‘August 17, Battalion moved from Labu in the early morning, into the staging camp at Pahok. On the way we passed through 36 Division moving forward and were thankful that our part was about over. The heat was intense, about 119 degrees, and the hard road was something to which we were not used.’
Bill Lark: ‘I stood with the colonel as the men came along a main road, playing the march-past for each company, what there was of them, and my own C-Company tune, “Lawson’s Men”.’
War Diary: ‘August 18, Battalion left for Mogaung at 02.30 hrs to avoid marching in the heat of the day, and arrived there at 07.30 hrs. After breakfast, A Coy and Bn HQ moved by jeep train (jeeps adapted to run on railway lines) to Myitkyina and arrived at 11.00 hrs.’
They didn’t entirely avoid the noonday sun.
Bill Lark: ‘After all that, we had to walk from the station to the airstrip. Talk about hot. We were shattered, really. Somebody said “Can’t we wait for the next bus?” but G. G. Green was there, and he told me to get to the front and play my pipes again. We reached the airstrip without anyone dropping down, and there were the Dakotas. Heavenly chariots. We could hardly believe it. No Japs, no leeches, no K rations, no mud up to our knees. G. G. Green was first aboard.’
War Diary: ‘The first plane took off at 14.15 hrs and the CO reached Dinjan where the rest of the Coy came in at intervals. They were taken to Tinsukia reception camp (US army establishment outside this city in tea-growing area of Assam).’
Meanwhile, B Company was moving by jeep train from Mogaung to Myitkyina, but they had transport from the station to the airstrip.
‘August 19, by mid-day everyone was in the reception camp where hot showers and new clothing made a great difference.’
Another long journey awaited the Jocks, to Bangalore, which took twelve days, and here was a great sorting out, with repatriations, reorganisations, leave, and a look to the future as an airborne battalion under Major Ross. At the end of September there was to be a party at the Viceroy’s palace in Simla, one of the great hill stations of the Raj and the Viceroy’s summer capital.
Bill Lark: ‘It was called “The Lodge”, but it looked more like one of those big Victorian hotels at the seaside. There was a Chinese delegation there, featuring Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, and I had to play the pipes and say the health in Gaelic, thereupon downing a glass of whisky. I didn’t drink, I’d never had whisky. I had no idea what would happen to me if I did have it, so I asked the butler. He fixed me up with a glass of cold tea and I quaffed that.’
Chapter Nine
Post Mortem
The Jocks and most of the other Chindits withdrawing at this time were concentrated in the reception camp at Tinsukia. Besides the obvious luxuries of hot baths and new, dry, clothes, they were gently introduced to proper feeding again by a special convalescent type of rations which, according to those being subjected to the regime, seemed to feature rather a lot of chicken soup.
Not featuring so in the campaign was a psychiatrist, now on attachment to Special Force, who interviewed as many of the men as he could to try to gauge the effect the campaign had had mentally, and to learn what might be useful for any similar expeditions in the future.
His reports on the different brigades show one thing clearly, and that was concerning over-all morale. Those units which had finished their operations with a success, a win in a fight with the Japs, such as the Black Watch, were in better spirits than those who had not, or who had suffered some sort of reverse at the last.
Such a finding will not surprise many ordinary observers of human activity, but that’s psychiatry for you.
The doctor was himself surprised by the general good level of morale, considering how long the men had been in the jungle and the suffering they had been through. Perhaps he did not attach sufficient importance to the parallel phenomenon of banging one’s head against a brick wall. It’s great when you stop.
During August and September, he examined 372 men of 14 Brigade, being 126 2nd Battalion Black Watch, 88 of the 7th Leicesters, 84 of the 1st Beds and Herts, and 74 of the 2nd Yorks and Lancs. This is part of his report:
‘Psychiatric Casualties: No case of psychiatric illness was seen on personal contact or referred by Camp. M.O., Bn. M.O.s or local hospitals.
