Twenty-One: Coming of Age in World War II. James Holland
King’s Own Royal Rifles, at Dukwan Dam, near Jhansi in India, on 1 December, 1943.
Part of the 111th Indian Infantry Brigade, the battalion left Dukwan by special train on 15 January 1944, crossing into Assam six days later. From the railhead at Silchar, they had to march across country to Imphal on the India – Burma border where they were to begin training. A taste of things to come, it was tough going, but Chris was fit and young, and as a boy growing up in Scotland, had always loved mountains and the outdoor life. On a morning of rain and mist – ‘Scottish weather’ – his first view of Imphal Plain reminded him of Rannoch Moor. Imphal itself, he noted, was ‘no more than a glorified village, tho’ at present it is the main military base, and there is a constant and staggering flow of trucks.’
Amidst this hive of activity, they began their preparations. As with the first expedition, the main fighting unit was to be the ‘column’, which was formed by splitting a battalion of roughly 800 men, such as the 2nd King’s Own Royal Regiment, into two, and then adding a number of mules, ponies and bullocks. Each column had its share of rifle platoons, mortars, engineers, reconnaissance, and, of course, medical staff, albeit just one doctor and four medical orderlies. The 2nd King’s Own was divided into 41 and 46 Columns; Chris was assigned to the latter.
Training principally involved getting fit and practising marching through thick and often precipitous jungle, and crossing rivers. Getting men across water was not usually too much of a problem – it was persuading the mules that was tricky, and ensuring that none of the equipment became wet and damaged in the process.
General Wingate himself visited the brigade and inspected their progress in February, just a few weeks before the expedition was due to be launched. ‘We watched his arrival in a light plane with some awe,’ noted Chris. ‘[He was] a small figure in a pale khaki suit and an enormous old-fashioned topee.’ That evening, Wingate held a conference for all the brigade officers – Chris included – in which he outlined his plans. Nearly 9000 men would be used for the Second Chindit Expedition, he explained, initially made up from five infantry brigades of which 111th Brigade was one. As a deception, they were to be called the fictitious ‘3rd Indian Division’. Formally, they were ‘Special Force’; informally, they were simply Chindits, a name derived from Chinthé, the name of the mythical griffins that were supposed to guard Burmese temples.
‘His main principle was age-old,’ noted Chris, ‘to outflank the enemy.’ This Wingate was going to do by inserting these brigades by glider or plane far behind the enemy lines. Once there, each brigade would make a base – a ‘stronghold’ – that would be inaccessible to wheeled vehicles but which would include a hastily constructed airstrip and drop-zone (DZ) for resupplying the brigade and for evacuating the wounded. The enemy was to be encouraged to attack the stronghold while ‘floater columns’, operating like guerrillas in the jungle, would assault the Japanese in turn.
Wingate’s abilities and character have been the subject of fevered discussion ever since the war – some claim he was a genius, others that he was militarily myopic and too eccentric for his own good. This is not the place to join the debate, but Chris Brown, for one, was deeply impressed by him. ‘His speech was magnificent and enthralling … He made everything appear so straightforward and easy,’ wrote Chris, who was won over despite Wingate’s ‘very anti-doctor’ comments. ‘The presence of doctors, he thought, made the men soft, illness-conscious and apt to “give up the ghost,”’ recorded Chris. After briefing the officers, Wingate talked to all the men as well, and, noted Chris, ‘took them from suspicion to quite enthusiastic support’.
As February drew to a close, Chris began to sense there were ‘big things in the air’. He knew their ‘show’ was about to start, but there were also rumours that the Japanese were about to launch an attack on Imphal and Kohima, the gateways to India. ‘We used to look eastward over the hills and wonder what the Japs were up to,’ he noted, ‘and if they really were coming.’ Then on 5 March, as they sat over their evening fires, they heard planes going east and looked up to see shadowy gliders following behind. Operation Thursday, as the launch of the expedition was called, was on.
Wingate had originally planned for there to be four landing-zones (LZs) established on areas of clear ground, to be called Piccadilly, Chowringhee, Templecombe and Broadway. Using gliders, men and even small bulldozers were to be dropped into these four places and an airstrip hastily constructed at each so that the rest of the troops, mules and equipment could be landed in the heart of the jungle. The 111th Brigade was due to be dropped at Piccadilly, but at the last minute, aerial reconnaissance showed it had been blocked by newly-felled trees. Instead, 41 Column was sent to Chowringhee, and 46 to Broadway.
Chris watched 41 Column loading and taking off on the evening of 8 March, ‘with that deep roar of the twin engines and the headlights sweeping past us down the runway.’ And then the following evening it was their turn. Chris was in charge of four plane-loads, each consisting of three animals, thirteen men and packs of equipment and supplies. At midnight, four Dakotas came back from Broadway and Chris and his party hurriedly began loading them up again for their second trip that night. The mules were naturally reluctant to get aboard, but ‘with a little coaxing and much pulling of ropes and pushing of hindquarters,’ they clambered in.
With the animals and supplies securely tied and after a roll-call, the doors were shut, the engines opened, and Chris felt himself bumping along the runway, with a dryness in his throat and nerves mounting. ‘Really off now,’ he noted, ‘no turning back, fingers crossed, please God we all come out of this all right, Mum and Dad!’
They landed safely in the early morning of 10 March. ‘Burma!’ wrote Chris. ‘Was it really possible this was it and we were now miles behind the Japs?’ The landing-zone was dry and dusty, filled with men, supplies, animals, planes and even field guns. But already the mission had changed somewhat. The brigade had been due to head to an operational area near Indaw, picked out by Wingate as an important railway junction. Nor was there much talk of establishing ‘strongholds’ – which were to be inaccessible to wheeled vehicles. Rather, they were to establish ‘blocks’ instead, defensive positions along key lines of communication, such as roads and railways, from where they would carry out demolitions and ambushes. 111th Brigade’s task had been to operate south of Indaw in support of 16th Brigade, who were the only columns travelling entirely by foot and who were to secure the two Japanese airfields at Indaw. But by landing at Broadway and Chowringhee, rather than Piccadilly, 111th Brigade now had much further to travel to the Indaw area and were already behind schedule to link up with 16th Brigade. Broadway, where Chris and 46 Column had landed, was more than fifty miles from Indaw as the crow flies – and much further than that when marching through the jungle.
Despite this, after a day resting and gathering themselves together, they set off, crossing the west end of the airstrip just as the first Spitfires came in to land. This, Chris noted, was ‘thrilling to watch’, although when he saw the large number of wrecked gliders he was glad they had landed by Dakota.
After marching just two hours, he began to feel thirsty and a slight sinking feeling came over him. ‘What on earth will I do with the seriously ill and wounded?’ he wondered. Even in 1944, he felt they lived in such a protected society that ‘it is hard to grasp the fact that from now on there’s no hospital around the corner, no ambulance to give a ring for, no surgeon to ask for an opinion, or policeman round the corner if the Japs start getting tough.’ He felt a very long way from home and as a doctor, completely on his own. Whatever the problem – illness or wound – he would have to deal with it himself.
At the end of their first day’s march, having travelled a little over five miles, they bedded down where they were, and got stuck into their American K-rations, universally despised by GI and Tommy alike. Short of calories, K-rations did not give the men the nutrition and energy they needed when undertaking punishing jungle marches. They were boring too, but they had one overriding virtue: they were light and easy to carry.
Chris woke the following morning feeling terrible, with both vomiting and diarrhoea. But he had to soldier on and after heading through tall teak trees and along a beautiful grassy path, he began to feel better. At lunch they looked back and saw Japanese planes bombing Broadway and the Spitfires