Jocks in the Jungle

by Gordon Thorburn

  ‘Probably the most common type of Japanese canned food is compressed fish (principally salmon and bonito), which may sometimes require soaking and salting to make it palatable. Other items of Japanese food found included: pickled plums, dehydrated vegetables (beans, peas, cabbage, horseradish, burdock, seaweed), compressed barley cakes, rice cakes, canned oranges and tangerines, sake (rice beer), powdered tea leaves, slices of ginger, salted plum cake, canned beef, cooked whale meat, confections, and vitamin tablets.

  ‘The Japanese soldier has a fondness for sweets, which he usually gets in “comfort bags” sent from home. He also is issued sweets at certain times, along with a ration of sake. Such issues are usually made to coincide with a Japanese national festival or holiday.’

  War Diary: ‘May 6, Major Fanshawe and the ambush party returned at 07.45 and reported that at least 100 enemy had been ambushed, 14 bodies were counted, one of them the officer who had led the column on a white charger. Own casualties were three killed and three wounded, one of whom died later. (Other reports give more wounded, possibly fourteen; all were flown out next day by light aircraft.)

  ‘May 7, both Cols moved off together and reached night harbour at 15.30 hours. In the early evening, 6 Pls under Lt. Col. Green left to lay ambush on track north of Nathkokyin. Remainder of Bn under Major Rose stood by to assist main ambush party.’

  The ambush was supposed to be a diversionary tactic to keep the Japs occupied while Calvert evacuated White City. It turned into the biggest single action the Jocks had seen so far in Burma. The six platoons numbered about 200 men.

  David Rose: ‘I was in charge of the soft skins, and the fighting units would flee to me when they withdrew from the ambush. I was the rallying point organiser.’

  The ambushers waited and waited. It was the same track as had provided the action before, but a much bigger fighting party hoped to inflict rather more damage. It seemed that the Japanese were not going to oblige and so, at 04.55, G. G. Green ordered his men to fall in on the track and head off south, back towards Rose and safe harbour. They progressed for twenty minutes, until the platoon at the front of the line saw a group of the enemy ‘sitting and moving about the track’, as the War Diary put it, about fifty yards away. Some accounts have suggested that the Japanese were unaware of any danger and that an orderly and disciplined attack ensued. Eye-witness reports and the War Diary make it clear that the Jocks saw, and were seen.

  War Diary: ‘Both parties cleared the track simultaneously. On orders, two platoons were to advance down the left of the track and two down the right. 5 Pl cleared the ridge by bayonet on the right of the track. Firing broke out all round.’

  Jim McNeilly: ‘We weren’t at the front this time. They liked to give men a break from that, to try and get our minds together. Well, it didn’t work too well in this case because at first it was chaos. The sergeants tried to keep their platoons together, or gather them together more like it.’

  War Diary: ‘Japs counter attacked and took ridge from 5 Pl. Further advances made south along track and the battle seemed to be going very much in our favour except for a small pocket of Japs on the right which repeated efforts had failed to dislodge. Enemy formed up two counter attacks which were both beaten back by our fire before they could be pressed home. The CO then ordered the party to move down the wadi (or chaung, possibly) towards Nathkokyin and took up position on the crest of a hill near the village.’

  Back at the safe harbour, Rose and his soft skins listened to the battle.

  War Diary: ‘From 05.25 hrs until 10.30 hrs machine gun and mortar fire heard continuously. At 10.35 hrs Lt Anderson reached harbour area with his platoon (which) had been separated from main ambush party but had broken through the enemy by a bayonet charge.’

  Anderson brought no information on the whereabouts or well-being of G. G. Green and the majority of the ambushers. David Rose was scheduled to move his harbour back to Napin no later than 16.00. There was time yet for all to end well, but news was needed. He sent out patrols, including Burrifs, who were to try and gather intelligence on Jap movements. Major Fraser came back with some, but not all, of his men, and news of the fight but not of the CO.

  At around 10.30am the noise of battle had ceased but no one at the harbour could tell what that meant. All three results were possible – victory to one side or the other, or stalemate. At 11.30 came a kind of answer when the firing began again. Fraser went back out again with a fresh patrol and the Burrifs came back.

