A Time of Tyrants

by Trevor Royle

  Following another short period out of the line, the battalion was ordered to attack enemy positions on the River Rapido, downstream of Cassino, and to make a bridgehead. In support of the attack a squadron of tanks from the Lothians and Border Horse was put under Madden’s command, and they set off in thick mist in the early morning of 13 May. By mid-morning they had reached their objective, but thick mist the following day hindered their progress and the companies began losing touch with one another, a fatal mistake given they were advancing into unknown territory. To prevent any mishaps, Madden ordered his men to form hollow squares – company by company, with the tanks in the middle – and to move off again. Hidden woods and German positions suddenly appeared in the mist-covered terrain, and there was a succession of confused fire-fights before the battalion halted on a crest where the ground suddenly started falling away. The ensuing engagement was typical of the operations around Cassino – chaotic, relentless and intense, leaving the battalion with 240 casualties killed or wounded before Polish forces finally fought their way into Monte Cassino and flew their national flag above the ruins of the monastery.

  During the Cassino operations 1st Argylls had been given the task of securing a position known as the San Angelo ‘Horseshoe’, with 17 and 19 Brigades, while 8th Argylls was held in reserve with 78th Division to exploit the situation as the battle developed. The Scots Guards were also part of the fighting. Both the 1st and 2nd Battalions had been part of the invasion of Italy – the former had landed at Anzio in January 1944 as part of an ill-fated outflanking operation to take Rome – and played distinguished roles in the fighting at Monte Camino and Monte San Michele, but neither played any direct role in the capture of Cassino. Instead, the regiment was represented by S Company, which had been formed from new drafts, and was attached to 2nd Coldstream Guards. It was involved in some of the fiercest fighting for the position, and one of the company’s officers, Captain H. F. G. Charteris, MC, left a vivid account of what it was like to fight beneath the imposing heights of the hill and its monastery.

  None who saw that massive ruin, day after day, sometimes swathed in palls of dust, sometimes pink and clear in the dawn or towering blacker than night among the stars, can ever forget it. Like a face, it overhung the desiccated arena where thousands of men lay cramped and invisible as insects at the foot of a colossal bird. Lower, the outlines of Hangman’s Hill and the Castle Rock on which it was difficult to believe that there was life of any kind least of all human, completed the terrible trinity of shapes.27

  The fall of Monte Cassino opened up access to the valley of the River Liri and the coastal littoral, thus allowing the Allied infantry and armoured divisions to push north-east towards Rome. Two Scottish battalions were involved in the operations to take Rome: 2nd Cameronians and 6th Gordon Highlanders, which had been part of the invasion force at Anzio. In fact 2nd Cameronians was the first British battalion to reach the River Tiber, but political considerations obliged the US forces to enter Rome first on 5 June. A week later the battalion was in the city, and during its stay Roman Catholic soldiers were invited to a special mass in St Peter’s Church.

  The fall of Rome did not end the war in Italy, but sent it into a new and equally bitter phase. Before the Allies arrived in the city the Germans withdrew north to the Apennines to complete a new defensive position, known as the Gothic Line. It was at this stage of the war that 2nd Royal Scots joined 66 Infantry Brigade as part of the 1st Infantry Division in the Arno sector. Time had been set aside for training – following the surrender at Hong Kong, the new 2nd Battalion had been formed from 12th Royal Scots – but the need for troops meant that the Royals were in action north of Florence by the middle of August.

  This phase of the operations kept the battalion in constant contact with the enemy, as the men patrolled aggressively on the high ground on the northern side of the Arno following the fall of Florence and the withdrawal of German forces. Not only were the Royals facing a determined enemy, but as one of their number recalled, they also had to confront difficult conditions on the ground.

