Jocks in the Jungle

by Gordon Thorburn

  David Rose: ‘She was a Scots lassie called Bremner. Quite a character, and she sorted me out right away. She had me put in a bath of dilute potassium permanganate, then I had to dry like the washing, without a towel. Matron Bremner produced a huge pot of Pond’s Cold Cream, with which I had to cover myself. I had the first decent night’s sleep in weeks.’

  Such luxuries as a good night’s sleep, available to the evacuated, were not commonplace among those who should have been out long ago. On 13 July in the early afternoon, the Jocks in the battle groups left Namkwin for Kawan. The going was heavy but not as bad as before, and 73 Col found Kawan late on the 14th while 42 Col arrived the next morning.

  War Diary: ‘Kawan already occupied by a coln of Yorks and Lancs. Having collected several days’ rations 42 Col recce with a section of Burrifs pushed on towards Pungan while 73 Col put in a surprise attack on Lollaw Bum. This was entirely satisfactory, catching the small number of enemy on the wrong foot.’

  The soft skins expected to stay at Lakhren for three or four days but the news was that the RV with the fighting groups might be changed. They stayed for eight days, while the sick got what treatment was possible. Feet were rested, animals were fed, soldiers’ rations improved and spirits rose a little. Signals came to the effect that the Black Watch could expect to be flown out of Myitkyina about the middle of August, although that airfield was held by the Japanese at the moment.

  By laying bamboo mats, the Black Watch made an airstrip that could be serviceable in the rain, and the L5s were busy again taking the sick away. As the War Diary stated on 20 July:

  ‘It is obvious that many will not march the next leg and will have to be evacuated by plane or sick convoy to Kamaing. We have lost about 35% of our strength including three officers. All serious cases are being flown out.’

  Flying-out policy when the columns first went in to Burma was straightforward. If you fell sick, you kept going until you became a liability. Because you had been so healthy and fit through the training before you went in, and through the hard work in the jungle before you fell sick, you were usually evacuated before the sickness could damage you long-term. This was so, even though you had kept going beyond the point where, in any other kind of warfare, you would have been admitted to a field hospital.

  The policy worked well enough for the first weeks and before the monsoon, and numbers of evacuations were small in any case. After the monsoon began, the hard work and the monotonous diet in those extreme conditions began to have the reverse effect. Physical fitness deteriorated. In this weakened condition, by the time a man became a liability, permanent damage could have been done to his constitution.

  Worse, the chances of evacuation had almost disappeared in early May when the Dakota airstrip at Aberdeen was lost. Apart from the short time of the flying boats at Indawgyi Lake, that left only the L5 ambulance service, much curtailed by the monsoon. When the other strongholds fell, with their light-aircraft strips, there was nothing for the L5 pilots but extempore landing grounds in mid-jungle.

  Despite these difficulties, the evacuation rate rose from five men per thousand per fortnight in March, to 115 per thousand per fortnight by the middle of July. The men who carried on suffered three or four malaria attacks which lowered natural defences against dysentery, diarrhoea, lung infections, prickly heat, jungle sores and so on, which in turn had a greater effect than normal. Add general debility, anaemia and malnutrition, and only the few men with cast-iron constitutions could hope to come out without their long-term health jeopardised.

  Chapter Eight

  The Last Few

  Officers out in the field often felt they had more important things to do than file reports, including the weekly medical summaries they were supposed to send in. Deprived of such information, before the survey results were in, the only way the chief HQ medic for Special Force, Colonel Officer, could be sure of the medical situation was to fly out regularly to the battle zones, the hospitals and the casualty clearing centres such as the one by the Indawgyi Lake, to see for himself. The monsoon stopped him from doing this as much as he wanted, but by mid-July he felt he had seen enough to describe the situation accurately:

  ‘The state of health in all Brigades is very much the same and is, taken all around, extremely poor. All have lost anything from two to three stones in weight. The incidence of fever is steadily rising and there are few men who have had less than three attacks of malaria. The majority have had as many as seven attacks, and all have been treated within their columns.

