Return of the Chindits, Part 2

THE LOUD

SILENCE

By now, Fergusson’s 16th Brigade was speed marching towards their objective area, but it was

already behind schedule. Moving single file, they slashed through their way through engulfing

jungle, over treacherous and poorly mapped hills in driving rain.

When they reached the site chosen to house “Aberdeen,” a mile north of the village of Manhton,

the first units to arrive — elements of the Queens and the 2nd Leicestershires, went to work,

putting down their guns in favor of shovels, machetes and pickaxes. Working by hand, the

troops flattened the paddy and carved out a rudimentary airstrip.

Aberdeen began to take shape into a sprawling

encampment divided by the Meza River in the Kalat Valley. For the troops, who had spent the

last two months living the closed canopy of the jungle, their arrival in this beautiful, sun-

drenched valley was like arriving in paradise. Here and there small houses and villages dotted

the landscape, each neatly maintained with gardens. It resembled Eden, and it was Fergusson’s.

Feeling righteous all of a sudden, he vowed to protect the valley from harm and take its people

under his protection, and “be good to them.” [i]

Fergusson, whose sense of humor was also quick, anointed himself with such titles as “King

of Kalat,” “Grand Duke of Meza,” “Lord of Le-u” and Baron Budaung.[ii] When Calvert, Lt-

Colonel Peter Fleming (the older brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming and chief of “D

Division,” a military deception unit), and other Chindit officers visited weeks later, Fergusson

received them with a sort of old-world courtesy, akin to that of “a squire of the manor.”[iii] But

at the present, there was serious work to be done. Wingate had arrived in a plane flown by US

Lt-Colonel Clinton B. “Clint” Gaty of the Air Commandos. It was March 20.

Gaty, who was in charge of maintenance and engineering

within the Air Commandos, and also served as the commander of Lalaghat airfield, was eager

to get Aberdeen’s airstrip set up. On his first night at the camp, Fergusson noticed Gaty and his

men working throughout the night, clearing a rudimentary airstrip running north to south for

1,200 yards. For some reason, Gaty had chosen to site northern end of the runway close to a

hill, upon which Fergusson and his troops had built “Stronghold No. 1” (Stronghold No. 2 was

across the river atop another hill).

Early on the morning of March 22nd, six gliders, carrying light bulldozers for the heavy work,

were expected. Just after dawn, at about 6 am, five appeared overhead, casting off their tow

ropes and circling the rudimentary airstrip to land. All arrived safely, and from one emerged a

large, balding American pilot who strode up to Fergusson and said:

“I’m going to church in future!”

“Indeed,” Fergusson said politely. “Why?”

“Over the mountains, the goddam tow-rope got around my goddam wheel; and I said aloud: ‘If

that comes off, goddam it, I’m going to church.’ And it came off. Say, is there a church around

here?”

“Not yet,” Fergusson said.

The pilot grinned. “Okay. By the way, the name’s Coogan.”[iv]

Fergusson did a double take. Sergeant “Jackie” Coogan, now of the Air Commandos, was

renowned for his role in Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 silent masterpiece The Kid. Coogan had been

the kid.

Coogan had elicited the same response when he had met John Masters at Hailakandi sometime

earlier. “Not the Coogan!” Masters had exclaimed, feeling like a fool just afterwards.

But Masters had been delighted to meet him, because as he said: “I had loved those old movies,

with Charlie Chaplin and because [Coogan] and I had been born on the same day, October 26,

1914.” Coogan regaled the crowd with inside information of Chaplin and Betty Grable, but

Master quickly observed that Coogan’s heart did not seem to be in those reminisces. It was just

something expected of him.[v]

Although the base was fortified, Fergusson was leery of calling Aberdeen a stronghold — in

Wingate’s sense of the word — for it was difficult to defend considering its long stretches of

flat land which prevented the building of a properly fleshed out defensive perimeter, although

it did have a minefield and plenty of heavy weapons.[vi]

The moderately prosperous village of Naunghmi with its well-

built homes and gardens occupied the land between the east bank of the river and airstrip. The

place was ideal for recuperation. One hiccup was the surrounded hills which caused the

transport pilots no end of grief. Initially, most of pilots, having flown in by night, had been

oblivious of the hills as was RAF Wing Commander Millington (the CO[vii] of the RAF’s No.

117 Squadron). That changed when they began to land by day. When Millington saw the

airstrip in daylight for the first time, and “realized where he had been landing all unknowingly

by night… he came near to having a fit,” Fergusson said.[viii]

The airstrip was unforgiving — Once a pilot decided to land, he had to put down or crash into

the hills. Yet, in all the time it was operational, not a single plane suffered such a calamity,

although there were mishaps.[ix]

Aberdeen had been finally established, and for the next six weeks, it would buzz with activity.

But Fergusson had other things on his mind. He was to have been at Indaw by March 15, but

it was March 20 before he could even arrive at the site, and not all his troops had come in. Units

at the tail end of the march were still filtering in. By when Lt. Taylor and 45 Column arrived,

the men of the 6th Nigerians (of the West African Brigade) had already arrived by air.

“They looked as fit as fiddles, while we were exhausted,” said Taylor. “To add to that we had

hardly got to Aberdeen when we were ordered off to carry out an attack on Indaw.”[x]

As all this was taking place, Lt-Colonel Claude “Wilkie” Wilkinson’s Leicestershires had

already occupied the Auktaw reserved Forest, close to Indaw, and were waiting for the rest of

the brigade to move up. This wait gave them a brief respite from operations — the value of

which would be proven in just a few days’ time.

The 12th Nigerians were to garrison Aberdeen as the 16th Brigade departed for Indaw.

However, none of the 900 men Fergusson had sent to Lonkin had returned, although they had

routed the 300 Japanese from that town — earning a rare letter of congratulations from Stilwell.

Consequently, Fergusson only had three exhausted battalions (the Leicestershires, the Queens

and the 45th Recce) with which to attack Indaw, a mere 25 miles southeast, but for his weary

troops, an eternity away.

Fergusson’s instincts told him that he should rest the men and when Wingate visited Aberdeen,

he told him as much. After all, the brigade had marched for nearly 50 days without rest. But

goaded on by Wingate and distressed by the fact that he was already behind schedule,

Fergusson, the professional soldier that he was, decided to go. The decision was made easier

by Wingate’s announcement that he was bringing up the reserve brigades, including Ian

Brodie’s 14th Brigade, from India as soon as possible and that another West African battalion

would land at Aberdeen soon. In any case, the leading elements of the 2nd Leicestershires were

already in the hills northeast of Indaw, which had earned them congratulations from Wingate:

“Well done, Leicesters. Hannibal eclipsed.”[xi]

Meanwhile, further south, weariness also dogged Lentaigne’s 111th Brigade, which was trying

to assemble after being landed on two separate landing zones — Broadway and Chowringhee,

separated by the wide expanse of the Irrawaddy River. Half of Lentaigne’s brigade was

originally supposed to have landed at Piccadilly. Now they were at more distant Broadway, on

the other side of the river.

Almost immediately, it became apparent that the river crossing would be problematic as many

of the mules refused to wade into the water. Lentaigne realized that getting his entire force

across would consume more time than he could afford considering the danger of Japanese

attacks. He decided to send 40 Column (with most of the mules and nearly all the brigade’s

heavy weapons), back northeast, to link up with Morris Force, which was working its way up

towards the Chinese frontier and Myitkyina, coming into contact with scattered Japanese

patrols.

The rest of the 111th plodded on, taking 12 exhausting hours with recalcitrant mules to get

across the 1,000-yard span of the river at an exposed stretch near the town of Hieba (much

south of Katha). From that point, it would take the brigade until March 26th to cross the railway

at Wuntho as the awful, unbearable heat of the Burmese summer took a toll on the fit and the

wounded.

Being deep in Burma, Chindit doctors to handle medical emergencies with a degree of

improvisation and imagination. After crossing the Irrawaddy, water was found to scarce and

the troops quickly became dehydrated. In the more severe cases, a tube would be forced down

their throats, to their stomach, through which the medical staff poured water, some brandy and

hot sweet tea, to keep them hydrated, according to Major Desmond “Doc” Whyte, a medical

officer with the brigade.[xii] As for the medical staff — they were their own doctors. “A doctor

in the Chindits was his own surgeon, his own dermatologist, his own orthopedic specialist with

just your medical orderlies to help,” Whyte said.[xiii]

Lentaigne’s orders were to make for Pinlebu — the depot area for the Japanese 15th Division.

Wingate had a vague idea that Lentaigne’s brigade could disrupt supplies intended for the 15th

Division, which was now battling inside India, while making safe the area south of Indaw —

Fergusson’s objective.

Wingate’s strategic thinking was sound even though his tactical grasp appeared to be slipping,

and what was worse, he seemed to be hazy of what exactly it was that he wanted the 16th and

111th Brigades to do in Burma. Fergusson’s second-in-command, Colonel F.O. “Katie” Cave

remembered a prescient conversation with Wingate during which the problem of strongholds

came up.

Said Cave: “No one really knew what [Wingate] wanted to do with the 16th Brigade, nor with

the 111th Brigade, and so I asked him: ‘Is it your intention that 16th Brigade and 111th Brigade

should have their strongholds more or less at the same place and use the same airstrip?’ He

said: ‘My dear Cave, how the hell can I tell that until I have seen the place?’”[xiv]

If operations were hampered by Wingate’s indecision, they were double hampered by poor

field command. It quickly became clear that the 111th Brigade, for one, was uneven in its

progress. Lentaigne, at 45, was far older than most Chindit field officers and was unable to

maintain the physical exertion of his troops. He began to tire in spirit, but arguably also in the

mind, because as the eminent historian Louis Allen wrote, “his powers of command” began to

erode.[xv]

Exhaustion was most common feeling within Fergusson’s 16th Brigade. The force was so

stretched out that it would take three to four days for it to gather in any strength and it was

imperative that they assemble in force as they faced formidable foes in the form of Takemura’s

II/ 51st Infantry Regiment.

As fate would have it, the Japanese were as tired as Fergusson’s men, having marched from

Thailand, lugging 65-70lbs of kit. Within the kit was “28 days’ worth of rations, four grenades,

240 rounds of rifle ammunition, another sixty in reserve, greatcoat, tent, blanket, water-bottle,

mess-tin, gas-mask, pick and shovel.”[xvi] By now, Japanese officers had received intelligence

reports indicating that about a thousand British troops had landed in the Indaw area and were

busy building two airstrips, at Inywa and at Mohnyin. The intelligence was faulty in some

aspects.

Then, on March 17, reports came that British commandos had been spotted in the jungle around

Indaw. Takemura was ordered to attack. This irritated him as he was planning to take his

battalion north to attack White City. This aggravation, however, was not shared by his men

who were itching to fight. Eight trucks full of troops set off west for Indaw from the venerable

Buddhist town of Katha on the Irrawaddy. Their commanders told them to listen for the sounds

of whinnying of mules and hunter’s whistles, which the British were known to use for

signaling.

By the afternoon of the 19th, Takemura’s forces were in Indaw. In the days before “U-Go,” the

city had been quiet, a backwater. Now, it been turned into a supply dump for the Japanese 33rd

Division fighting in India, containing 28 days’ worth of rations for the divisional troops, 10

days’ supply of ammunition, 4,500 mortar bombs for the 15th and 31st Divisions, 4,000-6,000

cannon rounds, mountains of rifle ammunition and other military supplies.[xvii]

The relative paucity of such supplies indicates the penury of the Japanese army in Burma, but

the British knew that very military depot had to be attacked, and the price for the one at Indaw

was large enough to warrant the lives of Fergusson’s men.

The town also held a Japanese military hospital and administrative offices. At its outskirts,

around Indaw Lake, were two airfields which Wingate coveted. In his original plan to

Fergusson, Wingate had told him to carry out harassing attacks on Indaw and Banmauk. But

confronted with the extraordinary success of Operation “Thursday” — thus far — with columns

of Chindits running amok in the so-called railway valley north of White City and their

disruption of Irrawaddy river traffic, evinced by the sinking of boats, the destruction of bridges

and railway lines, and the ambushing of Japanese supply convoys attempting to bypass the

railway by using the roads and jungles running north, Wingate was in a state of near

exhilaration and believed he was on the cusp of proving the validity of the long-range

penetration tactics.

He sent off a message of success to Mountbatten and wrote to Churchill that future success

depended upon his superiors supporting him. “Get Special Forces four transport squadrons now

and you have all Burma north of 24th parallel plus decisive Japanese defeat,” he said, and as a

sort of postscript to underline his case, added: “General Slim gives me his full backing.” Slim,

who had done no such thing, was furious.

Notwithstanding, Wingate had seen an opportunity for something more than merely harassing

the enemy, and his orders to Fergusson had changed on March 20th. Fergusson was to now

seize Indaw and secure its airfields. Capture of the town would deny the Japanese an important

supply base and deprive them of a springboard against Calvert’s 77th Brigade. Seizure of the

airfields would allow Wingate to fly in his reserves and perhaps even the complete Indian 26th

Infantry division, potentially opening the way for an advance on Rangoon.[xviii]

Wingate began to press Fergusson to take Indaw by the night March 24/25, and filled his head

with ideas of imminent reinforcements to the extent that Fergusson believed that his assault in

Indaw would be supported by Ian Brodie’s 14th Brigade. Even Colonel Cave, who had spent

much time at rear headquarters at Lalaghat and was thus privy to high-level operational

discussions, was under the impression that Brodie’s men would be landed at Aberdeen. He

remembered an early-March conversation with Wingate’s chief of staff, Brigadier Dereck

Tulloch, during which he remarked that as Aberdeen would be deserted after Fergusson left for

Indaw, it was imperative to get the 12th Nigerians to garrison the place. Tulloch, who was

perhaps Wingate’s closest confidante at headquarters, responded by saying that the whole

operational plan had changed and that Wingate had decided to move the 14th Brigade into

Aberdeen even before the Nigerians were flown in.

Unfortunately, this plan, if it was anything more than a whim concocted in Wingate’s head, we

will never know, for it never materialized. What we do know is that there were bigger things

at stake.

Slim, who had his hands full containing the Japanese divisions in India, had released the 14th

Brigade back into Wingate’s charge on March 21, but then appears to have asked or suggested

that it be used to quash Japanese lines of communication leading west, towards India.[xix]

Confusion is heaped on the mystery by the deeply biased Official History of the campaign,

which claims that Wingate’s order to Brodie (dated March 23) instructing him to move the 14th

Brigade to Alezu, 21 miles southwest of Pinlebu — and 46 miles from Indaw, to disrupt

Japanese troop and supply movements from Wuntho to the Chindwin was a “misinterpretation

of, or disregard for Slim’s wishes.”[xx]

So what were Slim’s exact wishes? What we do know was that he was hard pressed to defeat

the Japanese at Kohima and he sought any means to achieve this, even if it meant appropriating

Chindit units, and in even if it meant diverting Chindit units to attack to the rear of the Japanese

offensive into India. Yet, in his famous memories, Defeat in Victory, Slim actually appears to

have believed that Brodie had aided Fergusson in the attack on Indaw, writing: “Fergusson’s

16th Brigade, supported by part of Brodie’s 14th Brigade, moved out of Aberdeen and

attempted to seize Indaw by surprise.”[xxi]

A clear indication of his orders to Wingate, however, has been lost to hyperbole, obtuse

passages of defense in postwar histories and much finger-pointing after the war. What we also

know is that Fergusson, based on the promise of reinforcements set off for Indaw on the

afternoon of the 24th without waiting for his 51 and 69 Columns to arrive from Lonkin and

during his sojourn to Indaw, was fully convinced that Brodie’s men would join them at the

Indaw, and hoped “hourly to get news of them.”[xxii] Instead, when the 14th Brigade began to

fly into Burma on the night of 24/25 March, its leading battalion, the 2nd Black Watch headed

straight towards Alezu.

So, why did Wingate give Fergusson the impression that Brodie’s troops would help at Indaw?

Many historians believe this confusion was created by a fatal misunderstanding. Brodie’s

brigade was at some point in time intended to be landed at Aberdeen to help at Indaw, but

something had altered the plan. Either Fergusson’s discussions with Wingate over the use of

the 14th Brigade never reached headquarters, or more likely, Slim had asked Wingate to modify

the original plan, which Wingate had willingly acquiesced to — without informing Fergusson.