  In the almost complete absence of tracks, all supplies had to be carried up by mules from a mule point which was continually moving up the Arrow Route [the road from Florence to Faenza] as the advance progressed, though even then the mule parties often had to cover twelve miles or more of appalling going in the dark, in trackless country, to catch up with the ever advancing troops. As at all times four rifle companies had to be supplied, a large number of employed men of the Support and Headquarter Companies were needed to run the mule trains, and in fairness to them there were few occasions when the rations did not get through somehow.28

  As the Germans retreated, they booby-trapped the roads with mines, and in the upper reaches of the mountains formidable defences had been constructed. It was not until the middle of September that the Royals were able to take part in a brigade attack on the enemy’s positions on Monte Prefetto, and the action came as a welcome diversion following the difficult weeks of patrolling and isolated skirmishing. After two days of heavy fighting Monte Prefetto was finally taken, and the way was open to attack a neighbouring German stronghold on Monte Paganino whose approaches proved to be ‘both precipitous and slippery’. Added to their problems underfoot the weather worsened with the autumn rains; the Royals had to fight over tracks ‘knee-deep in mud’, and the position was not taken until 20 September. This took them over the Apennines, where they were involved in further contact with the enemy at Presiola, Monte Gamberaldi, Monte Grande and Monte Castellaro. The latter position was the only one which 66 Brigade failed to take.

  As September gave way to October and November, the battalion found itself fighting over some of the worst terrain experienced by British soldiers during the war in Europe.

  The area [south of Bologna] was a tangle of precipitous ridges and gullies, bare and inhospitable, with very few houses to add to the comfort. It rained incessantly and occasionally snowed; it was always cold and often misty. Mule tracks were quagmires and always the plains beckoned to us tantalisingly only ten miles away. Action was confined to constant patrolling into the valley which separated us from the enemy-held ridge a mile away: artillery, mortar and nebelwerfer [literally ‘smoke-thrower’; short-range 5.9 inch rockets] fire were incessant and often very heavy, but as we gradually improved our defences the number of casualties decreased.29

  In January 1945 the 1st Infantry Division handed over the Monte Grande sector to the US 85th Division and started moving south to Taranto to embark on a new deployment in Palestine. On 26 January 2nd Royal Scots sailed for Haifa which was reached five days later. During the operations in Italy the battalion’s casualties had been two officers and 40 soldiers killed, 12 officers and 114 soldiers wounded, and three officers and 54 soldiers missing. The plan was to give the 1st Infantry Division a period of intensive training in river crossing and the use of armour before returning it to Italy in June, but the end of the war in Europe on 8 May put paid to that idea. By an odd coincidence, having left Italy the previous November when 4th Indian Division was deployed in Greece, 2nd Camerons ended the war in the Struma Valley on the Salonika Front, the place that the same battalion had been stationed at the time of the Armistice in 1918.

  The war was also coming to an end in the Far East, where the reconquest of Burma in 1944 and 1945 proved to be one of the great sagas in the histories of the British and Indian armies. The longest sustained campaign of the Second World War, it was fought over a harsh terrain which included deep jungle as well as desert and mountain. It was often war to the knife, with opposing soldiers caught in bitter close-quarter combat, and those who surrendered were rarely granted much mercy. It began with a painful retreat and ended with a famous victory which relied as much on the endurance and fortitude of the Allied troops as it did on the skill of their commanders. It involved soldiers from Britain, India, Burma, China, Nepal, the United States and West Africa, and because the campaign was almost as long as the war itself, it saw the int
roduction of innovations such as the use of air power in support of ground troops, and modern radios to guide the strike and supply aircraft to reach their targets.

  As a result of the Chindits’ morale-boosting initiatives in 1943, British soldiers began to realise that they could fight in the jungle on equal terms with the Japanese and that they could take the war back to an enemy previously thought to be ‘super-human’. Amongst the battalions involved in the new offensive was 1st Royal Scots, which had been given intensive jungle training at Belgaum on the dry Deccan plateau where they formed part of 4 Brigade in 2nd Infantry Division. This proved to be a crucial period in the development of the battalion’s fighting capabilities, and according to the regimental war historian they were taught that ‘the jungle is your best friend . . . you can live in the jungle, and you can live on the jungle – in the jungle you will find all you need to keep alive. There will of course be many dangers, but they need not get you down . . . As for the Japs in the jungle, you can beat them at their own game’.30

  The opportunity to put this new thinking into practice came in the spring of 1944 when the Japanese, under General Renya Mutaguchi, opened a major offensive across the River Chindwin to attack Imphal and Kohima in Assam. This would give the Japanese the springboard to invade India, and for that reason it was imperative for the British and Indian forces not just to hold those two key points but also the railhead at Dimapur, which was the end of the supply line from India.

