大象传媒

AN RAF WIRELESS OPERATOR ON THE BURMA FRONT (Part 1 of 3)

They say that an elephant never forgets. This, I imagine applies also to anyone who has served in the Armed Forces. They will never forget their experiences, especially in wartime service.

It has taken me well over 50 years to tell and talk about it all, thousands were never given the chance, and thousands still alive would prefer not to but cannot forget. I do not pretend that I was more courageous or valorous than anyone else but I served in the Royal Air Force for just less than five long years in the prime of my youth. I did my little bit not without a little sufferance. We all moaned and groaned from time to time I might tell you and I don't mind saying also that from time to time I became a little scared depending on what was happening and what situations I found myself in.

鈥淲hen you go home tell them of us and say for your tomorrow we gave our today." This is the epitaph on a memorial in Kohima, a little town on the Burma border in the north where the Japanese were halted in their advance on India. A small garrison of British and Indian Army men held out under overwhelming odds and suffered terrible casualties and deprivation. I mention this because I was in that area at the time, not at Kohima, but at Imphal just down the road. I will tell you more about that later. That epitaph is the main reason why I have decided to tell my story. "Tell them of us", they were the forgotten army. Not many people back home cared too much except our own families and loved ones. One could not blame them; they had too much on their plate with Mr. Hitler!

I was never to reach the dizzy heights of rank, 1146622 Leading Aircraftman that was me. There never seemed to be the chance or the time to be anything else but I take pride that I became a very useful wireless operator and I am now a lifelong member of the Burma Star Association.

Right, I will now let you know how it all started!

Many of you will remember way back in 1936-38 Herr Hitler was bossing us about. He supported General Franco during the Spanish Civil War and the Luftwaffe had been practicing their bombing missions on a little town called Guernica in Northern Spain, reducing it to rubble. They, the Germans, had taken over the Saarland in France and the Sudentan Land in Czechoslovakia and that was going to be the very last of Hitler's territorial demands, or so we thought. Then he began to threaten Poland, so we and the French said, enough is enough. We said to Mr. Hitler, if you invade Poland we will declare war on you and so we did on Sunday morning 3rd September 1939 at 11.00 a.m. precisely.

I fully remember the time because I was in Rehoboth Congregational Chapel (in Morley, West Yorkshire) during morning service on that Sunday. We had been prepared mentally, however, for this news and just being eighteen years old I knew I was going to be involved in one way or another. Time passed by and nothing seemed to happen, it became known as the "phoney war", and my call up wasn't due. The bulk of the regular army and territorials were sent to France, a few ships were sunk, the R.A.F. did a few leaflet raids over Germany, the French got stuck in behind the Maginot line thinking it was impregnable and then suddenly the "Blitzkrieg" began, and the Nazis turned the Maginot line and broke through at Sedan. They occupied Belgium and Holland and pushed the British Army almost into the sea at Dunkirk. France was occupied and we the British were left alone awaiting our fate. I could not wait so I volunteered for the R.A.F. hoping that I could fly. They could not take me, so I decided to join the Local Defence Volunteers waiting for my call up. It became the Home Guard and now today it is called "Dads Army". I so well remember being on parade in Rooms Lane and on guard at the reservoir just behind and on a hill at Bruntcliffe Lane Cemetery. I remember the "Captain Mainwarings", the old sweats like "permission to speak sir", Clive Dunn, etc. We were waiting for the German paratroopers to land and poison the water, so we were told. The Germans dropped a few bombs on Leeds and Morley and we still waited and waited, hoping the "Jerries" would not come and thank the Lord they did not. The Battle of Britain saw to that!