‘Factors influencing Morale Unfavourably:
(a) Promises. Black Watch and Y & L personnel complained bitterly of official promises of their ‘going out’, which never materialised. Every job after May was their last job and morale dropped considerably with each promise. In marked contrast the other two bns stated they never had one official promise throughout the campaign and suffered no loss of morale in consequence.
(b) Reinforcements. All stated they were never up to full strength and an increased burden was thus thrown on remaining personnel of unit. Many of the reinforcements received were untrained in jungle warfare and had never seen a heavy pack.
(c) Length of Campaign. Much too long. If the campaign had terminated before the monsoon many deaths from illness would have been avoided and all felt they would have been in a better mood to face a second campaign than they are now.
(d) Rations. K rations monotonous and almost unbearable after three months.
(e) Officers. “Class-distinction” too much in evidence, particularly regarding monsoon equipment and medical evacuation.’
The Black Watch men might well have mentioned those American hammocks, and officers on horseback, including Colonel Green, and an incident in which a man was upbraided for carrying a junior officer’s pack. The Jocks around this officer, including Jim McNeilly, were taking it in turns to help him out, as he was so weak.
Jim McNeilly: ‘I think he must have had malaria at the time, which we all got. It wasn’t like some did and some didn’t. We all did, and more than once. Anyway, G. G. Green says “What are you carrying his pack for?” and the boy turns round and salutes, mind you, salutes, and says “I’ll carry his fucking pack if I want to.” So the colonel had all the officers and NCOs in for a meeting about discipline, especially the captain, who’d said to him “It’s all right for you, sitting up there on your arse.”’
Report continues:
(f) Medical Inspections. Not one individual but complained of having had no proper medical “over-haul” before he went in. Some had none at all. Others were actually checked for fitness by a Sgt-Major consulting pay-books. They have had no medical inspection since leaving Burma. The general feeling, resultant on this, is that they are of the opinion that no one cares how they feel and that they have been neglected.
(g) Medical Treatment. Despite the admirable efforts of the M.O.s (with two exceptions) treatment was described variously as inadequate to ridiculous to call it treatment at all. It was common for sick to be turned away by the M.O. with the apology that he had nothing to give them. On occasion it was impossible to get even a bandage, parachute cloth having ultimately to be torn up to serve the purpose. Coln. 16 of Bedfs Herts complained of having no M.O. at all for 6 weeks. A L/Cpl. (from the Bn) carried on in his absence and it was rather alarming to learn from the Cpl himself that he was giving intravenous quinines, pentathols and performing minor operations on his own.
(h) Unknown Fever (Scrub Typhus). Without exception this affected the morale of the men considerably. They saw friends “dying like flies” with the fever and in cases they were even afraid to visit those stricken with the fever for fear of contracting it themselves.
(i) Medical Evacuation. None had any great confidence of getting evacuated if sick. Indeed the one concern in the mind of each individual was the fear of falling sick with the disturbing prospect of having to endure hardships in the coln were he unfit.
(j) Age and Weight. A considerable bond of sympathy existed between the men and those they considered overage and underweight. Men of 38 and 39 they believe should never have been sent in, and it was ridiculous to have included men of little more than 8 stone in weight. Giving the weight of the heavy pack as 69 to 81lbs this
meant those men were carrying over half to three quarters of their own weight. They blame this on the lackadaisical medical inspection prior to entering the campaign.
(k) Defective Vision. Those wearing glasses definitely did not possess the confidence of the men whose visual acuity was good. They went in constant fear of either losing or breaking their glasses, and even with them on the glasses were often little better than useless owing to rain and perspiration dimming the lenses. (An M.O. from personal experience gave it as his opinion that this latter observation was a very real one.)
Factors Favourably Influencing Morale.
(l) Self-appreciation. All bns could point with some pride to the part they had played in the campaign. They feel they have achieved what they set out to accomplish and are solid in their assertions that the Jap is anything but invincible and “has it coming to him”.