  War Diary: ‘100 enemy reported in the village of Nyaungbintha with approx another 500 south of it. A message was sent to White City for 25 pounders to shell the village. Firing (at the battle) had continued spasmodically until 13.30 hrs. Shelling commenced at 13.35 hrs.’

  Enemy forces around Green’s position at Nathkokyin had been estimated at 200, and there would be more nearby. Green was down to 105 men and eleven wounded. Four o’clock came and, knowing that Rose would be on the move, Green ordered dispersal.

  Jim McNeilly: ‘It had been supposed to be an ambush but we met the Japs head on, and in the morning they got up to fight and they got all around us. We fought them but we couldn’t hold for ever, and the bugle blew dispersal. Platoons stuck together but it was every platoon and every section to fight for itself and to find a way back to the rendezvous. There were three rendezvous points at different times, but if you didn’t get there you were on your own. They wouldn’t wait for you. It was down to the NCOs in the sections to navigate and map reading in the jungle is no easy matter. You had to make decisions. My eight men, my lance corporal and me made my section, but none of the others could read a map. This bit of a track looks exactly the same as that bit, but you have to decide which one to go down. We only had three days’ rations with us and, with not going back after the ambush, we were a day late as it was. After that, I always had my section carry an extra day’s worth, if we could get it. There was a lot of wounded. G. G. Green had most of them with him.’

  War Diary: ‘(The remnants of the ambush party) moved north along the side of the hill range and bivouaced for the night in the hills. At this time the Col was without food but luckily had full water bottles.’

  War Diary: ‘By roll call (at the harbour) it was found that 150 men were still missing with the CO. Reports came in that the enemy were digging in, and burying their dead.’

  They had a large number of dead, too, and wounded. Fraser came back at midnight to say so. He’d seen them.

  On the morning of 9 May the harbour party made an airstrip, anticipating an airlift for the wounded they had there and the others they expected would arrive. The L5s were busy, but no news of Green.

  War Diary: ‘May 9, at 14.45 hrs the ambush party arrived back to the remainder of the Battalion in an exhausted condition and were eagerly welcomed by their comrades. Mess tins of tea were brought to the boil and the wounded treated at the RAP. A happy reunion indeed. The CO and party had been cutting their way through difficult and mountainous country all day since breaking harbour at 06.00. Two men had died on the way and another had had to be left behind owing to a smashed femur. He was left near a village whose few remaining inhabitants were told they would be well rewarded if they cared for him. One man (Pte McGregor) had walked for two days blind and Lt Richmond had hobbled along shot through both feet. Information was received that Lt McGuigan and Lt Nicoll had been killed. A thanksgiving service was given by the padre, near the RAP so the wounded could join in. The turn-out consisted of every man who was able to leave his duties.’

  David McGuigan, 24, was from Ayr. Douglas Nicoll, 23, was from Broughty Ferry and was shot by a sniper while speaking to his Colonel, wearing a white bandage over a head wound.

  Of the eleven wounded Green had begun with, there were only eight to load onto the aircraft.

  Jim McNeilly: ‘The L5s came in, the Yankees, onto that little airstrip. They were great, just great.’

  Losses were calculated as best they could. It looked like twenty-six known killed, th
irty-five wounded, some, not many, unaccounted for. Against that were Jap losses almost certainly heavier, and the successful evacuation of White City.

  War Diary: ‘A congratulatory letter was received from Gen. Lentaigne on the important role played by the Black Watch.’

  Chapter Seven

  Monsoon

  The monsoon in Burma was supposed to break on or around 25 May, and plans had been laid accordingly. The rains started on 5 May, not too seriously at first, but building up quickly. By 15 May, no weather forecast was necessary. The monsoon was upon them, with inches of rain falling almost every day.

  Jim McNeilly: ‘Next day (10 May) we were on a forced march right away, a non-stopper, across the valley through elephant grass. You couldn’t see anything. You just hoped that the leaders had picked the right track. They called it the ‘Valley of Death’. It became a swamp in the monsoon. We had to move pretty quick because we were very short on rations and there was a lot of elephant grass to cross. The platoon sergeants had walkie-talkies, otherwise we’d have had no idea where anyone else was. We were away to the brigade safe area, where there was going to be a big supply drop, with another five days’ rations and ammunition.’

