by Brian Mooney
‘77 Brigade and 111 Brigade will fly in. The operation will involve something like 1,600 mules and 10,000 men. Nothing like it on a similar scale has ever been previously attempted. Advance parties of each Brigade will fly into specially selected jungle clearings remote from the main Japanese communications and concentrations. They will fly gliders, large quantities of which have been obtained by kind permission of Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The gliders will be pulled by C-47s (DC3s or Dakotas, as we British called them, but Masters was always noticeably pro-American) – two gliders to each tug. They will contain bulldozers and sufficient men to turn the jungle clearings into fully operational landing strips. They will be released over target and glide down, making forced landings within the area as best they can. Twenty-four hours will be allowed for preparing the landing-strips. On the night after these advanced parties have touched down, the main bodies of the Brigades will begin their fly-in in powered planes. That operation will probably take a further three nights. The whole operation should be completed and tied up within five days – or at the most, a week.
‘Thereafter 77 Brigade and 111 Brigade will march each to their separate operational areas and perform the tasks allotted to them.
‘Such is the basis of the general plan and it is a good one. But the tiny details are voluminous. In implementing them, I shall have to rely on the help of all of you. There are the plane manifests to work out, the calculation of payloads to prepare – mules, arms, ammunition, men – to say nothing of how you actually hornswaggle a mule inside an aircraft, let alone persuade one to enter or leave it!’
The scope of operations left us agape. It was the beginning of a period of activity in a type of work which was totally unfamiliar. Everything had to be weighed and measured according to the amount of cargo that a Dakota could carry from Imphal to somewhere about Katha, before returning to Imphal empty.
Our landing strips had already been selected and given the code-names Broadway, Piccadilly and Chowringhee – important thoroughfares in New York, London and Calcutta. Broadway and Piccadilly were close together and Chowringhee was intended simply as a reserve field, in case of the failure of either of the others. It was located in the so-called dry belt of the Shweli bend, where that tributary flows out into the Irrawaddy, which in this place is over a mile broad. It suffered from the disadvantage of being on the wrong side of the Irrawaddy. Our theatre was to be to the west of the Irrawaddy; Chowringhee was to the east. Our theatre of operations was just north of Wuntho where road, rail and telegraph communications diverged on the one hand through Pinlebu to Homalin, on the Chindwin, which was an important Japanese supply base for their front line facing Manipur; and on the other hand towards Mogaung and Myitkyina which were the bases for opposing the advance of Stilwell’s Chinese army from the North.
As D-Day approached, we were granted the accolade of an inspection by Supremo. The occasion was beautifully stage-managed. The inspection took place at night. I was rather cross about it, as I wasn’t allowed to be present. Jack Masters, that wily old bird, was far too cunning to allow a Camouflage Officer to appear in public at a parade of inspection for troops intending to go into battle. As for the Brigade Headquarters Orderly Officer – there was actually no place on the establishment for that high sounding piece of spook dreamed up cunningly to sound and look official; so I just had to be content to remain anonymous.
‘All right,’ said Masters ungraciously, when I asked him if I could be there. ‘But for God’s sake keep out of the way. I don’t know how I’m going to explain you if you’re discovered!’
I had been allowed to march the defence platoons up the field adjoining Tulihal aerodrome where the inspection was to take place, and then I had to vanish. I therefore crouched in a ditch in the wings and watched the inspection with fascination.
The troops assembled at dusk. As it got dark, they moved into position. They were paraded in two ranks in a long line. Supremo meticulously inspected every one of them. Everyone was in full battle kit, complete with extra magazines, spare ammo and grenades. My Gurkhas, I am pleased to say, looked magnificent.
Supremo arrived at the other end of the line in a jeep with the Commander-in-Chief, 11th Army Group, Assam, General Giffard, and Fourteenth Army Commander Bill Slim. Also present were IV Corps Commander, General Scoones, and, of course, our own Divisional Commander, Orde Wingate. Each one of these high-ranking Officers was accompanied by his aide-de-camp. It was a very dressy occasion. As Joe Lentaigne went up to Supremo to report the Brigade present and ready for inspection, every one of our transport lorries – there were over a hundred – switched on its lights. They had been arranged in a semi-circle facing us on purpose to create this special effect. It was like a scene from some old fashioned spectacular, such as Noel Coward’s Cavalcade.
