大象传媒

Across India by train.

We got on a train that was to be our home for the next three weeks. We'd pull into sidings and stay overnight, and we lived on bully beef most of the time; there was no refrigeration or anything. We went right from one side of India to the other. I can remember a few places that we passed through. I couldn't tell you the exact route but we passed through such places as Delhi, Jhansi, Kanpur and Lucknow. Some of these I could remember from my history and geography lessons at school. The trains weren't very comfortable; they were infested with bugs. We often used to sit on the running board on the side of the train as it was going along. To make ourtea we'd put the tea leaves in the dixie when the train stopped, then go down to the engine driver and he would let out some water from the boiler. Sometimes we'd put into a siding for the night and we'd have a football match with some of the locals there. If we were staying long enough, we took the opportunity to have a bath but this was only standing in our shorts under the thing which filled the engine up with water. We'd turn it on and let it pour over us.

When we got to Eastern India, we had to change trains from broad gauge to narrow gauge. We eventually arrived at the Brahmaputra River, a very big river over there, as wide as the mouth of the River Severn. It was almost like being at sea to go up there. We were on a paddle steamer, with quite a low draft. I remember that during the journey we saw a load of Poles. Whether they were refugees from the war I don't know, but some of the chaps shouted, "Girls!" and everyone ran to the one side of the steamer. The steamer took a proper list and the captain shouted, "Get back to the other side!" because it was in danger of capsizing!

We spent the nights ashore - we didn't sleep on the ship at all. We had bed boards, not charpoys. They were two boards at an angle. I remember one of my mates saying during the night, "What are you doing getting up this time of night?" I said I was getting up for a rest because it was so uncomfortable that I couldn't sleep!

East India
Kanglatongbi and the defence of Imphal.

After two days and nights, we arrived at a place called Dimapur. The following morning, Saturday, 11th March 1944, I had to report to an officer and he told me that three Indians and myself had to travel in the back of a ration truck driven by two LOC (line of communication) drivers. The officer shook me by the hand and said, 'Your destination is Kanglatongbi. The best of luck, Bombardier, and I hope you get there!'

It was quite a hair-raising ride because the Manipur Road wound and wound, and over the sides were deep precipices. We saw that some lorries had gone over! We went through a region called Nagaland, the home of a native tribe, quite friendly people apparently. We then went through Kohima. That didn't mean anything at the time, but three days after we went through Kohima there was a tremendous battle with the Japanese. That was as far as the Japanese got.

We arrived at our destination, Kanglatongbi, in the evening and 'Knocker' Canon, our sergeant, came and said, "It's all right, Ken, I've got room in my tent for you." I went and took my kit in and got ready and all that, and then we all had to go and meet the colonel. Our colonel was Lieutenant Colonel Fearnly-Whittingstall. He had a woman relative who played tennis at Wimbledon back in the 30's. He gave us a hard-hitting lecture. "If you hear any rumours that the Japs are just over the other side of the hedge, don't take no notice of them!" he said. But he threatened that if we didn't pull our weight and please him, he would send us out on patrol up to the Jap lines. That didn't please us very much!

The following day we were sent out to our respective gun sites, defending the Imphal airstrip. I didn't have a sergeant with me then because my sergeant, Sergeant Kilby, was on a semaphore and Morse code course in Karachi, so I was in charge of the ten Indians. My gun site was just across the way from the heavy ack-ack site and near a radar station. There was a big pool there - they kept the corned beef at the bottom of it to keep cool! I was told that I was the warning gun, which meant to say that the heavy ack-ack sites would take posts and if they waved a red flag to me then there was a chance that there would some aircraft low enough for us to engage. When this happened I had to put my ack-ack gun at a certain elevation, fire three rounds in the air and that would bring the rest of the light ack-ack out. I was doing this on and off all the time I was there. The Indians got quite bolshy about it because, each time you fired, you had to take your barrel out, get some boiling water and clean it, otherwise it would go rusty. You had two barrels. One was resting at the side and the other was in the gun. If you had continuous action with the gun, it would get hot and you had special tools and drill to get the hot barrel out. Our rule was that if it became 'spit-hot', you would give the order to change barrels. I fired quite a lot of rounds whilst I was there.