  The forced march was part of the plans for the Jocks and the other Chindits laid down by Stilwell, Slim and Lentaigne at the end of April. Wingate had never meant his LRPGs to stay in the jungle for long after the monsoon begun, and he would not have stood for it, Vinegar Joe or no. The new plans seemed oblivious to the seasons, to the evacuation of 16 Brigade and the reasons for it, and the depradations already being suffered by all the other columns.

  Jim McNeilly: ‘After the rains began, you just couldn’t ever get dry. I never wore socks in the wet, which was a trick I’d learned from the Gurkhas. They never wore socks, and had boots one size smaller, and they never got blisters like we did, so I tried it. I had just a bandage round my heel and my instep and wore a size seven instead of an eight. Some of my section did the same. It worked. No blisters. Which was one less thing to worry about.’

  War Diary: ‘May 11, the village of Konkha reached and a quantity of (Japanese) army rations found. The village was duly fired.

  ‘May 14, Btln moved to Nami chaung. Preparations made for supply drop. Major Rose was by this time having trouble with the bullet wound he received at Singan. The wound had broken open again with skin trouble around the wound.

  ‘May 15, SD at 02.00 very scattered and only two and a half days’ rations could be collected. The bulk of the Btln’s Sten guns dumped awaiting disposal by light plane. These weapons have been displaced by carbines, a more dependable weapon for rough usage. Heavy rains commenced; monsoon looks like breaking. Handed over four mules to West Africans before leaving. 73 Col broke harbour at 15.00 for the start of the arduous march over the Kachin Hills. Night biv reached on a chaung at 18.00 hours after a slow march over a slippery, muddy hill track. May 16, 42 Col moved out, the start being delayed by heavy rain.’

  Stories went about that the Africans were short of mules because, not liking the K rations at all, they’d eaten their beasts of burden and the four replacements would go the same way. No firm evidence has been found for this allegation.

  Over the next few days the rain became so heavy that marching was almost impossible. The Kachin Hills, on a scale similar to the middle ranges of the Scottish Highlands but cut by steep, almost vertical valleys and covered in tropical rainforest, made for difficult terrain in any weather.

  David Rose: ‘We would have been fine if hadn’t been for the wet. We’d been told we wouldn’t be left in during the monsoon, but with Wingate’s demise, that was forgotten. We weren’t prepared for a long endurance campaign. We didn’t even know when the monsoon was due to start, and it came quite suddenly.’

  Jim McNeilly: ‘That was when my extra day’s rations came in. That day we were caught in the monsoon, a lot of them had no meat, but we had meat. The others asked where we got the rations. We said we carried the damned things. They were all right, the K rations. They gave you enough for marching and what you were doing, but not enough to keep disease away. That was the killer, the diseases we had when we were weak.’

  Bill Lark: ‘Ah, good Lord above, the monsoon. We had one special wool blanket which was thin and light, and an army groundsheet. You’d put the groundsheet down and lie on that, wet, with the blanket on top of you and let the rain fall. Or you’d wrap yourself in the blanket and then the groundsheet and huddle under a tree and try and get some sleep that way. But the rain did act like a shower bath. It washed your clothes and you at the same time.

  ‘And the leeches; the leeches that dropped on you. They got in some funny places. How they got through your clothes and in between your toes I don’t know, but they did. And everywhere else. The boys used to touch them with their cigarette ends and they curled up and dropped off. I didn’t smoke but we had mosquito stuff too, and a wee dab of that did the very same thing. They were about three quarters of an inch long, and they must have been able to sense you in some way, because they dropped off the trees onto you and you never felt them. You’d never know you had them until you took your boots and stockings off and saw them there, between your toes, sucking your blood.’

  Modern readers must remember that non-smokers were the exception in those days, and among soldiers even more so. Cigarettes were very important.