  In the middle of April, 1st Royal Scots was flown into the area and landed at Dimapur and Jorhat where they went straight into the fighting; first contact with the enemy was made on 19 April. It was a desperate situation. At the time Kohima was garrisoned by a single battalion (4th Royal West Kent Regiment) together with some details of the Assam Rifles, and the initiative was firmly with the Japanese as the British took up their positions close to the town. For the Royals this involved sending out fighting patrols against the enemy, and they soon found that it was going to be a long and wearisome experience. Writing after the war, the adjutant Captain F. C. Currie recalled that although the jungle training came into its own, it was still difficult to pin down and kill the enemy.

  The Japs were well dug in on a steep cliff. We could not see them, but they could see us. We probed all round them, lost about a dozen men and then the Company withdrew. Our losses had not been heavy, but we had the unsatisfactory feeling that we had lost some very good men, and we could not swear to having killed a single Jap. It was our first attempt to turn the little yellow rats out of their holes without supporting fire, and our last. Just another jungle warfare lesson learnt and, all things considered, it was cheap at the price. It had no effect on our morale, but it made us very cross indeed.31

  Following several more equally tough encounters the Royals moved westwards and began the slow slog of clearing the Japanese from their positions around Kohima. Some of the fiercest fighting took place at positions known as Pavilion Hill, GPT Ridge, Aradura Spur and the Pimple. Throughout this phase the battalion was given tremendous help by the local Naga hill-men who acted as porters and provided nothing but loyal and unstinting service. Kohima was a hard and unyielding battle which tested the Royals to the full, but the tenacity and courage of the British and Indian forces paid off on 31 May when the Japanese began to withdraw. The decision was taken – against orders – by the Japanese commander Lieutenant General Kotuku Sato to save his forces from ‘futile annihilation’, and it brought to an end 64 days of fighting which left the Japanese with 6,000 casualties and the British and Indian forces with 4,000 casualties. During that period the Royals lost one officer and 37 soldiers killed, and 7 officers and 115 soldiers wounded. The last action was fought on 6 June at Viswema, which allowed 2nd Division to move towards Imphal and complete the Allied offensive to drive back the attacking Japanese forces.

  Three other Scottish infantry battalions were involved at Kohima – 2nd King’s Own Scottish Borderers, 1st Seaforth and 1st Camerons, which had arrived in India in the summer of 1942. After a period of intensive training the latter battalion moved up to the Assam border as part of 2nd Division in April 1944. The orders were terse and to the point: open the road to Kohima and then re-capture it. On 14 April, 1st Camerons took part in the first set-piece action to retake a position called Bunker Hill under the direction of Brigadier V. P. S. Hawkins, 5 Brigade, who left a vivid picture in his diary of the Camerons as they went into action.

  I spotted David Graham, one of the Company Commanders, walking about as if there were no Japs there and controlling his chaps magnificently. We actually saw him take a bullet through his shoulder and fall over as he was in the act of throwing a bomb. The actual attack went exactly as we hoped. There were no Japs on the back of the hill, and the Camerons were in full possession one half-hour after they first appeared. We afterwards counted seventy-five dead Japs on the position, and the total Cameron casualties were under twenty.32

  After the battle, Bunker Hill was christened Cameron Hill. From there the brigade fought its way towards Garrison Hill which was the only part of Kohima garrisoned by Allied troops. This involved hard fighting against a determined enemy during which, according to one officer’s account, the Camerons came to admire the enemy’s capacity to withstand air strikes by RAF fighter-bombers and ‘to learn of the tenacity of the little Nip [Japanese soldier] and his amazing ability to do wonders in underground defence’.33 Kohima was eventually retaken on 25 June but at a cost: the casualties in 1st Camerons were 6 officers and 86 soldiers killed or missing, and 5 officers and 186 soldiers wounded. The names of the dead are remembered on a memorial stone designed by Alan M’Killop, a Camerons’ officer who had trained at Edinburgh College of Art.

