60 Years On
by
Bill Green
July 1944, age 23, having over four years service as an infantry soldier and more than one year with the Kings African Rifles, I am with 13 KAR, 11th East African Division, just entering Burma as part of the 14th Army under General Bill Slim.
It is monsoon time, rain falls daily, 4 or 5 inches, gullies become torrents, our dirt roads are more like rivers and it is very hot. All soldiers carry one day鈥檚 rations, spare ammunition, and everything else they need. As quartermaster I have a jeep and trailer to carry the rest of the company equipment.
The Japanese army, short of supplies, has been pushed out of northern India, but still a fighting force and our division has the task of pushing them further, despite the weather. It is slow progress, they contest every hill along the Kabaw valley, and NEVER surrender. Our task has not been made easier by the circulation of a rumour that our troops are cannibals.
All our supplies come by air, roads are virtually impassable. We clear a patch of jungle, send a signal, lay out the day鈥檚 code and wait for the Dakotas to fly over with what we need. If the air crews are good, most of our requirements are dropped within or near our cleared patch, but a misjudgement means a trek into the jungle and a fight with the enemy.
Patrols are sent out from our defensive positions at dawn each day to clear any snipers from trees. It was probably more frightening to find tiger pug marks in the mud round about, than to discover Japs. Visibility in the jungle is at best 10 to 15 yards, so any movement is hazardous for both sides in daylight.
The battles are small-scale affairs, mostly company infantry attacks on isolated pockets of the enemy, strongly dug in on tops of hills. Softening up by Hurricane fighter/bombers does not do a lot of good, except to our morale, and it gives the enemy notice of our intentions. Tanks cannot operate in these conditions, so we do not have any. Prisoners are non-existent. Casualties with serious wounds have to be evacuated by light aircraft, flown out from jungle patch air-strips, or by glider lifted by more powerful planes which hook up their tow rope.
By late September the monsoon is virtually over. Movement is easier, but the enemy has reinforcements and battles more intensely. Night-time enemy tactics consist of 鈥渏itter patrols鈥, two men with grenade throwers and light machine gun, firing in the dark at where they think our positions are. Well-disciplined units do nothing and the patrol goes elsewhere. One patrol mistakenly walked straight along the road through our position, but did not get very far when dealt with by two askaris armed with razor sharp pangas.
After 80 miles from our original starting point at Tamu, our division meets up with 5 Indian Division, who had a similar task in a parallel valley. The next 20miles are in a narrow river gorge, where every bend in the road is fought for until we reach Kalewa on the River Chindwin. A bridgehead is established across this wide fast flowing river, by using canvas folding dinghies and the useful amphibious 鈥淒uck鈥 which the engineers have brought up. It is now open country and the jungle is left behind We fight for an area at least 15 miles from the river so that the engineers can construct the longest floating Bailey bridge, over a 1000 feet of it. Our last hard battle is at Shwegin where a strong force of Japs is pushed out from its defensive positions. After another long patrol to secure the area, our 6 month task is ended and the way is opened for 2nd Armoured Division to push on to Mandalay and Rangoon.
It is now January, we have slogged our way through 130 miles and somehow missed Christmas 1944
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