Too little, too late is the expression that comes to mind. Too late was concluded with the long march by 16 Brigade, so that exhausted troops could do little to shift the Japs at Indaw and, when they did shift them, it didn’t seem to matter. Too late was 14 Brigade going in because there were no Dakotas available, all being deployed elsewhere, so the Jocks and the rest couldn’t get to 77 and 111 Brigades when they needed help in May.
This is all true, but the greatest enemy of the Chindits was the one given the least attention at the time and, largely, since – sickness. The entire expedition was a medical catastrophe. It is incontestable that Special Force was more effective before the monsoon than after, when it could perform much better as a collection of hit-and-run units. Later, large parts of the force were more stationary, in bad country, in the monsoon – and sickness destroyed them. Was that unavoidable? For the time, was the medical service up to the mark? Did the men themselves understand what the tropics could do?
During the campaign, a third of the total Chindit strength was admitted to hospital for sickness, three times the number of those admitted for wounds, and many of the wounded were sick too. Of the remainder, more than half were hospitalised after they came out of Burma.
These are averages. The sick:wounded ratio was most pronounced in 14 Brigade. The cause is simple to find. The role given to the Black Watch and their comrade battalions was one of continuous, utterly exhausting marches hither and thither, knee deep in water and mud, which contributed hugely to infection by typhus, which the other brigades hardly suffered from.
Scrub typhus appeared in 14 Brigade near the beginning of May. At first, there were just a few cases of this disease with no name, but over the month there were more and more, and by the end of May there had been over fifty cases, some of them fatal. Individual cases kept on occurring until mid-August, when there was a sizeable outbreak confined mainly to the Black Watch Battalion. The death rate, as we have seen, was almost 30 per cent.
In all cases, leading to death or recovery, there was a long period of fever during which the sick man could do almost nothing. Not surprisingly, the mystery disease acquired an extra dimension. Those contracting it knew what was going to happen.
On top of the typhus, the major ailments leading eventually to evacuation were of course malaria, and towards the end, jungle sores, and the increase in all sickness can be associated with the type of activity the men were asked to perform. For example, the rate of sickness losses among the Jocks in April and May, while they were patrolling, fighting and moving almost daily, was increasing but steadily. It was bearable, the sickness, even if the replacements for evacuees were not entirely to everyone’s liking. However, when the Second Battalion was given more duties patrolling from a stable base, the rate of sickness shot up. Compare the figures:
14 Brigade, 20 March to 3 June:
Killed 71, wounded 95, missing 27, sick evacuated 151, total 344.
14 Brigade final figures:
Killed 111, wounded 176, missing 29, sick evacuated or waiting for same, 1,547.
From the medical point of view, there were more influences at work than the physical ones. Getting better from sickness is partly to do with the will to get better. Doctors pointed to the morale of a force conceived as “Special”, one which could strike and disappear, ready to strike again where least expected. So long as this was what they were doing and being, morale – and the will to get better – remained strong. Once downgraded, as it were, to be more conventional colleagues of Chinese and Americans, there was a certain sense of depreciation.
Before that, there can be no question that the monsoon rains were a more stringent test of general morale and medical discipline than anyone foresaw. Mosquitos and mites, water contamination, poor sanitation, jungle sores, just about everything bad, doubled and tripled in the rain. The consequences of the work and the rations, weight loss, vitamin deficiency and loss of appetite all lead to a downward spiral of fatigue and carelessness with personal sanitation, and mostly happened towards the end.
If we take the incidence of malaria, the story is clear. Perfect discipline with the malaria tablets could not have prevented malaria symptoms entirely, but would it have kept them down to ‘acceptable’ levels? The rate rose all the way through the campaign but doubled in July compared with May and June. By August, malaria cases were running between six and nine times higher than in April, and that is only from the numbers reported by the column MOs. The estimate from later analysis is that there were almost as many unreported cases. One conclusion is that Special Force gave up on the Atabrine. As an example, there was an incident outside the Second Battalion where three men died of cerebral malaria, and their packs were found to contain all their current supplies of tablets. Another conclusion is that Atabrine was not good enough for men so weakened.