  At the time of the fighting at Imphal and Kohima, 1st Seaforth took part in operations which were designed to confuse the Japanese during the Chindits’ airborne assault, and which involved an attack on the headquarters of the Japanese 15th Division at Kasom. Fresh impetus was provided by the rumour that the senior enemy commander was accompanied by his favourite Geisha girls, and although this turned out not to be the case, the position was taken on the night of 14/15 April, forcing the enemy to withdraw. By then the monsoon had begun and the Allies found themselves operating in conditions which tested their morale and their ingenuity. In the heavy rain tracks disappeared altogether leaving impassable quagmires, food was often in short supply, malaria was an ever-present danger and the remaining pockets of Japanese resistance had to be cleared. An entry from the diary of Major R. D. Maclagan, 1st Seaforth gives a good idea of the conditions soldiers had to endure during the monsoon: ‘Rain, which had started at dawn, continued heavily and relentlessly all day. Conditions were extremely unpleasant. It was bitterly cold, particularly on Nippon Hill, which, covered with craters and shell holes, was completely devoid of any cover. Communication by wireless was hopeless, all transmitting sets having long before gone out of commission due to the intense rain.’34

  It could have been a difficult phase, but with the Japanese back on the other side of the Chindwin there was the satisfaction of knowing that the enemy had been defeated. The war in Burma was now entering its final phase and the Allies decided on a twin assault which saw General Sir William Slim’s Fourteenth Army attack the enemy on the line between Mandalay and Pakkoku (Operation Capital), while a second amphibious and airborne assault on Rangoon was planned at the beginning of 1945 (Operation Dracula). Slim’s intention was to break out from the Kohima area and to make a four-pronged advance towards Indaw, Schwebo, Myinmu and Pakkoku. At the same time Lieutenant General Sir Philip Christison’s XV Corps would move into the Arakan and re-capture the airfields, which would extend Allied air cover to Rangoon and the border with Thailand. The offensive opened on 3 December when the 11th East African Division and the 20th Indian Division crossed the Chindwin and began advancing, with little sign of Japanese resistance. Faced by less opposition than he had expected, Slim decided to feint towards Mandalay while driving towards Meiktila, a
key communications centre. Once the upper reaches of the River Irrawaddy had been seized, the way would be open to race south to Rangoon.

  For the Camerons this meant taking part in 2nd Division’s move towards Schwebo, which had to be cleared before moving on to Ywathitgyi on the River Irrawaddy. During the river crossing on 24 February, 1st Camerons and 7th Worcesters formed the bridgehead, with 1st Royal Welch Fusiliers on the left flank, and, as recounted by Major I. J. Swanson in the regimental records, this called for a good deal of ingenuity: ‘Rowing on a fast river wasn’t the same as a stagnant pond; and some of our boats had already started going around in crazy circles. Somehow or other we settled down and paddling became a routine. The current was far stronger than had been calculated, but we seemed reasonably controlled, while overhead a Boston aircraft flew backwards and forwards to drown the noise of our oars.’35

  It could have been a difficult phase, but with the Japanese back on the other side of the Chindwin there was the satisfaction of knowing that the enemy was in the process of being defeated. As the Japanese historian of the Burma campaign, Kojimo Noboru, put it, they were ‘no longer a body of soldiers, but a herd of exhausted men’ stricken by dysentery, typhus and malaria.36

  For those on the winning side, though, it was rather different. Padre Crichton Robertson of 1st Royal Scots remembered that the conditions brought out the best in the men, who refused to be downhearted and always rallied even when ‘hungry, tired, soaked to the skin with a foul night ahead of us’. And then there was a memorable moment on the return march at Kamjong where dreams of food became reality when a mule train brought in much-needed rations after days of want. ‘How we cheered! Food, and again food. Delicious bully, tasty Army biscuits; we ate everything. We had to rest at Kamjong for twenty-four hours to get our strength back and to digest the huge meals we had.’37