大象传媒

CONNIE GOES HOME TO THE UK - SEPTEMBER 1944!

Much to his delight Connie was sent from a Unit Commanders Staff Course back to the UK for a Day Fighter Leader Course at Milfield in Northumberland. Home at last! But not for long - the relentless powers that be did not allow him to spend Christmas with his family and he was back in India before Christmas Day - a cruel decision having been away fighting for his country since November 1941 - a mere 3 years!!

Disappointed not to be given a Squadron Connie was posted to Imphal in February where he became Sqn Ldr Tactics and Training at 221 Group RAF and 14th Army HQ. The Army Commander was that giant of a man General Bill Slim: a man of great presence which was almost tangible as he entered the tent for morning prayers. It was a privilege to serve on his joint staff.

The air battle had in fact been won and now every hour of flying was spent attacking the Japanese ground forces which were now virtually without matching air support and being driven slowly through Central Burma.

CONNIE BECOMES CO 155 SQUADRON

After constant badgering Connie returned to Operations, being told that the following day he was to fly to Toungoo to take command of 155 Squadron equipped with Mark 8 Spitfires. On 1st May 1945 he flew down and without meeting his predecessor Krohn, met the Group Captain commanding the Wing, Donald Finlay.

This first meeting had surprising content: Connie was told in no uncertain terms that he had not been asked for, his officers should not have been commissioned and that his Sergeant Pilots were a disgrace........
Clearly life was not going to easy , considering the task in hand.........

155 FIGHTER SQUADRON DUTIES

Despite the frustrations of fighting a war with daily rebuke and constant criticism, 155 Squadron supported the newly formed 12th Army from May until the end of the war in September.

The pilots came from all over the world. One Warrant Officer wore the MM awarded to him fOR bravery at Dunkirk when an army lance-corporal. The Squadron had their own Doctor, 'Doc' Frame and Ross Taylor MBE ( awarded for his conduct having been torpedoed) commanded A Flight and Robbie Brown, B Flight. They also had a robust Army Liaison Officer, Jack Hart whose 2 jeeps were put to good use!!

Equipped with 16 Spitfire Mark 8s, the Squadron no longer had their own personal ground crew. Since the siege of Imphla everything had changed and 155 Squadron was now serviced by the old 17 Squadron crews called 7017 under the command of Flt Lt Spud Murphy. The pilots and their aircraft were well looked after by their staunch groundcrew!

NEW AIRCRAFT FOR CONNIE!

Connie began his new operational tour in his new Spitfire: DG-G registration number MV 428 with a first low-level patrol with Robbie Brown to Rangoon and back looking out for signs of the Japanese on the ground.

They returned through heavy tropical rain just as the monsoon began to come in. As he was coming to the end of his landing run the next day Syd Munro, a New Zealander, landed fast and chewed up Connie's tail and starboard wind and left him bleeding profusely from cuts to his head. He was unable to wear a hat for several days which infuriated the Group Captain!! A fortnight later he led the Squadron to the all-weather strip at Toungoo main which was to be their home for the duration of the monsoon.

Finally with a replacement 'G' aircraft Connie began to teach the team the tactics learned at Day Fighter Leader School, particularly how to attack from a patrol formation without revealing one's intentions and so surprise the enemy.

TEX BAXTER

One memorable day saw the shooting down of 2 pilots, one being Tex Baxter. Wademan and Tex both succumbed to small arms fire f but both happily survived! Connie remembered circling above Tex who had crash-landed into a bog and was sinking fast clinging onto his Spitfire!! Fortunately, protected by Connie, Tex was rescued by a group of local villagers who pulled him out and got him home!!

By early June the Toungoo runway was unfit to fly from for the rest of the Command but 155 squadron who knew it intimately, continued to operate through the monsoon. Flying from, indeed landing on, a fully flooded runway became an artform!!

**

Finally the Japanese surrendered and mid-September 1945 Connie led 155 Squadron followed by 152 Squadron in several long hops to Singapore. Whilst Gary Kerr CO of 152 Squadron and Connie were sorting out how many serviceable aircraft they had en route, a signal arrived from the new AOC in Singapore suggesting that they should arrive in ceremonial flypast formation over Government House. Weary from the flight and the loss of 3 aircraft enroute they decided to ignore the signal!!

After 4 years of operational flying Connie was in no mood to pander to anyone!! The following morning after the last leg of a further 2 and a quarter hours Connie landed at Kallang Airport, the first Spitfire to reach Singapore where his fellow Woodpecker pilots from A Flight, 136 Squadron, led by Murray Taylor had fought so desperately in its defence in January and February 1942 - at the cost of the lives of almost all of those brave pilots...

