Jocks in the Jungle

by Gordon Thorburn

  Definition of prickly heat: In humid conditions, an irritating skin rash caused by dead skin and bacteria blocking the pores, especially where there is friction, e.g. with wet clothes. Medical name, Miliaria. In severe cases, salt crystals form in the sweat gland ducts producing small blisters. Scratching the itch is of no benefit and can only lead to skin infections.

  David Rose: ‘I began to realise that I was losing my cool and was getting rather ill-tempered and that kind of thing, so I told them that with great regret I should have to give up my command. They left me and half-a-dozen West African wounded beside this little airstrip they’d built.

  ‘A staff officer from Brigade came across us lying there and blew his top a bit. He said that the column commander must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy because they’d torture him. That was me, and presumably I’d let out a few secrets. Presumably also, it was more permissible for other ranks to fall into said hands, because they wouldn’t know anything and so could only be used for bayonet drill. Anyway, this chap was an old Burma hand and he’d been in the government forestry department and knew a thing or two. He rounded up some elephants, the idea being that if the L5s couldn’t fly because of the monsoon, which was getting seriously underway, they’d take me by elephant to the Indawgyi Lake.

  ‘I had no idea about any of this. I was just waiting by the airstrip with these other chaps for a lift out of it. The plane came and the first passengers were a badly wounded man in the Nigerian regiment and me, but it couldn’t get off with both of us in so, unbeknown to me, he was put out, and within an hour I was in a wonderful American hospital. So when the elephants turned up, I was gone but the others were still there. They went by elephant to the lake and, a few days later, were taken off by flying boat and came to the same hospital. Some of their wounds were maggoty by then but they were all saved.’

  The new man Major Condon represented the only time in that war when Black Watch Jocks answered to a permanent Commander from another regiment. Wherever he was from, the routines stayed the same. After two months in the jungle, the Jocks were still almost entirely reliant on K rations.

  Bill Lark: ‘We would come across hens running around and the officer would say, “Ah, we’re obviously near a village.” But they were wild jungle fowl, like a kind of hen to look at, a foreign, Burmese-style hen maybe, but a hen. We’d have loved to have shot them but we daren’t make a sound like that.

  ‘When the supply drop came, sometimes we’d all have a little onion each, and sometimes there was bread. Bread meant that the men at the other end, back at base, were giving up their rations for us. This bread we got looked like it had little currants, but were the bugs that lived in the flour cooked in it. Naturally nobody complained about that and we ate the lot like it was the finest fresh loaf ever baked and sliced for a man.

  ‘The Burrifs came off best. They knew what you could pick and eat. Nobody told us you could eat bamboo shoots. After all that time in the jungle, with bamboo growing all around us, the first time I knew about bamboo shoots was when I had it from a Chinese restaurant, years after the war. One day I saw a Burrif up a tree, eating berries. He threw some down to me and they were just little brown berries, and you put them in your mouth and got the most powerful sour taste which then changed, to sweet and delicious.

  ‘On the march, every man had to carry 100 rounds of ammunition, which went in pouches on the pack, and in another pouch you put your powdered milk sachet which you squeezed out and made last for five days. The mules had what was called numnah – I think that was the word – pads under their saddles. It was hairy stuff about half an inch thick, and we used to cut a strip off this and fit it to our pack straps as cushions, which helped a bit with the seventy pounds you were carrying. You had the ammunition, plus blanket and groundsheet, one set of clothes – socks, shirt, vest, maybe trousers – five days’ K rations, two hand grenades, first-aid kit, mess tin, bayonet, bottle and chuggle. On your belt hung your Dhar, which was a Burmese type of machete, to chop your way through. And when you’ve got all that lot on you, you’ve got some weight I can tell you.’

  Extract from Colonel Officer’s medical report:

  ‘The weight carried by the men was far too high. It is one of the elements of Military Hygiene that the weight carried by the man should never be more than one-third of his body weight. Anything over that reduces the man’s efficiency and capacity to physical effort. That, in the case of a soldier in battle, means the reduction in his power to move, to seek out the enemy, and to successfully engage him in combat.

