We were living on ‘Hard Tack’ biscuits and whatever else we could get. However, once we broke through the enemy lines and could get away from there, it was pretty plain sailing.

We passed many dead Japanese, but not many of our lads, luckily. We went to one place, it was called Parwagi, and it was like a Court Yard. In this Court Yard there were Japanese dead, just sat there leaning against a wall, with their mess tins as thought they were having a meal. They must have been caught in a blast and some of their entrails were hanging out. Some were knelt by their guns, dead, but just kneeling there.

As we moved out of there, there was an Indian fellow with a big bulldozer, with a great big blade on the front, and he just bulldozed the dead Japanese, great big mounds of them, ahead of us. The Royal Engineers were also there, looking for mines and what have you.

I know they were barbaric, the Japanese, but they were somebody’s sons, sweet-hearts and fathers. So there is another way of looking at this, there code was that they had to fight and they fought to the very last.

From then on it went reasonably well. I got to a place called Pegu, we were hoping to go through to Rangoon where there was a bit of life, there was nothing going on in these little villages, it was very quiet. We eventually left Pegu and went to a place called Taungyi. By now it was getting towards the end of the war and from there I was sent to Rangoon and was on the Japanese War Trials.

I had to go and pick them up from the prison in Rangoon and take them to a Y.M.C.A. building. It was at the top of a lot of stairs, and the Officer told us to fix bayonets and keep the Japanese inside, because they were liable to throw you or themselves over the top.

The trials were very interesting. We saw them get sentenced and whatever for some of the atrocities they had perpetrated.

That was about all I can tell you, but there was a lot more to it. You just had to get on with it.

I got dysentery whilst I was out there, but I never got Malaria, we took tablets for that and put Mosquito nets over where we slept, making sure there were no holes in them. If there was we had to sew them up.

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