At this time, we were in quite a ticklish situation. All around we could see the Hurricane bombers bombing the Japanese positions. We had a radio and we could get what they called the Japanese Lord Hawhaw. There was a Lord Hawhaw who would broadcast from Germany and say all kinds of lies, and this Japanese chap came on at night and he would say, 'All those that are surrounded on the Imphal Plain, we will wipe you out!' That battle turned out to be the turning point in the campaign with the Japanese because in May 1944, Kohima and Imphal were relieved and the Japs started to be pushed back.

All our supplies had to come in by air, brought in by Dakotas. During this time, Ilene wrote to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a house down North Road. Of course, I couldn't tell her I was cut off by the Japs. But my father always said that he could tell that things weren't good by the tone of my letters.

Only once did we actually get a chance to fire at enemy aircraft ourselves. One
morning we were out and standing to. "Nothing much for you, bombardier, this
morning," the Ack-ack remarked. All of a sudden one of my Indians, Ain Mudlia,
exclaimed, "Sahib, Sahib, Sahib, deko Lily!" That was a code name for a Japanese
plane and there were a couple of them coming in ever so low over the airstrip. So I gave the orders to lay on these planes and fire. I don't know how many rounds we
got off and I don't know whether we hit or missed, because there was all sorts flying
around. Later on, the major came down and asked, "Did you fire, Bombardier?"
"Yes, sir," I replied.
"B fool!" he said. "You were well out of range!"
"If I was out of range, sir," I replied, "there was a chap behind me firing with a Lewis gun!" (a far smaller gun).
"Nonsense!" he snapped and went off in a paddy.So then along came Lieutenant Colonel Fearnly-Whittingstall. He came down and
gave us the old 'barrel selam' salute as we called it. "Did you fire, bombardier?" he
asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Well done, lad," he said.
I mentioned that I'd been told off by the major.
"Huh, take no b notice of him!" he said, and he gave a rollicking to some of
those who hadn't fired!
While at Kanglatongbi, we were in the Fourteenth Army. Lord Louis Mountbatten was the Supreme Allied Commander, and General Slim was Commander of the Fourteenth.

Sylhet
Tea Plantations and Glider Flights.

Soon after Kohima and Imphal were relieved, we were told we were on the move again. On Monday, 15th May 1944, we moved down to the airstrip ready to fly out. We got what shelter we could, but during the night it poured with rain. Some people had rigged up a tarpaulin, and during the night it filled up with water and fell on top of them! We waited on the airstrip all the next day and then, on the Wednesday, we got on a Dakota and flew out. After a two-hour flight, we arrived on an airstrip down in Assam - a place called Sylhet.

We were on the airstrip for nearly a month. The accommodation wasn't very good, and the food was even worse, until Alf went into the cookhouse - then it started to improve. While we were there, we prepared to go up further into Burma. We dyed all our kit green and we were warned about hookworm: not to walk about with no shoes on because these hookworms could go up through the soles of your feet and somehow hook on your stomach and take away all your food! I think we were supposed to go up to defend a bridge on the Chindwin River, but for some reason it never came off - we didn't know why.

On Tuesday, 6th June 1944, we heard that the Allied troops had landed in Europe and that cheered us up no end. I wrote in my diary, "After tiring day on guard, was greatly revived by news of the second front."

Later that week, on the Friday, they took us to a tea factory and showed us how the tea was made, from beginning to end. They let it ferment and then dried it and so on. It was quite interesting.
The following week, we heard the news that we were on the move. On Thursday. 15th June 1944, we finished up on a gun-site in the middle of a tea plantation, with monkeys, snakes and all sorts around.

Our new site was not very convenient - for our meals we had to walk a considerable distance, through the tea plantation and over a river to a heavy ack-ack site. There were narrow paths that you couldn't go along without the grasses touching your legs. Of course, if you did that and it had been raining, you would get covered in leaches. You used to put a cigarette to them and they would drop off. They were horrible!

