Jocks in the Jungle

by Gordon Thorburn

  This was a real incident, occurring in the village of Hintha on the way back from the Irrawaddy. Fergusson recalled that, in the lead of his column, he approached not realising at first that the men were Japanese. When he did, he lobbed a grenade into the fire and the four of them fell back in synchronised death as if they had rehearsed it.

  A later Times editorial commented:

  ‘The remarkable success of the wrecking columns led by Brigadier Wingate ... has shown what opportunities lie before mobile columns of individually trained troops working in close liaison with an efficient and enterprising air force. Such troops may not be able to hold invaded territory; that, after all, is not their function. But their power to divert hostile forces and to disrupt hostile communications might be of immense value were they cooperating with a more formal invasion.’

  As we shall see, such wisdom as could be found in ‘The Thunderer’s’ offices was absent from the places where it would be needed most. Even so, if the Jock in the jungle in 1944 did wonder why he was there, these newspaper reports were a large part of the reason.

  At the time, Wingate himself made no effort to capitalise on the venture in terms of media coverage, despite his anxious desire to set up another, bigger expedition. The niceties of PR were lost on him. While reporters from around the globe combed the camps of Imphal for stories, Wingate stayed in a hotel room in Delhi, plotting how he might convince the high command with his own arguments, rather than employing the pressures of public opinion. The man from the Daily Express, William Burchett, tried to interview Wingate but was instead treated to a literary discussion between the brigadier, lying naked on his bed, and Major Fergusson on the merits or otherwise of a recent book about Emily Brontë.

  Wingate’s priority at this stage was his report. It would be full and frank, and tactful only where the behaviour of his brother officers was concerned.

  Not only did he fail to understand the value of publicity; he also had no idea about diplomacy. If he was going to recruit the senior officers at India GHQ to his cause, he would have to do things their way. If he had ever heard the expression ‘softly, softly, catchee monkey’ he must surely have thought it applied only to trapping wildlife because, instead of submitting his report respectfully to GHQ for approval, he published it in printed form and sent it to all and sundry, including a government minister, the Secretary of State for India, L. S. Amery.

  GHQ’s reaction was swift. The Chief of General Staff ordered the report’s withdrawal until it could be appraised and – perhaps – approved after due consideration, consultation etc., etc. Wingate was distraught. Those at GHQ were masters of delay. Any chance of another expedition before the next monsoon was disappearing into a dozen pending trays.

  Help, once again, came from the fourth estate, that body of scribblers whom Wingate so disregarded. Just as the report was taken from the public domain, so the embargo on Chindit photographs was lifted. On 7 July every British newspaper had pictures of exhausted heroes with beards, and dressed in rags and bush hats. The Chindits were front page news all over again.

  At the Carlton picture theatre, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope were appearing in Road to Zanzibar. At the Windmill Theatre, in Revudeville (165th Edition), there were continuous daily performances from 12.15pm to 9.30pm, in which ‘the whole company of Windmill Girls and Revudebelles are seen at their most typical in their finale on board a pirate ship’, but what thrilled and excited the nation was pictures of smiling if rather emaciated and very hairy men:

  ‘NO RAZORS – A typical bearded member of the Wingate expedition – razors were deemed an unnecessary luxury – and Major Fergusson, a column commander, wearing a monocle which was dropped for him by parachute.’

  ‘A DARING EXPEDITION – These pictures were taken on the remarkable wrecking expedition led by Brigadier Wingate which penetrated over 1,000 miles into the wild, enemy-controlled jungle of northern Burma.’

  (A little journalistic licence there; many of them had marched something like 1,000 miles, maybe more, to penetrate by 200 miles or so.)

  There was Wingate, bushy beard, belligerent eyes and his new trademark – the classic colonial hat, the pith helmet – apparently much too large for him.