  Bill Lark: ‘When we were in training, in India, the lads used to chuck their cigarette ration because they were so awful. They called them “spitfires”, because that’s what they were, and because there was a picture of an aeroplane on the front of the little packet that had three cigs in. They would make their own arrangements to get hold of tins of Player’s or whatever. So, I collected the spitfires. I guessed they would come in handy one day. So off the boys went on a four-day route march, without the mules, and I stayed behind. I would be going with the truck they sent out with the food, and would take my bag of fags that nobody wanted. I said, “How are you getting on, lads?” and they said, “Just fine but we could do with a smoke.” I said, “I’ve got the very thing.” They said “thank you” and smoked the lot. When you’ve got nothing, anything will do.

  ‘One day in Burma, one of our lads, he was from a gypsy family, was cleaning his gun, a Sten gun, and he hadn’t checked for ammunition; if it was loaded. There was a bang and a bullet shot past me, and an officer appeared from nowhere and saw me. “Who shot that?” he asked. “You stupid so-and-so. You could hear that for miles.” Well, it obviously wasn’t me as I didn’t have a gun in my hand, so the officer put two and two together and pointed to the gypsy lad. “Put him on a charge,” he said to me. In the middle of the jungle, I ask you, put him on a charge. So he came up before the Colonel, G. G. Green, next morning. I went through the usual spiel, adding that the silly sod could have killed me, and the colonel said “Three days CB,” which is confined to barracks. We didn’t exactly have any barracks, so that was changed to three days with no cigarettes. “You,” the Colonel said to me, “make sure that when he opens his K rations, he gives you the cigarettes.” I did, but I knew what those cigarettes meant to the men who did smoke, which was just about all of them, so I gave him them back. I said, “When you fancy a draw, get yourself out of everybody’s way. And if anybody sees you, you didn’t get them from me.”’

  Jim McNeilly: ‘We heard that in other columns they used corporal punishment for stuff like insubordination. So many lashes with parachute cord. But not in our lot. You got a talking to, or ignored in certain cases, but for worse things there was a sort of solitary confinement. Say, some lad let off five rounds at nothing because he was jumpy. The officer would give him one day in the jungle on his own. If he got back, that was that. I used to say, if you get lost, find a river and follow it against the flow. Keep going upstream, and you’ll end up in China.’

  War Diary: ‘May 19, 73 Col reaching end of a very tiring hill march over muddy and slippery tracks arrived at Brigade RV at Mainthengyi, and bivouaced at Ma
inthi chaung. Very damp and depressing biv and all ranks rather exhausted after march from Konkha area. 73 Col received one day’s rations from the Yorks and Lancs. 42 Col had SD. No move today – much needed rations distributed.

  ‘May 20, 73 Col rested at Mainthengyi and great use was made of the chaung for washing and scrubbing muddy clothes. May 22, 42 Col reached Brigade RV at mid-day after being delayed on this hill march by bad weather. 73 Col moved out once more after having two supply drops in the last two days and harboured at Namsai chaung for the night. Heavy rain most of night. May 23, rain so serious that nothing could be done. 42 Col without rations so first bullock was killed. 73 Col had successful SD.’

  Any supply drop at all in this weather was something of a miracle. Wireless transmission/reception was often interrupted. Sometimes the weather was so foul that not even the Americans could fly in it, and if they did they had the extremely tricky task of finding their rationless troops in very poor visibility.

  War Diary: ‘May 24, Major Rose’s wound had steadily worsened and the skin trouble around it was enlarging greatly. Having had very little sleep for the past nine days the Col commander decided he had to be evacuated here at Mainthengyi. Major Michael Condon of the 2/Burma Rifles assumed command of 42 Col.’

  Condon had been a civilian in Burma before the war and knew enough of the language and dialects to get by – a considerable asset. Some of the men thought him lacking in LRPG experience.

  David Rose had refused to be evacuated but, as time passed, he realised that the right decision had gradually become the wrong one:

  ‘I was ten days on horseback as a casualty and the wound was getting worse. I had appalling prickly heat, but so did many of us. We had dreadful casualties because of sickness. We were marching wet, resting wet, sleeping wet, and never dried out, so you got these tiny pimples, one in every pore over your entire skin.’