The bread we got down there was terrible. It was mildew, full of weevils! You had to hold it up to the light and dig out all the weevils before you could eat it. The cigarettes we were issued with were mildew too. I smoked in those days, so I longed for Dad's package of Player's cigarettes in airtight tins to arrive - I'd share them with my mates.

Within a few days of arriving at Sylhet, several BORs were attacked in bed by some animal or other. We didn't know what it was, but they had to go into a hospital for various injections and what have you. I didn't have any secure accommodation where I slept. My gun was up on what was called a 'pimple', which was a hillock in the middle of the tea plantation. They cut a level bit on the side, threw a tarpaulin over it with a bit of bamboo, and that, no door mind, was where Sergeant Hodgson and myself had our bed. But then Sergeant Hodgson got tapeworm and had to go into hospital and so I was left all on my tod in charge again. I slept on my camp bed with my 'mossy' net and there was nothing to stop any animals coming in if they chose to. But, somehow or other, I managed to sleep without any problem.

Soon after we arrived, the monsoons started. To get to our meals, we had to build a bridge over the river where the banks weren't very high. We made it out of three tree trunks we chopped down. Sometimes it would get washed away in the rain and we'd have to rebuild it. One day while I was walking down, a small snake went by me, chasing a frog and, when I got a bit farther along, a python was over my path. I couldn't see his head, I could just see the middle part of his body over the path and up over the bank. I thought, "When I see his tail disappear, I'll disappear too", which I did!

Then there were our ablutions. It was the wettest place in the world actually and when it rained it poured. George (Sergeant Hodgson) and I would stand out in the rain, lather ourselves up and wash it off. If it wasn't raining, we'd get a bucket of water and toss it over one another or go down to the little stream, stand on the bank and lather ourselves up and swill ourselves off. One day when we were doing this (we didn't have any clothes on at the time), the 'bibbies', as we called the women, came through the tea plantation with the tea on their heads. They spotted us and ran like crazy!

While I was at Sylhet, I had a couple of weeks' leave and I went down to Calcutta. Two mates of mine, Alf and Dickie, came with me and we were billeted in the museum. This was in the main street of Calcutta, called Charingie. While I was there, we were getting bitten so much by the bugs in the place that I got Dingy fever, so I had a couple of days in bed. It cleared up and we were able to carry on and go to the pictures, which were really nice out there, because they were all air-conditioned and it was so hot in Calcutta. I always remember that on one occasion we went to see 'Romeo and Juliet'. Obviously it wasn't our taste of a picture and we made ourselves a bit of a nuisance what with, 'Wherefore art thou, Romeo?' and all the rest of it. 'Ssh, ssh', people went, so we got up and walked out.
In the evenings at Syhlet, we used to go down to THQ on the airstrip and meet some other BORs and some Yanks we had got friendly with. The Yanks would bring cans of beer and what have you and we'd have an evening together. We might get in their Dakota and listen to the radio. It was there that I heard Churchill's famous speech, "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." We had our own version of that: "Never in the field of human conflict have so many been mucked about by so few for so little reason!" We got on well with the Yanks, especially with two chaps named Val and Ern.

Often I'd be heading back to my gun-site quite lateish at night. It was a long walk, with my Tommy gun over my shoulder just in case I should meet anything. You didn't know what you were going to meet out there, because there were hyenas and jackals, and we knew that a Bengal tiger had been shot there on one occasion. Well, one night when I was going back, I found that our bridge had been washed away again. So I turned round and walked back. I said to Bombardier Flanery, "Have you got a spare charpoy up in one of your tents that I can sleep on tonight?" He said "Yeah, that's all right, come on up."
So I went up there but I didn't have a mosquito net. There was buzz,, buzz, buzz all around me and I couldn't sleep, so I got up and said to the Indian in charge, "Tom bola bombardier sahib unmora site jiger." That was, "Tell your bombardier sahib that this bombardier sahib is going to go to his own gun-site." So I walked back down to the river, took all my clothes off, put my Tommy gun in my clothes, stuck it all on me head, Tommy gun and all, and waded through the river. Then, when I got to the other side, I shook myself off a bit, put my clothes back on and went on up to my gun-site.

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