After about half-an-hour, Supremo’s party hove in sight. His performance was perfectly splendid. Every twenty yards he stopped and repeated phrases in Gurkhali, learned by rote parrot-fashion: ‘How old are you? How many years service have you got? Is this your first experience of active service? Good luck and God bless you!’
He was wearing the uniform of an admiral. It was snow white. He carried a sword and sported gold epaulettes. After the parade, Tej Bahadur came rushing up to me.
‘He spoke to me, sahib! He spoke to me! He speaks our language. Somebody says it’s the King. Is it the King, sahib? Tell me! It must be the
King!’
‘Only a minor member of the royal family,’ I replied dryly. ‘The King is much more magnificent!’
Our preparations were now almost complete. All that remained was to adjust one’s inner attitude. I was lying on the ground one night doing this, gazing up at the moon, when I heard a strange buzzing noise. No sooner had I struggled free of my blanket, than it stopped.
I took a little tour round our bivouac. Soldiers of the defence platoons were lying about indiscriminately. As I stepped among them, rolled up in their khaki blankets like Egyptian mummies consigned to the sand, I was struck by their affinity to carven statues.
The moonlight burnt dappled across them. Young innocents, untouched by the torture of modern life and all its cobwebby implications – how I envied them! Here was Bhim Bahadur, his fascinating humorous monkey features now smoothed out by the soft hand of sleep – perhaps the only one among them with anything approaching a contemporary consciousness.
Here was Tej Bahadur of the surprised expression, his perfectly rounded melon cheek constitutionally exposed to danger of infection by acne – on whose behalf I was always having to break into the medical supplies in order to anoint another inflamed pimple with acquaflavine, for he was very sensitive about it. Here was Agam Singh, tall and lanky and with an extraordinary squint. Here were Man Bahadur Limbu and Gopal Bahadur Rai under a single blanket, their face uptilted and slightly turned towards each other. Gopal Bahadur appeared so young that it would have seemed little short of criminal to have taken him away from his mother, yet he was a plucky rifleman and a superbly stocky load carrier. I had seen him during training with his trousers rolled above the knee and a 62 pound Pack on his back, together with four grenades and a loaded Bren gun, getting carried away by a foaming torrent. Man Bahadur was inclined to be a little reticent – could it be that he was resentful of my attempts to establish contact with him? And here was Havildar Tulbir Gurung. He was a person of very pronounced capabilities as yet quite unextended to their full capacity. He, no doubt, would go far, for he was not above attempting to impress me with his potential. And here was Shiv Jung. He was our only big fellow, standing at least five feet ten in his socks. He was very dark in complexion, and I a little bit scared of him – he had such flashing eyes and such an intense manner.
Now that they were asleep, I could observe them quietly. I loved all of them, I decided, the wicked ones as much as the virtuous.
But who was this? Here was an unidentified form as yet unaccounted for. I stopped beside the anonymous bundle carefully rolle
d up as if it held something for me. As I did so, all nature suspended its breath. Carefully I bent down and disengaged the enveloping blanket from the enfolding hands. It peeled away like a skin. Underneath was Dal Bahadur. The rest of his face was serene enough, to be sure, but his eyes betrayed that he was very uncertain of his reception.
I slumped down beside him, feeling quite weak and giddy.
‘So you’ve come back!’
‘Yes, sahib. I’ve been here two days, only his excellency took no notice of me.’ This was said with unmistakeable asperity.
‘Nobody told me. Why didn’t you report your arrival as I told you to?’
‘I thought the sahib would discover it for himself.’
‘Well, even if two days late, I have. I bet that was you singing.’
‘Yes, sahib.’ He was positively taunting me with his exaggerated innocence.
