Jocks in the Jungle

by Gordon Thorburn

  The first of the first included Americans with equipment to build an airstrip for powered aircraft. Their glider, like all the others, was loaded to the limit and beyond, and each towing plane had two. There were no tree trunks to wreck the landings but forestry practices did for them just the same, with deep furrows made by elephants dragging logs across the clearing when the ground was wet.

  Gliders damaged on landing could not be cleared away, so other gliders crashed into them, or crashed trying to avoid them. Some were recalled while in the air, and more force-landed elsewhere after tow ropes broke. It looked like disaster. Calvert sent the signal ‘Soya Link’ – codename for failure and the most derided dish in the canteen. Just over half of the intended first wave had arrived, thirty-seven gliders, with more than sixty men killed or wounded, including some of the American engineers, the remainder of whom nevertheless began work on their airstrip in the dark.

  Came the dawn, and matters did not seem so bad. Calvert could count 500 fit men and mountains of supplies, and an airstrip soon to be completed, all 200 miles behind enemy lines and the enemy had no clue they were there. He sent the signal for success, the antonym of tofu, ‘Pork Sausage’.

  During the first day, every casualty was flown out by light aircraft. Wingate’s first campaign had convinced him that hypochondria was not diagnosed after being hit by a Jap bullet. He and all his men had been profoundly affected by leaving behind their sick and wounded. A well organised airlift had been deemed essential for the second expedition. Thus would the columns not be burdened by the lame, and the strongholds would not become hospitals. Needless to say, those with ordinary ailments would cure themselves on the march.

  Fred Patterson: ‘We had trained for nine months and now we were quiet, stepping into the unknown, flying into Burma in the dark, and the sight that met our eyes was unbelievable. It was like a proper civilian airport, only the landing was a bit rough.’

  By night, another 900 men came by Dakota. By 11 March, the whole of 77 and 111 Brigades with all their animals and kit, were in at Broadway and at a reserve landing ground called Chowringhee, where some of 111 had gone, 50 miles away from the rest and on the wrong side of the Irrawaddy.

  Fred Patterson: ‘We disembarked on the edge of the jungle and took up defensive positions to allow the mules time to get off and loaded up, then marched two or three miles away from the airfield and made harbour for the night. We awakened on the morning of 12 March with the sudden realisation that we were now 200 miles inside hostile territory.’

  Broadway had been reconstituted as a garrisoned stronghold, and still the Japs knew nothing. They had found the nine gliders cut loose and lost on their side of the Chindwin during the first night and killed most of the occupants (a few did get back) but, for the moment, they could only speculate about the purpose.

  Calvert set off for the railway with 77 Brigade; Morris, from Chowringhee, headed for the Chinese border and the northerly section of the Burma road. Lentaigne, also in Chowringhee with the majority of 111 Brigade, had the Irrawaddy to cross before he could join up with his Cameronians and his other Battalion of the King’s Own Royals currently at Broadway. The Cameronians’ first task was to march westerly, about 100 miles, to block a road running from Nankan to Banmauk, which meant crossing the main road and railway line above Indaw, the Mesa River, and another important road, the Indaw-Banmauk. Scheduled arrival at the concentration point, near Dayu, was 19 March. They didn’t get there until 22 March, Jap activity having forced them to divert from their planned route.

  Fred Patterson and his Black Watch mates were with 26 Column:

  ‘Six days after landing we had a road and a river to cross, 300 yards wide and knee deep, which was all right for me as I couldn’t swim. Our recce platoon didn’t do too good a job, so we were crossing a few hundred yards downstream of a Jap camp at breakfast time. Some of them were in the river, bathing.’

  In the ensuing fight, one Cameronian rifleman and two mules were wounded, but, ‘Worst of all was our RAF officer. He took a bullet in the small of his back which came out high in the chest. He had to spend the next three or four days on horseback before we could find a place to make an airstrip to fly him out.’

