Rangoon
Hmawbe (the ‘H’ is silent) was an airstrip 28 miles north of Rangoon. The other runway was at Mingaladon, this was about 8 miles north of Rangoon and it is now the modern airport.
They assembled most of the remaining Hurricanes and Harvards at Hmawbe and we had to get them serviceable. One plane needed a replacement generator and I knew that there was one on an abandoned aircraft at Meiktila. I offered to go back and get it. You know what they say, ‘Never
volunteer for anything!’
I usually had Sgt. Harrap as a pilot; we took off on the morning of 25th. of August 1945 in a Harvard and flew north. The weather was absolutely foul.
We flew by compass above the clouds for about an hour, then we descended to look for the bend in the River Sittang. As we were flying along at 600ft. above the jungle, I heard a metallic bang on the port mainplane and there was a hole.
We had been hit!
The pilot had his helmet on and I thought that he might not have heard it. We had no intercom., so I gave him a poke in the back with a screwdriver! I pointed to it and he saw it, he waggled the ailerons to check that they still worked.
We proceeded on our way to Meiktila and reported the incident when we arrived. A squadron of Thunderbolts were sent out to bomb the area. Dad also told me that a load of 'brown jobs' had to go out into the jungle to find the stubborn Japanese and bring them in. Dad was not flavour of the month with them as obviously it was quite dangerous.
I stripped out the generator and put it in the locker of the Harvard, behind my seat. I then went to lunch.
We took off, to return in the afternoon and on the way back the weather was even worse. There were storm conditions, the aircraft was all over the place and the canopy leaked like a sieve. We were lucky to make it.
Whenever I flew over the jungle, I used to have an emergency kit; a knife, a little box of ‘K’ rations, chocolate and a pair of socks.
Going to Meiktila to get parts from the abandoned aircraft was deemed to be a great success and a list of parts for a second visit was prepared. However, I developed yellow jaundice, Hepatitis; (disease of the liver).
I was sent to the military hospital in Rangoon. Apart from the fact that I was not allowed to eat eggs, I received no treatment and gradually I got better. It was all reasonably comfortable as there were electric ceiling-fans and there was a little open-air cinema in the garden at the back.
When I had recovered and was convalescent, I used to go for a walk around Rangoon in the afternoons. The centre of the town was very ‘British Colonial’, with wide roads and impressive stone buildings. It could have been Whitehall.
I visited the Yacht Club and the boating-lake, but the main attraction in Rangoon is the Shwedagon Pagoda. This is all gold, several hundred feet high and it dominates the town. It is covered in gold leaf and gold plate with a large ruby on the top! It looks quite stunning in the sunshine and is in the centre of a raised village of temples, approached by a stone staircase.