  ‘With the onset of the rains men are constantly wet, both day and night, and have little or no chance of getting dry. Paths are in many cases waist deep; and foot rot and prickly heat, which very quickly turns septic, have become rampant. Deaths from cerebral malaria and typhus fever are common and on the upgrade.’

  The senior MO of 14 Brigade wrote:

  ‘In a week or two’s time the number of deaths due to sickness will absolutely stagger the authorities. But we have sounded the warning, don’t blame us. Soon the sickness will be quite beyond our control. Eleven deaths from fever at Plymouth last week.’

  Plymouth was one of the two evacuation stations on Indawgyi Lake, below 2nd Battalion’s old positions on the Kyunuslai pass. Another MO in 14 Brigade reported: ‘General health is undoubtedly deteriorating at a rapidly increasing rate due to (1) the frequent occurrence of short rations and (2) the continued wet weather.’

  Since 14 Brigade had left the swampy valley where scrub typhus was endemic, some improvement had occurred, Colonel Officer reported, by which he meant only that the rate of contracting scrub typhus had fallen. Elsewhere he found columns ‘Severely debilitated. Weight loss, anaemia due to malaria and fatigue’ had almost entirely incapacitated most of the men in terms of ability to fight and move rapidly. Marching five miles a day with half-hour rests every hour, was about as much as could be asked.

  The recommendation from Colonel Officer was for immediate withdrawal. Even then, the men would need at least three months’ recovery if there was to be any thought of deploying them again in this war.

  More evidence came with Lentaigne’s medical survey. According to the column medical officers, the figures being used by Stilwell were wildly out. The strength of 14 Brigade was down to sixty officers and 1,100 men, plus those waiting for evacuation. Of 77 Brigade, 75 per cent were permanently or temporarily incapacitated. The temporary ones would mostly turn permanent if they were not hospitalised soon. The total in 111 Brigade was a few more than 700 officers and men listed as fit for duty, which was the minority as over 1,100 were unfit through sickness. The 3rd West African Brigade, much better off than the others, was still a third below strength.

  Comments made to the survey by column medical officers were unequivocal. ‘These men are near mental and physical breakdown.’ ‘Half of the fitter men have foot rot.’ ‘The fit men are at 40-60 per cent efficiency.’ ‘Column commander states men will not attack further unless led by outstanding officers.’ ‘Of the fit men, 70 per cent are weak from previous diseases.’

  Sick rates were still ‘rising alarmingly’. Basically, Stilwell had just over half of the officers and men he had thought he had, and almost all of those were unable to operate adequately.

  Lentaigne sent an aircraft for Calvert and took him to meet Stilwell. It was Mad Mike versus Vinegar Joe. Calvert, avoiding emotional language, told Stilwell that he had entered Mogaung with the last seventy of his effective troops. There had been no more. ‘After this my men were completely exhausted and flat on their backs.’

  He admitted that the disposition of his much-reduced force after Mogaung had not been precisely according to the orders received from Stilwell, but that had been because they couldn’t get to where the General wanted them. They simply could not do it anymore.

  Stilwell realised that he had, in effect, been outmanoeuvred. ‘All very polite,’ was his comment afterwards.

  The Supreme Allied Commander, Mountbatten, sent Stilwell some advic
e on 16 July. He referred his American colleague to the original schedule as devised by Wingate, by which 77 and 111 Brigades would have been relieved by 1 June and 14 June, and the 3rd West African Brigades would have been relieved by 30 June.

  The Supreme Commander could hardly order Stilwell to bring the men out. He had, after all, agreed on 30 June to keep them in. The most he felt he could do in the circumstances was to remind Stilwell that whatever was left of 77 and 111 should be evacuated after the fall of Myitkyina and, similarly, the remnants of the rest of the Chindits should be brought out as soon as possible after that.

  As Mountbatten and Stilwell were fully aware, the siege of Myitkyina had become a stalemate and, without the full amount of hoped-for interference from the Chindits, the Japanese were bringing up reinforcements. To cap it all, Stilwell’s own American and Chinese troops were beginning to suffer the same medical problems that had floored Special Force.