  The Cams set about their roadblock as they had been ordered to do, and were on the point of implementing when new orders came to move north-west to the area between Indaw and the border town of Tamu. Although this was not a region blessed with much in the way of highways, there were byways that the Japs were expected to use as they built their threat towards India. The Battalion’s two columns operated separately here for three weeks, harassing, demolishing, and ambushing.

  Coming to a road, an ambush was laid for the next passing vehicles. One came along and was dealt with, but the firing stirred up a great deal of trouble. Again, there was a Jap camp nearby.

  Fred Patterson: ‘Before darkness fell we watched Japs drive up in hordes and take up position across the valley. Three-inch shells were soon hitting us, and there was a cry like a football crowd cheering a goal as the Japs swarmed over the valley floor like ants.’

  The enemy were beaten back, with mortars and machine guns, and the expected second attack didn’t come. Men were dead, including two of Patterson’s platoon, but many more on the Jap side. It was decided not to hang about. After the burial parties had done their work, the Column moved out in darkness, not something they often did, and there was very little sleep that night.

  At about this time, the Second Battalion of the Black Watch left training base for Monachera in Assam, 15 March 1944.

  War Diary: ‘March 21, after travelling by train and paddle steamer, 73 Column consisting of A and C Companies, elements of HQ Coy, 1 Platoon of Burma Rifles and attached RA and RE personnel, under the command of Lt. Col. G. G. Green arrived at Monachera in the early afternoon. 42 Col, B and D Coys plus as above, under the command of Major Rose DSO, arrived before dark of the same day.’

  The journey was described by Jim McNeilly: ‘We hadn’t known where we were going until we got on the train. We were in ordinary carriages for four days, very cramped it was, and we got to the Brahmaputra River and all piled out. The officers said we needed a march to loosen ourselves up, so we had one, and when we got back the carriages were gone and all they had for us was flat carts – railway, you understand, not horse-drawn. So we were arranged on these carts for maximum comfort and we had another day of that.’

  ‘We were there (Monachera) overnight, and next day seemed normal enough. Come evening time, and we had our mess tins open and were away to have our tea, then suddenly everybody was rushing about. We just left our tea, scrapped it altogether, and ran to get our kit. That was all the notice we had, and we still didn’t know we were going in to Burma. Not till we got to the aerodrome.’

  Or, as the regimental diary put it: ‘Orders were received late in the evening for the two Cols to proceed into Burma.’

  News of Japanese movements made a major attack on Assam, and Imphal in particular, seem imminent. It would have occurred to Wingate that his remaining jungle-ready troops might be recruited to conventional defensive positions. Better to send them into Burma before the same thought occurred to the general staff.

  David Rose: ‘As it happened, we weren’t flown in by glider, despite all our rehearsals. We went in by Dakota.’

  War Diary: ‘March 23, 73 Col reached Lalaghat airfield and were to be flown in Dakota aircraft of USAAF during the afternoon to Aberdeen (codenamed airstrip/stronghold, established by Fergusson and 16 Brigade on their way to Indaw), which is one mile north of the village of Manthon. It was found that the aircraft couldn’t take the full load predicted because of the shortness of the runway, and so 1,000lb was removed from each, which meant they went out on two separate days. Some aircraft didn’t find Aberdeen and returned to base. First impressions of Burma were pleasant – two heavily wooded ranges of hills running along together, the village striking also, being well built of teak and bamboo and each house on stilts. Vill
agers put in an appearance and the Burrifs were soon bargaining for poultry etc.’

  Bill Lark: ‘We flew from Assam in an American Dakota. I was in charge, being a corporal, and there was us men and five animals, three mules and two ponies, in frames built inside the aircraft, and one parachute. This American pilot came back to see if we were all right, and I said, “Look, there’s only one parachute”. So he just shrugged and said that was the only one they had.’

  War Diary: ‘March 24, the rest of 73 and part of 42 were flown in to Aberdeen. Major General Orde Wingate arrived in a Mitchell (North American B25 medium bomber) and met senior officers. As he was leaving for Lalaghat he congratulated the men on being the first Scottish troops to arrive at a Scottish airport in Burma. He and a considerable party of people were killed in an air crash (unexplained).’