Right from outset, things started to go wrong for 16th Brigade. The weather was against them,

and even the countryside seemed to regard them as anathema. Headquarters and Wingate

constantly harked on the schedule and pressed Fergusson to keep moving. Fergusson did not

even have an opportunity to send ahead reconnaissance parties ahead of his main force of five

columns, which, in the torrid and dry heat of mid-march Burmese summer, began to wilt. To

Fergusson’s horror, he soon realized that there was no water to be found along his route to

Indaw, with the only source of potable water being Indaw Lake, which was behind enemy lines.

The men grew listless, the mules whinnied for something to drink and the sun blazed. The

jungle had receded miles ago, and the brigade found itself in the loose woods of teak country.

The dry, waterless earth took the dull thuds of boots and mules hooves with apathy. It had

nothing to offer them.

Worse, Fergusson realized he was being undone by his own army. Weeks before, Chindits of

the 111th Brigade, marching towards Pinlebu, had told pro-Japanese headmen that an attack

on Indaw was imminent — in total ignorance of Fergusson’s objectives. This information was

been intended to serve as a smokescreen for the 111th Brigade’s actual attack on Pinlebu, but

it instead transpired to heighten Japanese vigilance in the Indaw area even as Fergusson’s

orders changed on March 20th.[xxiii] As Fergusson’s leading forces closed in on Indaw, he

also found himself out of radio contact with heqdquarters for a critical 24 hours from March

21-23 as Wingate, alarmed by continuing Japanese advances within eastern India, chose this

critical juncture close down and move his forward headquarters from Imphal to Sylhet, 130

miles to the east.

In the midst of all these hurdles, Japanese military strength began to blossom. Mataguchi, now

deeply committed in Imphal and Kohima, had finally recognized the threat fermenting in his

rear. Hurriedly, reinforcements began to stream in. First from divisions fighting against Slim’s

forces in India, then from others opposing Stilwell’s Chinese, and finally from other parts of

Southeast Asia.

These were units of infantry and artillery desperately need by Japanese commanders at Imphal

and Kohima such as II/21st Field Artillery Regiment, Major-General’s Hayashi Yoshihide’s

24th Independent Mixed Brigade[xxiv], Colonel Wakiyama’s II/146th Infantry Regiment from

Yunnan, Colonel Ichikari’s 11th Infantry Regiment and Colonel Harada’s II/ 29th Infantry

Regiment, which was sent to occupy Thetkyegin, just north of Lake Indaw on the night of the

26th. A staff officer, Lt-Colonel Hashimoto Hiroshi, had been appointed to command the forces

at Indaw, but the scale of the reinforcements grew to such an extent that Hashimoto was soon

out of his league.

The natives of Indaw underwent a sea change. When once they were warm and friendly towards

their Japanese overlords, now — with the arrival of the Chindits, they turned sullen and cool

towards their erstwhile masters.[xxv]

Mataguchi, who had started to consider the Chindit threat so great, began to contemplate

withdrawing his units fighting in India back into Burma. But first he would make a fight of it

and see what happened.

Fergusson told the two columns of the 45th Recce Regiment under Lt-Colonel “Dick”

Cumberledge to seize Thetkegyin on the northern shores of Lake Indaw, while 17 Column

(Leicestershires), under Lt-Colonel “Wilkie” Wilkinson advanced on the right flank through

the cover of the Kyagaung Ridge, traversing the narrow slopes in single-file, towards Indaw

and the East Airfield. The western road to Banmauk was to be cut by 22 Column (1st Queens),

to prevent reinforcements coming from the west, while her sister column (Lt-Colonel Metcalf’s

21 Column) looped around a left hook to attack Indaw from the south. Altogether, Fergusson

had four columns for the attack on Indaw— about 1,800 men. But he had made a critical

mistake. Instead assembling them for a concerted attack towards the airfield, like a fist, he sent

them wide, “like the clutching fingers of a hand.”

At the village of Auktaw, six miles north of Indaw, Fergusson’s forward elements found

themselves unexpectedly under fire from a 400-strong unit of the Burma National Army

(BNA), derisively known as the Burma Traitor Army, and some Japanese.

Fergusson had no intention of going in Auktaw, but a reckless reconaissance group eager join

the offensive against Indaw had blundered into the town and been mauled, with both officers

killed and three men dead.[xxvi]

Fergusson was angry. The element of surprise had been lost. There was no doubt that the forces

at Auktaw had reported his advance to the main Japanese garrison at Indaw.[xxvii] There was

nothing left to do now except send 45 and 54 Recce Columns “flat-out” for Thetkegyin on the

lake.[xxviii] The two columns rapidly filled up on water from the pleasant Ledan Chaung and

set off. Meantime, the Leicesters routed the BNA from Auktaw, killing 30 of the enemy and

capturing one man, a former Burmese postal employee. Fergusson next sent a runner to tell

Wilkinson to hurry his troops along the Kyagaung and go for Inwa, a small village on the lake’s

eastern shore. “Wilkie” Wilkinson, his arm broken in two places during the firefight at Auktaw,

set off south without hesitation.

Later, Fergusson would blame himself for not deploying his Brigade HQ — an

unwieldy and vulnerable formation of about 200 men (most of them specialists, barring two

combat platoons) and sixty mules encumbered with supplies and communication equipment,

in the jungle — and personally accompanying the Leicestershires to oversee the attack. In

retrospect, his presence on the battlefield would have brought little benefit. His three battalions

were attacking along widely separated prongs. If he intended to personally supervise operations

and rally the troops, he would need a jeep. But Fergusson was on foot. He had little choice but

to remain at brigade HQ and direct operations through the wireless. But as luck would have it,

a continuous thunderstorm over the next three days and nights played havoc with his radio

transmissions. Yet, initially, Fergusson felt he need not worry. All went like clockwork.

The Leicestershires came off down the ridge and taking the Japanese by total surprise, seized

Inwa without casualties. Wilkinson and his men dug-in on the Inwa Chaung, a stone’s throw

from the East Airfield, and secured their water source. They would hold the village for the next

two days against overwhelming odds,[xxix] nimbly backed by the Air Commandos, who

bombed, strafed and killed large numbers of Japanese. On the left flank, however, the picture

turned grim.

Thetkegyin and the entire lake front was heavily defended by the Japanese, but no one knew

that when the attack began on the 26th. Where the jungle ended, there grew a wide strip of

paddy separating the trees from the lake, and here the Japanese poured murderous fire onto the

Recces. The British were still lugging their heavy packs when they came under fire, while the

Japanese wore light kit and what looked like PT dress. The British, by now having expended

the water collected from the Ledan Chaung, were within sight of the lake but found they had

to pay a heavy price to get it.

Being the rearmost battalion in the brigade throughout its long trek, the Recces were also the

weariest of Fergusson’s troops. They were always the last in, and never able to get a respite as

the leading columns always seemed to march on towards the next rendezvous point just as they

arrived. And there was no one more exhausted than the battalion commander, Cumberledge,

who was leading 45 Column.

Cumberledge was only 36, but he was physically unfit and ailing under the rigorous march.

Yet, out of gentlemanly pride, he refused to have his pack carried on a mule, wearing himself

out further and losing control over his column. Lt. Peter Taylor, who was the commander of

the reconnaissance platoon within 45 Column, found that instead of being assigned to

reconnaissance duties, his unit was instead ordered to protect Cumberledge’s group.

The situation went from bad to worse. The Recces could not emerge from the jungle to reach

the lake owing to the heavy Japanese fire, although they made several attempts. Barring one or

two platoons, 45 Column went without water for over a day. Further disasters transpired as the

day wore on. A mule carrying flame-throwing fuel was hit by an explosive bullet. The fuel

ignited. The animal, crazed by the pain hurled itself into a dump of mortar bombs and

ammunition, and the lot blew up.

For the longest time, Fergusson had no idea what was happening at Thetkegyin. Then messages

started arriving: 45 Column had suffered 30 percent casualties, it had lost contact with its sister

column, 54 Column, and was dispersing in its efforts to find water.

The column began to move east towards the Meza River to find water, relentlessly harried by

the Japanese. At the river, they ran into more Japanese. The thirsty mules, smelling the water,

broke from their handlers and charged towards river and straight towards Japanese lines. Seeing

them, an animalistic instinct appeared to overtake some of the troops as well. They rushed

blindly towards the river, caring nothing for death if it only meant slaking their thirst. Many

were killed.

Cumberledge called a retreat and sent Taylor and his men to inform the troops about the new

rendezvous point. As dusk neared, Taylor and his men tried to warn as many units as possible.

He found Major Ron Adams, second-in-command of 45 Column with a rifle company and told

them where to go. Then he came on another group of soldiers whom he thought were Chindits.

When he shouted the codeword “Namkin,” the group stopped and stared at him. He shouted it

again, but then realized they were Japanese. At that moment, Taylor’s sergeant opened fire on

the Japanese, and shouted to Taylor: “This way, sir.”

Taylor leapt into the thicket and disappeared into the bush followed by his men. They

eventually rejoined Major Adams and the rest of the assembled troops. When later they went

into village where they were told by natives was water, they realized they had walked into an

ambush. Gunfire tore into the company. Adams was wounded and left behind.

“God only knows what happened to him,” Taylor said after the war. In fact, Adams was listed

as killed in action that day.

As night fell, Taylor and survivors managed to get back to Aberdeen. They were the lucky

ones. The “Battle of the Water Bottles” — as it was dubbed in the British press, was over.[xxx]

More bad news piled on to the disasters overtaking the brigade. Metcalf’s 21 Column, working

their around Indaw from the south, had taken a beating. Initially, the column had done well.

They discovered a massive supply dump at the “West” airfield and had called in an Air

Commando airstrike. Column commanders believed the airstrike had been ineffective as they

could not see the damage, but the Air Commandos had destroyed the dump wiping out critical

supplies destined for the Japanese 18th Division.[xxxi] The column next ambushed a Japanese

convoy, destroying about 30 Japanese trucks headed for Indaw.

After this, things began to go wrong. As dusk fell, Metcalf decided to halt the column for the

night. Yet, some of the officers were perturbed by the location of their camp. Tire tracks were

noticed on a dirt path running within the bivouac area. The Queens were in the process of

setting up a perimeter with all-round defense when abruptly, as if the sky was blotted out behind

a screen, it became dark. At that moment, they heard the sound of engines.

At first, everyone thought it was aircraft, but six trucks with Japanese troops drove “slap-bang”

into the bivouac.

“Chaos reigned,” said Color Sergeant Atkins. “The Japs jumped out of their lorries, there were

grenades going off, there was screaming and shouting. The CO was wounded. People were

milling around, people had taken off their packs, leaned their weapon against a tree, and had

started to brew up. Some people were close to their weapons, others weren’t.”

Elsewhere, the Queens opened fire indiscriminately, often at their own side. Close-quarter

fighting reigned. One young British soldier held a Japanese while another bayoneted him.

Major Clowes, the column second-in-command had his revolver blown from his hand by the

blast of a nearby grenade. With Metcalf laid low by wounds, he assumed command, and

ordered an immediate evacuation across a nearby chaung. The stream proved deep, however,

and several men drowned. The Queens fled into the night, some without their weapons. At

dawn, they discovered 70 men were missing, and that their mules had scattered. The wireless

had been lost.

The column remained disoriented, its nerves broken. When Fergusson was informed of the

debacle by a short-range wireless set, he realized that the unit had shot its bolt and could no

longer play a part in the attack on Indaw.

He instructed the column to retreat, but told them harass every enemy unit they found on the

way back. “Be bloody [about it],” Fergusson radioed. The men, in an attempt to salvage their

pride, attempted to just that, only to complain later that that the Japanese had disappeared. Then

in scattered groups, they head back towards Aberdeen, often avoiding the Japanese when they

could. Metcalf, who had also retreated to Aberdeen, would later harangue the men, accusing

them of being a rabble and said that it was to stop. What good that speech did is not known.

No. 21 Column was out of the fight — for now.

For the last three days now, Fergusson had been

radioing Aberdeen in a vain attempt to discover if the 14th Brigade had arrived. “Wellington

was not more impatient to hear of Blucher and his Prussians than I to hear of Brodie and his

British,” Fergusson said later.[xxxii] He was greeted with silence. He then messaged “Katie”

Cave, back in India, with increasingly rude signals demanding to why no one at Aberdeen was

answering him. The response was sporadic, but one message stood out: “Position Aberdeen

obscure.” With little concrete information, Fergusson began to assume the worst, and with a

chill in the heart, thought that perhaps Aberdeen had been overrun by the enemy.

By now, the only units still fighting were 22 Column (Queens) under Major Terence Close,

who having established a roadblock near Banmauk, had mauled a Japanese convoy, killing

over thirty Japanese for the loss of five of its own, and the Leicesters, who were holding their

valuable positions against ferocious Japanese counterattacks. Fergusson worried that their food

was running low when in fact the battalion was feasting on captured Japanese foodstuff.

Nevertheless, the Leicesters were unable to advance out of their small perimeter and take the

airfield, held by the numerically superior Japanese. As the day of March 28th dimmed into

dusk, Fergusson gave himself until nightfall for confirmation that the 14th Brigade had arrived,

or in fact any news at all from Aberdeen that would allow him to continue operations for the

next three days.

Aberdeen remained mute. Fergusson voiced his fears that something must have happened at

Aberdeen to warrant their silence. A rumor quickly spread that the Japanese had attacked

Aberdeen — news of which even reached the Air Commando light plane camp at Taungle, just

east of Aberdeen. A native had run into the camp screaming that the Japanese were coming

(they never did). The pronouncement was enough to create a panic among the pilots of the light

plane force and its affable commander, US Major Andrew Rebori. The force decided to

immediatly decamp for their main base at Taro. Moments later, the Aberdeen garrison was

astounded to see the sky turn black as the dense gaggle of light planes departed north for India.

Back at Indaw, Fergusson decided it was time to pull out. Night had come. The wireless

reception remained poor, and there was still no word from Aberdeen. To leave the Leicesters

where they were for a few more days might mean to see them destroyed. He ordered 22 Column

to abandon its position on the Banmauk road and move down towards Auktaw to cover the

withdrawal of the Leicesters. Fergusson decided to take his surviving troops to the Kachin

foothills, where they could rest and recuperate. And being close in enough to White City, they

could possibly regain their strength for a second attempt on Indaw.

The next morning, the 29th, the storm clouds had dissipated and the wireless was working at

full strength. Fergusson and his staff could hear the withdrawing Leicesters calling in the attack

planes of the Air Commando as they quit Inwa. The Mustangs and the Mitchells came soaring

overhead, the morning sunlight glinting off their wings, the Japanese positions disappearing

under clouds of dust and high-explosives. They could heard the Leicesters’ RAF liaison officer

directed the attacks, saying: “Oh beauty,” as the ground shook under the explosions of bombs

and the air became rend with the noise of heavy gunfire. For an hour this went on, until finally

Fergusson’s staff finally received a heartning signal from the Leicesters: “Withdrawing slowly

owing to wounded.”They had held out for two days and three nights, and had almost single-

handedly redeemed the brigade’s reputation.

The angst which had gripped Fergusson so thoroughly these last few days began to ease. Then

arrived another signal, this time from Major Close: 22 Column had arrived at Auktaw, to

support the withdrawal.

The “nightmare was beginning to fade,” Fergusson wrote later even as other news began to

arrive in a deluge. Aberdeen had not fallen. Far from it, the Nigerians of the 3rd West African

Brigade had arrived and had secured the place while the leading battalion of Brodie’s 14th

Brigade (the 2nd Black Watch had already come and gone to Legyin, some 30 miles south),

with the remaining three battalions were expected soon. Although Fergusson was pleased that

no calamity had befallen Aberdeen, the revelation that Brodie did not have orders to support

him at Indaw struck him like a blow to the stomach.

Meantime, Cochran, furious at Rebori for evacuating the light planes without verifying the

rumors about Aberdeen, sacked him. Rebori’s subordinate was also fired. Calvert and

Fergusson argued that the men should be given a reprieve, but Cochran was adamant.

Fergusson wrote the two men a letter to thank them for “all they had done for us,” but they

never received it, having already departed for the states, despondent over the way they had

been drummed out.[xxxiii]

When the full facts of the battle for Indaw became clear, Fergusson began to berate himself for

not coordinating his attacks properly. He was, however, also incensed at Wingate for not

sending him the promised reinforcements. Why had Brodie’s brigade been kept from him?

Why hadn’t some of the Nigerians joined him at Indaw? But there was no one to answer him,

for by this time, Wingate was already dead.