In the circumstances, the Jocks and the other Chindits achieved near miracles of endurance and military success. We have to wonder what more they might have achieved if they had taken more care with their own well-being or, indeed, if they could have taken more care.
In any future campaigns of this sort, taking the evidence from the Chindit experiment, where it seemed everyone was taking part unknowingly in a clinical trial as well as fighting the Japs, it was concluded that there had to be a proper medical organisation capable of dealing with the human consequences. Medical personnel would have to be specially trained technically, and be able to cope physically with the business of the LRPGs. Officers and men would have to be made to realise that disease was a worse enemy than the Japanese and that every possible measure had to be taken to prevent it.
Rations sufficient for the work were essential, obviously, and interesting enough as food for the men to want to consume them and keep on consuming them. Good food means higher morale. This, of all the lessons of the experiment, was the easiest to learn and implement.
Perfect discipline with Mepacrine/Atabrine tablets is only possible if the supply is perfect. If the supply is irregular, no amount of discipline in the column can be enough.
Senior medical officers must be included when plans are made, and must be listened to, rather than being regarded as something of a nuisance as is traditional. Similarly, in the field, commanders must confide in, and respect the views of, medical officers.
Colonel Officer: ‘One definite lesson learnt from this campaign is that three months is the very maximum period during which personnel can undertake this type of operation, and even this period must be reduced if carried out under monsoon conditions.’
That was all said after the event. Partly because of Wingate’s attitude, and Stilwell’s, and partly because the Chindits were going into unknown territory in all senses, the officers and men of the Second Battalion Black Watch and the 1st Cameronians, and every other soldier who went into Burma in the Spring of 1944, were more than just pioneers of jungle warfare. They were unwitting volunteers in a gigantic, disorganised, unintentional medical experiment.
‘Welfare of Troops in Burma. Lord Munster’s Visit. Bombay, Oct. 24. Lord Munster, Parliamentary UnderSecretary of State for India, landed at an airstrip hacked out of the Burma jungle to discuss questions relating to the welfare of troops . . . During a three-hour meeting they dealt with many problems that have arisen in the past and situations which are likely to arise as our troops drive deeper into Burma. Leave, canteens, entertainment, repatriation and post-war prospects, difficulties of travel, provision of wireless sets and gramophones, and the effect on family life of long separations, all figured in the conversations. The work of such organisations as Toc H, the YMCA and the WVS was commended.’
The Times, October 1944
Sources
Interviews and conversations with David Rose, James McNeilly and William Lark.
Documents held at Black Watch Regimental HQ, Perth, and by the Ministry of Defence.
US Army Medical Department, Office of Medical History (including extracts from the Stilwell Papers).
Var
ious newspapers, including The Times, Sunday Mail, Daily Record.
Imperial War Museum.
Barclay, Brigadier C.N. The History of the Cameronians.
Chinnery, Philip D. March or Die.
Cochran, Stewart. Chindit.
Fergusson, Bernard. The Black Watch and the King’s Enemies.
Patterson, Frederick C. From Rattray and Beyond.
Rolo, Charles J. Wingate’s Raiders.
Sykes, Christopher. Orde Wingate.
Various authors. The Covenanter (magazine of the Cameronians).
Index
Aberdeen
Barkasan (Somaliland)
Blackpool
Broadway,
Calvert, Michael
Chiang Kai-Shek
Chindwin River
Churchill, Winston
Crete/Heraklion
Fergusson, Bernard ,
Green G.G
Indaw
Indawgyi Lake
Irrawaddy River
Kyusunlai Pass
Lark, William
Lentaigne, Walter ,
McNeilly, James
Mogaung
Labu
Mountbatten, Louis ,
Myitkyina
Officer, W. J.,
Frederick Patterson, Frederick
Rangoon
Rose, David
Stilwell, Joseph
Tobruk
Wavell, A.
White City
Wingate, Orde, Charles
Jocks in the Jungle Page 20