大象传媒

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

The Japanese marched away from Rangoon on May 8th. 1945 without a fight and maybe because the war in Europe had ended. A message was painted on the roof of a jail-facing north told the 14th Army that they had gone. Within a week our small 5842 mobile signals unit was installed in a corner of a large abandoned villa on the Prome Road in the northern part of Rangoon. We were a part of 221 Group Forward Fighter Command. The villa had presumably been occupied by Japanese officers for it had an annexe a 鈥淗ouse of Consolation鈥� complete with all the paraphernalia of a prophylactic clinic but minus its normal inhabitants.

The first weeks of our occupation were spent basking in the same joy as the natives of Rangoon and exploring the displays of what little the Burmese had to offer. Even at this stage however, there were signs that the Burmese did not want to revert to the pre war status and evidence of that was sometimes to be got looking around the fabulous Schway Dagon Pagoda. I was elected messing representative and had a job to do in convincing the locals to swap a chicken or two for a bully beef ration.

After Rangoon our unit was posted to Thongwa, a small town some 30/45 miles south east and nearer to the Siamese border. We had free time here too and mine was spent initially at a local police station where an anglo Indian officer made some effort to get me speaking a little more Burmese but all that remains is Tanningenwa and Tanningenle which at least gives names to two days of the week. The station also included a holding pen for captured dacoits. An odd looking bunch of bandits largely there, I was told, because they had been miscreants in some locality and had decided at some point to expand their operations. Their weapons were mainly wooden replicas of more effective weapons with an odd serviceable rifle here and there. All around the station were posters of wanted and one featured more than others was a Chinese man that had seven wives all situated in various villages in the area.

Three of us were invited to the home of the retired police chief, U. Saw, where his wife and two daughters Ng. Lei and Mee Mee prepared us a nice meal. Our visits became a regular, and Ng Lei (22), who had been a Christian for a short time because of her liaison with some westerner, decided to give us the names of Noah鈥檚 sons, with me becoming Ham. Later Ng Lei would present me with a bible with an inscription to her friend, Ham.

Bhudism celebrates a number of festivals, some of which carry on for up to three days with, jugglers and comics and much singing and dancing. A popular game among the men would consist of a circle of men heading and kicking a raffia ball around the circle and with anybody causing the ball to hit the deck being excluded; so the circle was usually left with the two best men hitting the ball around until a winner was found.

A Chinese chap with the improbable name of Ah Wong was the supplier of various goods at these festivals and saw in me a likely provider. So I would go to Rangoon on this wonky bus (a cut and shove job that had at sometime been an Austin 12). There I would visit NAAFI鈥檚 and other service retailers and load up with cigarettes, beer and other items including talcum powder which Burmese ladies prized as a much better skin lightener than sandalwood. Thus loaded I would catch the ferry back across the Irrawaddy estuary to Syriam, there to catch the bus back to Thongwa.

Generally, I travelled with one or two men on top of the vehicle and was told on one occasion by an English speaking Burmese chap that during the recent past a band of Dacoits had raided the local police station at Syriam, released some prisoners, done some looting and then taken the policeman鈥檚 wives away with them 鈥� presumably as hostages. Wives were obviously important to Dacoits for the station at Thongwa was plastered with wanted notices for a Chinese man that operated in the area with no less than seven wives living in strategic places. I liked my stay in Thongwa for not only did I mix freely with the people there I learned how very agreeable and pragmatic they were.

But I was posted to Java toward the end of 1946 together with a mate called Bartlett. The Dutch were having problems convincing the Indonesians they were to be ruled from Holland again. We were to be on hand to act as umpires 鈥� so to speak. Batavia, the capital, now renamed Jakarta, was flat and crisscrossed with canals to lend the Dutch some reminders of home. We were billeted in an abandoned villa and had a few ladies from the local population to do the cleaning. They were a jolly lot of girls and I was soon laughing and joking with one in particular. She told me that her man was up in central Java, near Bandoeng fighting with the partisans there. After a couple of months in Batavia I was told I was to be posted to Bandoeng to man a VCP (visual control post). This did not fill me with joy for it was the most dangerous aspect of my RAF career, for it involved having sight of the enemy and visually directing the planes above on to specific targets. Radio Telephony Operators were therefore in the front line. I told the cleaning lady that I was leaving, though not my destination, and offered to give her a parting gift. After much embarrassed giggling she told me that she would like some satin underwear. And so I took myself off to central Batavia and having found a likely looking shop I went through a series of signs and pointers and eventually emerged with white satin knickers, brassiere and skirt. Time has not erased for me the memory of her chocolat au lait skin embraced in white satin.

My departure for Bandoeng became imminent and I attended a few parties. Usually we dressed in civilian clothes when out in the town, just like the Dutch 鈥� supposedly we should not be shot if we did not appear to be combatants. The parties we attended with the Dutch were not always jolly and sometimes fights would occur and the Dutch were better armed. However, I always managed to get tanked up and shortly before I was due to leave Batavia I was surprised by passing blood in my urine which resulted in my being flown off to hospital in Singapore and from there I was medically repatriated to Blighty in 1947.

South East Asia was rife with movements both military and civil, to allow the people to escape from Colonialism and often Japanese prisoners of war were recruited to help the colonial cause.