‘April 23, 42 Col left Peinnebin harbour 06.00 and crossed the railway and the road without opposition, following route taken by 73 Col. Reached night harbour by 20.15 a mile into the jungle from the road. Fires were allowed from 20.30 to 21.30.
‘April 24, 42 Col picked up Pte Baine of 73. He had been fed and helped by the villagers, robbed also. 73 Col moved from Manthe chaung to brigade harbour at Gahe and thence northwards to bivouac at Sedan chaung, 6 miles south of Indaw. 42 Col also moved to Gahe.’
Without an intimate knowledge of Burmese geography, it cannot be easy for readers (or writers) to appreciate what all this movement was about. With no hard information on their goals, the situation was the same for the Jocks. The two columns were marching hither and thither, as the weather got hotter and hotter, often finding themselves at the same place they had passed only days before. The Jocks may not have known where they were bound but they knew where they’d been. Remarks were made about marching up one’s own fundament. More politely, G. G. Green was heard to say, ‘This ought to confuse the Jap. We don’t even know where we’re going ourselves.’
Jim McNeilly: ‘We’d patrol, criss-crossing and criss-crossing. The Japs never knew just where we were, and we never knew where they were. We didn’t take them on unless we had to.’
Soundless secrecy was essential. No trace could be left to help the enemy. Cigarette ends had to be destroyed and the dust spread about, and spent matches had to be pressed vertically into the ground so they didn’t show.
Bill Lark: ‘If we turned off the track a certain way, there’d be a party at the end of the column who would make false footprints going the other way and would clear all signs of our passing. We never knew if there were Japs following us or not, so we had to assume that they were.
‘The column was like a caterpillar, bunching up then stretching out, and if you lost your man in front you had to shout in a whisper, and if there was a problem the word would go, “Close up, there’s a Jap in the column.” Now, one jungle and another jungle are very similar. Indian jungles to train in, Burmese jungles to fight in. No difference. Except in Burma I heard this songbird, like I imagined a nightingale, a Burmese nightingale, and the most beautiful sound I ever heard. And one time when we all thought the Japs were charging through, it turned out to be a wild boar.’
Jim McNeilly: ‘The platoons took it in turns to lead. It was a slow business, this single file. If it was your turn to be in the middle it was tedious and you slogged on half asleep. At the back you might be booby trapping, grenades with wires, and sometimes you’d hear voices, which was the Japs following us. At the front of the column you were as alert as could be, fanning out, looking for danger when you knew that, if it was there, you wouldn’t see it until it was too late.’
Bill Lark: ‘We stopped at this little clearing, a glade, so quiet, and the first thing as always was to take the load off the mule. Your mule was number one and you came after it in the order of things. They were very uncomplaining, the mules, they just got on with it, but you had to see they got the best possible service. I had a lad to give me a hand this time, and the back of my head bumped against something, and suddenly there was a great swarm of hornets which went for Katie. She was half unloaded and liable to run in a circle, which she did, kicking and bucking, while my pal and I ran after her being stung on the neck. I looked back and saw this thing hanging in a tree, Hornet City hanging in the air in the quietest bit of jungle in Burma, and thought the hornets would kill us before the Japs did.’
War Diary: ‘April 25, Lt Nicoll returned from recce undertaken on previous day, having discovered two tracks leading to Indaw from Sedan chaung. 42 Col moved to Sedan chaung.
‘April 26, 42 Col left Sedan chaung 06.00 on receipt of change of orders. On arrival back at Gahe they discovered that Major Fraser had left on the previous day for the Sedan chaung. Major Fraser and Coy arrived back. Reported by villagers that 4 Japs seen at Gahe observing a pick-up in the SD area. No trace of them was found. Both Cols now at Gahe.
‘April 27, 73 Col moved out in the afternoon, followed by 42 Col, northwards to the Mesa river again.’
Between 16 September 1942 and 13 March 1943, when he sailed for India, the writer’s father, 14254229 Thorburn A. D, was Black Watch in training and is here, fourth from left, back row, as part of the boxing team.
Just arrived in India, June 1943, these Black Watch boys had not the slightest idea of what they were in for.
Drafted from the Black Watch to train with the Cameronians in the Indian jungle, Andrew Douglas Thorburn is pictured here probably in August 1943 when he was briefly a Lance Corporal, unpaid. Soon after, he went down with malaria for the first time. The rule was you lost your field rank and extra pay while off sick, which seems rather mean as he was unpaid anyway.
He went sick again on 10 October, which coincides with the malaria pills running out {see page 60), but was back in the jungle with the column on 14 November. Come February 1944, he was restored to Lance Corporal, paid this time.
Frederick Charles Patterson, in the same Black Watch to Cameronians draft, on leave at Jubbulpore, 30 December 1943. He also had been in hospital with malaria when the pills ran out but looks quite chipper, perhaps because it was Hogmanay the next day. Supplies of Irish whiskey and Cape brandy were obtained from a Mr Wazir Ali of Jubbulpore market, followed by an open-air snooze, missing the actual moment of the new year entirely.