  ‘The average weight of the men in one column was 145 pounds and yet the weight carried by the Bren gun carrier amounted to 95 pounds; in other words, he was carrying about two thirds of his body weight or twice what he should carry. The lightest weight carried was 67 pounds – the weight carried by a rifleman armed with a carbine (with rations all eaten) – which is nearly half of the man’s body weight. There is only one answer to this problem and that is that anything over the optimum man-load must be carried by someone or something else. It means increasing the tail but it also means increasing the fighting efficiency of the fighting soldier. In the Chinese Army every third man is a porter.’

  Porters? Yes, well, we can see Wingate agreeing to that. And that 145 pounds was the average starting weight. By this time, most of the men had lost a considerable amount, but the packs stayed the same.

  The plan had been for the Black Watch to reinforce 111 Brigade as needed, and then go on to attack Mogaung, but before they could reach the block – Blackpool – the situation had changed. Blackpool was not really a block, being about a mile away from the railway and road which it overlooked, and holding it was becoming more difficult as, in Stilwell’s eyes, it became more imperative. If he was to succeed in the north, Jap supply lines must be cut. Where, he wanted to know, were the reinforcing columns of 77 and 14 Brigades? Lentaigne’s answer was to ask for discretionary powers to abandon Blackpool, these powers to be delegated to the man on the spot, Jack Masters, in command of Lentaigne’s old unit. Attempting to reach Blackpool, Lentaigne felt, could reach the point where a choice had to be made between total destruction and flimsy chances of survival.

  It was not an ideal site for a stronghold in any case and many who were there believed it had been established in the wrong place. It was too easily approached and attacked.

  Fred Patterson: ‘The Japs were sending up troop trains that we (Cameronians) weren’t allowed to interfere with. Into the middle of May they started in earnest, shelling and mortaring us. Every aircraft that came in to our strip was taking out wounded and sick. The monsoon started and our numbers were dwindling. Then we lost the airstrip and things were getting grim.’

  The Cams had been in Burma for two months and sickness was taking hold. Platoon strength averaged twenty-five instead of forty-five, and there were not enough men to do everything needed – pick up supplies, set out barbed wire, dig in, patrol, form a defensive garrison, and all the rest. The Japs brought up six anti-aircraft guns which made supply drops even more difficult.

  At this point the Dakota airstrip had been shelled to uselessness and 14 Brigade was still miles away. Stilwell did not like it at all. Was 111’s predicament so bad? What was to be gained from leaving a stronghold, only to have to creep through a jungle full of Japanese? Were 77 and 14 Brigades trying hard enough to get to Blackpool?

  In fact, by the time David Rose was evacuated, Blackpool had already fallen.

  Fred Patterson: ‘The rain was torrential, food was low, and ammunition almost gone when the signal came to withdraw. As I jumped out of my trench, the Japs moved into one 15ft away.’

  At a conference on 25 May Lentaigne and Stilwell debated, argued, or restated their positions regarding Blackpool. Both were equally determined, with additional new points from Lentaigne about the health of his troops. Food and ammunition were short enough among the beleaguered garrison and the likelihood of sufficient supplies coming in was low indeed, bu
t on top of that, there was no possibility of an airlift to evacuate the sick and wounded, whose numbers were rising rapidly. They would have to be carried through the jungle. Further delay might make such a job impossible.

  Perhaps so, was Stilwell’s opinion, but to him the block seemed essential. He wanted Mogaung and believed he could take it with his Chinese army, provided the Japanese were stopped from bringing up reinforcements and supplies. Surely that was a task ideally suited to Special Force? Wasn’t that the idea? Wasn’t that what Wingate had been banging on about? And if not, what was the use of Special Force?

  Facing an insistent Lentaigne, Stilwell backed down and agreed to delegate discretionary powers to the commander of 111 Brigade, then learned later that Blackpool had been abandoned the day before anyway. Not unnaturally, being the limey-hater he was, Stilwell believed that Lentaigne had tricked him into giving permission after the fact.

  It is hard to see what else Jack Masters could have done, other than take the responsibility. Through the night of 23 May and into 24 May, his men had suffered terrible casualties. The Japs were crawling across the airstrip. Artillery, mortars and aircraft were bombarding relentlessly. No relief could be expected from anywhere and the weather was appalling. The whole situation was hopeless.

