Up the Jungle!
My journey up into Burma started at Howrah railway station in Calcutta. The troop-train left in the late afternoon and it went north up the Ganges delta. Much of the land was flooded paddy-fields. The railway then turned to the right and went along the north bank of the Brahmaputra river until somewhere near Sylhet. The track then ended and we all got off.
By now it was about midday on the next day and we were taken across the river by a ferry-boat to join another train. There was no station, the track just came down across the red sand to near the water’s edge. There was a train waiting, we boarded it and off we went on the last stage of the Assam Railway journey to Dimapur.
We spent the night at the transit camp there. The next day we continued by 3 ton lorry to Kohima; the road from Dimapur to Kohima climbed over 5,000 ft. Each road-section to Imnphal was about 90 miles and was a day’s journey. After staying the night at Kohima, we went on to Imphal the next morning. As we left, we stopped and walked up Garrison Hill to see the site where the
Japanese advance was finally halted.
The battle for Kohima took place in the mountain rain-forest around the town and ended at the District Commissioner’s tennis court. The road to Imphal was cut and our troops there were surrounded in a box. The Japanese committed a whole division to take Kohima and make for the railhead.
Their lines of communication were too stretched, they had no food and hoped to capture some on the way. Kohima was defended by about 500 men of the Royal West Kent regiment supported by an Indian artillery unit to the rear. They were besieged for about a fortnight.
Around the District Commissioner’s bungalow there was open trench warfare and hand-to-hand fighting. It was as bad as the Battle of the Somme in the First World War. The bungalow was demolished and the combatants lobbed hand-grenades at each other across the tennis-court. Finally a tank was winched up the hill and this was the deciding factor. The Japanese retreated and the road to Imphal was reopened.
I have gone into some detail about the battle of Kohima but it was the turning point of the war and that is where the War Memorial is now. On the epitaph it says, ‘WHEN YOU GO HOME, TELL THEM OF US AND SAY, FOR YOUR TOMORROW WE GAVE OUR TODAY’.
As we walked up the hill a mongoose ran across the road, it is the only one that I have ever seen. There was debris, mud and shallow graves. The trees were all blasted-off with shattered trunks about two-feet high. It looked like a battlefield of the 1914-18 War.
I arrived at Imphal and joined 124 R.S.U. It was a tented camp beside an airstrip. Once again, an American unit were operating C47, Dakotas, flying supplies to the war-zone in Burma and on to Chungking, in China.
The American unit had an open-air cinema and a P.X. shop where I used to buy Chesterfield cigarettes. The town of Imphal was just a crossroads with a few corrugated-iron buildings and an open air market.
After a few days, I was organised to go on detatchment to Tanzu. It was an airstrip just across the Burma border and about eight miles from the Japanese lines.
Again, we set off in a three tonner. On our previous journeys we always had Indian Army drivers and maintenance crews, this time we had R.A.F. drivers. The first part of the journey was across the Imphal Plain, about 28 miles to Palel, then the hill country started.
The Chin Hills were completely covered in forest, the road was extremely dangerous, cut into the contour lines, down into one valley and up and over the next range of hills, for about sixty miles.
There was no edge to the road and some lorries came off and ended up 2,000 ft. below. We could see the wreckage down in the valleys as we drove along. Tank and boat transporters also used the road, What an awful line of communication to fight a war!
Tamu was a cleared stretch of jungle. There was a grass runway and a small clearing, where the aircraft were parked that needed repair. In the trees nearby was the fuel dump. There were many 50 gallon drums of 100 octane petrol. I used to wash my jungle green clothes in petrol!
Also on the strip was an R&R unit, (Refuel and Rearm). They dealt with the incoming planes. We lived in tents amongst the trees, between the runway and a stream. Along the side of the strip were anti-aircraft guns, manned by Indian soldiers.
About this time the Hurncane 2Bs. were replaced with Thunderbolt 2s. Unfortunately they could not bomb the enemy positions accurately enough, though they were a good strong fighter, with so much room in the cockpit.
The tactics were that our troops would call up the aircraft to bomb a Japanese position and then immediately rush it. The Thunderbolts had to be allowed too much distance and the enemy could recover before the attack.
The immediate view forward in a Thunderbolt was restricted by the large radial engine in the front.
So, out came all the Hurricanes again and some had to be made airworthy.
The first job that I was directed to was a Hurricane that had had one of the two engine-blocks replaced; there were six cylinders in each block. The engine would start, but it would not go faster than 800 RPM. I suspected that the valve-timing had been wrongly set, so I readjusted the drive-shaft and it then went up to its full power, 2,450 RPM. The corporal was not happy that I was right and that I had fixed it straight away!
Another job that I remember, was dealing with the filler-cap on a drop-tank full of petrol and still on the aircraft. It was cross-threaded, jammed completely. I had to hammer it, keeping my fingers crossed all the time!
One day a Hurricane landed that had its engine sump completely shot away. It was red-hot because it had lost all the oil, but the engine was still going. We got the pilot out, he was from No.1 Indian Air Force Squadron, based at Palel. We waited for the engine to cool before we moved it away.
On another day a Thunderbolt landed with its brakes on; it immediately turned over as soon as it touched the ground. We rushed to it to extricate the pilot, he already had his pistol out of its holster, ready to shoot himself if the aircraft had caught fire.