On the evening of March 24th, following a meeting with officers in Broadway, Wingate had a

boarded an Air Commando Mitchell to Imphal to meet with Air Vice-Marshal Baldwin. A

Chindit officer at Broadway later recalled that the Mitchell pilot, US Lt. Brian Hodges, seemed

worried about one of his engines. Hodges asked Colonel Claude Rome, the stronghold

commander, to ask Wingate to wait for another plane. Wingate declined and insisted on flying

out right away.

Colonel Rome would later comment that the Mitchell had “fairly staggered off the runway,

using every inch of it.”[xxxiv]

At Imphal, the plane sat on the ground for the

next 90 minutes, where, despite Hodge’s concern, the plane was not inspected for a fault. When

Squadron leader John Hewitson, the senior air traffic controller, informed Hodges that weather

conditions were 10/10ths all over. Hodges replied, “The old man [Wingate] wants to go, so I

guess I’d better take him.”

Wingate could be seen pacing up and down the area round the control tower in the torrential

rain, oblivious of the soaking he was receiving, “itching to be off.”[xxxv] After about 8pm,

Wingate, his aide, Captain George Borrow, two British war correspondents Stewart Emeny and

Stanley Wills, and the five-man American aircrew boarded the aircraft and took off in what

was described as “pissing rain.”[xxxvi] About twenty minutes later, the plane crashed onto the

slopes of the Bishenpur Hills southwest of Imphal, killing all onboard. Native hillsmen reported

seeing an aircraft flying low, on fire and losing altitude. As it passed over their village and

disappeared beyond a tree, they heard a loud explosion. A crew of a Dakota, which was also

flying nearby, witnessed explosions and flames.

Search parties were quickly dispatched, but it proved a struggle to reach the crash site on the

3,000-foot hill. Cochran wanted to fly to the crash site right away using one of his four top-

secret Sikorsky YR-4 helicopters. The regular helicopter crews talked him out of it because the

craft would never be able to reach that elevation.[xxxvii] The helicopters had a service ceiling

of only 4,000 ft — under optimal conditions. Most times, on especially hot days, its 180-hp

engine could barely lift it above the trees. Within the small craft was space for a pilot and only

one passenger. Its innards could only carry 515 lbs of fuel.

Cochran sent his “Grasshopper” light planes to scour the area for the wreckage. US Staff

Sergeant Lloyd I. Samp was the first to find the wreckage. He reported that the crash site was

located into the westward slope of the hill even though the aircraft was heading east.

Theories ran rampant about why the plane had crashed. Weather was mentioned, with blame

being apportioned on sudden turbulence which was sometimes common in the hills. Engine

trouble was raised and there was even talk of the plane being sabotaged. Certainly, the Japanese

were keen to see the end of Wingate, and Fergusson later reported that news of the death had

sent the Japanese into “ecstasies of joy.”[xxxviii] Another theory was that the B-25 was

carrying cluster bombs which broke loose from the bays, rolled into the fuselage and

exploded.[xxxix]

In an era of aviation without the benefit of black boxes, the crash was written off to possible

bad weather and engine trouble. Certainly the weather was been ideal. Samp, who was directing

a British search party to the crash site in a light plane, was soon in trouble himself, after his

engine had iced up. He crash landed near the wreckage. The search party arrived soon after and

began to sift through the smashed remains of the Mitchell. The only proof Wingate had ever

been aboard were the remains of his Kitchner topee and some letters.[xl]

The news came as a grievous blow to the Chindits and stunned many, from Wingate’s friends

to his enemies. “A bright flame was extinguished,” wrote Churchill. Mountbatten, issued a

special following Order of the Day to the Chindits:

General Wingate has been killed in the hour of his triumph. The Allies have lost one of the

most forceful and dynamic personalities that this war has produced. You have lost the finest

and most inspiring leader a force could have wished for, and I have lost a personal friend and

faithful supporter. He has lit the torch. Together we must grasp it and carry it forward. Out of

your gallant and hazardous expedition into the heart of Japanese-held territory will grow the

final re-conquest of Burma and the ultimate defeat of the Japanese. He was so proud of you. I

know you will live up to his expectations.[xli]

The news had dealt Fergusson a staggering blow. Initially, he had only been told that Wingate

was missing for the last few days and presumed killed, but as the days went by, it was clear

that the general was dead. “It…was a loss which affected the whole war in the east,” he wrote

later.[xlii] Suddenly, it all appeared to make sense for Fergusson. His plan devised with

Wingate at Aberdeen for the employment of the 14th Brigade at Indaw had simply never

reached HQ. His signals to Wingate about the 14th Brigade had been clearly misunderstood by

his staff. Years after the war, however, when Fergusson was shown Wingate’s orders to Brodie,

detailing his objectives against the rear of the Japanese attacking India, he felt a stinging hurt

of betrayal. “At times, the truth was simply not in him [Wingate],” he was to say.[xliii]

Some men openly grieved Wingate’s death. Captain Richard Rhodes-James, a cipher officer

within the 111th Brigade HQ, considered the implications the death has on their future, asking:

“Who will look after us now? Our master was gone and we, his masterpiece, were now

ownerless.”[xliv]

Mountbatten, ever gracious, wrote to his wife, Edwina: “I cannot tell you how much I am going

to miss Wingate. Not only had we become close personal friends but he was such a fire-eater,

and it was such a help to me having a man with a burning desire to fight. He was a pain in the

neck to the generals over him, but I loved his wild enthusiasm and it will be difficult for me to

try to inculcate it from above.”[xlv]

Slim’s last glimpse of Wingate had been just days before, when on March 22, he and the

irascible Chindit leader had “another bust-up” in Comilla over Wingate’s reckless telegram to

Churchill claiming Slim’s unequivocal support for the diversion of further troops and aircraft

to the Chindits. When had Wingate prepared to leave, he turned back towards Slim and said:

“You know, you are the only senior officer in Southeast Asia who does not wish me

dead.”[xlvi]

Slim was astounded. He may have disliked Wingate to a degree, but how could he possible

dislike such a man who was his own worst enemy? “With Wingate, contact had too often been

collision, for few could meet so stark a character without being violently attracted or repelled,”

wrote Slim after the war. “To most he was either prophet or adventurer. Very few could regard

him dispassionately; nor did he care to be so regarded. I once likened him to Peter the Hermit

preaching his Crusade. I am sure that many of the knights and princes that Peter so fiercely

exhorted did not like him very much – but they went crusading all the same. The trouble was,

I think, that Wingate regarded himself as a prophet, and that always leads to a single-

centeredness that verges on fanaticism, with all his faults. Yet had he not done so, his leadership

could not have been so dynamic, nor his personal magnetism so striking.”[xlvii]

A quandary developed over who would replace Wingate. The logical choice should have been

the deputy commander, Major-General George Symes, who was able but arguably did not have

full range of experience in commanding Chindit formations in the field. There was also

Wingate’s chief of Staff, Derek Tulloch, calm and unflappable who was perhaps hampered by

his lack of combat experience; Calvert, young, ardent and “fanatically brave,” with a capacity

for staff work, planning and “full of invention” and Joe Lentaigne, brave but too conventional

— although he and Wingate had always got on well together. Fergusson was also a credible

choice, although he being tied up in the Indaw battle likely obviated him from consideration.

Wingate had promised Tulloch command of the Chindits in case something had ever happened

to him, but it transpired that he had also promised two or three other officers the same thing.

Tulloch himself did not think he was fit for command and in a meeting with Slim, he claimed

that Lentaigne was ‘the one most in tune with Wingate.”[xlviii] Why he would make this

preposterous claim when such a statement clearly applied to another — Calvert — is beyond

belief.

Perhaps, it was to get Lentaigne out of the field and into

the thankless job of command, which meant being a politician of sorts and a diplomat more

than a soldier. Tulloch knew that Lentaigne had been struggling in the field. It is possible that

Tulloch regraded Lentaigne’s removal from the field into command far more affordable —

than say, the removal of Calvert, who was holding together White City and 77th Brigade

through the sheer force of his persona and military skill. In any case, Calvert — at age 31—

was also young. Had he been promoted, he would have been the youngest major-general in the

British army.[xlix] Perhaps too young for such an honor.

Whatever the reason, Slim found Tulloch’s choice agreeable. In his memories, Defeat into

Victory, Slim wrote that he had wanted to appoint an individual known the men, “one who had

experienced their hardships and in whose skill and courage they could trust.”

Like himself, Lentaigne was a Gurkha officer. He was conventional, without the temperament

for tantrums, and possessing none of Wingate’s forcefulness of character or his rapport with

Churchill. Lentaigne, however, was immensely fond of whiskey and as a consequence, as

experience had shown in Burma, was not physically up to the task of field operations. He was

promoted to Major-General on March 27th —the same day that Fergusson was struggling at

Indaw, cut off from the world.

On March 30th, Lentaigne, looking scruffy and tired, flew to India to take official command

of the Chindits. His face betrayed worry for he had become strangely convinced that Broadway

and White City faced imminent collapse, even as their defenders boldly repulsed one attack

after the next. He was, in short, a man who “utterly failed to inspire confidence.”[l]

Symes was furious at Tulloch and Slim at being passed

over. “I have known and sensed that Tulloch has been in opposition to me all the time and has

made no effort to keep me in the picture,” he wrote in his diary. “Reason: I don’t know other

than that he knows I disagree with some — or most — of the administrative methods.”[li]

When Symes went to see Slim, he was told that nobody had known was his status was, and

Slim admitted to not thinking about him at all… as he “had made the decision hurriedly and

had not had time to think it out…”[lii]

Symes next made a formal protest to the Chief of Imperial General Staff in London, and asked

to be relieved as deputy commander. Tulloch was appointed as his replacement. But Tulloch

who had never expected this, found the job not only uncomfortable, but in the end, humiliating.

Lentaigne began to bypass him in favor of Brigadier Neville Marks, chief supply officer and

his own chief of staff Lt-Colonel Henry T. Alexander.[liii] Tulloch found himself in an office

which did nothing and which was decisively out of the loop.

In the meantime, Lt-Colonel “Jumbo” Morris of Morrisforce, a man whom the eminent

historian Shelford Bidwell described as “overbearing, tactless and authoritarian, the last man

to be entrusted with the political and military subtleties of clandestine warfare,”[liv] was

promoted to Brigadier and appointed Lentaigne’s replacement in the 111th Brigade.

Morris was appalled. His force was in the throes of moving towards Myitkyina from Bhamo,

and he was in no position to relinquish command to join 111th Brigade. A compromise was

reached. On paper, Morris became the commander of the brigade. In actuality, it was to be

commanded by its brigade major, John “Jack” Masters, who as a relatively junior officer aged

30, now faced the discomfiting task of ordering about officers more senior to himself.

Back at Aberdeen the tired and mauled columns were trudging in. The Recces had great gashes

torn in their ranks. In contrast, the Leicesters were largely intact and ready to fight. Fergusson,

who had ordered their commander, Wilkinson, to put himself on immediate evacuation to

hospital, found that Wilkinson and the wounded had already flown on to India by when he

arrived. Cumberledge of the Recces was also placed on a flight home. He was sick and

exhausted, but protested vociferously at being relieved. But Fergusson talked him into going

and the battalion was handed over Lt-Colonel George Astell of the Burma Rifles. Fergusson

recommended Wilkinson for an immediate Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and put in one

of his sergeants for a Distinguished Conduct Medal (the non-com’s equivalent of a DSO). Both

were quickly accepted.

As Fergusson watched those of his men who were going, he felt torn between pride for his

brigade and sadness over its defeat. Wingate had suggested to Fergusson that he concentrate

his entire force along a solid pincer along the Kyagaung Ridge towards Indaw. Would that have

worked? Fergusson was forced to concede that it might have.

There was nothing left to do now except look after the welfare of the survivors and hope they

would be able to a mount a second attack soon.He granted his men three days’ leave without

duty of any kind and ensured they were well fed and rested. Dakotas kept coming, bringing in

reinforcements and taking out the wounded and the sick. The troops received new clothing to

replace their rags and were handed American blankets and .30-cal M1 carbines, in place of the

“abominable Sten gun.”[lv] [lvi] The men soon found that the simple act of staying in one place

with enough to eat and drink, and with hours to sleep away was tantamount to unimaginable

“luxury.”[lvii]

Days later, Fergusson pressed for his second offensive towards Indaw and got it, with direct

authorization from Tulloch. This time, Fergusson intended to seize Indaw’s West Airfield,

attacking through the flat jungle terrain of the west. The Queens had the task of capturing the

airfield. But the operation proved a massive anti-climax. Even before the attack started,

Fergusson was told that even if they took the airfield, there were no troops available in India

who could be landed there. As events transpired, the Queens indeed captured the airfield —

without a single shot being fired and held the place, which was deserted, for the next two days

before being pulled back. Further orders arrived in a day or two from Special Force HQ: the

brigade was to get some rest as it was to fly back to India. The 16th Brigade’s campaign in

Burma was over.

With nothing left to do at Aberdeen, Fergusson took to visiting Calvert at White City, just 20

minutes away by light plane. Here, he found the spirits of the men bordered on extreme

confidence. They had already licked the Japanese and were prepared to hold till the end. Their

optimism was infectious, and although Fergusson, in his second memories, The Wild Green

Earth, was sorely tempted to tell their story. He refrained, for it was not his to tell. That was to

be the domain of the victors of White City, and their master, Calvert.

FIELD OF RED

AT WHITE CITY

As March turned into April, it first began to become clear that Wingate’s death had not only

removed him from the field of battle but that it threatened to undo his ideas as well.

During an April 3rd meeting of senior officers at Jorhat, India, which placed Lentaigne in such

exalted company as Mountbatten, Slim, Stilwell, Lt-General Montague Stopford of IV Corps

and Air Vice-Marshal Baldwin, the men of “Special Force” watched helplessly as Slim stripped

23th Brigade from their command, placing it in the hands of Stopford for use around Kohima.

Then he assured Stilwell that the other Chindit brigades (now totaling an impressive 20,000

men in Burma) would remain in place to carry out their original function of drawing off enemy

forces, prevent reinforcements from reaching the enemy, and creating chaos southwest of

Myitkyina. Stilwell was told to go all out for Myitkyina. Then, with Mountbatten’s approval,

it was decided that the Chindits’ 14th and 111th Brigades would attack and harass Japanese

forces to the rear of Mataguchi’s 15th Army on the Chindwin.

When Lentaigne flew to Aberdeen to tell Calvert and Fergusson of the changes, both men were

furious and disagreed. What they were being asked to now, in short, was to abandon Wingate’s

doctrine of long-range penetration in order to serve as some sort of “firebrigade.” Remarkably,

while critics have lambasted the 111th Brigade and Lentaigne for “not endorsing long-range

penetration tactics” or even being “favorably impressed with Wingate,”[lviii] grave, angry

mutterings began within the brigade that they were “at the beck and call of anyone who felt in

need of help,” leaving their strategic plan at the mercy of the wind.[lix]

Fergusson was eager to retain the territory around Indaw and Calvert pressed hard for

Broadway and White City to remain as they were, but both had gravely underestimated the

greater forces at play, because it soon became apparent to those with the gift of foresight that

the Chindits were no longer in the privileged position of proving their tactics. Instead, they

were in a fight for their lives against a foe that was to prove as lethal as any Japanese bullet —

“Vinegar Joe” Stilwell.

If they had known how events would unfold they would have gladly backed Slim’s plan to

withdraw them from their strongholds to aid him against Mataguchi at Imphal, no matter how

abhorrent the idea was. They would have gladly concentrated in the Kalewa area to hit the 15th

Army’s lines of communications close to the battle. Tulloch certainly would not have talked

Slim out of a plan that would have seen that both Calvert and Fergusson withdraw from their

strongholds to deploy closer to the Chindwin,[lx] by pointing out that Calvert’s white City

occupied the primary route for Japanese supplies destined for the Japanese 18th Division

fighting Stilwell’s forces in the north. To abandon White City meant allowing the 18th Division

to grow. If Tulloch had remained silent, he could have prevented Slim’s April 9th signal to

Lentaigne, cancelling his earlier orders for the 14th and 111th Brigades, and instead

transferring the Chindits entirely to Stilwell’s command.[lxi]

Under the acerbic, abusive “limey-hating” Stilwell, the Chindits would soon be bled white.