  Figures at this point for 111 Brigade were afterwards stated as 82 killed, 206 wounded, 49 missing, 318 evacuated sick. The number of those wounded carried out of Blackpool on stretchers is uncertain. Quite what was going to be done with them, should they reach any kind of safety, was likewise unclear. Stretcher-carrying in itself was an extremely difficult matter in the jungle. Theoretically, it took eight men to carry one; four to carry the stretcher, four to carry the packs of those with the stretcher, then turn about. Needless to say, theory did not often apply, and a frequently used alternative was a Gurkha-style bamboo contrivance dragged along by a mule.

  One piece of good fortune arose from Japanese inflexibility. Instead of stopping the shelling and closing in on the near-helpless remnants of 111, probably wiping out large numbers, they stuck to their timed plan and unwittingly allowed the withdrawal. The Cameronians, by now amalgamated into one column only, acted as rear guard as the Brigade began a five-day march towards the Indawgyi Lake. That this would prove to be a ghastly nightmare was obvious – it was appalling weather with only one-and-a-half days’ rations per man, and no wireless to call any more.

  There now followed one of the most desperate and heart-churning episodes of the whole expedition. There were not enough mules and ponies to carry or drag the wounded. Men with wounds were carrying comrades who had worse damage. The Japs were not far behind and the British were in no fit state to fight. The MO reported that nineteen of the wounded would never make it. Others with a better chance needed those stretchers or they would die too. Jack Masters made the awful decision, and the nineteen, to spare them from capture alive, were shot.

  Black Watch War Diary: ‘May 25, 73 Col biv in the village of Nammun, a somewhat rare occurrence. 42 Col left Mainthengyi. May 26, 73 Col left Nammun and marched north in company with Brigade HQ and two Cols of the Yorks and Lancs, the expectation being a reinforcement/support task to help 111 Brigade who were holding a railway position called Blackpool against besieging Japs, eight miles SE of the top of the Kyusunlai Pass. The message came that 111 Bde had been forced out of Blackpool the previous day so the task was changed to holding the Kyusunlai Pass at all costs, to prevent the Japs using the pass to reinforce their positions at Kamaing. At 17.00 hours 73 Col’s rear elements went back to Nammun while the fighting group headed for the pass. 42 Col meanwhile reached Nammun.’

  Jim McNeilly: ‘We got new orders to defend a pass over the Kachin Hills called the Kyusunlai, so we had to get to the top. We were to keep the pass long enough for 111 Brigade to reach us. They’d had a terrible time trying to hold a position on the railway, Blackpool it was called, and they had masses of wounded. The rains had come by then, and we had engineers with us whose job it was to hack down bamboo and build a staircase up the mountain to get the mules up. And sometimes a mule would go over the edge and topple down with all its stuff and be lost to us.’

  War Diary: ‘May 27, after a wet and uncomfortable night, 73 Col battle group reached the top of the pass and took up positions on its crest. The many wounded of 111 Bde were struggling up the pass and were met at the top by 73 Col. May 28, 42 Col left Nammun for the pass, listening to the sounds of intense firing coming from it. Japs shelled the ridge all day. May 29, mule convoy of 42 Col went to Nammun for rations and on their return reported Jap snipers at water point. Japs continued their efforts to dislodge the Jocks and take the pass.’

  Bill Lark: ‘In the few times it stopped raining, we could look down into the valley and see the railway. One day there was a train on it and our planes were attacking it. It was like a show at the theatre with us in the best seats. Fantastic.’

  The Jocks were not only on the crest, of course. Having slogged their way inch by precipitous inch through the mud to the top of the mountain, men were sent slipping and sliding down the other side to defend against Jap attack. The reason for holding the pass would shortly change – from seeing the wounded and sick over it to preventing the Japs interfering with the evacuation from the Indawgyi Lake by flying boat. If the pass was open, the enemy could bring up artillery to shell the lake, and anti-aircraft guns to shoot down the relatively cumbersome Sunderland aircraft, of which there were only two – nicknamed ‘Gert’ and ‘Daisy’ – available. (For younger readers, Gert and Daisy were the stage names of a popular female comic double act of the time, real names Elsie and Doris Waters who, incidentally, were the sisters of Jack Warner, who later played Dixon of Dock Green.) If lakeside facilities could be built – jetties, field stations – and a ‘flare path’ was marked with buoys, and there were enough rafts, boats and DUKW landing craft, the Sunderlands could take away forty casualties at a time.

