With Wingate in Burma

I enlisted in the 4th Bn, the Monmouthshire Regiment at Newport in 1939 and transferred to the 50th Welch Regt at Milford Haven in 1940.
Then after volunteering for anything, including training, native troops, I was sent out to Nigeria to the newly formed 7th Bn, the Nigeria Regt. In 1943 after training the men, we sailed for India. Here the 3rd Brigade was separated from the West African Division and sent to join the 3rd Indian Division under General Orde Wingate, the Chindit Leader.
In March 1944 the advance columns were flown in by gliders to a village called Mawlu, later called White City because of the number of parachutes hanging from the trees. Here a road and rail block was established to stop the Japanese from sending supplies to their troops up North who were fighting General Stillwell, the American commanding the Chinese moving down the Ledo road. After the block had been secured and an air strip made, the rest of the columns were flown in. We were now approximately 400 miles behind the Japanese lines and our job was to set up ambushes and attack the Japs any way we could. We held the block for three months, killing lots of Japanese.
Then, because of the monsoon we had to evacuate and make our way north to a place called Indawgye, fighting the Japs on the way. We were always wet and up to our knees in mud. There was plenty of sickness, malaria, typhus and dystentery, also wounded men.
While we guarded the perimeter of the lake, two Sunderland Flying Boats landed on the lake and took off the sick, two flights a day for a week.
After another month in Burma we met up with the Chinese and then went on a jeep train from Mogaung to Myitkyina. We flew back to India from Myitkyina and as I had served four years abroad I came back to the UK.

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