Under Stilwell, they were no longer a “Special Force,” but line infantry tasked with the

traditional divisional role of advancing and seizing well-defended objectives — which they

neither had the training for nor the equipment.

Oblivious of such hardships to come, Calvert hunkered down at White City. The local

intelligence was not promising. It had taken Kawabe of Burma Area Army, two weeks to react

to the glider landings. But by April 4, the 24th Independent Mixed Brigade (and its 4th Infantry

Regiment) under Maj-General Yoshihide Hayashi, was on its way to area. Another two

battalions were dispatched to attack Broadway and other Chindits blocking the Bhamo-

Myitkyina road.

Already, Broadway had come under fanatical Japanese ground assaults starting on March 27th.

Rome was determined to get as many wounded as possible away before the enemy attacked.

Experience had shown, especially in Burma’s Arakan peninsula that previous year that the

Japanese were as unforgiving of soldiers laid up in the hospital as they were of troops in

fighting trim. Field hospitals which fell victim to Japanese raids and breaches, suffered nearly

total loss of life, with the infirm bayoneted in their beds and all doctors and medical staff shot.

At 10.30 pm, under an inky black Burmese night, the last of the Dakotas at Broadway flew off

for India. Fifteen minutes later, the Japanese of II/146th Infantry Regiment, attacked. The

fighting was fierce. A Japanese squad breached the perimeter but was winkled out and

destroyed by dawn. Repulsed, the Japanese began to dig in along the northern perimeter. When

Rome began to pummel them with mortar strikes, the Japanese brought in two large artillery

pieces and began to shell the stronghold. This went on until the positions of the guns were

triangulated and wiped out by the Chindit’s own 25-pounder artillery guns.[lxii]

The attacks continued for the next three days. On three occasions, the attacks breached the

perimeter, but Chindits held fast, supported by artillery and snipers. Furious, those Japanese

that reached the airstrip used their bayonets and knives upon the light aircraft positioned at the

dispersals, hacking and slashing at the light skin before melting sway into the jungle. [lxiii]

Finally, an RAF liaison officer guided in a pinpoint strike by the Air Commandos, which

inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese troops. On April 1st, their commander conceded that

the attacks had failed. The siege of Broadway was over. The battle of White City was about to

begin.

Hayashi, who had moved his brigade to Mawlu on April 1, was to begin his counter-attack on

the night of April 6/7, with a ten-day assault on the “White City,” by now reinforced with five

British, Gurkha and West African battalions, well dug-in behind barbed wire, with artillery,

mortars, machine guns, and a seemingly endless supply of ammunition – thanks to the regular

airdrops.

The leading elements of the 7th Nigerians had flown into White City just a day before. Major

Charles Carfrae of 29 Column and his men were told that the “Japanese are a very different

kettle of fish from the Italians” whom some of the men had fought in Eritrea. The West Africans

had little respect for the Italians and had scant idea of the formidable foes they were to face in

the form of the Japanese.

The Japanese regard of the Africans, in turn, boiled down to

pure racism. A Tokyo radio broadcast proclaimed that “African cannibals led by European

fanatics,” had arrived in Burma. This racist belief, created for propaganda, percolated down to

average soldiers. Soon after, when other West African battalions joined the campaign in

Burma’s Arakan Peninsula that year, diaries found on dead Japanese troops testified to the awe

and mystique the Africans engendered within the Japanese. One diarist wrote: “Because of

their beliefs they are not afraid to die, so even if their comrades have fallen they keep on

advancing as if nothing had happened. They have an excellent physique and are very brave, so

fighting against these soldiers is somewhat troublesome.”[lxiv]

Some of the Africans were ex-convicts recruited from prisons, and quickly made a formidable

impact on the Japanese. “They scared the Japs to begin with,” said Lt. John “Jack” Osborne of

the 7th Nigerians who deployed at White City with his platoon. “When the Japs saw these

hulking great blacks with filed teeth and slashed cheeks, they were pretty scared, as I must say

too were some of the English white soldiers who were mixed up with them.”[lxv]

The Japanese soldiers considered the Africans adept at jungle fighting even though most came

from the arid, desert plains of northern Nigeria. Such misconceptions were not limited to the

Japanese, however. Many Indian communities lived in fear of the Africans, also convinced

these muscular, dark men were cannibals. One incident hilariously reinforced this

misconception when a group of West Africans, mistaking packets of blood plasma for jam (or

jelly), spread it on their toast.[lxvi]

White City, the Africans found, was the size of a large park, about 1,000 yards long and 800

yards wide, bristling with three rings of wire, machine guns and artillery. To the west, the

Chindits had dug-in on the summits of the low hills overlooking the railway line and the fields

of paddy beyond. The perimeter continued north where it overlooked a small valley, about 20

yards wide. To the east the wire went over the top of several wooded hills where visibility was

down to a mere 10 yards. The southern perimeter overlooked the Nankye Chaung.

US airborne engineers and Indian sappers from the Bengal Sappers and Miners Regiment had

blown up the rail bridge spanning the Nankye Chaung, and had pulled the sleeper logs from

the railway line to serve as top cover for the slit trenches, turning them into a line of bunkers.

Two airstrips lined the flat ground beside the railway line, with the heavy aircraft landing strip

built outside the perimeter, on the other side of the railway line.

The South Staffords manned the northern and eastern sectors of the perimeter, while the

Lancashire Fusiliers and the 3/6th Gurkhas held the southern and western lines. Captain

MacPherson’s Brigade HQ Defense Company held the highest hill, “OP Hill” which offered a

grand view of the area, while the main medical casualty station was concealed in a re-entrant,

opposite a desolate knoll named “Bare Hill,” which had been denuded of all trees, its slopes

covered with logs.

Carfrae, young and handsome, had once lived in the northern Nigeria city of Kaduna, another

subjugated metropolis on the fringes of empire with echoes of “Rawalpindi and Dar-es-Salaam,

Rangoon and Colombo” with its transplanted English landscape of bungalows, parties,

snobbery, music and aging fashion. Carfrae, however, finding the British life suffocating and

had attempted to hone a relationship with his troops. He did not know the local language,

Hausa, so he launched into the task of learning it to a passable degree.

As the months had worn on, he came to feel genuine affection for the Africans under his charge

— these tall, handsome men, their skin-jet black, their minds as sharp as that of any European,

although Carfrae discovered they were ignorant about a great many things and lacked initiative.

He began to turn “native,” spending the long, hot afternoon in the shade of a tree, pontificating

on the war and its ramifications, in his halting Hausa.[lxvii] Many of his men adored him,

although some thought he was paternalistic.

Carfrae, for his part, was impressed with “Mad Mike” Calvert. “He was a very fine commander,

the finest I ever came across,” he said. “He was determined, enterprising, brave and a strong

magnetic personality. He has been described as flamboyant, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t a show-

off. He talked quietly, always gave his orders in a conversational rather than a peremptory tone.

He was often quite vague in his conversation. But his soldiers would do anything for him. He

was not mad at all or impetuous, despite his nickname…”[lxviii]

Calvert, in anticipation of the Japanese threat, had requested that artillery be flown in by gliders

on the 5th and the West Africans of 29 Column had gone to work, unloading the weapons.

When the work was done they were told to deploy at an exposed position among the jumble of

wrecked gliders on the airstrip outside the stronghold wire. They spent the night with the jitters,

the tension aggravated by the noises of gunfire as Japanese patrols probed the southern

perimeter. When dawn came no one was more relieved than the Africans. Squadron Leader

“Bobbie” Thompson appeared on the airstrip and led them into the fortress where they began

to dig-in near a platoon of South Staffords who stared.

At 10 pm on the following night, Hayashi’s attack began. For the three hours, his artillery

blasted away at the stronghold. The West Africans had already been given a taste of enemy fire

that evening, when before dusk, they had been shelled by a large 5.9” Japanese mortar

nicknamed the “coal scuttle,” which had been captured from the Germans after World War I.

The mortar fired a mortar bomb about five feet long which came onto the Chindit positions

with an unearthly scream. Carfrae and some of the officers who had been lackadaisical in their

digging of trenches, had scrambled for cover, leaping into a hole about 12 feet by six feet which

they discovered was a garbage pit. The West Africans had dug trenches, but unlike the nearby

Staffords, they had failed to place log branches or sleep logs on top for overhead cover.

Lt. Osborne was cowering in his position when he heard Calvert shouting to him, over the noise

of the barrage: “Osborne, are you scared?”

Osborne, who was 34, three years older than the Brigadier, replied that he “most certainly was.”

“Good!” came the resounding reply.

To their fortune, the West Africans were about 200 yards away from section of the perimeter

the Japanese intended to attack, but every time an orange flare was shot up into the dark sky

by one of the Chindit mortars, cautious Africans peeked up the end of their parapets, rifles

ready, to see if they could spot the Japanese.

When the shelling died away, Hayashi sent three infantry battalions to punch a hole along the

southeast perimeter of the stronghold, defended by the Lancashire Fusiliers, Gurkhas, and other

West Africans of the 6th Nigerian Regiment, who had arrived much earlier.

Secure behind a row of machine guns with a line of mortars behind them, the defenders opened

fire. Bullets and projectiles whipped through the air, the bright flashes of tracers lending an

ethereal air to the proceedings. Rounds poured into the attacking Japanese who began to suffer

heavy casualties. Determined bands of Japanese brought up Bangalore torpedoes to destroy the

wire, but all malfunctioned. The battle went on for most of the night. At dawn, “Bobbie”

Thompson summoned the Mustangs of the Air Commando who strafed and bombed the

Japanese staging areas. Then more aircraft appeared from the south — Japanese medium

bombers.

Twenty-seven bombed the stronghold, destroying the wire in places. When the bombing

subsided, the Chindits braved the shelling to mend the breaches.

Allied Dakotas continued to arrive, despite an alarming incident on the night of April 7, when

a Japanese fighter intercepted an Air Commando Dakota landing at Aberdeen. The Dakota pilot

US Lt. Leo Tyszecki found his aircraft shuddering under the impact of gunfire. The landing

gear was hit. One engine spluttered out, black smoke mingling with the darkness of the night,

flaming licking at the edges. Tyszecki landed the aircraft intact and none on board were

killed.[lxix]

It became clear that the Allies could no longer fly vulnerable transport across northern Burma

without the benefit of Allied fighter patrols over the area. The transport planes were relegated

to flights during dawn and dusk times, but they kept coming, concentrating reinforcements at

White City. Fresh companies of troops materialized to take up station, until in the words of Lt.

Norman Durant of the South Staffords, the place was a “complete babel, for it contained British

troops, West Africans, Chinese, Burmans, a New Zealand RAF officer, Indians, and an

American Neisei who acted as interpreter (or interrogator) of prisoners.”[lxx]

Large groups of West Africans landed, filling out the columns and battalions already at White

City. The Africans, although initially viewed with some skepticism, quickly came into their

own, impressing Calvert and the others with their quirks and courage.

Calvert wrote of being astounded by one Nigerian who had decided that a box full of grenades

was more valuable than a bandolier of ammunition and a rifle — after he had used it to bash in

the head of an attacking Japanese soldier. Whenever his column mounted a bayonet charge,

Calvert was to witness this Nigerian, carrying his box. For all their racist beliefs, many

Japanese soldiers interrogated after the end of the war were to express admiration of the

Africans, for their courage and for the great lengths they went through to “rescue their dead

and wounded after an action.”[lxxi]

The African ignorance of western methods, however, created some blunders which white

troops found amusing. When first confronted by American K-rations, for example, the Africans

had cooked everything, inside, including the mixture of cheese, the crackers, the lemonade

powder and the chewing gum.[lxxii]

But the Africans were undeniably brave and clever. Captured Japanese interrogations of

African prisoners revealed to Calvert the guile of his charges, as the following transcript,

although likely apocryphal, testifies:

“Where have you come from?”

“We dropped from the sky.”

“How many are there of you?”

“Thousands upon thousands upon thousands, too many to count.”

“How did you come, by aeroplane, glider or what?”

“We just dropped.”

“Are you all parachutists?”

“Naturally. All African are parachutists.”

“When did you leave Africa?”

“It is so long ago I cannot remember.”

“How many African soldiers are there in India?”

“I think about a million.”

“You lie!” Thwack!

“I am sorry. I won’t lie again. Just over a million and a half.”

“What sort of armaments have you?”

“We have a huge new cannon, which a man can carry and fire without hurting himself.”

“What is the establishment of these?”

“‘Two to a company. Eight to a battalion. Sixteen to a division. Thirty-two to a corps —

parachute corps.”

“How many parachute corps are there?”

“I do not know – two or three, I think.”

“Will you lead us to where you landed?”

“Of course. Why not?”

According to Calvert, the African led them to Broadway.[lxxiii] [lxxiv]

As the planes continued to bring in reinforcements, Calvert managed to muster roughly seven

battalions in and around “White City” against Hayashi’s eight. The Japanese heavy weapons

continued hit the defenders.

The Japanese infantry, however, were largely quiet, even docile, during the day, when the

Chindits found they were able to wander about the paddy outside the perimeter with ease. As

dusk approached, however, the Japanese became belligerent. At 5 pm, they would start shelling

for a period, before sending in their infantry. When these were repulsed, they would become

quiet again until at about 2 am, when a second ferocious assault would be launched, lasting

until 4 am.

“The forces of evil would operate in the dark,” the Chindits began to say, “but at dawn, like

creatures of a nightmare they would vanish away.”[lxxv]

At one point, Hayashi even sent two light tanks

to force a breakthrough. As one emerged from the forest, leading the assault, it broke down.

Lt. Osborne and his platoon of Nigerians watched on amazed as one of the crew emerged from

within to calmly carry out repairs. “We were so amazed we forgot to shoot him,” he later

said.[lxxvi] The Chindits brought up a 2-pounder anti-tank cannon (firing roughly a 40mm

shell) and shot away a track, immobilizing the tank. The other quit the field, returning later to

tow its crippled partner away.

The Commando Platoon of 20 Column (1st Lancashire Fusiliers), had for some time, been

carrying hit-and-run and sabotage operations in the area. Now, they were deployed along the

perimeter, with 2” mortars behind them. They had salvaged mortar bombs damaged in airdrops,

attaching explosives to turn them into booby traps which they placed along Japanese lines of

approach. They planted landmines, dug pits filled with sharpened stakes, but nothing seemed

to faze the enemy, who continued to attack.

One eyewitness later described how the “Japs rushed blindly into our minefields and over our

booby traps, and were blown to pieces or else mowed down like autumn corn by our riflemen

and machine-gunners.” Piling up over the stronghold’s wire, hundreds died where they

attempted to cross over; their bodies almost striped to the bone by the explosions of mortars

and grenades. Scores were killed by their own Bangalore torpedoes as they tried to blow gaps

in the wire. Such heroism should have earned for the Japanese universal admiration.

“There was a lot to admire in the Jap,” Calvert later wrote. “Given the same equipment as us

or the Americans they would be amongst the finest and most dangerous soldiers in the

world.”[lxxvii] To this John Masters added that nearly every Japanese would have won a Medal

of Honor or a Victoria Cross had they been fighting for the Allied armies.[lxxviii] Instead, the

Japanese adherence to bushido and their fanaticism, earned them the contempt of their enemies.

“The Japanese were stupid…always attacking in the same place,”

said one Chindit commando, Private William Merchant, as hundreds of dead Japanese

accumulated on the wire and decorated the surrounding landscape at White City.

When attacking, the Japanese made no attempt at surprise, yelling strange phrases such as “Tik

Hai Johnny,” (Hindi for “It’s all right”), “Cease fire,” “Okay, Bill, stand down now…” which

had the result of momentarily holding Chindit fire and triggering retorts, sometimes gamely,

according to Private John Mattison, another commando. Shouts of “you dirty bastards,” “hairy

English scum” “yellow nips” and other phrases to that effect hurled through the night air,

followed by showers of grenades and bursts of gunfire.

When two of Mattison’s friends were killed, however, his jocularity ceased. He occupied a gap

in the line where they had been killed, clutching a Bren, screaming: “Come on you yellow

bastards.”

When heard a voice behind him shouting the same thing, Mattinson thought it was some of the

men in the other bunkers. But it was someone standing behind him.

“Get down, you stupid bastard!” Mattinson called. “Are you tired of living?”