‘Do you want to be my orderly?’
‘We are his excellency’s slaves, to dispose of as he thinks fit. He has us all in the palm of his hand!’
‘Damn and blast your bloody impudence,’ I said. ‘Do you want to be my orderly or not? If not, you can very easily go back to rear headquarters and become the orderly of another Japanese-speaking officer at once. I’ll have you transferred tomorrow. I shall simple declare that you’re unfit for active service.’
‘I want to be your orderly.’
‘Then, quite simply, that settles it. Why beat about the bush? Why didn’t you say so at the beginning?’
‘I said so as soon as the Captain sahib gave me an opportunity.’ ‘You didn’t.’
‘I did.’
‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed, aghast at what we were doing. ‘Don’t let’s quarrel. I’ve only been speaking to you for three minutes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then transfer your bedding-roll to my basha tomorrow.’
‘Very well, sahib. Only his excellency must learn to control himself!’
‘And what precisely,’ I demanded, outraged by his pert and provocative manner, ‘am I supposed to understand by that?’
He did not answer. He merely contented himself with looking enigmatic.
‘Look here!’ I said, quite broken by such artful coquetry. ‘Let’s not bicker. Let me confess frankly that I need you. I mean, I need some sort of human support and sympathy quite outside the military obligations of officers towards riflemen and vice-versa. Otherwise I’ll never survive these operations alive. They are going to test all of us to the utmost – you too! Surely we can support each other in a comradely fashion? I’ll use my influence to secure for you what small privileges and comforts I can. All I ask in return is – well I’m ashamed to say it – all I ask is love.’
I was at once aware how ridiculous the statement sounded.
‘Love? I am asking too much! I don’t deserve love. I’m sorry I said that. Just be my orderly and brew up. That will be sufficient.’
His reply was surprisingly reticent yet perfectly wonderful. It was true, what he said – I had underestimated him.
‘I am not such an ingenuous fellow,’ he said, ‘as the sahib imagines. I am quite capable of appreciating his excellency’s feelings. What his excellency has confided to me does me great honour. Please treat me respectfully. I, in return, would never dream of betraying his excellency’s confidence.’
There, under the trees, then, on the eve of battle, with the moon gazing down as witness, and in the midst of our sleeping comrades, we in effect plighted our troth. In spirit, I am sure, neither of us ever dishonoured it.
Thereafter things pushed forward with vertiginous speed towards D-Day – 5 March 1944. One or two events flashed past, but they served more as objects from which to judge our velocity than as events to be chronicled. We at Brigade Headquarters continued to compile plane manifests until the last minute. There was no relaxation in that pressure. We seemed to be sucked towards the vortex of D-Day helpless, like pieces of driftwood floating on a rushing torrent.
The only occurrence powerful enough to arrest this momentum and actually bring it to a halt for a brief period arrived on 1 March. It was Wingate’s essay on the stronghold. I remember it being delivered by special messenger from Force very well. It landed with quite a thud.
Habit had accustomed us to being bombarded with heavy literature from Headquarters fairly frequently, but on this particular occasion it seemed too much. We were all furiously busy, and some of us, including me, were behindhand in our timetable. Yet if we did not manage to complete the plane-manifests by target-date, the operation could not go forward.
When the bulky document dropped onto the trestle table where we were working, it was greeted with groans of dismay and irritation. There it lay: Training Memorandum No. 8.
With an expression of extreme distaste, Briggo picked it up. Five minutes later I was astonished to notice that he was still reading it.
‘What is it?’ I demanded incuriously, expecting to hear that it was the usual flaming manifesto from the infernal General. ‘An exhortation – Caesar to his troops on the eve of battle?’
‘Actually,’ said Briggo with an unsteady laugh, ‘this is something quite different.’
‘Well, what is it?’ repeated Smithy. ‘Let’s have a look!’