  Lentaigne kept up his campaign to have 77 Brigade lifted out. Stilwell kept saying “no”. Lentaigne changed tack slightly, asking for permission to order 77 to stop fighting, to retreat to safe harbour somewhere, and to evacuate all men who were not fit for work. To Stilwell, this seemed no different to total evacuation, so he told Lentaigne to carry out the orders he already had. Stilwell heard Calvert’s reaction second hand, but remained unmoved. The commander of 77 Brigade said ‘Cannot anyone realise that we are finished and fought frantically to the end before we defeated the Japs and that when we beat the Japs they remain beaten?’

  Vinegar Joe was not finished yet, encouraged, Lentaigne believed, by a particularly antagonistic American staff officer who fed disinformation to Stilwell and thus fuelled his dislike of limeys. On 19 July Stilwell summoned Lentaigne to a meeting. It seemed to the American that 14 Brigade was disobeying orders, and so was 111 Brigade. What was going on? Of course, he knew what was going on. He had Lentaigne’s signals in front of him.

  Yesterday, Stilwell noted, Lentaigne had instructed 14 Brigade to change from its position as ordered, and move to relieve 111 which, according to information, had been directed to break off the attack Stilwell wanted, at Taungni, on the railway below Mogaung, so that it could evacuate its sick and wounded.

  Lentaigne could only acknowledge that he had acted on his own initiative. On 17 July an independent medical commission had examined every man still with 111 Brigade. Four doctors – two American, two British – and six nurses concluded that all were suffering from malarial fever and amoebic dysentery, with an average weight loss of thirty-five to forty pounds.

  Unlike so many other diseases, the contracting of which renders you immune for the future, amoebic dysentery, caused by a parasitic single-cell creature dwelling in watery places, makes you more susceptible to further attacks, and very unpleasant they are. To quote from a contemporary medical textbook:

  ‘In bad cases the bowels may move one hundred times a day or more. The fever varies in amount but there is always considerable thirst, scanty flow of urine, nervous depression and great general prostration.’

  Considerable thirst in those suffering from a waterborne sickness compounded the liability to more of the same, often leading to liver abscesses. The treatment nowadays is with drugs not discovered in 1944. Then, the patient was prescribed ‘a large dose of powdered ipecacuanha root, preceded half an hour before by 20 drops of laudanum to lessen the tendency to vomit. The patient must be kept in bed, warm, and on a low diet; milk, beef-tea, and arrowroot, in quantities of not more than a small teacupful at a time, being the only articles allowed.’

  Should the Chindit MOs find themselves a little short of ipecacuanha (a powerful laxative from Brazil), beef tea and warm beds, the usual prescription was low-diet K rations and get on with it.

  The examining medical commission also found typhus, foot rot, rotten teeth, jungle sores going septic, all kinds of ulcers and bites, dengue fever, etc., and only seven officers, twenty-two BORs and ninety Gurkhas could be considered able to fight.

  Lentaigne’s admission to using his own initiative, according to American records produced the following dialogue.

  Stilwell: ‘I have never objected to getting out the sick and wounded. I do object to a change in missions.’

  Lentaigne: ‘I had to do it. I had to take action to safeguard my men.’

  Stilwell: ‘Certainly we must all look out after our own men. I intend to make a case out of this. You are not obeying orders. You have not made an effort to keep me informed.’

  Lentaigne: ‘You have been away a good deal of the time.’

  Stilwell: ‘Yes, but I do not recall any efforts to contact me.’

  Lentaigne: ‘I felt that I had to do it because it was desperate.’

  Stilwell: ‘We have tried to get to Taungni. New orders have been issued to relieve one unit making an attack, and to move in another unit that, I thought, was on another mission. I do not see why we should give up the ghost when there are 5,300 effective men.’

  Lentaigne: ‘The 111th Brigade is absolutely finished.’

  Stilwell: ‘It is agreed that the sick and wounded should be evacuated. I cannot see why you issued these orders.’

  Against his better judgement, Lentaigne offered to rescind his orders, which was no new thing for the Jocks and all the others on the ground. The men had not yet reached their new positions, so it was not too late. Stilwell wanted to know if there were any Burrifs or other Kachin auxiliaries who could move swiftly to the aid of the sick and wounded and help evacuate them. According to the American staff officers, there were none. What about Chinese transport troops? They were all fully occupied already.