“All right now, it’s only me,” said the man. It was Brigadier Calvert.[lxxix]

More than troops, Calvert insisted that the planes bring in more ammunition and food. Vickers

medium-machine gun ammunition alone was being consumed at such a rate that 700,000

rounds had to be airdropped into White City. The machine-gunners had strict orders never to

fire until they had enough targets to warrant the firing of an entire belt in one go.[lxxx]

On April 10th, Lentaigne arrived to inform Calvert that Brigadier A.H. Gillmore’s 3rd West

African Brigade would garrison the stronghold, allowing Calvert to lead a force to attack the

Japanese from behind. Calvert’s command comprised the 3/6th Gurkhas, Lt-Colonel Charles

Vaughn’s 7th Nigerians, the 450 surviving troops of Lt-Colonel Astell’s 45th Recce, and Lt-

Colonel Christie’s 50 Column which had rejoined the brigade after its ventures in the north. In

all, he had 2,400 troops.

Meantime, the rest of the 7th Nigerians had tromped into the encampment unceremoniously,

having spent hours lying up in the jungle a few miles away, alarmed by the noise of battle

emanating from the direction of White City, but unable to discover what was happening owing

to their radio sets which refused to work. Eventually, contact was established after recce

platoon commander, Lt. Jerry Bladen, was dispatched to investigate what was happening at

White City. With the battalion reunited, Carfrae and 29 Column were told they were to join the

rest of the 7th Nigerians in attacking the Japanese at Mawlu. Soon, the column occupied a

deserted village “of no particular significance,”[lxxxi] as Carfrae put it, but within range of the

Japanese attacking White City, while the rest of Calvert’s force marched on towards glory, or

so the jealous 7th Nigerians believed.

Reality was more subdued. When Calvert realized that he and his troops were to serve as a

large “floater” column — that phrase for an external, roving reserve inspired by the Duke of

the Duke of Marlborough’s “skirmishers[lxxxii] who attacked from the flanks, he was anxious

to get to grips with the enemy.

He decided to attack the village of Sepein, just south of Mawlu, where reports of a Japanese

HQ were manifest. In the meantime, Hayashi had called off his attacks on White City on the

11th, and Calvert was determined to make the Japanese pay for their attacks. He set up his

headquarter at the village of Thayaung, had his men clear an airstrip to evacuate the wounded

by light plane and prepared his forces for attack at dawn on the 13th.

The 3/6th Gurkhas were to capture Sepein, while Christie’s 50 Column was to attack a truck

park where the Nanthyan Chaung crossed the road. The Recces were move in between the 50

Column and 3/6th Gurkhas and search for Japanese artillery south of Sepein, while the 7th

Nigerians were initially held in reserve at Thayaung village. But Calvert had made the same

mistake that Fergusson had made — eager to surprise the enemy, he failed to scout the land in

front of him.

The Gurkhas captured Sepein without undue problems, prompting Calvert to send Vaughn’s

Nigerians to attack Mawlu. The 7th Nigerians made brisk progress, shooting scores of Japanese

and capturing the railway station, prompting the Japanese defenders, mostly administrative

personnel, to flee south in a rabble. Calvert had planned on this eventuality and had hoped to

position Christie’s 50 Column to the southeast in ambush. But Christie’s troops were delayed

by a firefight and could not get into position in time, allowing the 400-odd retreating Japanese

to escape.

Mawlu was in Allied hands, but not for long. Vaughn’s Nigerians soon found themselves under

heavy fire, pinned down for the next four hours under relentless Japanese firing and dive-

bombing by Japanese aircraft that put in a surprise appearance.

Soon, the Gurkhas at Sepein also reported that they were under fire —from the main Japanese

positions at the edge of the village, hidden under mounds of flowering lantana scrubs. The sight

was inordinately beautiful — and lethal, concealing hordes of Japanese infantry, whose gunfire

twinkled through the red, yellow, purple and green of the scrub. Calvert heaped Air Commando

strikes and 25-pounder artillery barrages on them, with little effect.

Three Gurkha ground attacks failed to dislodge the defenders and the men were becoming

dispirited. Calvert decided to withdraw. As dusk settled at Mawlu, Vaughn began to pull his

troops out of Mawlu and under the cover of a mortar barrage, taking with him a large collection

of vital documents and an even larger trove of Japanese ceremonial swords and military

equipment, which would serve as presents for Air Commando and RAF aircrews at White City.

Christie’s men had reached their objective and had wiped out the trucks, advancing on to

capture an entire regimental headquarters where other valuable documents were found.

As night fell, conflicting orders forced Carfrae’s 29 Column out of their positions and back

into them. As the Nigerians were moving back, shattering gunfire and the sound of grenades

nearby brought the group to a halt. Carfrae decided to hold where they were for the night.

At dawn, there came the noise of a single gunshot. A platoon commander appeared and told

Carfrae that his best corporal and a Bren gunner had blundered into two Japanese in the bush

the night before. The Bren gunner had shot them. An African had been killed by the Japanese

in return. The morning’s shot had been the platoon commander dispatching one of the Japanese,

who despite being wounded, had tried to throw a grenade at him. Carfrae gathered some of the

Africans to go see their first dead Japanese. “The only person who was unnerved was the

African sergeant major,” Cafrae wrote. “He roared like a bull on the parade ground, but was

virtually useless for the rest of the campaign.” [lxxxiii]

When Carfrae went through the corpses, searching for important documents, he found several

photographs on one: “a smiling girl with flowers in her hair; an old couple sitting stiffly on a

bench; a young officer posing in a brand-new uniform, a sword hanging at his side. He had

always thought of the Japanese as nothing but ‘dangerous vermin’ whom it was our job to

destroy…Now, faced with this pathetic evidence of our common humanity, forced to

acknowledge that the gulf between us could not after all be fundamental, I felt as much cheated

as moved,” he said.[lxxxiv]

On April 17, Brigadier Gillmore radioed Calvert that unless the Japanese were removed from

his perimeter, where they exerting force, it seemed likely that White City would be breached.

This message, sent without the knowledge or the approval of 77th Brigade officers within

White City, would cost Gillmore his command. He was replaced by “Abdy” Ricketts.

This signal, however, forced Calvert to refocus his attention on White City, against which the

Japanese shelling remained active, with the “coal scuttle” taking a particularly heavy toll on

the defenders. One shell had landed in dugout of the Japanese-speaking Captain Ryan, leaving

him badly wounded. He was quickly evacuated by plane back to India and would later write

Calvert about his recovery, although such letters could not disguise the pain he was in.

Calvert decided to get behind the enemy from the flanks and hit them from the rear, pinning

them against the stronghold’s wire. Addressing a group of Chindits (most of them from the

45th Recce), in his characteristic quiet tone, Calvert explained that White City was feeling the

strain from night attacks. “It is now up to us to bring them immediate relief at all cost.”[lxxxv]

He also ordered 29 Column to hit the Japanese along their flanks.

On the night of 16/17 March, Carfare and his men accordingly prepared an ambush on the

Mawlu-Henu road. For the longest time, time the trap sat unused, then at 4 pm, a truck came

along. Carfrae had been imagining the ambush being sprung in the long hours of waiting. He

would fire a flare and then his men would cut loose on the Japanese. Now, someone fired a

PIAT (a shoulder-held anti-tank weapon) before he could do anything. The PIAT bomb fell

short, exploding on the road. The Japanese abandoned the truck and ran off into the surrounding

bush. Carfrae was livid.

The Nigerians again settled down and waited. There was a chance that the ambush location had

been reported to Hayashi’s headquarters, but still the Nigerians waited. After what seemed like

an eternity, at dusk on the following day, a group of at least seven trucks were seen slowly

coming down the road from the north, towards them. Japanese infantry were walking ahead of

the trucks, apparently looking for mines on the road.

When the Japanese were a scarce few feet away, Carfrae’s flare went off as he had intended

and the Nigerians opened fire en masse. Bullets smacked into the metal skin of the trucks, some

angrily ricocheting off. The leading vehicle erupted into flames, but the Nigerians kept pouring

fire until Carfrae blew his whistle to stop the firing. The smell of cordite hung pungently, the

air thick with smoke. Groaning came from piles of Japanese lying all along the road. Carfrae

sent two platoons to mop up. For the loss of five dead, his column had inflicted 42 Japanese

deaths. His men captured three Japanese, and Carfrae gave his men special instructions not to

kill them. The Africans were puzzled. At this moment, a commotion broke out nearby. A

Japanese NCO who was playing dead, his tunic daubed with blood, had been pulled from a

truck by an unsuspecting Nigerian.

The man, screaming indecipherable Japanese, unearthed a bayonet and tried to push into the

nearest African. A sergeant shot him with a pistol.[lxxxvi]

When the gleeful Africans later recounted this battle to the white troops of the 45th Recce, they

earned swift congratulations. “We began to feel a real affection for our black comrades-in-

arms,” said one recce member, Trooper N. P. Aylen.[lxxxvii]

Soon Calvert had realized that his floater group had trapped 2,000 angry Japanese within the

half-mile tract of land separating his troops from White City. He instructed his men to infiltrate

forward that noon, led by Lt-Colonel Astell’s Recces. When the Japanese discovered that they

had hemmed in, they fell upon Calvert’s men. At this moment, Rickett’s Nigerians in White

City attacked the Japanese. Chaos erupted within the Japanese ranks.

Calvert’s forward headquarters became caught up in a Japanese attack, the enemy bullets

tearing into the Chindit mules which had been stand insouciantly above the trenches. Calvert

watched in angst as the Japanese machineguns stitched neat rows of bullet holes across the

mule’s bodies, bringing them crashing down.[lxxxviii]

By 1 pm, the Japanese were so close that Calvert could hear their

voices. Minutes later, the Air Commandos arrived. Under the relentless barrage of bombing

and machine-gunning, the Japanese guns fell silent. Reeling from combat fatigue, Calvert

returned to his headquarters at Thayaung, where he discovered that Captain MacPherson had

been killed. Grief overcame him. “He can’t be,” he said to his brigade-major Francis Stuart.

“I saw him shot through the forehead,” Stuart said.

“I don’t believe Ian is dead,” Calvert announced and prepared to return to the battle to find

MacPherson’s body.

Stuart rushed outside and thrust his revolver into his stomach. “I’ll shoot you if don’t go back

[into the HQ],” he said. “I was with him when he was killed.”[lxxxix]

After the battle, Calvert found that he had lost 70 men killed and 150 wounded. At dawn on

April 17th, the Japanese mounted their last major attack on White City, with a battalion

concentrating against OP Hill, held by a single platoon commanded by 35-year-old Lt. David

Scholey, a decorator before the war. From positions on an adjoining hill, Lt. Norman Durant’s

machinegun platoon had a magnificent view of the battle as it unfolded.

Many of the mendid not think much of Scholey, considering him to be a pansy. During the

march to White City, he had carried a butterfly net in his pack and spoke about the merits of

“May Day” and the start of Spring, to his men. The tough Lt. Durant regarded him as a little

“precious” (overdelicate and pretentious), but was to soon swallow his words. Scholey and his

platoon put up a magnificent defense. When by sheer weight of numbers, the Japanese breached

the perimeter, the British kept fighting, lost droves until only Scholey and 16 men remained.

The held the Japanese at bay until reinforcements, in form of West Africans, arrived.

The Japanese deftly withdrew barring one man who remained, defiantly holding the trench he

had captured, braving grenades thrown by over a dozen men. He could have surrendered;

instead, he leaped up over the trench with rifle and bayonet charged. An African soldier

dropped his rifle, and picked up a wooden box contained 12 grenades. He brought it down on

the Japanese soldier’s the head, killing him. Both the Japanese and the African deserved a

medal. Scholey, however, received a deserved Military Cross.[xc] Sadly, he was to die in

combat at Mogaung, later in the campaign.

Calvert estimated that the 24th Independent Mixed Brigade had suffered 3,000 killed,

wounded, captured or missing in the offensive since April 1. An estimated 700 Japanese had

died killed out of the 6,600 men who attempted to take White City. Such was the extent of the

carnage that towards the end of April, allied transport pilots flying overhead reported that they

could smell the stench of the unburied dead. The survivors escaped south beyond Indaw. The

Japanese were to never attack the stronghold again.

Calvert felt he could hold White City indefinitely, but Lentaigne, who worried about the

imminent monsoon, had other ideas. He ordered that White City and Broadway be abandoned,

in favor of another stronghold, codenamed Blackpool, sixty miles north, closer to Stilwell’s

Chinese, near Hopin. John Masters’ 111th Brigade which had experienced a largely quiet, if

exhausting campaign so far, was to build the stronghold.

Lentaigne feared that onset of the monsoon rains in May would render the dirt airstrips at the

strongholds into fields of slush. His conventional training, according to the eminent historian

Louis Allen, also told him that it would better to concentrate his forces north along the railway

line, to be closer to Stilwell’s advance to Myitkyina, not have them dispersed in columns.[xci]

Accordingly, on May 3, orders came that “Special Force is to assist Stilwell capture and hold

line Mogaung-Myitkyina.”[xcii] For Calvert and his men who had sacrificed much to hold

White City, however, the order was anathema. They opposed giving up what they had fought

for in this indirect way. The added danger of being closer to static frontlines meant increased

contact with heavily defended positions — something that the Chindits had never trained for,

or had the heavy weapons to do handle.

Calvert’s signals to Lentaigne began to acquire an air of insubordination even though Major

Stuart attempted to stop some of these, until Lentaigne flew into Broadway on May 8, to

personally explain why it was necessary to go north. Calvert protested that these plans were a

“death trap.”

“I have not seen you like this before, Michael,” Lentaigne responded. “If you really do feel like

that, I will have to relieve you.”[xciii] That stopped Calvert in his tracks. It was to prove a

mistake.

Calvert should have been allowed to hold White City, while Lentaigne concentrated the other

brigades in the area to create an impenetrable block which would have severed Japanese forces

in northern Burma into two, cutting off and isolating all enemy forces in the Hukawng and

Mogaung Valleys. But Lentaigne was adamant, and anyway, as he pointed out, he was in the

act of withdrawing many Chindit units from the field of battle which would have left White

City isolated.

Already, the consensus of opinion was that Ferguson’s 16th Brigade had shot its bolt. It was to

be evacuated back to India, and Aberdeen abandoned. The 45th Recce and the 2nd Queens

were ordered to Broadway from where they would be flown out. The Queens were in a state of

nervous breakdown, according to Color Sergeant Atkins. “We were in not too good shape. We

were tired, it was nerve-wracking; one very rarely spoke above a whisper. There was always

uncertainty: was one going to be ambushed or not?”[xciv]

Meantime, Blaine’s Detachment, which had been operating even further south of the 111th

Brigade, still led by Lt. Binnie, were ordered to Aberdeen, from where they were flown to

India. Captain Hugh Patterson who had led the Commando Platoon of Christie’s 50 Column

(Lancashires), in successful demolition raids north of Mawhun, was told to travel to Broadway

for evacuation to India. Patterson, weakened by Malaria and a knee wound, was informed he

would be flown out ahead of his platoon.

The plane had intended to fly to Sylhet in Assam, but a severe storm forced them land at an

airstrip on the Imphal plain. On the plane had been Lentaigne. “Here was had an insight into

our new commander’s character,” Patterson wrote later. “He was met by a major on the strip

who told the general he would show him to his basha [hut/house]. Lentaigne turned to the other

occupants of the plane, who had no blankets or groundsheets — and it was cold out there —

and we were all seriously ill, and told them to sleep under the wings of the plane.”

Patterson and the other men on the plane were incredulous. “One could not help thinking of

the reply Wingate would have given to anyone who suggested that he should fare better than

his men,” Patterson said. Fortunately for the group, the major returned, showed the men to an

old basha and ensured that they were served tea, biscuits, and fried bacon.[xcv]

Many Chindit formations were not as fortunate and maintained operations in Burma. Brodie’s

14th Brigade, joined by the 3rd West Africans were to attack to the rear of Mataguchi’s 15th

Army, still fighting in India, while Calvert’s 77th Brigade was handed the important task of

seizing the key city of Mogaung — on the southern flank of Stilwell’s advance to Myitkyina.

For Calvert, this new order was a sort of slap in the face. His brigade had been once again

called to do the heavy lifting, while other brigades who had managed less had been given

middling tasks. By all rights, the 77th Brigade should have been evacuated to India, with the

task of capturing Mogaung undertaken by the 111th, the 14th or the 3rd West African brigades.