  The aircraft, of 230 Squadron RAF, normally based in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), flew 537 men of 111 Brigade from the Indawgyi to the Brahmaputra River and took in supplies and reinforcements, between 2 June and 3 July.

  Jim McNeilly: ‘We sent a lot out in those planes, but they were only the ones who looked like they might make it, make a recovery, you understand. I don’t know what happened to the others, the hopeless cases. We never saw them again.’

  War Diary: ‘May 30, 73 Col support platoon attacked Jap positions in the valley with mortars while another patrol engaged the enemy on the ridge to the south. In the afternoon it was 42 Col’s turn to be shelled. Snipers still active at the water point.

  ‘May 31, enemy shelling and mortar fire continued during the morning. Ration party of 73 Col returning at 16.30 hours was fired on by Jap snipers at water point. One man killed and two mules wounded. Commando Pl discovered Japs on the ridge to the south and engaged the enemy. 16 Pl of 42 Col attacked Jap mortar positions.

  ‘General situation – food scarce, weather atrocious, under constant attack on all sides.’

  Bill Lark: ‘Going to that water point on the pass with a mule was a decidedly dangerous adventure. The mule didn’t know about snipers and just wanted to get to the water. The muleteer couldn’t abandon his beast and couldn’t really stop it either, so the Jap had two targets, one very nervous with two legs and one oblivious with four.’

  The Battalion’s officers had been expecting to be on the pass for a few days, but that turned into weeks. Casualties fell regularly from the shelling, but mostly happened when Jocks were out on offensive patrol down in the valley. It was marshland, elephant grass, with water sometimes up to the waist and not at all suitable ground for any kind of military action, offensive or defensive.

  Very soon after the conference of 25 May, General Lentaigne began to suggest that Special Force was finished. It had lost its ability to make a significant contribution, he believed, and the best option was to conclude all its operations. The alternative was a combination of sickness and battle casualties amounti
ng to annihilation. Stilwell wanted the Chindits to move north to support his attacks on Kamaing and Mogaung. This was no longer feasible, Lentaigne felt. His men were exhausted. It was too much to ask of them to march all that distance and then expect them to fight the Japanese. Current evidence showed that Stilwell’s Chinese were not going to advance quickly enough to reduce the task, and large numbers of Japanese were in the way. Any sizeable actions by Special Force would be too costly. The only thing to do was to pull out now. The worst of the monsoon was to come, bringing with it renewed, and perhaps insuperable, difficulties in dealing with sick and wounded, especially the sick who were expected to be numerous.

  Stilwell’s response was to order the remainder of 111 Brigade to stay in a position to harass the enemy, but Indawgyi Lake was the priority for the moment. Whatever Stilwell wanted them to do, the Brigade’s commanders put saving their ailing men first. Meanwhile, Mike Calvert reported 77 Brigade temporarily sick as a fighting unit, stating that the men were no longer capable of moving quickly for any length of time. As the monsoon shut down the possibilities of guerrilla warfare, 77 Brigade headed at its own pace towards Mogaung and a more conventional kind of battle.

  Black Watch War Diary: ‘June 1, Jap snipers infiltrated (again) to positions overlooking the water point. West African patrol sent out to destroy the enemy and were successful in that the Japs withdrew. Very heavy rain and oppressive atmosphere.’

  These snipers were the result of repeated attempts by the Japs to sneak in at night. They were repulsed on every occasion. The African soldiers were led with verve and vigour by Captain Douglas Ross of the Black Watch:

  ‘June 2, 42 Col sent patrol under command of Capt Dalrymple to bottom of pass. They bumped a party of Japs on return journey. Capt Dalrymple wounded (hand) in this action and later had to be evacuated.’