  Whatever they thought at GHQ, it no longer mattered. Letters of interest and congratulation came in from the King, the Viceroy designate (Wavell) and Mr Amery, and the timing was perfect. The Americans were putting pressure on the British to be more active against the Japanese; Amery wrote to Churchill with Wingate’s report; Churchill wrote to his personal military advisor and forces go-between, General Sir Hastings Ismay:

  ‘All the Commanders on the spot (in the Indian Army HQ) seem to be competing with one another to magnify their demands and the obstacles they have to overcome ... I consider Wingate should command the army against Burma. He is a man of genius and audacity and has rightly been discerned by all eyes as a figure quite above the ordinary level. The expression “The Clive of Burma” has already gained currency. There is no doubt that, in the welter of inefficiency and lassitude which have characterised our operations on the India front, this man, his force and his achievements, stand out, and no mere question of seniority must obstruct the advance of real personalities to their proper stations in war. He ... should come home for discussions here at an early date.’

  The summons came. It was non-specific in detail and Wingate left Delhi on 30 July, arriving in Blighty on 4 August to be directed to an appointment with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Alan Brooke. This meeting went well, with Wingate explaining that his next, much larger expedition, would need the best of everything, including first-rate troops from front-line regiments. Sir Alan listened sympathetically, promised favourable action, and told Wingate to report to 10 Downing Street.

  The Prime Minister was to leave next day for Quebec, from Glasgow on the Queen Mary, to meet President Roosevelt with all the most senior Allied commanders. He wrote:

  ‘I was about to dine alone ... when the news that (Wingate) had arrived by air and was actually in the house was brought to me. I immediately asked him to join me at dinner. We had not talked for half an hour before I felt myself in the presence of a man of the highest quality. He plunged at once into his theme of how the Japanese could be mastered by long range penetration groups landed by air behind enemy lines. This interested me greatly ... I decided at once to take him with me on the voyage.’

  Churchill was well known for doing business over the dining table. He once told Montgomery that if he could have dinner once a week with Stalin there would be no problems at all. So now here he was, taking a relatively junior officer, who had started the war in charge of an anti-aircraft battery in London, across the Atlantic to meet the President of the USA.

  On board, Churchill sent for Wingate and proposed a meeting with the chiefs of staff where the brigadier could present his ideas. It went down well, with Wingate describing a plan involving six brigades and, this time, the finest troops. In Quebec, disagreement with the Americans was foreseen on many points, European and Far Eastern, and this is what happened, except everyone was enthusiastic about Wingate’s plan. He met Roosevelt and made a private presentation to the President, Churchill and Lord Mountbatten, describing his intentions of flying troops in by glider, who would set up three strongholds well behind Jap lines and, supplied from the air, would launch assaults on enemy positions and communications.

  It is not known exactly what stirring words he used to his eminent audience, but later he wrote down what he meant by ‘stronghold’ in terms which certainly stirred enthusiasm in those already well disposed:

  ‘The ideal situation for a Stronghold is the centre of a circle of 30 miles radius of closely wooded and very broken country, only passable to pack transport owing to great natural obstacles, and capable only of slow improvement. This centre should ideally consist of a level upland with a cleared strip for Dakotas, a separate supply-dropping area, taxi-ways to the Stronghold, a neighbouring frien
dly village or two, and an inexhaustible and uncontaminatable water supply within the Stronghold. The motto of the Stronghold is No Surrender.’

  The President, the Prime Minister and the noble Lord were thoroughly convinced. Telegrams were sent to India giving top priority to the LRPGs.

  These messages were received with fury by the staff officers at India GHQ. The new C-in-C, Sir Claude Auchinleck (Wavell had been made Viceroy), was a moderate on the subject of Chindits, but the rest of them were violently opposed. All manner of military objections and counter-arguments were put forward, and long lists were prepared of reasons why not.

  Regardless of the amount of truth and good sense in Auchinleck’s response, he and his officers did not know that the decision was now a political one. The British could not back down on their only major point of agreement with the Americans. It was the one thing everybody wanted and so, whatever Auchinleck and his generals might say, Wingate was going to get his 26,500 Chindits and GHQ had better get used to the idea.