SINGAPORE SEPTEMBER 1945

For many weeks now they dropped food and medical supplies to the prisoner of war camps in the area. At Connie's funeral I met several of his old pilots and groundcrew and one groundcrew member told me that they had helped to liberate Changi where the Japanese had laced bottles of saki with poison and that several rescuers drinking from these, died horrible deaths......

Every aircraft was now engaged in flying POWs back to Kallang. Daily they saw lorry loads of cheerful but gaunt men fresh from release from years of appalling conditions and brutality. The years of discomfort in jungle conditions seemed petty by comparison. One old friend of Connie's was there; Reggie Bainbridge, a survivor of that original battle in January 1942 when 136 and 232 Squadrons suffered such heavy losses. Connie had last seen him at Takoradi in December 1941!!

Within a few weeks his repatriation signal arrived - none too soon.

REPATRIATION!!

Few people at home in England realised how many of their 'boys' were still undergoing the daily privations and extreme stresses of War in the Far East. It is a sad fact that even today in 2006, as I write, it remains to both young and old, 'The Forgotten War.' Also little known are the lifelong effects that such selfless Service to King and country had upon those daring young men in their flying machines! Let they not be forgotten!

Late December 1945 after just over 4 years away, with a total of 838 flying hours, Connie was HOME!!!!!.....back with his wife Enid and their little girl.

*

IN 1945 THE RAF 155 FIGHTER SQUADRON FLYING SPITFIRE VIIIs FOUND THEMSELVES THE ONLY SQUADRON FLYING AND FIGHTING FROM TOUNGOO, BURMA AT THIS TIME AIDED AND ABETTED BY THE XIVTH ARMY. SOME OF THEIR EXPLOITS WERE CHRONICLED AFTER THE RELEASE OF SINGAPORE BY THEIR C.O. SQN LDR GORDON CONWAY DFC.

PRESS RELEASE:

鈥淪ingapore, Friday. The Battle of the Sittang River Bend was a deciding factor in the closing stages of the epic Burma Campaign. RAF Spitfires which supported the Army in this battle played an important part in the successful action, and were responsible for thousands of Japanese troop casualties. One Squadron in particular, No. 155 Spitfire Fighter Squadron, earned the heartfelt thanks of the Army and guerilla parties for the magnificent support given by the pilots during the battle. In a broadcast from Singapore Radio last night Squadron Leader Gordon Conway DFC, Commanding Officer of 155 Squadron, told the story of the part his pilots played.鈥�

TRANSCRIPT OF TALK GIVEN BY GORDON CONWAY ON RADIO SINGAPORE ON 5TH OCTOBER 1945

鈥淎fter the fall of Rangoon in May this year, there were still several thousands of Japanese soldiers attempting to reach safety in Siam and South East Burma. In order to do this, they were massing in the Pegu Yomas, which run north and south, flanking our main line of communication from Imphal to Rangoon. To reach Siam they had first to cross the Toungoo - Pegu road, which was the main Army supply route, and lies in open paddy fields, and then cross the winding Sittang river which flows roughly north and south through Burma. They were in a very poor state of health and were leaving their wounded to die if they were not fit enough to do the forced march. In May and June, the first reports of these parties told us that a big massing would probably take place fairly close to our airfield. We had several early reports from guerilla forces telling us of small parties of between a hundred and five hundred Japs staying overnight in the village trying to get food. We tried to find these in very difficult country, and did achieve one or two successes, but nearly always the terrain was too difficult to verify results.
At this time we were stationed at Toungoo. Apart from these odd sorties, which were often abortive, things were very quiet. The monsoon had set in in earnest. Our airstrip was unserviceable, so that we could not fly for most of the month, and our pilots were very browned off About the third week in June reports were gradually building up, and the Army had a very fair picture of what the Japs intended to do. On 20th June we were told that there were nine thousand Japanese west of us, ten miles away in the jungle-covered hills which run north and south along the Pegu - Toungoo road. We had no definite instructions to attack them, but every now and again a good target would come in, usually from the guerillas, and we would take off despite the soggy conditions of the runway, and have a crack at them.

Liaison with the guerillas at this stage was very good indeed. One of their leaders, a British officer who was known for miles around as 鈥楥aptain Mac鈥�, would frequently trek two or three days and then drive thirty miles to see us and tell us that he had rounded up so many hundred Japs in a village, and would like us to lay on a strike. We tried to arrange these strikes when the Japs would be having their meals, which all tended to make them a little bit annoyed, and kept them moving without food. As we went over to strafe, we could see the guerillas quite clearly on a nearby hill, watching with obvious enjoyment the large explosions and fires starting in the middle of frantically running Japs, which the guerillas would pick off quite easily with their rifles. A few days later, in would come Captain Mac again on a very fast elephant, and tell us just what we had done.
On 21st June, after one of these attacks, we were told that we had killed sixty Japs. The guerillas had actually seen the remaining Japs throwing the bodies into a chaung (gulley). The next day we chased up the remaining party, which amounted to one hundred soldiers, and killed a further fifty-six. During this period we ran what we called a 鈥榩rivate war鈥�. We were the only squadron at Toungoo for quite some time, and the war for us consisted of 155 Squadron and the 19th Division against 鈥榯he rest鈥�. Spasmodic sorties of this nature were carried out, and turned out to be very useful later on, as the boys, who previously had dropped few bombs, were now getting extremely accurate.