Briggo tossed over the wad of paper. The document was cyclostyled and the sheets were clipped together and bound as a book. There were about half-a-dozen copies contained in the heavy package and we each succeeded in securing one. There and then, in the midst of our pressing work, we sat back and read. I personally approached its perusal with extreme scepticism. I ought to have known better. After all I had met Wingate and been supremely impressed.
I had no sooner glanced at it, however, than I realized I would have to reassess. Imagine a quotation from Zachariah – ‘Betake ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope’ – staring back at you from a Military Training Memorandum. Yet so quickly did events unfold, that twenty-four days later Wingate would be dead.
In spite of the interruption, we managed to complete our tasks by 5 March. That was the day of 77 Brigade’s fly-in. Zero hour for them was at five, just before dusk. It would put them on the ground at the chosen clearings of Broadway and Piccadilly at half-past six. It also meant that we had long stretches of dead water to navigate before we arrived at the rapids.
As that tedious afternoon crawled endlessly towards its climax, I went a little dry in the throat. Similar symptoms of first night nerves were observable among the others. Is it to be accounted for by intuition? Over the mountains to the west, at Lalaghat aerodrome near Silchar where 77 Brigade were assembled, a final, pre-production crisis was racing crazily to confront them – yet all unbeknownst to the rest.
Exactly half-an-hour before take-off – at precisely half-past four in the afternoon – a light plane had landed with the most recently taken reconnaissance photographs. They were studied by all the top brass assembled to watch the take-off – by Wingate, Calvert, Cochran, Air Marshall Baldwin, Slim. They revealed terrible evidence that the Japanese were preparing to oppose us. Piccadilly airstrip had been blocked by what appeared to be deliberately placed teak-logs.
Had the Japanese discovered our intention, or was it purely coincidence? It was impossible to say. The top Commanders at Lalaghat immediately went into conference. Echoes of the uncertainty surrounding this crisis reached us in Manipur by telephone not long afterwards. The operation was off – then it was on – then it was off again. Had we been betrayed? Had we not?
As for myself, having put so much effort into trying to achieve physical and mental perfection in terms of my readiness, I think I should have run amok if all these plane manifests written with heart’s blood had turned out to be abortive.
Away at Lalaghat, the conferring and weighing of probabilities lasted until about five o’clock. Then a final decision was arrived at. We of 111 Brigade, however, did not get the news immediately. We waited for confirmation – would it be continuation or cancellation? The suspense was terri
fic. Finally, after one hour, it came: Operation Thursday (the code name) would go forward; Chowringhee landing strip would be substituted for Piccadilly; detailed orders would follow.
What had happened was this: Chowringhee had originally been intended solely to be used by 111 Brigade’s Regiment of 4/9 Gurkhas (49 and 94 Columns). They had been given a special role to operate independently of 111 Brigade on the Burmese border contiguous with the Chinese province of Yunnan to the east. It did not matter to them that Chowringhee was to the east of the Irrawaddy since their theatre of operation was to the east anyway.
All the rest of the two Brigades were going to fly to Piccadilly and Broadway. 77 Brigade was going in first on both strips for a quick build-up of men and weapons. Their operation was to be completed in three days by 7 March. 111 Brigade would then follow them on both strips, the landings to begin on 7 March and end on 10 March.
This plan was now not feasible on account of Piccadilly strip being rendered inoperable. As a compromise, what was suggested and agreed to by the commanders was this: Mike Calvert would fly his 77 Brigade into Broadway only, but accepting a far slower rate of build-up of his force’s strength. This in itself was a courageous decision, seeing that, from the evidence available, he had every reason to suspect a Japanese ambush would be waiting for him.
The change, in terms of actual logistics, meant this: instead of the eighty gliders originally scheduled to leave Lalaghat aerodrome on that first night for Broadway and Piccadilly jointly, now merely sixty-one would leave, and these for Broadway alone. This was because Broadway was not thought capable of accommodating more than sixty gliders during a single night. In actual fact, it turned out to be capable of accommodating considerably fewer. In the middle of the night, on receipt of an adverse signal from Broadway indicating that there were difficulties there, seven gliders in flight were turned back.