Finally, I was called up to do my basic training at Blackpool in August 1941. There were hundreds of young lads like me from all over the British Isles thrown in at the "deep end鈥� so to speak. What a culture shock, I hardly knew what a Cockney or a Welsh or a Scottish person was like. I was Yorkshire, bred and born. I did my "square bashing" as it was commonly called, initially at Leopold Grove, just off Church Street. I believe that it is still there. Those of us who did not get our hair cut short enough were sent back to the barbers time and time again until it fitted our squad corporal's expectations. We were bullied, cajoled, degraded and made to look sick and feel sick. Looking back on those times, we were knocked into shape in only a few short weeks, but we felt better for it afterwards. By the way, I had a slight defect in my right eye which prevented me joining air crew. I remember I was so disappointed, I could have cried! Looking back, I realise now, had I been selected then, I probably would not be here today. Over 50,000 Bomber Crews were lost and I could have been one of them! So it was not to be, I trained to be a ground wireless operator instead. They were happy days at Blackpool on the whole. Reg Dixon on the organ at the Tower Ballroom and Horace Finch at the Winter Gardens helped to relieve the stress and strain of it all. At the time, the Poles, Czechs, Canadians, Southern Rhodesians, South Africans, Americans, etc., seemed to take the fancy of the bulk of the available pretty girls for dancing and have you, but I did not mind, I had Janet back
home! Here in Blackpool, we had landladies who looked after us and got well paid for doing so. Mrs. Smalley at no 62, Palatine Road used to mother us, and then I remember being billeted at 23, Albert Road and no 59, Reads Avenue. Pay parades were usually at the Winter Gardens and I remember waiting hours standing literally to attention waiting for the "W"s to be called. It was always the "W"s last. Why didn't they make the "A"s last for a change! Physical Training and games were held in Stanley Park, swimming and washing ourselves clean was done at the Derby Baths up North. Rifle practice was done on the range at Rossall near Fleetwood. Just before I left Blackpool, I must tell you of a flying accident, there were dozens of aircraft flying over Blackpool, mainly training aircraft and two of them collided in mid air, one was a Boulton Paul Defiant single engine and the other was a Botha twin engine aircraft. I was marching in squad formation up Church Street at the time and saw it happen. The Botha came down, part of it on top of the Central Railway Station where a London bound train had fortunately just left and part into the sea. The Boulton Paul Defiant came down at the top of Church Street with the pilot dead in the cockpit. There were a few casualties, but the news was hushed up at the time, censorship and all that! In between all this, we had the dreaded weekly Morse tests to determine whether or not we would make the grade. None of us wanted to fail because it would have meant having to be reclassified into something else like general duties and being a wireless operator would have been "out", finito! Some of the lads became literally sick with fear and quite a few didn't make it, stress and all that! Well I made it and in November I was sorry to leave Blackpool for R.A.F Compton Bassett, the wireless operator鈥檚 finishing school, where we continued our Morse training and learned technical details about wireless transmitting and receiving. Compton Bassett was and still is a pretty Wiltshire village near to Calne and Chippenham and approximately 15 miles from Bath. I had never been south before and I felt a little bit strange being amongst this country environment, nevertheless I was beginning to settle down with a grand set of signals lads who on the whole were reasonably intelligent and from good backgrounds. After vigorous training most of us passed out and received the coveted wireless operator's badge which was quickly sown on to my uniform jacket. My first posting was to R.A.F. Goxhill in North Lincolnshire and I was to be attached to the Signals Office, but not for long, my 21st birthday was coming up on the 8th March 1942 and I was determined to get home to celebrate if I could. Leave was arranged for a couple of days but on the first night home a knock came to the door and there stood a Morley policeman complete with helmet. Apparently a message had been received at the Station to say that I had to return to my unit immediately. That same night I caught a train from Leeds City Station to Hull leaving behind confusion and bewilderment. As my luck would have it there were no ferry crossings that night and I had to stay there huddled on a bench, in freezing temperatures on the platform at Hull Paragon Station until next morning. When I eventually got into R.A.F. Goxhill at about 8.30 a.m., just in time for breakfast, I was to learn the dreaded news that I had been posted overseas. That same day, about turn and back home on leave again prior to being
sent to White Waltham, near Maidenhead, Berkshire where my new unit, No 2 Wireless Observer Unit was being formed for goodness knows what and to goodness knows where. It was to be a secret, no one knew where and how, was it to be Malta, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, the Middle East or the Soviet Union even? Another hastily recalled leave and last farewells to Janet and family not knowing whether we would ever see each other again. We left Port Glasgow on the 11th May 1942 on board the 20,000 tonne P and O troopship "Strathaird" crammed full of soldiers and airmen with a few nurses thrown in. We were to live the next few weeks in the bowels of the ship vulnerable to U-boat attack but little did we know it at the time. We slept on mess decks and in hammocks and generally life was a little uncomfortable to say the very least. Out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, we were part of a huge convoy, there was the big French ship Louis Pasteur, The Monarch of Bermuda, The Athlone Castle, The Morton Bay, the American Ship Orizaba, Clan MacTavish and Clan MacArthur to name a few along with tankers and supply ships. Running around us was the Royal Navy, there must have been seven or eight destroyers and cruisers ready to protect and give battle if need be. We used to look round every morning to see whether or not the next ship to you was still there! We put into Freetown Harbour, Sierra Leone on the West Coast of Africa for a brief respite, I mention this because here happened the biggest electrical thunderstorm I have ever experienced. The ship was enveloped in flashes of lightening and lashed with gale force winds, it's a wonder we did not all die with fear. We arrived in the South African port of Durban on the 9th of June, apparently the convoy had split up, and the other half had gone to Capetown. On disembarking we were greeted with a band and the "Lady in White" who sang to all the troops and who became a legend in her own right and comparable with Vera Lynn. I never knew what became of her.