Addendum. Prior to the campaign a considerable number of men were put up by S.M.O. and Bn. M.O.s for regrading (as unsuitable), but many of these were turned down by Medical Boards. S.M.O. maintains that Specialists in hospitals are not fully conversant with the true conditions obtaining in the field and that less stress should be put on their findings and more on those of Bn. M.O.s. Those originally put up for regrading by him and his staff were ultimately evacuated as unfit during the campaign.’
The psychiatrist concluded that morale in general was good, and that the unanimous opinion of the men was that they thought they would be all right for another go in six months. We may speculate as to whether an army psychiatrist at that time had the same attitude to mental pain as the legendary army dentists had to the physical kind, and what the patients of either might have expected in the way of tea and sympathy.
So, the men thought they had done well, achieving what was asked of them, and perhaps they were even ready to do it again – but what was the reality, looking out of the big window of the strategists and high commanders, rather than looking up from the floor of the jungle?
We know that a lot of reverse civil engineering was done – bridges blown, roads and railways broken – but we don’t know how seriously this inconvenienced the enemy. We know that numbers of Japanese soldiers and officers were killed and wounded, but we don’t know how many. Certainly the figure would not compare with losses in a major pitched battle, for example the one at Imphal and Kohima, going on at much the same time, where foolish and risk-taking leadership gave the Japanese 55,000 casualties, including 13,500 dead, many of which, like Chindit losses, were from the combined forces of disease, exhaustion and malnutrition.
The Japanese were quite willing to admit, after the war, that the two Chindit expeditions had been taken seriously and had been far more than just an irritant. Suddenly finding British troops operating as they pleased, on the ‘wrong’ side of the Chindwin River, had caused great consternation among Jap generals. Only days before General Mutaguchi planned to launch his attack on Assam, the first airborne Chindits went in. Some in the Jap high command were for turning their attention to this new threat, dealing with it and returning later to the invasion of India. Mutaguchi pointed out that when he had taken Assam, he would have all the airfields currently supplying these impudent jungle British, so there was no point in worrying about them. Even so, some troops in the Japanese strategic reserve were brought up to attack White City and the other strongholds, men who otherwise would have been deployed elsewhere.
The most important general contribution by the Chindits, in the view of the Japanese, was to make Japan’s defence of her conquests in north Burma much more difficult. Her soldiers were sandwiched between Stilwell and Special Force. They could not advance against the US/Chinese army, neither could they hold the Mogaung-Myitkyina line as they intended to do. With their supply lines constantly being cut and their troops south of Mogaung occupied with the marauding Chindits, the Japs were forced to fall back, leaving Myitkyina free for the 36th Division to land and march south to meet them and, eventually, to drive them out of Burma.
American and some British evaluations of the Chindit effect don’t even go that far. Stilwell never thought they did anything very much at all, either with Jap communications, or by inflicting casualties in numbers that mattered. Slim said much the same, believing that the columns were too lightly armed to do serious damage and the strongholds similarly ill-equipped to take on the enemy in significant battles. For Stilwell, Special Force seemed always too far away to render direct service to him and his Chinese, and later on it was too sick to do anything anyway.
As if that were not enough evidence of failure, they had the statistics. The Chindits seemed to have paid a very heavy price for their achievements. Here are the numbers for 14 Brigade:
Officers Other ranks
Fly-in strength 176 3,295
Replacements 9 153
Total strength 185 3,348
Killed 12 99
Wounded 14 162
Sick (hospitalised) 39 381
Captured 0 0
Missing 2 27
Sick/wounded for evac. 29 1,098
Total loss 96 1,967
Total effectives flown out 89 1,481
For 111 Brigade, the figures are even worse:
Officers Other ranks
Fly-in strength 163 3,553
Replacements 30 398
Total strength 193 3,951
Killed 15 186
Wounded 34 373
Sick (hospitalised) 49 1,182
Captured 1 10
Missing 8 171
Sick/wounded for evac. 78 1,853
Total loss 175 3,375
Total effectives flown out 8 176
The summary figures in Mountbatten’s final report for the whole of Operation Thursday were 1,035 killed; 2,531 wounded; 473 missing; 7,217 hospital admissions, that is forty per cent of Special Force, three-quarters of which were due to disease. Of those ‘effectives’ examined, fifty per cent were declared unfit for active service.