Piper William Lark was a Black Watch regular from before the war, serving in Palestine, Somaliland, Libya, Syria and Crete before becoming a Chindit. When in full fig as here, on official duty, those with the rank of Piper wore the Royal Stuart tartan rather than the regimental, which was worn by the drummers and Drum Major.
Some of the Black Watch/Cameronian draft in India before the training got serious.
Piper Lark in his ceremonial kilt, the NCOs and others of C Company, Second Battalion Black Watch, pose for the press in the noonday sun.
Orde Charles Wingate was a complex figure with revolutionary ideas and an unshakeable faith in himself as great military strategist and soldier of the Lord. He was tireless, able to drive himself beyond endurance. Perhaps his chief fault lay in his inability to understand that most men are not like that.
With a musket, fife and drum . . . the pipe band of the Second Battalion, The Black Watch, pictured in Ranchi, India, in 1943.
Every Chindit was issued with a map of Burma, printed on both sides of a square yard of orange silk. This was universally known as the panic map, because it was meant to help soldiers, individually or in groups, who became lost and cut off from their fellows, to find their way back to India and safety. Bearing in mind the small scale of the map, the widespread lack of map-reading ability and the featureless nature of monsoon jungle, Jim McNeilly’s advice, to find a river and follow it upstream to China, would probably have been of greater use.
This section of the map shows the western part of Burma, the border with India and the two hundred miles over which the 1944 Chindits flew in. The 1943 Chindits walked in and, somehow, mostly struggled out over the same territory, including crossing the river Chindwin {centre of map) both ways. Our photograph is of the very map carried by Fred Patterson and has some stains from his sweat. A practical application of the maps was to knot them together to make a signal banner for waving at passing aircraft.
This section of Fred’s map shows the 1944 Chindit battleground. The Irrawaddy runs down centre right from Myitkyina. Indaw is bottom left, with the great railway running up to Mogaung, and the Mesa river runs down the left side. The Indawgyi lake is upper left, West of Pinhaw. The landing ground and stronghod of Broadway was more or less dead centre, east of Mohnyin by the Kaukkwe Chaung. White City was just to the west of the railway above Mawlu, and Aberdeen a little to the north of that. Chowringhee is off the map to the south, below Ngno.
The 1943 expedition marched well off our map to the right/east, over the Irrawaddy and as far as Mangla and beyond.
&nbs
p; The lions that guard the Buddhist temples of Burma are called Chinthe (pronounced tchin-thay, ‘th’ as in them). It is thought that this association with guardian lions, rather than with the name of the river Chindwin, resulted in the word Chindit for members of Special Force. Such ‘branding’ caused much irritation among the India GHQ staff officers who attempted to ban its use in newspaper reports.
The Waco CG-4A glider, which the British called Hadrian, was about 50 feet long with wingspan over 80 feet. It could carry fifteen men including the pilot or the equivalent weight, approx. 4,000 lb, in kit, men and animals. The nose swung up to allow loading straight in to the body and quickly out.
The gliders came to Special Force in crates, presumably with instructions, and had to be assembled at high speed and tested for airworthiness.
Wading across a chaung, elephants first, with a few locals on hand with rafts to help out, many of these men are suffering from dysentery, which is why they are doing without trousers. The picture is from the first expedition in 1943 but it stands for all of the Chindits, most of the time.
The Chindits’ undeniable triumph was to prove the great value of two technical innovations in ground warfare – battle directions and supply demands by wireless, and supply demands met from the air (see photo next page, top). Long range penetration could not have happened without.
Black Watch officer Bernard Fergusson, otherwise Baron Ballantrae of Aucharne and of the Bay of Islands, KT, GCMG, GCVO, DSO. OBE, last of the British-born governors of New Zealand, commanded a column on the first Chindit expedition as Major, and 16 Brigade on the second as Brigadier, marching all the way from Ledo to Indaw and part of the way back again. His was probably the most famous monocle in the British army, which is to say any armed force anywhere. Legend relates that he had to have monocles air- dropped with the rations, although it is not explained how he came to lose the ones he took with him.
(Right) General Wingate as his men saw him, with his sola topee and his long bamboo stick.
Medical category A: Able to march, see to shoot, hear well and stand active service conditions. Subcategory A1: Fit for dispatching overseas, as regards physical and mental health, and training.
Medical category C: Free from serious organic diseases, able to stand service in garrisons at home. Subcategory C1: Able to march 5 miles, see to shoot with glasses, and hear well.
Doctor’s report after amoebic dysentery: ’Your liver will last you ten years.
The X II or x (ii) code stands for withdrawal beyond RAP (Regimental Aid Post) to field hospital. In training, malaria cases would be hospitalised; in action, you were expected to march on. Here we see Rifleman Thorburn was sent to hospital on 29 August 1943, returned to training 27 September, re-hospitalised 10 October, and back in training 14 November.