  Furthermore, the new South East Asia Command would have Mountbatten at its head, a great admirer of Wingate, and General Arnold, commander of the USAAF, had promised what amounted to a private air force for Wingate’s exclusive use.

  From an office in London, Wingate set about organising his great expedition. He needed men – ‘the best only’ – and equipment, and he could order pretty well what he liked. For air support he would have a task force created and commanded by a famous fighting man, Colonel Philip Cochran, who at first thought Wingate to be some sort of caricature of an upper-crust limey with an impenetrable accent and a pedagogic approach. Cochran was soon converted, like so many men of action:

  ‘I suddenly realised that, with his radio direction, Wingate used his guerrilla columns in the same way that fighter-control headquarters directs planes out on a mission. I saw it as an adaptation of air to jungle, an application of radio-controlled air-war tactics to a walking war in the trees and the weeds ... When I left him, I was beginning to assimilate some of the flame of this guy Wingate.’ (As reported by the American broadcaster Lowell Thomas.)

  The flame of the guy smouldered on route to India, quenched briefly and impatiently on the way by the water in a flower vase as he waited without refreshment for his next flight. He was sure that he was going to meet opposition by inertia from the top brass at GHQ, and he was right. In Delhi he found he had no accommodation made ready, for him personally or for his work. There was no office, no secretary, no staff car, and no use of the aircraft he’d been promised. At his first conference with his opponents, as he saw them, all the heads of department and other senior officers were intent on objecting to every element of the Chindit plan and, it appeared, equally intent on putting this upstart in his place. Only eighteen months before he had been Major Wingate. Now he was Major General Wingate (acting), a junior whippersnapper telling his betters what to do.

  Without Churchill’s backing he would certainly have seen his scheme disappear into a paper mountain of army bureaucracy. Even with that personal direct line to the very top, he was frustrated at every turn. He went scouting for training grounds. When he returned to Delhi, he still had no office, no car, no staff. Well, Mountbatten was coming soon. He would sort things out.

  Somehow, Wingate’s invitation to Mountbatten’s ceremonial arrival was not sent, but he went anyway despite feeling very ill indeed. Mountbatten saw him, spoke, said he wanted to discuss Chindit matters as soon as possible. Soon was not possible; Wingate had some kind of typhoid fever, caught almost certainly from his flower-vase water, and he only just managed to survive it.

  By the end of November 1943 he was more or less well again and back to his almost daily necessity of knocking down walls of opposition and walking through them. By the beginning of December, the basic organisation was complete and the men were in training in Gwalior, central India. Special Force, as it was now known, was around 24,000 strong in seven brigades, including the American brigade which, as the time approached, would be switched away from Wingate to earn its own fame, fighting with the Chinese under General Frank Merrill as Merrill’s Marauders.

  Number 14 Brigade, commanded by Major Thomas Brodie DSO, acting Brigadier, comprised battalions of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, the Royal Leicestershires, the Yorks and Lancs, and the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch. Each battalion was formed into two columns of 400 men or so, mostly infantry platoons with rifles and light machine guns, but also including a heavy weapons party – mortars, anti-tank and machine guns – and a specialist unit for demolitions and tricks such as booby traps. A reconnaissance section was bolstered with Burma Rifles men, and there were other specialists for aircraft liaison, engineers’ work, signalling, medical, and muleteers. A standard column had around sixty mules with a man assigned to each one.

  This animal was unknown in India – they mostly came from South America – and was certainly unknown to the soldiers of the Black Watch, except they’d heard the expression ‘as stubborn as a mule’ and would soon learn the truth of it.

  Bernard Fergusson on the BBC Home Service: ‘The muleteers had the worst job of the lot. They had to take care of the mule’s load as well as their own, and make sure that the mules’ backs didn’t get as sore as their own backs did.’