These figures do not include those who fell sick in the column and who might normally have been hospitalised or evacuated, but who could not be for various reasons. Some of them died, some recovered to a greater or less extent and marched on. Such cases were treated by the medical officer, for example of malaria, dysentery and minor ‘civilian’ maladies such as tonsillitis and tooth abscesses, of which field medical units normally see large numbers. There are no statistics for these cases because the column MOs largely didn’t report them.
It was recommended by the senior medics that in future men should be evacuated in their third attack of malaria so that they could be properly treated in hospital and flown back in when they recovered.
Stilwell’s writings, and notes of his conversations, show a total disregard for the Chindits, both officers and men. He thought they were idiots, and useless idiots at that. He accused the senior officers of disobeying orders and threatened them with official complaints to higher authority. He had said to Lentaigne: ‘I intend to make a case out of this. You are not obeying orders.’
The British press, Stilwell noted, took every opportunity to hail the Chindit hero without ever mentioning the achievements of his Chinese and Americans – which, he was sure, would soon eclipse anything the Brits had done. When he did give credit to the Chindits, it was grudgingly, and in terms meaning that they had only managed to carry out orders and, for a change, hadn’t made a mess of it.
‘If only Wingate had lived’ has been the conventional response to Chindit criticism from earliest days. He died before Special Force was properly established, and his successor, Lentaigne, despite having been through the training and commanding a Chindit brigade, was not a believer. He thought Wingate a maverick, a renegade, and in any case was not privy to much of his former leader’s operational intentions, which were complex to say the least. Without Wingate’s influence, stature and zeal as Chindit Prophet, Lentaigne could not make it work. It was too difficult. He was the test pilot who didn’t trust his new aircraft.
In any case, maybe the
job was too difficult, full stop. Maybe even Wingate would have found it so, far away from his hugely complicated network of measures and countermeasures, trying to solve a fantastical, constantly moving crossword puzzle with incomplete clues that came by wireless and no real idea where the blank squares were. As early as 15 May, The Times had been expressing doubts about Stilwell’s strategy:
‘Monsoon Limitations. Indian opinion does not know quite what to make of the military operations in Burma and Assam which, although the monsoon is almost on us, are still to all appearances in a highly inconclusive state. While it is accepted that the Japanese offensive has shot its bolt for this campaigning season, there is a good deal of speculation on the extent to which the allies are likely to gain the objectives they have set themselves.
‘Those objectives, admittedly, have not been more closely defined than as the clearance of as much of northern Burma as is necessary to enable the construction of the Ledo road to proceed. This is taken to imply an intention on General Stilwell’s part to get as far south as Mogaung and Myitkyina . . . towns in which General Stilwell could sit in relative comfort during the monsoon and, it is believed, in fair security in view of the cutting of communications between northern and southern Burma, and of the destruction of Japanese ammunition, food and oil dumps in central Burma by Major-General Lentaigne’s penetration troops.’
However, The Times correspondent pointed out, Stilwell had not been able to advance on Mogaung. The Japanese were not giving an inch:
‘In the Japanese rear, fighting was reported in a recent SEAC statement to have taken place at a point south of Mogaung. It is deduced from this that part of General Lentaigne’s Special Force, which had not previously been heard of anywhere near Mogaung, has moved north to give General Stilwell closer support. (This development) may accelerate General Stilwell’s advance but, on the other hand, the weather must by now be slowing all troop movements.’
Jocks in the Jungle Page 19