But Lentaigne wanted his best troops in the fray — and for the 77th Brigade, continued

operations became a consequence of being the best.[xcvi] As Captain Richard Rhodes-James

later pointed out, “77th Brigade achieved an enormous amount” in the campaign without

assistance “unlike the other brigades” which seemed to falter and fail.[xcvii]

In any case, Lentaigne seriously seemed to have believed that the brigade had a quick, short

fight ahead of them. He expressed confidence that once the Chindits linked up with the Chinese

at Mogaung, the Chindit campaign would be over — and not a moment too soon, as they were

rapidly approaching the 90 day operating limit set by Wingate. All the brigade had to do was

secure Mogaung, and then everyone could go home.

Accordingly the troops began to pull out of White City on May 9/10, with Dakotas arriving

that night to take out the 25-pounder guns, the wounded, the stores and the mules. The

stronghold, like Broadway, was then booby-trapped and abandoned to be consumed by the

jungle once again.

As Fergusson flew over Aberdeen from Broadway, headed for India, he noticed that his

erstwhile domain was almost deserted. The local villagers had fled into the jungle fearing

Japanese retribution. Fergusson felt a deflating sensation. He had told the natives he would

protect them until the war ended, promising them all manner of benefits, including healthcare

and food deliveries, courtesy of the British government. Now, here he was going home.

One of his officers Captain “Bill” Smythies, whom Fergusson had appointed as the civil

governor in the area, had lambasted Fergusson for breaking all his promises to the locals, and

for leading them up “a garden path.” But it was war, Fergusson wrote later. Such things

happened.

Smythie, for his part, refused to leave and stayed with the locals for a time.[xcviii] As the

weeds, the trees and foliage overcame Aberdeen, only the Chindit and Air Commando graves,

the trash and the memories remained to indicate that 16th Brigade had ever been there.[xcix]

When Fergusson arrived at Lalghat hours later, night had long since fallen. He was sound

asleep in the aircraft when it landed, curled up on the floor. A flashlight shone into his eyes,

and he opened them to see the smiling faces of “Katie” Cave and Brigadier Tulloch. It was 2

am on May 3rd. Fergusson realized with a sort of indifference that it was his 33rd birthday. [c]

A FINE SLOG

IN THE MUD

When on May 17th, Slim — who had never fully appreciated the value of the Chindits

egregiously handed Stilwell the entirety of “Special Force,” everyone was aghast, not least of

all Stilwell.

He did not want British troops and certainly not Wingate’s men. He did not trust them, believed

they would not trust him, and most important of all —he did not want them to abandon White

City which had been worth a king’s ransom for its panache and ability to prevent supplies from

reaching the Japanese 18th Division fighting his units in Mogaung Valley.[ci] He also feared

that the Chindits would draw up a masse of Japanese combat forces from Central Burma in

their wake — imperiling his own advance.[cii]

What Stilwell wanted most of all was for Chiang to commit his idle divisions in Yunnan

province into battle. They faced a single Japanese division — the 56th Division — which could

be routed with some skill. When Chiang demurred, complaining that his divisions were needed

to combat other Japanese units in the Yangtze River Valley, Stilwell grew furious. He

demanded that Chiang release, what he began to call “Yoke Force,” to strengthen the advance

on Myitkyina, and help drum the Japanese out of northern Burma. Chiang remained unmoved.

Stilwell seethed, but not all was gloom. His faith in the Chinese fighting man had been restored

by the Chinese 66th Regiment’s capture of Jambu Bum, the ridge separating the Hukawng

Valley from the Mogaung Valley on March 19 — Stilwell’s 61st birthday. In celebration,

Stilwell’s officers arranged for a large chocolate cake to be brought to the Stilwell’s jungle

bivouac, an accomplishment that highlighted the mastery of American logistics.

By now, Merrill’s Marauders had also outflanked Tanaka’s 18th Division and were streaming

south. But the 2nd Battalion had run into trouble at Shaduzup, the first major town south of the

Jambu Bum, in the last week of March. Scouts reported a large party of Japanese on the banks

of the Mogaung River. Many had been bathing and using grenades for fishing. The scouts also

reported the discovery of massive encampment with large quantities of food and clothing. The

men estimated the enemy strength at about 100-200 men — a company.[ciii]

Major Caifson Johnson, commander of Combat Team (CT) White decided to attack. Six

platoons would ford the river at night and attack at dawn.

When the sun rose, the Marauders could hear the Japanese “jabbering” and the first of the

cooking fires could be seen. Johnson and his men went in with bayonets fixed. The Japanese

were caught by surprise. Some of the soldiers were half-dressed or in latrines. Bullets, bayonets

and shrapnel ripped through the Japanese. Those that survived ran for dear life into the jungle.

At that moment, a truck carrying cooked potatoes and other soldiers blundered into the camp

and straight into the path of American machinegun fire.

Gunfire smacked into the hapless vehicle. The windshield shattered and crumbled. The driver

was killed and the men in the back fell over dead like sacks of their cargo. Once the last of the

Japanese had been captured or killed, the Marauders took possession of the camp. A sort of

ravenous appetite brought on by days of marching in the jungle with just K-rations for

sustenance and a bloodlust that victory was only starting to satiate, overcame the Marauders

who fell upon the captured booty of fresh food.

As they sat, eating from their “utensil canteens and whatnot,” one private stared at the red

coating on the potatoes and wondered aloud what it was. “Those are red-skinned potatoes,”

offered Private First Class Ted “Zak” Zakotnik. It was actually the blood of the Japanese bodies

in the truck.[civ]

Later that evening, Chinese reinforcements arrived and relieved the Marauders who went back

across the river and dug-in. The Japanese, driven from Shaduzup, brought in 75mm and heavy

artillery guns, unleashing heavy fire on CT White. Deadly tree bursts left the Marauders

whimpering as shrapnel and sharp pieces of wood screamed through the air. One tree burst

exploded right over a foxhole occupied by two men. All the medics could do was throw dirt

back into the foxhole which had now become a grave.

Merrill ordered the 2nd Battalion to organize at a place called Nhpum Gha, in the mountains,

on the right flank of the man advance. The 3rd Battalion was to march five miles further north

to Hamshingyang, where there was an airstrip to be used for evacuations and supply drops.

But getting to Nhpum Ga, at the peak of a knoll,

surrounded by slopes of deep mud, proved a struggle for the weary 2nd Battalion. The

battalion’s mules, which had been largely starved for lack of food, could scarcely climb, falling

frequently. They could only be brought back to their feet when the Marauders took the supplies

off their backs. Japanese artillery barrages which had been intermittent during the climb

escalated when Marauders reached the summit, followed by attacks from determined groups

of Japanese infantry. The Americans began to hastily dig-in, creating a wagon-wheel-like

perimeter of roughly 400 meters in diameter. The first attack proved a probing reconnaissance

in force and for their first night on the hill, March 28/29, the Marauders were untroubled save

for the isolated artillery and mortar fire hurled their way.

They were not to know it yet, but a catastrophic series of blows awaited them. First, Frank

Merrill collapsed on the 28th after suffering a heart attack at Galahad’s field headquarters, near

Hamshingyang. The last aircraft had already flown off as darkness came, and Merrill could not

be moved until the next day. He was placed in an improvised shelter.

“Vinegar Joe” agreed that Merrill must be evacuated and handed over command of the

Marauders to Hunter, but not the rank.[cv] Merrill would not fly out until March 31st, but by

this time, the Americans on Nhpum Ga were already in serious trouble. A thousand men found

themselves under siege from three sides on the hill by an enemy who proved untiring and

unafraid. The 3rd Battalion at Hamshingyang sent a force to relieve the troops but this force

ran into a Japanese roadblock and was pinned down.

Back at Nhpum Ga, Japanese artillery and mortar fire

was gradually picking off the men and mules, wrote Marauder Lt. Fred Lyons[cvi]. There was

no stream nearby and the men began to run out of water. Desperate men began to cut bamboo

stalks to get the trickle of water collected inside and trying to get at the dirty water collecting

in elephant tracks. Halazone water purifying tablets and even lemonade drops were tried to

make such water palpable, but it still tasted like chalk and mud.

McGee radioed headquarters revealing the desperation of the situation: “We have been hit on

three sides. Platoon from [Combat Team] Orange was cut off and are making their way back

through the jungle. Our rear is blocked. I cannot withdraw north. Something has to come up to

take the pressure off. Casualty report today three dead, nine wounded … We will need sixty

and eighty-one [mortar] ammo tomorrow badly.”[cvii]

As McGee’s radio broadcasts became increasingly desperate, Dakotas appeared overhead,

dropping supplies. Morale soared, but the Nhpum Ga remained a place of the dead and the

dying. It was christened “Maggot Hill” as the stench of the dead mules and horses, and men

(both American and Japanese) grew worse.

The airdrops continued. The cooks of the regiment’s rear echelon in Ledo, hearing of the plight

of their fighting men, put together a special treat and the troops who had subsisted on coffee

and cigarettes for the last eight days, found crate loads of fried chicken. The fighting on the

perimeter was only 300 yards away, but within drop zone, another sort of scuffle took place as

GIs elbowed each other to get a share of the chicken. As the feast was being passed out at the

second line of defense, a Japanese artillery barrage began, smashing the revelry.

The siege was finally broken in the first week of April, after the 1st Battalion, suffering from

privations of its own, including dysentery and shortage of rations, marched from Shaduzup to

within striking distance of the Japanese besieging the 2nd Battalion.

The attacking force numbered only about 250 men, but deployed for a flank attack to the west

and east on April 7. They expected a hard slog, but a captain from the battalion inadvertently

discovered the location of the Japanese artillery while walking on a trail between Kauri and

Nhpum Ga. He called up an ad hoc Marauder artillery team, led by Staff Sergeant John Acker,

which had been trying for some time to knock out the Japanese guns.

Acker had originally been in charge of pack animals for Combat Team Khaki when he had

mentioned to the CO, Major Edwin Briggs, that it would be nice to have some artillery of their

own to give the Japanese hell. When the major asked him if he had any artillery experience,

Acker, without thinking had said he had previously served in the 98th Field Artillery.

Briggs had immediately requested 75mm pack howitzers be airdropped, and now Acker had

found himself under command of a battery of guns.

The captain told Acker that his fire was pummeling the empty landscape 400 yards behind the

Japanese guns. Acker’s team adjusted fire and opened up again.

“He [the captain] reported we were two or three hundred feet short of the target, but right in

line,” Acker said. On my next order to fire three rounds… He reported we were right on target.

The Japs were squealing and running all around. He watched as we pulverized the area and

responded we had destroyed their artillery. What a day! We never heard from that artillery

again. This eased the pressure on the hill a lot.”[cviii] In the midst of their exhilaration, the

men suddenly realized that it was Good Friday. That same day, the combined efforts of both

the 1st and 3rd Battalions broke the siege of Nhpum Ga.

On Easter Sunday, Major Briggs and Lt-Colonel Hunter walked into the village at the head of

a long column of reinforcements. McGee greeted them warmly. The Americans reported 52

men killed and 163 wounded on Nhpum Ga. Another 77 were ill. The Japanese suffered an

estimated 400 dead.

The Marauders were pulled from the line for rest and rehabilitation while the Chinese forged

ahead. By the middle of April, Stilwell had five Chinese divisions fighting down the Mogaung

Valley. In contrast, the Japanese 18th Division had three depleted regiments. By May 19,

Colonel Sun of the Chinese 38th Division announced his intention to capture Kamaing. His

troops, now battle-hardened, outflanked Tanaka and came up behind the Japanese, seizing a

major base with eight warehouses full of food and ammunition.[cix]

At first, Tanaka was astounded and then infuriated when one of his commanders, Colonel Aida

quit his positions at the village of Lavon, seven miles east of Kamaing, leaving a gaping hole

in Tanaka’s flanks. Sun saw his chance. So far, only his 112th Regiment had outflanked the

Japanese. If they could maintain their hold, Tanaka’s entire division would be caught in the

bag.

By now, the Chindits were moving up to their positions north. Masters’111th Brigade had been

west of the Irrawaddy when it received orders to establish a block on the railway near Hopin.

The plan was Lentaigne’s, backed by Slim and a reluctant Stilwell. Yet, the brigade’s

temporary commanding officer, John Masters,[cx] who had long known Lentaigne and trusted

him, distrusted it.

It smacked too much of Wingate’s recent doctrine of tactical immobility. For Masters, jungle

warfare translated to mobile warfare, with the jungle serving as a haven. This business of

strongholds was anathema to jungle warfare, and what was worse, his brigade was tired. The

111th Brigade had been in the field for 45 days — half of the original timeframe for operations

—but had been marching all over the countryside, from Tigyaing to Pinlebu, crossing streams

and rivers, hills and mountains. It was also depleted. Many of the platoons within the King’s

own Rifles and the Cameronians had suffered 50 percent casualties, with an average platoon

strength of 25 men as opposed to 40.[cxi]

Masters wanted them withdrawn to India, and the troops had gotten it into their heads that their

fight was almost over.[cxii] There was also another reason why Masters wanted to return to

India: his fiancé, Barbara, was now in advanced pregnancy with his child.

But orders were orders and the men marched north, the journey proving every bit as arduous

as before. Major “Doc” Whyte insisted on taking the seriously ill and the wounded from other

columns with the brigade HQ, which meant that force moved slowly, along a long trail of

casualties. Masters was annoyed, “but we talked him into it,” Whyte said, adding: “An

excellent person — John Masters.”

The medical staff arranged for casualty evacuations from time to time, and some

“Grasshoppers” would arrive. Once, a plane crashed on takeoff. The pilot who survived,

extricated himself from the ruins of his craft, and said: “Aw shit, I ought to be shot.”

Said Whyte, “You soon will be; the Japs are coming.”

Two other men onboard had died and the medical team buried them in the jungle. “I said a

prayer and moved on, knowing that the shallow grave would not keep the jackals out,” Whyte

said.[cxiii]

The site chosen for Blackpool (originally codenamed “Clydeside”) was a stretch of hilly ground

by the railway, near the village of Namkwin, some 32 km (20 miles) southwest of Mogaung.

There was water and suitable places to build an airstrip and deploy the 25-pdr artillery guns —

when they got them. Beyond a large tract of paddy was a hill, which the troops christened

“Blackpool Hill” which curved like the sharp-spined back of a wild boar, with the head down,

fore-arms and legs extended sideways. The location, however, was poor. It was too far from

the railway to make much of an impression, and too near the Japanese lines with positions

which could be easily occupied by the enemy. It boasted of high ground but was surrounded

on two sides by ground that was higher.

The site was chosen by Masters, possibly via suggestions from Lentaigne and his staff. But

Masters, who as a junior officer did not have the necessary experience to handle a brigade,

apparently did not realize right away that he had made a grave mistake and none of his more

experienced battalion commanders chose to warn him.

The site was occupied on the night of May 5/6, and Masters spent the entirety of the following

day setting up defenses. What he should have done was immediately attack the Japanese-held

village of Namkwin just ahead of his positions. Instead, he busied himself with preparing the

stronghold. It was a critical mistake, and says much about the lack of enterprise from the

brigade.

Save for 25 animals, Masters had all his beasts of burden sent to the brigade’s rear base at

Mokso Sakan, where they would be safe from enemy fire. Trenches and mortar pits were dug,

while 200 men, stripped to the waist, their rifles and submachineguns still strapped to their

backs, worked under the blaze of a merciless sun, clearing paddy ground for an airstrip. By

early afternoon, Masters was told the airstrip was ready for the gliders. The call went out to

India. By twilight, several gliders appeared. One flown by US Flight Officer Hadley D.

Baldwin came under heavy Japanese fire from Namkwin village, stalled and plunged straight

into the ground, killing all three men inside. The others, their crews ashen-faced, landed intact.

Two bulldozers and a grader were unloaded from the craft and went to work on the airstrip.

By 4 pm on the following day, May 7, the airstrip was ready for the Dakotas and Masters asked

for heavy weapons to be delivered as soon as possible. He knew the Japanese had used light

tanks at White City and the last thing he wanted was to fight Japanese tanks without adequate

weaponry.

As night fell, the Dakotas appeared, circling the valley, their navigation lights blinking under

the starry sky, the noise of their engines heartening the troops as though they were about to

receive manna from heaven. The first plane touched down and veered off the lit airstrip,

ploughing into the surrounding bush. Cameronians nearby took off running behind it, eager to

help. The second landed intact. The third had its wheels ripped out on a paddy bund and slid

forward into the bush on its belly. The fourth landed perfectly.