  Stilwell: ‘I understand how you feel about the sick and wounded. We all feel the same way.’

  Lentaigne: ‘The big question at the moment is taking care of the wounded. The remaining effectives are in very bad condition themselves. The feet are absolutely raw on some of the men. They have been wringing wet for a month or more. There is no sunshine in those jungles. Another thing we have just found is that almost every man is full of worms. This is probably because they have been on K-rations ever since they have been in. Malaria is a constant source of trouble, the men are taking from three to four Atabrine tablets every day. There are many deaths due to sickness.’

  Stilwell questioned the reliability of the reports on troop numbers, perhaps thinking the British might have under-counted in some way. Not at all. Lentaigne replied that figures were fine, but that’s all they were, figures. They represented only numbers of sick men, not fit men.

  ‘On a recent visit to 111 Brigade,’ he said, ‘they were actually rude to me concerning their condition of sickness. Those men are carrying 70lb on their back. They are nothing but skin and bones, plus all the other forms of sickness.’

  Stilwell’s response was that all units must hold their positions until he ordered otherwise, but the sick and wounded ‘will be withdrawn’.

  Lentaigne would not give in. The MOs in 111 Brigade were quite clear and would say that there were no men fit to fight. In which case, Stilwell wanted know, how was it that the latest statistics he had, showed that there were more unfit men in 14 Brigade? How could they be more than 100 per cent unserviceable?

  The answer came from Lentaigne’s Chief of Staff, Brigadier H. T. Alexander. The discrepancy was caused by less efficient investigation in 111. The situation in both Brigades was equally bad. Lentaigne added that the main trouble was the lack of officers, but he would do his best to fulfil General Stilwell’s orders.

  The orders were sent out as soon as the British party had left. Both Brigades were to continue with the tasks previously assigned, ‘to the best of your ability’, using ‘all effectives. Ineffective, sick and wounded, will, as before, be evacuated.’

  As Lentaigne did not believe there were many effectives, he took this order as giving him the priority he needed to evacuate the sick as he saw them, which was everyone in 111 and 77. Most of 111 set off for Kamaing and evacuation, and by 27 July, all of 111 Br
igade would be on their way out. To Stilwell, this was insubordination all over again, effectually reinstating Lentaigne’s own-initiative orders for replacing 111 Brigade with 14.

  Vinegar Joe was furious, but powerless. As soon as Mountbatten heard about it, he sent Stilwell a radio message confirming the requirement to evacuate 77 and 111 Brigades, plus anybody else who was sick, and that 14 Brigade and the West Africans were to be taken out as soon as the British 36th Division were on the move, orders for which had already been issued.

  Black Watch Battle Group Diary: ‘July 16, 42 Col recce found that the ascent from Sahki was impassable for mules and spent the day cutting steps. Lt Hyde with the Burrifs pushed on to Pungan to find a harbour for the Cols. As they were leaving they contacted a Jap platoon which they engaged with Bren fire before withdrawing.’

  Next day, two platoons of 42 Column set out at intervals up the track, in advance of the main party. One platoon walked unknowingly through a Jap ambush that was in the process of being deployed. The next platoon discovered the ambush and engaged the enemy until the leading group of 42 Column came up and joined in, all much hampered by a Jap machine gun trained on the track. The Jocks moved into the jungle to try and outflank the enemy and a grenade at least put the machine gun out of commission, but the jungle was too thick for further advancing. Fire from a three-inch mortar did the job and the Japs retreated, ‘leaving a lot of blood and no wounded’.

  The Pungan district was the objective, but several attempts failed to dislodge the enemy garrison in the village of Nugusharwng. Still the Jocks moved up in readiness for an attack, occupying a ridge above it, on top of a hill which, according to a Burrif guide, was just climbable:

  ‘July 20, 73 Col Rifle Coy moved forward in the morning prepared for battle but despite the brief clashes the previous day, it was found that the enemy had moved out. Early in the afternoon it was reported that the village was clear and the remainder of both Cols followed on.’