The Japs had now built up in strength to about 17,000 troops in the Pegu Yomas. They were trying desperately to organise food and build rafts prior to attempting a mass break-through to the east, across the road and the Sittang river into Siam. In order to get food, they had to contact local villagers, and similarly in order to get materials for building rafts, they had to use local labour. Here was one of our best sources of information, and the Japs, although they probably knew this, still had to show themselves to the villagers in order to get these supplies. Consequently, from the guerillas and local villagers a very fair picture had been built up. On the night of 19th July we were told that the balloon had gone up.

Reports showed that the Japs were ready to cross in parties varying from tens to several hundreds on a long line up and down the Pegu - Toungoo road. The 17th and 19th Divisions, whom we were supporting, were on the road waiting for them. Now we started real work, and in the next ten days each pilot in my Squadron flew an average of two or three bombing and strafing sorties each day, answering urgent priority calls for direct support from the Army.
We were carrying, in addition to our cannon and machine-guns, beautiful 500 lb bombs under the fuselage of the aircraft. They were really lovely. We were very pleased to get these bombs, and had been waiting some time for them. They were just in time. The weather was not exactly good flying weather. In fact, that is a definite understatement. It was at times so bad that it was impossible to see the aircraft in front of you during a strafing attack. When we approached the target in these conditions we would go into a long line astern about 800 yards behind each other, and as each pilot went in and bombed he would call out over the radio telephone; 鈥淩ed One bombed鈥�, 鈥淩ed Two bombed鈥� and so on. Everyone would break away from the target in the same direction and climb to roughly the same height, so that in the blinding rain as we made our strafing runs, each pilot relied on everyone else attacking the right thing! Fortunately, this usually worked out alright, although there were some very fraught occasions when someone would be a little stupid and go round the other way. Two or three would be converging on the same target at the same time, whereupon there would be frantic yells on the radio telephone and everyone would sort themselves out again. Of course, in conditions of good visibility all this was easy, and if you were Number Five to strafe, you merely counted the aircraft in front of you and followed Number Four in.

大象传媒 was usually as follows. We would be sitting at dispersal. The telephone would ring and the target would come through from the Army. A quick briefing and off we would go, four, eight or twelve Spitfires, according to the size of the target. We would fly off low down in an effort to catch the Japs by surprise, hoping that the first thing they would see would be the first bomb falling. When all our bombs were gone, we went in strafing with cannon and machine-guns, starting fires where we could until all our ammunition was used up. One particular village burned for two days after one of these attacks. In several shows, villages were completely wiped out by as few as six Spitfires.

I think that by far the most spectacular close support, and to us certainly the most enjoyable, was with the guerilla forces. These boys, led by British officers, were behind the enemy lines in small numbers, and were often cut off, sometimes with very large enemy forces opposing them. We had no means of talkng to them over the radio telephone and had to rely on ground signals of a very primitive kind. You must remember that these guerillas made these signals which had to be clearly seen, in the open, when they themselves were in full view of the Japs. When they heard us flying over, they would dash out into the open waving red flags, and then lay white arrows pointing to the Japs around them. The guerillas themselves were always easy to recognise, as they always carried something bright red, such as a red umbrella or red handkerchief on their heads. When possible they would put out two arrows for us as we circled and we knew that where those two arrows converged, there were the Japs. When we were satisfied, we would go in bombing and strafing, and the guerrillas would change the direction of the arrows as the Japs ran for different cover. In nearly every case, sooner or later, the guerillas would rush out again, waving furiously, and spell out the letters 鈥淥.K.鈥� We all got a tremendous kick out of this, and we knew without waiting for reports that we had hit the Japs. After one of these strikes, the Gurkhas went in and counted two hundred and forty dead Japs, killed by the Army and ourselves. By the end of July it was obvious that the break-out was smashed. Rumours of peace were abroad, and we did our last sorties on 12th August, when, as a final gesture, we killed a further sixty Japs in one village. During this whole break-through only two of our aircraft were shot down, and the Army brought both pilots safely back. When the final scores were totted up, the Army and RAF had confirmed 11,000 Japs killed out of 17,000, for the loss of about a hundred of our own troops, and 155 Squadron alone had killed over 2,000.'

This transcript was sent to my father Gordon Conway ( Connie) by fellow 155 Squadron Spitfire pilot Jim Hamilton who flew with him from May 1945 to October 1945 in Burma.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.