大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Graham Lewis for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr Edward L. Hancock and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Hancock fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

In October Frank Messeray was appointed to command 4 corps, replacing Scoones (after four years of continuous fighting). Messeray was a bold thinker and suggested that one brigade of 17th Division be air-transportable, another mechanised and the third standard.

48th and 63rd brigades set off for Burma and captured an airstrip at Thakbutkon outside Meiktila which enabled him to fly in his 3rd Brigade and 99th Brigade. So I was air-transported into Burma once more on March 5, 1945. The division was supported by 255 Tank Brigade with Sherman tanks. Each tank, weighing 10 tons, was floated across the river on three great tree trunks bound together. One of the tank commanders was a college friend, Lieut. Thomas Alun Jones of Hirwaun.

As Staff Captain (Ordnance) in 17th Indian Division, I set up an ordnance depot on the edge of the airstrip and occupied a deep bunker. I slept there alone each night. During the day we had control of the airstrip, but during the night we retired behind barbed wire and listened to the Japanese in their little tanks charging up and down the airstrip shouting at us to come out and surrender, and that they would treat us well.

Soon I was sent to Chittagong to secure a plane-load of acid for the tanks' batteries. I wondered why an officer was required for such a task, but soon discovered that, while getting the acid was not a problem, getting it back to Meiktila most certainly was. A previous load had broken loose, burst and burned the bottom out of a Dakota. It took a week to get a volunteer crew to fly it in. They were Americans. On my return I went to divisional HQ to report and was transported back to the airstrip depot in the colonel's jeep. While I had been away, a sub-conductor (CSM) had been placed in charge of the dump. He had spent one night in the bunker, couldn't sleep because of the noise of various creatures and the Japanese threat, and returned to HQ. No one replaced him and the depot was left unattended for a week.

I had gone to divisional HQ on a motor bike that I had to leave in the Transport Section. While I was travelling through Meiktila a sniper took a shot at me. Having got back to the ordnance dump in the Lieut.Colonel's jeep, I found that I was following the Staff Captain RIASC, also returning to his dug-out which was on the other side of some huge earth- and grass-covered aeroplane hangars. He was descending the steps to his dugout when a Japanese shell exploded and decapitated him.

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