We marched in full kit about 4/5 miles or so it seemed to Clairwood Racecourse where we slept on the concrete floor of the Grandstand. We were to be here only about a week, worst luck. Here in Durban the people were friendly, especially the whites and they could not do enough for us. They took us into their homes, churches and chapels; they fed us and took us on sight seeing trips. One black mark however, the coloureds and blacks were a segregated lot, they could not go where the white man went, even the toilets were segregated. I remember saying to myself, "there could be a revolution here one day", and of course time has proved me right. Before we re-embarked on the "Stathaird" on the 15th June I distinctly remember seeing the battleships Renown and Repulse being under repair in dry dock. Later I think it was the Renown and the Prince of Wales that were sunk by Japanese dive bombers whilst trying to intervene in the Japanese landings off the east coast of Malaysia before the capture of Singapore. We headed out into the open sea escorted by two cruisers and two destroyers and our destination was Bombay which we duly reached on the 1st of July. Just a
a few hours shore leave here and what a culture shock, it was nothing at all like Durban, it was steaming hot with magnificent government buildings and railway station, the Gateway to India edifice was really beautiful. The noise, the mass of humanity, the filth, the beggars, the street stalls, the sacred cows roaming the pavements, the flies, the mosquitoes, the eastern dress of white dhoti loincloths and colourful sarongs of the well to do as distinct from the ragged loincloths and colourless sarongs of the under privileged, all of these made an impression on me. Urchins abounded with women, babies at their breasts, crying aloud for "Baksheesh". We gave them a few annas feeling quite sorry for them; later we were to become more hardened and more discreet to their impassioned pleadings. There was traffic galore, all chaotic so it seemed, trams and buses full to the brim with people hanging on to the top and sides for dear life. There were rickshaw wallahs, this was the best way to travel, darting in and out with their better class of fare laid back in comparative luxury. We went back to sea on board a small Indian troopship with just our unit this time. The ship was called "Varella" which was disgustingly filthy, full of cockroaches and other creepy crawlies and the stench was most nauseating. Whilst the grub on board was ironically very good, we were not in the very best of shape to eat it, what with this little boat bobbing about like a cork in the water, we hardly felt like eating. Up the west coast to Karachi, now in Pakistan, we went and we were glad to get off the boat about a week later. We were transported by gharry to the infamous Drigh Road camp in the desert about eight miles east of the town. Our homes were to be square tents, eight to a tent, with scorpions and other live-stock to keep us company, what a way to live, no chemical pesticides, no Gulf War Syndrome here, no one cared anyhow, what was the use, there was a war waiting to be won or lost. It was here later in 1946 that a few airmen were put on charges of treason for daring to complain of the food and living conditions. Life in the camp and in Karachi wasn't all that bad, it's surprising what one can get used to if you had to and we had to! We were constantly being put on guard, doing cookhouse and fire picket duties. There was the usual drilling and we were always revising our wireless training techniques. On the brighter side we played cricket and football as well as visiting the cinemas in town. I went on Church parades and felt very uplifted by the services; these were usually held in the dining hall. Monday 24th August was an unlucky day for me; I lost my treasured engagement ring whilst swimming in the sea off the Karachi coast line. I never did replace it and I've never worn one since. Sunday 20th September was Air Force Day back in the Camp, to celebrate the 鈥淏attle of Britain鈥�. We were very proud to take part in a very impressive parade to the strain of the Royal Air Force March, what a stirring of the blood and sinews!

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