  This account differs from others, which state that Wingate left his Mitchell at Broadway and flew to Aberdeen in another aircraft, which then took him back to Broadway.

  From there he went to Imphal, where he met Air Marshal John Baldwin who had written to him, suggesting that the proposed move of Chindit HQ from Imphal to Sylhet put it too far from RAF and USAAF centres. Sylhet, by now, was a fait accompli, so they discussed and agreed a new system for air liaison. Now the tragedy struck which would disable and disjoint the Chindits to such a terrible extent. Wingate took off for Lalaghat and, on the western side of the Bishenpur Hills, the Mitchell crashed in flames, burying itself deep in the earth. Everyone aboard was killed including two hitch-hiking war correspondents, Stuart Emery of the News Chronicle, and Stanley Wills from the Daily Herald.

  Various possible causes for the crash have been put forward, including sabotage. Wingate was said to have ignored warnings about stormy weather. It is known that there had been trouble with one of the engines and the pilot had wanted to wait for replacement. Another theory was put forward by one of the last men to see the General alive, Jack Baldwin, later Sir Jack, who had been AOC 3 Group of Bomber Command and, briefly, stand-in C-in-C of the whole of Bomber Command. At this point, he was AOC Third Tactical Air Force RAF, formed to fight in the Burma campaign. He believed – and few men could have known more on the subject – that the pilot had shocked himself unconscious with static electricity, built up in an aerial left trailing in flight instead of being wound in, as an experienced wireless operator would have done. Switching on his set to call base at Sylhet, the pilot would have taken all the static, been knocked out and, with Wingate in the co-pilot’s seat instead of the proper occupant, the result was inevitable.

  The great ship Chindit, advancing into the Burmese jungle, still had engines and crew but the rudder had gone and there was no skipper who could see to the horizon. Already deployed, five brigades of Chindits would soon pass into the command of a man who had no faith in what they were doing and so would not apply Wingate’s methods and strictures. Disaster and huge casualties now seemed more likely than glory which, some would be pleased to say, only proved how wrong Wingate had been.

  The Japanese had columns crossing the Chindwin too, going the other way to attack Imphal, but the main story on 28 March, four days after his death, was all about Wingate. The Times:

  ‘From Our Special Correspondent, lately at G.H.Q., India.

  Little surprise will be felt at the announcement that Major General O. C. Wingate is commanding the Allied jungle operations deep in the rear of Japanese positions in Upper Burma. There is an unmistakeable Wingate stamp about them, above all in the emphasis that is being given to air power and wireless, the two great scientific developments of warfare; and it may now be made known that this unorthodox artillery officer had no sooner brought his expedition out of Burma last year than he was on his way to Quebec with the Prime Minister to prepare plans for a more ambitious campaign.

  ‘General Wingate has announced from his headquarters out in the blue that his men have already established road and rail blocks 200 miles behind Japanese lines, that is, somewhere on the line from Mandalay to Myitkyina, and from the airbase so daringly established in the heart of occupied territory it will be for his columns to strike out and paralyse the enemy in his vital centres.

  ‘His column commanders of last year now became brigadiers, the many lessons learned then were carefully acted upon, and the expedition was given a first priority in whatever equipment it requested. Now, in General Wingate’s words, every man, in the midst of four Japanese divisions, is at home in the jungle, and those who marched in came 200 miles through mountains where no troops or patrols had ever been because the undergrowth was too thick and the gradients too steep.’

  Wingate might have smiled at those words ‘given a first priority’.

  A conventional large-scale battle was developing for the Imphal plain, but on 29 March there was still news of the Chindits:

  ‘By comparison, the Wingate operations in the heart of Upper Burma necessarily lack shape and full meaning. In the upshot they may well prove to be the more destructive of the opposing jungle offensives that have struck far in the rear of each other. Enemy reports bear out the assumption that General Wingate’s airbase is in the region of Katha, inside the wide bend of the Irrawaddy, though from personal experience of Japanese statements about the Arakan campaign their claim to have encircled it can be largely discounted.’

