A Story of War

Bill Tate forced landed somewhere, so they say. “Z’ and Toungoo bombed yesterday. Pete Jennings rings up and orders me to get his Lysander from Johnny Walker to Ningaladon and return to Toungoo after lunch. I phone Alec Johnston who fetches me, we visit the accountants and eat strawberies and cream at the Savoy. They (Army & RAF Staff) have a Mess in the teachers college where I have dinner, meeting Bill Adams (7/13) and Hugh Seely, now on the Staff.

Today some War Correspondents, including the famous Gallacher of the Daily Express, drive me to Group where I try and raise a truck for the flight. I find out the detachment is to continue, but cannot find a truck. I then collect my ground staff from Ningaladon and here I am back in Zayatkwin, expecting two Lysanders any day. Saw Ronnie Alden, now in IAOC.

Deacon has trouble at He-Ho and Nobby Clark returns for spares, so Burt Mann and I go down [to Rangoon] the next morning. We call at Toungoo where I meet Watson and then to Ningaladon. We are then sent to a satellite “z” or Zayatkwin where we find a dump of tents, very little water and nothing to drink. Burt goes into Group and I play poker with S/Ldr Burberry (31) and some others. Air raid alarms at night and one Jap bomber comes over at 4000″ with his lights on, does a dummy run, then turns rounds and drops a stick of A.P. near the runway, damaging a Tomahalk only. We have no ground crew, no petrol or oil, and Group ringing up with different orders all the time. Some D/F calibrations in the afternoon and we see Pat Jennings and Tate arrive in Ningaladon to find out what’s what at Group. More alarms that night but no bombs, and next morning we go to look for Tate’s aircraft at “Johnny Walker” as tail wheel nearly gone on mine. We can’t find it and return, then off to Ningaladon where I burst my wheel and hand the kite over to S/Ldr Majumdar of 1st IAF, stationed at Toungoo. Burt and Bill Tate then return to Laskio with GOC Hutton and staff in back, Majumdar goes off and I am left with four airmen at Ningaladon and two sergeants at Zayatkwin and no orders, as the detachment appears to be finished and we are going on bombing raids from Toungoo.

I telephone Group who contact Pete Jennings and order me to “await further orders”, so I fix myself up with a billet at the Rangoon Golf Club where I am now. Airmen and officers mixed and plenty of beer and a dhobi of all things, so I am well off at last. Met some 113 Sqn boys who take me to town last night to the Savoy. Whisky 1/4 and a damn good feed there. Met Stuart of 12 Frontier Force Rifles on the staff, who said they only had 2 1/2 battalions at Moulmein and could have held it with one more, but Hutton refused it. Then we go and search for brothels, but though we get to several opium dives, no women seen so we return to bed. Well I reckon I shall miss this bombing trip, and how the hell I get back to the Squadron I don’t know.

'Dickie's' Lysander, 28 Squardon (Army Cooperation), Kohat, loading up for Burma

We leave an hour late and I do a ground loop at Lahore and bust a wheel, and so am two hours behind. On reaching Delhi, I refuel and take off up to some gate or other as I can’t get off the ground and only manage to pull up with a few feet to spare. I run up on chocks and find the engine is OK so take off again and set course. Then Flight Sergeant Fairbrother, my airgunner, says ‘something’s burning’, it appears to be another fuse so I come down again and stay the night whilst it is attended to. The accumulator overflows and rots a large hole in the fabric.

I put up at Com. flight mess, with Gunn who is in the Douglas, and then go to the Club with Mac, Dudley Withers and Neil Elliot. I meet Brain and Dickie Lonsdale and Pamela Russel from Calcutta, Also alot of paratroops, some with carpet slippers on and plaster on their faces, and despite telephoning all over Delhi, am unable to locate Reggie Seward or Abbott.

Next day, with Sergeant Glass, who stopped overnight with an oil leak, we set off and after refuelling at Cawnpore catch up the squadron at Gaya. As I fly over they fire Very lights, so I watch which way their smoke blows and land accordingly, only to find they had been trying to draw my attention to a landing “Tee”. But instead of a ‘berry for my prang I am complimented on catching up the squadron! We reach Dum Dum that night and are put up at the Mess. No taxis available but we eventually manage to get on some service MT and reach Calcutta at 8.15pm. A drink in the Grand, then Joe Nelson, Teddy and I dine at Firpo’s and return to bed by 11pm. Burt Mann up all night with his girl and some of the others stay in town.

Next day we reach Chittagong and then set out for He-Ho. B Flight leading and over some wicked mountains up to 8000′, thickly wooded. Near Meiktila Burt decides petrol is short so we land at a concealed landing ground at Pyawbwe. It’s home to the Burma Frontier Force training battalion and we meet a BVAF chap (Isaacs) and his wife who give us tea whilst refuelling in progress. I have a long range tank and they don’t fill me up, but I take a look and find an air lock in the tank. That’s blown out, and we set off for He-Ho where the rest of the Squadron are, bar Teddy Humphries. He was last seen over the Irrawaddy and it later transpires he went back to Chittagong and the next day set out again and crash-landed at Mandalay. But a search A/C goes out to look for him.

At He-Ho we sleep in dormitories with bedding “on the house”, the custom out here apparently. Over 3000″ and damn cold; rolling downland with scrub; sharp stakes and tank traps everywhere. Off next day to Laskio and up to 9500′. Of course our heavy kit has not arrived, but we disperse to A/C “hides” and then up to the Mess some three miles away. We all go about with pistols and carry tin hats. This is the railhead for the Burma road, and lorries are everywhere. Mostly Chinese drivers, and one lorry is only supposed to last about four trips. We drive down to some hot springs where boiling water wells out of the ground. Everything hellish expensive as all the inhabitants have made fortunes out of “lorrying” up the Road.

A beautiful place this. A low depression with rolling hills on three sides, thickly jungled. The earth is red, but plenty of vegetation and flowers abound. The buildings are all wood and chattai, on stilts above the ground in Chinese fashion.

Tomahawks of the American Volunteer Group arrive occasionally but we never see the pilots. They get about 2000 rupees a month and 500$ in gold for each plane they shoot down, so they are pretty hot stuff.

A sudden signal for two aircraft to Rangoon for two months and it is B Flight. Sgt Deakin and Nobby or I. We toss and he gets it and has gone. He hates moving and I like it, but I’m not ready, having just unpacked and not yet being “composed like”. Now I am, I wish the hell I had gone after all, as there will be nothing to do here, until we are re-equipped with modern aircraft.

DC3′s of China National Airways Corporation run Calcutta-Laskio-Kunming. If I had gone to Rangoon I would have seen some more war, and bombers every day there. Am I a fool or not?