Promotion to paid lance corporal came on February 3, with hospital again on 20 March, two weeks after flying in to Burma. Whether he was injured in the landing or had contracted the amoebic dysentery that finished his soldiering, we don’t know, but he seems to have gone back in and out again before being finally classified as non-effective on 22 May and shipped home, 29 July.
The Stinson Sentinel L5, nicknamed the Flying Jeep for its versatility, needed only 375 feet to take off and much the same to land at less than 50 mph. Made of steel tubing covered in fabric, it could take a lot of punishment and was easily fixed in the field. The ambulance version could take one stretcher case, loaded through a door at the back of the aircraft; a second wounded man could go in the co-pilot/observer’s seat, behind the pilot, if the plane was flown solo. The L stood for liaison, and this was one of the ‘grasshopper’ types also represented by the L4 Piper Cub. Pilots liked the L5 in the jungle because it could provide a very rapid rate of descent, which made it perfectly suited for getting into short fields, some of them pretty rough, or ‘unimproved forward airstrips’ as they were technically known.
The Japanese paper money, thoughtfully styled in English for the benefit of Burmese used to that language, was missing several elements normally found on promissary notes, including the promise itself to pay the bearer. Also there was no serial number, and the Chief Cashier of the Japanese Government had neglected to sign. Little wonder that the locals much preferred the solid metal of rupee coins to such perishable and dubious currency, printed as an early example of quantitative easing.
In this detail from the silk panic map, you can see Hopin, down centre, on the Burma railway. Blackpool was just to the north-west of there, in the hills above. The Indawgyi lake is to the west, and north-east is Taungni, which was Stilwell’s next target for 111 Brigade and the Cameronians after they were forced to abandon Blackpool.
At Jubbulpore, October 1943, Fred Patterson (right), who made it through Blackpool, and his pal Duncan McKerchar, who did not.
The Scottish Sunday Mail reports the Black Watch ambush on the track near Napin, with a third candidate offered as the man who shot the Jap officer from his white charger.
After the bayonet charge at Labu, the success of which was credited to Bill Lark’s bagpipes, the Black Watch were flown out. Piper Lark was painted in the safety of India, somewhat recovered from his six-month jungle march, by artist S. J. Ivey.
The Oranje was the fastest ocean liner of her time, with a top speed of 26 knots. She was making her maiden voyage to the Dutch East Indies when the Germans invaded the Netherlands and ordered the captain to come home. Instead he sailed to Australia and offered her as a hospital ship. She also served as a troop ship with the Royal Australian Navy, and in peace time made the Southampton-Sydney run many times, carrying immigrants, the so-called £10 Poms. On her voyage from the Middle East to Liverpool in September 1944, she was carrying a great many very sick soldiers, including Rifleman Thorburn.
In pencil on the back of the Oranje postcard are listed the ships that transported the Black Watch-Cameronians draft to India, including Fred Patterson and Andy Thorburn: MS Sobieski, SS Strathmore and SS Strathaird. Coming home was on two Australian hospital ships: the Wanganella from Bombay and the Oranje, via Aden, Port Suez, Port Said, Naples and Gibraltar.
Cameronians pipes and drums at the fort, Delhi, February 1945.
Chapter Six
The Beginning of the End
By 26 April Lentaigne, the Chindit Commander in Chief, had decided that 16 Brigade was to be pulled out. He wrote a letter to the men, ready for when the airlift took place:
‘You have come from the middle of Burma, where you have done your job in a manner which has thrilled the whole world you have hit the Japs where it hurts most – in the guts. (Note: this latter was a phrase borrowed from Wingate.)
‘You have shown determination and endurance. You have out-manpowered and fought the enemy. You have every right to be proud of yourself.
‘Now you are tired and need your rest and bucking up. I am doing my best to see you get the rest which is your due.
‘Your Chinthe Badge will attract attention and comment. You must see that the reputation you and your pals have earned in battle does not suffer from your behaviour out of battle. The badge of the Force should show you are not only Special in fighting but also Special in discipline and behaviour. This is a young show which has already made a name. See to it that you do not let it down.
‘There will be questions by others about your job and experiences but there are certain subjects about which you must not talk. If you do, you will endanger the lives of those still in Burma and those who go in next time.
‘You must not tell anyone what units are part of Special Force; you must not talk about the details of how you went in or out of Burma, how you got your rations, how the air helped you, how your wireless messages were sent and received. You must not talk about your special training, equipment and arms.
‘The safety of your comrades in Special Force depends on your loyalty and good sense. I know that I can depend on you to be discreet. Finally, you must remember that the fine work you have done is not the end of the war. We hav
e won this round. On to the final round, and go in for the knockout.
‘You are fully trained and know your stuff. Your job is to train the new fellows and lead them next time. Teach them to kill with every round. Teach them the jungle is nothing like as bad as it is cracked up to be. Teach them that though it is a tough job it is a man’s job, a job worth doing, and one that’s got to be done if you want to get back to Civvy street quickly.
‘Good luck and I hope you have a good leave. 26 APR 1944. MAJ-GEN COMD SPECIAL FORCE.’
Jocks in the Jungle Page 12