Cameronians investigating the third plane found it dark and the door open. An engineering

officer Geoffrey Birt stooped to loon under the wing, and saw someone throw a grenade. Birt

dived for cover and the grenade went off under the wing. The Dakota caught fire and the

Cameronians rushed forward into the bush, guns blazing. The fifth Dakota, which was in the

process of landing saw the burning C-47 and the airstrip lights twinkle and fizzle out as the fire

cut the electrical lines. The Dakota increased throttle and climbed hard, the roar of its engines

resounding over the camp.

The crew of the fourth Dakota, meantime, seeing the blazing C-47 and hearing the noise of

gunfire, slammed shut their door and with the engines roaring to power, attempted to take off

down the darkened airstrip. The aircraft’s wingtip struck the wing of the second Dakota and

the aircraft veered off the strip. Its crew hastily cut power to the engines, saving their lives.

Two Dakotas had been destroyed and two damaged. The first airlift to Blackpool was

concluded.[cxiv]

It would soon transpire that the brigade would have no time to settle into its new camp. Lt-

General Takeda’s 53rd Japanese Division (having rushed through empty Broadway and White

City), tore into the zone in strength. The first attack began on May 8.

With 105mm guns firing from up the valley, Japanese railway troops from Pinbaw attacked for

the next five nights, held at bay by the rifles and machine guns of the King’s own Rifles, and

the mortars, which Masters had gathered from the battalions and wielded as single battery of

eight.

Despite the strong defense, in one section of the northern line nicknamed the “Deep” — which

was the tip of the “boar’s nose,” the Japanese were as close as 10 to 20 yards from the wire.

Enemy snipers took shots at anything that moved while the King’s own snipers and Bren

gunners occupied hidden places among the shattered trees, firing whenever they saw the target,

after which a cry would resound amid the quiet that followed: “got him!”

The Japanese brought up a single 75mm artillery piece from Pinbaw, with which they shelled

the camp, blasting the airstrip with impunity and setting the gliders and Dakotas on fire, until

May 13 when Masters came into possession of three airlifted 25-pdr guns, allowing him to hit

back. Overhead Cochran’s Air Commandos mounted sortie after sortie against the Japanese

positions but it was clear they could not maintain the ante. The dark clouds of the monsoon

were gathering in strength.

A crisis was developing at the “Deep.” An earlier attempt to relieve the pressure with a clearing

maneuver by two platoons had met dismal failure after the force commander was killed and

several men wounded. Within days, the extent of close-quartered fighting at the position had

“reached the limit of human tolerance.”

It was imperative to force the Japanese back. The Chindit mortar teams were ordered to remove

the secondary charges from their bombs, which when fired from the center of the camp, fell

only five or 10 yards from the forward wire. To augment the mortars, Masters summoned

Allied aircraft to drop 250lb bombs just near his forward positions. Masters estimated that if

the strike was accurate he would kill 20 of his men, 40 if it was inaccurate.

Six American Mustangs appeared, carrying out repeated bombing and strafing runs east to west

across the outer wire. In concert, the Chindit machineguns and mortars opened fire against the

enemy-held ground. The earth seemed to shake under the weight of allied fire. The sounds of

gunfire and explosions blotted out all noise. Trees, withered by fire, crashed to the earth, the

leaves vanished. The Mustangs continued their dives and climb, their .50-cal machineguns

chattering, the noise masked and added to the crescendo of hell unleashed upon that piece of

earth.

Gradually the noise subsided, replaced by an unearthly silence. For the longest time, no one

moved. Then bands of Chindits left their positions to recover their dead and the wounded.

Masters claimed there were no Chindit casualties.[cxv] As for the space beyond the wire. Not

a living thing moved anywhere within 200 yards of Blackpool’s perimeter, save for a solitary

sniper who continued to fire for the remainder of the day. Masters again summoned the Air

Commandos, this time B-25 Mitchells, and bombed the area beyond that 200 yards of denuded,

churned earth.

The Japanese retaliated through a single heavy mortar, firing 60lb bombs (in comparison,

Chindit’s standard 81mm mortar fired a 10lb bomb). The days went past in an unending blur

of mud, rain and blood, punctuated by fantastic pyrotechnics. “The ‘Deep’ sector looked like

Passchendale,” wrote Masters. “Blasted trees, feet blasted trees, feet and twisted hands sticking

up out of the earth, bloody shirts, ammunition clips, holes half full of water, each containing

two pale, huge-eyed men, trying to keep their rifles out of the mud, and over all the heavy,

sweet stench of death, from our own bodies and entrails lying unknown in the shattered ground,

from Japanese corpses on the wire, or fastened, dead and rotting, in the trees.”[cxvi] When the

rain fell, it fell hissing upon the gutted forest.

The enemy artillery continued to take a killing toll on the camp with their near continuous fire.

As the brigade’s casualties rose, Masters demanded sound-ranging and flash-spotting

equipment so that he could retaliate against the Japanese artillery.[cxvii]

In the meantime, as the rain churned Blackpool into slush and as trenches and foxholes

overflowed with water, and as his casualties continued to rise, Masters felt rage overcome him.

“Where in the name of God were the floater brigades? White City had been evacuated thirteen

days earlier and 14 Brigade was supposed to come straight up here. My brigade had marched

140 route miles in 14 days to establish this block. Surely those bloody nitwits could cover 120

route miles in thirteen days? Where the hell were they? Where were the West

Africans?…Twenty bloody battalions, forty flaming columns of Chindit bullshit sat on their

arses and drank eat and wondered how we were getting on.”[cxviii]

There is no doubt that Masters felt his brigade occupied a lonely outpost in the midst of enemy

territory. In reality, Calvert’s 77 Brigade was recuperating in the hills to the east, before their

big push to Mogaung. Some of Calvert’s troops could even see Blackpool from their lofty

perches at Lamai in the Loiyang Hills, seven miles away. Meanwhile, the 14th Brigade and 3rd

West Africans were still arriving, to take positions on the hills to the west.

On May 17, a force of US P-38 Lightning fighters patrolled the valley, hunting for the Japanese

artillery. They failed to spot the guns, by now had been reinforced with even heavier 155mm

guns, which together with enemy mortars positions on a ridge 1,000 yards ahead, began to

pummel the camp. The fire became concentrated on the King’s own in the “Deep.”

Major Heap, second-in-command of the battalion came over the radio. “We’ve had it, sir,” he

said. “They are destroying all the posts, direct hits all the time…all machine guns knocked out,

crews killed…I don’t think we can hold them off…”[cxix]

Masters immediately rang up Major Tim “Breezy” Brennan, commanding 26 Column

(Cameronians). The entire column was to get to the ridge crest, with all their supporting

weapons and take over the defense of the “Deep.”

“Yes, sir,” Brennan said pleasantly, as if he had no inkling of the debacle at the “Deep.” Masters

rang off and hurried to oversee the relief first-hand, accompanied by his mortar officer, Major

Johnny Boden. Masters felt certain the Japanese would attack the moment the King’s own left

their positions. Boden’s mortars were to lay down a smokescreen to cover the withdrawal. But

strangely, when Masters arrived the place was silent. There was no shelling, no gunfire. The

dull light of twilight loomed. Masters couldn’t fathom it. The Japanese should have been

sweeping the slope he and Boden were standing on with machinegun fire. The ground was

already pockmarked with thousands of pits and indentations characteristic of small-arms fire,

but there was nothing now.

Brennan and his men arrived over the small ridge overlooking the deep. Masters told Boden to

lay down smoke ahead of the perimeter. As the smoke landed where it should, Brennan and his

men raced down the slope towards the “Deep.” Masters flinched. Surely, the Japanese would

fire now. The Cameronians jumped into the waterlogged trenches. Yet, still nothing from the

Japanese. The King’s own were trudging up the slope towards Masters. There was nothing to

stop them; not a shell, a bullet or a well-thrown stone. The white smoke swirled under a dusky

breeze, the clink of the fabric and metal of the soldier’s kit made a rhythmic noise, their boots

thudding on the wet earth, as the voices of the enthusiastic Cameronians could be heard as they

identified the best defensive spots and cursed the water in the trenches.

The Cameronian support teams arrived, bent over, human mules lugging heavy machine guns

and ammunition boxes. Major Heaps’ King’s own passed Masters slowly, accusingly, their

tunics bloodied, their eyes red, unfocused and haunted, their mouths open, gasping.

“I wanted to cry,” Masters wrote. “But dared not. I could only mutter, ‘Well done, well done,’

as they passed.”[cxx]

Still, the Japanese did nothing. Masters had barbed wire, ammunition sent down to Brennan.

He had the Cameronian machineguns deployed in trenches on the crest, from where they could

sweep the entire front with fire. Darkness came and with it rain. An hour passed in silence,

broken only by the muffled voices of the Cameronians. Damned mystifying. Then the Japanese

fury began anew.

With a great cymbal of machineguns and mortars, the battle was joined. All night it raged. The

Cameronian machineguns took a killing toll on the attackers. Twice, the Japanese — mostly

older conscripts from Kyoto — breached with wire with Bangalore torpedoes, only to be halted

by the mortars. At 4 am, the Japanese launched a final counterattack. Not for the glory or the

emperor or even to attain the “Deep,” but to recover the bodies of the dead and the dying. The

Cameronians unleashed hell. The Japanese fell back in disarray.

When, next morning, when a British patrol explored the hills across from the perimeter, they

found that the Japanese had gone, their mortar pits empty, the machinegun dugouts abandoned,

the trenches unnatural in their emptiness. The patrols reported that the forest was full of blood

and broken bodies. Mass graves had been dug and filled. Japanese bodies lay haphazardly in

stream beds and in blast craters while thousands of spent cartridge cases glinted upon the

oozing, primordial earth.

Masters later estimated — based on the post-war interrogations of Japanese officers who

spokeof the 53rd Division losing an entire regiment near Hopin — that the Japanese had

suffered 800 to a thousand casualties. In contrast, the 111th Brigade had suffered 200 casualties

(mostly King’s own troops). Japanese heroism had given the Allies a critical victory. The men

of 111th Brigade were now not only the lords of the Blackpool but also the surrounding

countryside for a mile around.[cxxi] But everyone knew this was not to last.

As the rains continued to fall Masters began to send out increasingly urgent messages to

headquarters, calling for Brodie’s 14th Brigade to come up as soon as possible, for when the

Japanese attacked again —and Masters was certain they would — they could be trapped

between both brigades and annihilated.

As the drumbeat of the impasse continued to beat, reinforcements arrived to join Blackpool:

Lt-Colonel “Scottie” Scott’s 2nd King’s Regiment (Liverpool) and 900 troops of Lt-Colonel

Alec Harper’s 3/9th Gurkhas —both formerly of Colonel Rome’s command at Broadway, who

managed to get in before the rains flooded the Namyin Chaung outside the perimeter. Masters

noted that both units were tired, but sent the King’s back out to locate and destroy the still

unscathed Japanese artillery to the north.

The Gurkhas were assigned to perimeter defense as Masters withdrew the King’s own from the

line. The Gurkhas were not a Chindit battalion in the proper sense, having been trained as a

garrison force.[cxxii] They had fought valiantly defending Broadway, and Masters expected

much of the same from them, aware of the categorical Japanese fear of Gurkha troops whom

they considered ruthless and formidable in battle.

Major Percival Leathart, ‘D’ Company commander, would never forget their first introduction

to Blackpool and its commander. “The first time I saw [John Masters] he was wearing nothing

but a pair of shorts made from an old parachute… The block was a mess of Japanese corpses

outside, and inside the stench of death and latrines.”

The Gurkhas took over the positions held by the King’s own. Leathart jumped into a slit trench

to check its field of fire. He noticed a soldier inside staring out at the perimeter. He seemed

oblivious of Leathart who tapped him on the shoulder. The man toppled over, dead as stone.

Rigor mortis had already set it and to Leathart’s consternation, no knew seemed to know when

he had died.[cxxiii]

Calvert and the rest of the 77th Brigade also sought to join the defenders, but by the time

Calvert could approach Blackpool, the Namyin Chaung was in full spate and impossible to

cross.[cxxiv]

When conditions became clear a massive flight of Dakotas escorted by fighters arrived to

evacuate all the wounded. Commanders were relieved to see the wounded and the infirm taken

away even as fresh casualties took their place in the medical station, laid low by all manner of

battlefield wounds, malaria, sepsis, pneumonia, and meningitis. Other men were beginning to

suffer from psychological conditions. “You could see people going downhill,” said Major

“Doc” Whyte. “Some even died in their sleep.”[cxxv]

Medical care in the field, in short, was the stuff of nightmares for Chindit medical officer.

Medicine was always in short supply.[cxxvi] Mules attached to the medical teams carried a

pannier on one side filled with medical supplies, which as experience showed, always seemed

to run out. Mepacrin (or atabrine), the anti-malarial medicine, was so much in demand that the

medical teams did not have enough to dole out. Incredibly, there were no antibiotics — none

having been issued, and medical staff had to make do with suplhamine. The medical teams did

not have large tents for operations and they did not have mosquito nets.

Those unlucky enough to be immobilized by wounds had to be dragged behind mules on

bamboo stretchers, the front handles attached to the mule’s saddle with the back handles

dragging on the ground — a scene conjuring up imagery from the old Wild West. Four men

with ropes walked alongside to help the stretcher up over the bumps on the ground and steer

the mule.

Daily inspections for malaria became commonplace as everyone seemed to get it at one time

or the other. Every morning, when the situation allowed, the men were lined up inspection. The

NCOs ensured that everybody took mepacrin. The medicine turned the eyes yellow, “but after

a bit you didn’t care” said Whyte. The Gurkhas, however, did mind after a rumor spread that

the medicine made them impotent. Many threw away their valuable doses. It took some time

for Whyte and the other medical personnel to quash that tale.

For Masters, even more exhilarating news was around the corner. Reports arrived that Merrill’s

Marauders had captured Myitkyina which meant that the campaign was largely over. In reality,

the Marauders had only captured the city airfield even as their forays into the city met fierce

resistance.

After their victory at Nhpum Ga, the three Marauder battalions had remained in the area, buying

their dead in a makeshift cemetery replete with bamboo crosses, undergoing treatment for their

wounds and having hundreds of other minor conditions, such as leech bites, dermatitis,

intestinal problems, and fevers addressed.

The regiment had been shot to pieces and having been promised only a three month campaign,

it believed it was entitled to some well-deserved rest. Many Marauders began to believe that

the Chinese would take over the advance. But when rumors had begun to circulate that the

regiment was to attack Myitkyina, the Marauders, in the words of James Hopkins, the 3rd

Battalion surgeon,[cxxvii] began to regard “Stilwell with considerable hostility.”[cxxviii]

Some of the officers began to consider Stilwell a rank hypocrite and a liar. After, wasn’t it

“Vinegar Joe” who had castigated Wingate for losing one-third of his force during their first

foray in Burma in 1943? Now, the Marauders had lost almost as many, yet Stilwell was

determined to keep them in the field. Angry mutterings began that it was Stilwell, not Wingate,

who was “prepared to sacrifice his own troops.”[cxxix] The Marauders were not to know it,

but it was also their own temporary chief, Lt-Colonel Hunter, leading them in Merrill’s

absence, who was pushing plans for an attack instead of demanding succor.

Hunter first learned for Stilwell’s plan for Myitkyina during a rare visit to Hsamshingyang by

Colonel Henry Kinnison II (Stilwell’s G-3). Hunter, who coveted full command of the

Marauders, immediately drew up a feasibility study for the operation using data obtained from

American OSS agents, Kachins and missionary priests. Perhaps Hunter hoped that plans would

impress Stilwell enough to promote him to brigadier-general. Whatever the reason Hunter sent

the report to Stilwell’s headquarters via his own adjutant, Major Louis Williams.

There, Williams had found Merrill, seemingly recovered. Merrill took charge of the plans,

apparently giving everyone the unintended impression that they were his. Stilwell had

approved. A “Myitkyina Task Force” was created, comprising elements of the Marauders, the

Chinese 150th Infantry (50th Division) and the Chinese 88th Infantry (30th Division). The

Marauders were deloused, issued fresh uniforms and shunted back into the advance.