  Chapter Four

  Never Seen Anything Like It

  Major David Rose DSO: ‘Wingate told me I was to command one of two columns in the Chindit Force. I told him I had no jungle experience. He said that I would be attached for fourteen days to some Chindits already in training. I would soon learn, and then I’d have time to train my own men.’

  That was pure Wingate. He chose his men, and he knew he had chosen well.

  David Rose: ‘All the officers of the Chindits were assembled to hear Wingate’s exposition of his strategy for bringing the Japanese attack on India to a standstill, how we would construct a chain of fortresses astride the enemy’s lines of communication. Each fortress was at first to be supplied by air drops but very quickly landing strips would be made for re-supply and evacuation of casualties. To invest and attack these forts would require far more men than their defence, and as each attack was mounted, the Japanese would be ambushed and harried by mobile columns of Chindits. Later, we would plant vegetables to help spin out our rations.’

  Wingate’s first campaign had done little to tone down his gospel, but it convinced him that his notion of medical self-sufficiency had been impossibly idealistic. All of them who were there, Wingate included, had been deeply disturbed by having to leave sick and wounded men behind. The second expedition could not go ahead without a proper plan for evacuation, and aircraft had to be the answer. Marching columns would only be burdened by their ailing colleagues for short periods, and the strongholds would not be turned into field hospitals. Those not sick enough for the air would have to keep going and recover as they went along.

  The training to implement this strategy began for the Black Watch in early October in central India, at Jhansi, on the Uttar Pradesh side of the border with Rajasthan, where it was winter: cool nights but warm days and no rain as the monsoon had finished. The Cameronians, with their Black Watch contingent, were already well into their training.

  Fred Patterson: ‘During October our anti-malarial pills ran out and within a few days we had every hospital for miles full of malarial patients. Malaria is a very weakening disease but our high standard of fitness helped us through.’

  They went to other locations too – Saugor, Rajgarh, Lalitpur – but all in the same region, until mid-March. Much time was spent crossing and re-crossing the rivers such as the Betwa in Madhya Pradesh, and the Ken, where there is now the Panna National Park. People spend holidays there having elephant rides, boat trips, and jungle safaris in the hope of seeing a tiger.

  ‘Ken river with its fresh, clear water, flows through the ravines of the Vindhya range and sustains the varied wildlife including the crocodile and the gharial,’ says the tourist information. A gharial is
another sort of crocodile.

  In the words of the commander of 77 Brigade, Mike Calvert, training consisted of weeks of ‘marching, water-manship, mules, air supply, jungle shooting, air support with live bombs, digging, column marching, column bivouac, patrols, Royal Engineer signals exercises, medical and veterinary tests’ – blood, sweat and tears in other words, conditioned by the lessons gained in the first expedition. A very few of the men, some of the Burma Rifles for instance, had seen it before because they’d been on that first attempt, and a few, like Corporal Jim McNeilly, had taken the instructors’ course, but for most it was an entirely new experience. More than that, it was the first experience of real soldiering for a lot of them – those new recruits who hadn’t been to Somaliland or marched on the Burma retreat.

  Even for men who had seen action, this was trial by ordeal. There also had to be a change of attitude. Mostly, British soldiers thought that in some ways fighting the Germans was fighting their equals. Only a few of the Germans were genuine Nazis. The rest were just blokes like us. You’d give a wounded German a cigarette and a drink of tea. But a wounded Jap, he’d shoot you in the back while you were fetching his cup. So shoot him first, and make sure he was dead. Prisoners could not be accommodated on LRPGs anyway, so forget all that stuff about chivalry. This was a different kind of war.

  Brigadier Barclay, after the event, would put the same point more subtly:

  ‘Unwounded (Japanese) prisoners were unknown, and a wounded man would fight on to the last. If deprived of arms they would bite and kick in their efforts to inflict injury. This had one advantage; it made it unnecessary to guard, and evacuate, large batches of prisoners – which would have been a very real embarrassment under such conditions.’