  Broadway, Aberdeen and the newer base, White City, were in fact on the western side of the Irrawaddy, not inside the bend, but in jungle terms ‘Our Special Correspondent’ was not so far out.

  On 31 March the India C-in-C, General Sir Claude Auchinleck, addressed the Indian legislative assembly on the subject of the defence of Assam, and told them not to worry. He didn’t mention the Chindits, or Wingate alive or dead, apart from an oblique reference to ‘our forces which have been landed from the air’. On the same day that his speech was reported, the press announced that General Wingate had been killed on 24 March. Later news hinted that storms may have been the cause of the crash, and correspondents praised Wingate for proving that the Japanese could be defeated on their own terms.

  Wavell wrote this soon after Wingate’s death:

  ‘He was a strange character. I cannot claim to have known him intimately, our contacts were almost wholly during the high pressure of war and on an official basis, and I do not think that he was an easy man to know. But I have no doubt about his genius as a leader, or his magnetic personality.’

  In his Order of the Day to the Chindits, 2 April, Lord Mountbatten said:

  ‘General Wingate was killed in his hour of triumph. The allies have lost one of the most forceful and dynamic personalities this war has produced. You have lost the finest and most inspiring leader a force could have wished for. I have lost a personal friend and faithful supporter.’

  Mentions of those triumphs continued in the press for a while, detailing bridges being blown and casualties inflicted by the long-range troops, but no mention was made yet of the appointment on 30 March of his successor. Surely it would be Calvert, a great Chindit believer and a proved commander in the jungle, or General Symes, Wingate’s deputy. It would probably not be his Chief Staff Officer, Brigadier Tulloch, who had no first-hand Chindit experience.

  The man making the appointment was General Slim, seemingly an admirer of Wingate the man but not of his ideas. He consulted Tulloch and, with his advice, chose Brigadier Lentaigne, then OC 111 Brigade, and with that choice signalled the end of the Chindits. Slim saw Lentaigne, another ex-Gurkha officer, as a safe pair of hands (like himself). Perhaps he also saw the opportunity to put an end to all this Wingate madness.

  Lentaigne, now Major General, was a fine and experienced soldier but he didn’t have the ear of Churchill and he was exactly the sort to get right up the nose of Vinegar Joe, who now had the Chindits fully in his service and was their C-inC, above Lentaigne. Wingate had seen Lentaigne as a non-believer in long-range penetration and the stronghold strategy, and so, for good reason, would never have chosen him as a successor, neither, had he been asked, w
ould he have had him anywhere near the Chindits in the first place, much less have him command a Chindit brigade. Looking the other way, Lentaigne had seen Wingate as a charlatan; an upstart with crazy schemes. The two men had silently agreed to dislike each other intensely.

  When Lentaigne took over, the Black Watch were fully in. G. G. Green’s 73 Column was already on the march south towards Sittaw, near Banmauk. David Rose’s 42 Column was acting as temporary garrison at Aberdeen. The Battalion’s orders were to march south-west of Indaw, rendezvous at some point and block the Banmauk-Indaw road.

  War Diary, 26 March, two days after Wingate’s death and four days before Lentaigne assumed command: ‘73 Col set off with 5 days of K rations. Marched by tracks through Manthon, crossed the Mesa river at the ford at Tanakyain.’

  Bill Lark: ‘Aberdeen was no place of excitement. It was a forest clearing like any forest clearing, so we got our gear together and moved off early in the morning, single file, nobody allowed to talk. We marched all day to six o’clock. We were going to come to this chaung (pron. ‘chong’, a river or, depending on time of year, a river bed), and when we got there it was dry. So we headed for the next chaung, which was dry, and the next. So we stopped and formed a circle, with the mules in the centre, and we put guards out and went to sleep. First day in the new job.’