Stilwell, who had never liked Hunter, appointed one if his Chinese-speaking officers, Colonel

John McCammon, as executive officer of the Task Force. With this selection, Hunter fell to

third place in the Force hierarchy. “The men of Galahad resented this more than I did,” he said

later. “They embarrassed me at times by openly offering their sympathy.” Merrill, however,

asked Hunter to lead the attack spearhead. Hunter chose the battle-hardened 1st Battalion as

his unit of choice.[cxxx]

Hunter commanded “H” Force: the 1st Battalion and the Chinese 150th Infantry

Regiment[cxxxi]. Colonel Kinnison led “K” Force: the 3rd Marauder Battalion and the Chinese

88th Regiment. “M” Force was Colonel McGee’s 2nd Battalion, augment with Kachin rebels

trained by OSS[cxxxii] officers of Detachment 101.

The combat teams headed into back into the jungle in the last

week of April to cover the arduous 100 km (62 miles) distance through the Kumon Mountains

towards their objective. The troops moved rapidly through the Pidaung forest without a word.

“The silence of a column of four thousand men marching in a cave of darkness through

unknown and unfamiliar surroundings is almost deafening in its intensity,” Hunter later said.

“The absence of the usual chatter, horseplay, and wisecracks emphasizes the tenseness gripping

the men.”[cxxxiii]

By May 16th, the leading US elements were reconnoitering the airfield perimeter. At about

2.30 am, Sergeant Clarence E. Branscomb, a combat veteran of the Solomon Islands, began to

walk down the middle of runway, radio in hand. He called his battalion commander, Lt-Colonel

Caifson Johnson, telling him there were no Japanese to be seen on the airfield.

As Johnson radioed India to send gliders with heavy equipment, the Kachins and OSS teams

were already interviewing the locals, rousing them from their sleep in the dead of night. The

question was always: what can you tell us about the Japanese here?

The stream of information proved invaluable: The Japanese had no barbed wire around the

field, the revetments were not fortified; fifty-five-gallon drums of oil were placed on the

runway to prevent surprise landings; 2,000 Japanese had been in Myitkyina before but now

they were gone, although there were some Japanese at Pamati, a hamlet to the southeast, with

25 geishas in residence.

The gliders were delayed until the next morning, and in the interim, Hunter deployed his troops.

He positioned the Chinese, not known for their swimming skills, with their backs to the

Irrawaddy River so that they would be less inclined to retreat. They were to attack along a

broad front and overrun the airfield. Already, Lt-Colonel Osborne’s 1st Battalion captured

Pamati and the ferry point at Zigyun. The order to go for the airfield was set at 10 am. For the

next few hours, the troops snatched hurried, incomplete spells of sleep.

Yet, when the time came, all the objectives fell swiftly that next morning. The airfield was

theirs and as the Kachins set upon removed the oil drums from the runway, Hunter heard a roar

in the sky. Looking up, he saw US P-40 Kittyhawk fighters. The flight leader radioed Hunter

asking for targets. There were none on the airfield. Hunter asked him to check the city and

relay a message to headquarters: “Merchant of Venice” — a previously agreed-upon code

phrase indicating success[cxxxiv]

Stilwell’s headquarters received this message at about 3.30 in the afternoon. Stilwell was

jubilant. “Will this burn up the limeys!” he wrote in his diary.[cxxxv]

On the next day, May 18, two limeys flew to see him: Masters and Lentaigne, neither of whom

was particularly burned up. Master, while happy to hear about American successes at

Myitkyina, was nevertheless concerned about the growing Japanese strength around Blackpool

—his angst compounded by disturbing reports of Japanese troops massing at Mogaung, set

between Blackpool and Myitkyina.

Slim had formally transferred the Chindits to Stilwell on May 17th, and now “Vinegar Joe,”

had summoned Masters to ask what good Blackpool was doing.

Lentaigne had warned Masters that Stilwell was a “volatile” man. When things were going

fine, he was exactly how he appeared in the press — warm, affable and charming, but when

things were going bad, he hated the world.[cxxxvi] Lentaigne had a particular word of caution

about Stilwell’s staff. “He’s difficult enough,” he said, “but they’re impossible. There’s one

chap who keeps whispering in Stilwell’s ear that the Chindits do nothing but march away from

the enemy and drink tea, by Jove, eh what?”[cxxxvii]

Masters remarked that perhaps the man was right — at least about some Chindits — meaning

Brodie’s 14th Brigade.

“14 Brigade’s doing its best, Jack,” Lentaigne snapped. Masters apologized.

When they saw Stilwell, they saw to their relief that he was in a good mood — the Marauders

had seen to that by seizing the airfield.

He asked Masters if Blackpool was stopping all traffic in the railway valley. Masters replied

that they were doing what they could, but that some Japanese were slipping past, and could

only be halted if further reinforcements were brought in. Masters also asked him when

Myitkyina was expected to fall.

“Soon,” Vinegar Joe replied and that was the end of the meeting. Outside, Lentaigne explained

to Masters that Stilwell was flying massive Chinese reinforcements into the Myitkyina airfield

to capture the town.

This was indeed true. A veritable air armada had started to land at the airfield in US Dakotas

pulled from their “hump” flights, bringing in anti-aircraft companies, aviation engineers, an

entire regiment of Chinese soldiers — everything except food and ammunition, which Hunter’s

men were shot of. To be fair, Stilwell was not to blame — for once. Maj-General Stratemeyer,

back in India, had authorized the transfers, later arguing that he had feared for the security of

the airfield.[cxxxviii]

However, there seemed to be no concrete plan on how to capture Myitkyina town. Stilwell

believed the city would capitulate in short order and wanted to give his Chinese troops the

honor of seizing the final prize, so long awaited.[cxxxix] Two battalions of the Chinese 150th

Infantry were ordered to go in and clear the city on the afternoon of May 17th. Under Japanese

sniper fire, however, the Chinese had panicked. All attempts at unit cohesion dissolved as the

Chinese scattered into small groups, firing every which way, including at other groups of

Chinese.

According to Thomas Kepley, an American liaison officer with the 150th Infantry, the unit had

been given orders to seize the train station but the Chinese proved useless at map reading and

the regimental commander stupidly ordered his men advance along the open space of the rail

line instead of on the road, where they had better cover.

The rampant acts of friendly fire ceased only after the sun set but resumed the next morning

when the newly arrived Chinese 89th Infantry (having landed overnight), began to take up

positions nearby. Both regiments had been oblivious of each other’s positions and opened fire

believing the other was a Japanese force. The shooting only stopped after repeated

interventions from headquarters.[cxl]

Another factor not much considered by Stilwell but was to be just as lethal as bullets was

tsutsugamushi fever, a form of typhus brought to Burma by the Japanese. The disaease began

to run amok among the Americans and the Chinese. Hundreds of men began to drop out of the

line, requiring immediate hospitalization.

Hunter and Merrill flew to Shaduzup on May 19th to confer with Stilwell about the battle.

Hunter told the general that the Japanese in Myitkyina had about two-and-a-half battalions of

troops and were expected to resist fiercely. Stilwell’s intelligence officer, his own son, Colonel

Joseph Stilwell, Jr — a product of nepotism if there ever was one — disagreed.[cxli] He put

forward a new estimate for the number of defenders: 300 Japanese. After the war, the official

US Army history of the campaign would record this figure as a gross underestimation.

Hunter and Merrill were aghast. Later that same day, (May 19th), Merrill was to suffer his

second heart attack, and this time, doctors recommended his immediate evacuation back the

United States. Merrill was going home, and with that, out of the Burma story. This once again

left Hunter in temporary charge of the Marauders, but he was soon to be supplanted by a staff

officer from Stilwell’s staff, Colonel John McCammon, who was unofficially made a

Brigadier-General.[cxlii]

On the 20th, food and ammunition finally arrived by air, and Hunter prepared another foray

into the city. The result was again an unmitigated fiasco.♦

[i] Fergusson, The Wild Green Earth, 82-83.

[ii] Ibid,83.

[iii] This meeting known as the Aberdeen Conference took place on April 3. (Calvert,

Prisoners, loc. 1460, 28%)

[iv] Fergusson, 84.

[v] Masters, 169-170.

[vi] Fergusson, 86.

[vii] CO: Commanding Officer

[viii] Fergusson, 83.

[ix] Calvert, Prisoners, loc. 1460, 28%

[x] Thompson, 162.

[xi] See Fergusson, The Wild Green Earth.

[xii] Thompson, 181.

[xiii] Ibid., 179.

[xiv] Cave Diaries, 59. Also see Bidwell.

[xv] Allen, 330.

[xvi] Ibid., 333.

[xvii] Ibid., 336.

[xviii] Under an earlier operational plan, codenamed Operation “Tarzan,” the 26th Division

was to be airlanded in Burma, once the other Chindit brigades had established themselves.

[xix] Some historians also contend that Slim released the brigade to Wingate without

preconditions, but this is unlikely. Slim did not much see the value of Operation “Thursday,”

and he had the bigger problem of defeating the Japanese in India.

[xx] Kirby, The War Against Japan, Vol III, 212-218.

[xxi] Slim, Defeat into Victory, 270.

[xxii] Fergusson, 114.

[xxiii] Fergusson, The Wild Green Earth, 103.

[xxiv] With the 139th Independent Infantry Battalion, the 141 Independent Infantry Battalion,

and brigade artillery, engineers and signals. The Brigade would reach Indaw between 26-31

March.

[xxv] Allen 337.

[xxvi] Fergusson, 108.

[xxvii] Fergusson was not to know that the Japanese were already prepared for an attack, owing

to the earlier misinformation campaign by the Chindits of 111th brigade heading for Pinlebu.

The Japanese also accurately judged that any attacking troops would seek water and

appropriately defended the Indaw Lake.

[xxviii] Fergusson, 108.

[xxix] About 2,000 Japanese troops held the airfield.

[xxx] Fergusson, 112.

[xxxi] According to Calvert, the dump held reserve ammunition for the Japanese 31st Division

attacking Kohima. (Prisoners, loc. 1374, 26%)

[xxxii] Fergusson, 114.

[xxxiii] Ibid, 119.

[xxxiv] Astor, 228.

[xxxv] Allen, 348.

[xxxvi] Ibid., 348.

[xxxvii] Van Wagner, 64.

[xxxviii] Fergusson, 117.

[xxxix] Trevor Royle, Wingate: A Man of Genius, 310-12.

[xl] According to the rules of war and the fact that those deceased were on a US military plane,

all the bodies, including that Wingate, were buried at Arlington Cemetery at Washington, DC,

which would cause much controversy later.

[xli] Van Wagner, 66.

[xlii] Fergusson, 117.

[xliii] Fergusson, Trumpet in the Hall, 177.

[xliv] Richard Rhodes-James, Chindits, 206.

[xlv] Zeigler, Mountbatten, 276.

[xlvi] Ronald Lewin, Slim: The Standardbearer, 146.

[xlvii] Slim, Defeat into Victory, 326.

[xlviii] Bidwell, 160.

[xlix] The youngest on record was William Holmes who became a major-general in 1937 at

age 42.

[l] Allen, 350.

[li] ibid.

[lii] Ibid.

[liii] Allen, 351 & Bidwell

[liv] Bidwell, 160.

[lv] Astor, 250.

[lvi] In fact, the light, compact M1 carbine was supplied to the Chindits on a massive scale

from March-April, becoming the standard infantry small arm alongside the venerable Lee

Enfield .303 rifle.

[lvii] Ibid.

[lviii] Van Wagner, 66.

[lix] Allen, 351.

[lx] Tulloch had argued that the troops were in the grip of combat and could not be withdrawn,

and that the way the Zibyu Hills, near the Chindwin lay in such a way on the land that it gave

the Japanese an easy route to ambush the approaching Chindits.

[lxi] The 23rd Brigade would remain in India to conduct operations around Kohima.

[lxii] Allen, 352.

[lxiii] Ibid.

[lxiv] Phillips, Another Man’s War.

[lxv] Ibid.

[lxvi] The same thing happened at White City as well, apparently. Lt. Osborne told of an

incident in late April 1944, following an airdrop of medical supplies, when a Chindit doctor,

to his consternation, found that a critical box of plasma he had requested had not come. A few

minutes later a Nigerian NCO walked into the officer’s mess, and asked if there is any more of

that jam — from the last food drop.

[lxvii] Barnaby Phillips, Another Man’s War, Ch 2.

[lxviii] IWM interview, Catalogue# 10467

[lxix] Van Wagner, 69.

[lxx] Astor, 254.

[lxxi] John Hamilton, War Bush, 346.

[lxxii] Astor, ibid.

[lxxiii] Calvert, Prisoners of Hope, loc. 1073-1084, 21% Ch. 6.

[lxxiv] In all, the African Chindits of the RWAFF were awarded one Distinguished Conduct

Medal, 10 Military Medals and six Certificates of Gallantry.

[lxxv] Calvert, Prisoners, Loc. 1660, 32%.

[lxxvi] Telegraph Obituary. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9531609/Jack-

Osborne.html)

[lxxvii] Calvert, Prisoners, loc. 3030, 58%

[lxxviii] Masters, 163.

[lxxix] Thompson, 187.

[lxxx] Calvert, Fighting Mad.

[lxxxi] Thompson, 188-89.

[lxxxii] See Dennis Showalter & William Astore’s The Early Modern World, 66-69.

[lxxxiii] Thompson, 189.

[lxxxiv] Carfrae, Chindit Column, 180.

[lxxxv] Astor, 256.

[lxxxvi] Thompson, 189-190.

[lxxxvii] Astor, 257.

[lxxxviii] Calvert, Fighting Mad, 186.

[lxxxix] Calvert, Prisoners, loc. 2022, 39%

[xc] Astor, 257.

[xci] Allen, 356.

[xcii] Calvert, Prisoners, loc. 2178, 42%.

[xciii] Redding, 274.

[xciv] Thompson, 191.

[xcv] Astor, 259.

[xcvi] At this time, the brigade had a strength of 2277 men and 313 animals. Calvert had lost

46 officers and 692 men killed and 279men evacuated sick (a figure not including the Nigerians

and Scott’s King’s who were at Broadway). (Calvert, Prisoners, loc. 2170-2178, 42%).

[xcvii] Rhodes-James, IWM Interview, Catalogue# 19593.

[xcviii] Smythie survived the war and lived on in Burma as a civil servant in the post-war era.

[xcix] Fergusson, 95. The Japanese never recaptured Aberdeen, or the surrounding area and

the villagers all survived.

[c] Fergusson, 138.

[ci] Allen, 357.

[cii] Bidwell, 208 & Allen, 357-358.

[ciii] Astor, 240.

[civ] Ibid., 241.

[cv] Ibid., 243.

[cvi] Lyons had been a member of the 33rd Infantry in Trinidad, as was Colonel Gee and most

of the men in the 2nd Battalion. (Astor, 163).

[cvii] Astor, 243.

[cviii] Ibid., 244-246.

[cix] Allen, 358.

[cx] Masters was actually only a lieutenant, but had been given the war substantive rank of

temporary major.

[cxi] Allen, 359.

[cxii] Ibid., 358.

[cxiii] Thompson, 181.

[cxiv] Masters, 236-237.

[cxv] Ibid., 244.

[cxvi] Ibid., 245.

[cxvii] Ibid., 239.

[cxviii] Ibid., 243.

[cxix] Ibid., 245-246.

[cxx] Ibid., 246.

[cxxi] Ibid., 247.

[cxxii] Alec Harper, IWM interview, Catalogue# 16442.

[cxxiii] Thompson, 196.

[cxxiv] Allen, 360.

[cxxv] Thompson, 181.

[cxxvi] Dental care was not much of a problem, Whyte explained, more so was optometry.

“Men who wore glasses took in a spare pair, but if they broke the second pair they had to have

another pair flown in.”

[cxxvii] Hopkins, had perhaps appropriately graduated from Johns Hopkins University

Medical School in the spring of 1941 and was serving his first year as a surgical resident when

the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He subsequently served in New Zealand with the 37th

Infantry Division, eventually transferring to the 148th Infantry Regiment which fought in the

South pacific.

[cxxviii] Astor, 260.

[cxxix] Ibid.

[cxxx] Astor, 262.

[cxxxi] One-third of this Chinese regiment comprised veterans, with the rest were raw recruits.

[cxxxii] OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the precursor to the CIA.

[cxxxiii] Astor, 263.

[cxxxiv] Ibid., 265.

[cxxxv] Ibid., 265.

[cxxxvi] Masters, 249.

[cxxxvii] Ibid.

[cxxxviii] Astor, 271.

[cxxxix] See Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China.

[cxl] Astor, 272.

[cxli] Stilwell also appointed two of his sons-in-law as liaison officers with the Chinese. (Allen,

367, see footnote)

[cxlii] Astor, 274.