Rangoon Battalion: The Monywa Picnic - Part 10

PART 10
The Monywa Picnic

Next morning found us at a tiny station called Alon near the Chindwin River about 4 miles from what was supposed to be our first destination — Monywa. We were told that we could not get any further because there had been another rail crash just short of Monywa and the line was blocked. However, a message was being sent to Monywa for our steamers to come up stream and pick us up at Alon. So we all detrained and sought what shelter we could from the blazing sun under bushes and trees. We were well away from the village and the countryside was completely flat but reasonably well covered with scrub jungle and trees, and there we patiently waited.

At about 10.00 a.m. a single Jap recce plane slowly and impudently came over and circled round us twice. In vain we tried to shove all the Indians dressed in white out of sight under bushes but they, poor devils, were badly frightened and ran around in small circles. It was obvious that our party had been spotted and the probability was that the Japs, whose intelligence service was pretty good, would think that we were the main party from AHQ. However, there was nothing we could do about it. There were no trenches or drains or any features in the ground to offer protection against bombers. We did not have to wait long before our worst fears were justified. Exactly twenty minutes after the recce plane had buzzed off over came ten or eleven Jap bombers at about 1,200 feet. They had no opposition of any sort to contend with and so took their time circling to make quite sure of our position. Then they all spread out and formed up in line astern. Seeing this I immediately twigged what we were in for. I had experienced by this time well over thirty bombings which had all been the Jap speciality — “pattern bombing”. Now, to complete my education, by special courtesy of Army Headquarters, under whose kind auspices our “Monywa picnic” had been arranged, I was to experience dive bombing — and this without the protection of a trench or cover of any sort!

The next ten minutes or so seemed like an eternity. One by one those blasted yellow bastards came shrieking down right on to us, let go four bombs apiece then swooped up and away. Their aim was excellent. Each lot of bombs went right through our small encampment. To say it was a terrifying experience would be a gross understatement. All we could do was to press ourselves close to the ground and hope for the best. To those of us who had seen the effectiveness of the Jap AP bomb before it was additionally unpleasant. As each deafening explosion occurred and left us alive, it seemed that the next would be bound to get us. And so it went on, each plane waiting its turn, each plane drowning the whistle of its falling bombs with the colossal shriek and roar of its power dive. Then it was suddenly all over, or seemed to be, and it was with some wonderment that I discovered that I was still alive. I looked up to see if the sky was clear and found that the last Jap plane in the line, having apparently found that he was slightly off his target in his first run up, was circling to make another run. He took his time about it and made no second mistake. Again the horrible shriek and roar of the dive, again the deafening explosion and then it really was all over.

I must admit that I was pretty shaky when I stood up again. If anyone ever tells you that he does not mind bombing, you can tell him from me that either he is a bloody liar or he has never experienced it at close quarters. One of the first things that met my eyes was a nice big bomb crater just fifteen yards from where I had been lying! Fortunately it was a high explosive. Had it been an AP I would not be writing this now.

There were bomb craters all about our encampment but, miraculously, in all our party of about 1,300 bodies there were only about 20 casualties. There were quite a few with minor injuries including some kids whose screams for the rest of the day were pitiful to hear. All our little party of officers were safe but Jack Villiers was rather badly shaken. He was only five yards from the bomb which had fallen fifteen yards from me and although the wretched thing had rolled him over several times, he did not have a scratch. A peculiar thing about the reaction was that we were all in flaming tempers. I always am after a raid and this time I was all the more livid with fury because the dive bombers had been such a perfect and unmissable target for the Browning .5’s we used to have and, during the raid, all I had was a revolver.

Everything was naturally in some confusion after the bombing and matters were not improved when we learned that, in response to our message to Monywa, a reply had been received that there were no steamers at Monywa. We were told to wait patiently in the fields whilst the leaders of the party went into conferences and put out SOS’s for help from I know not where. The rations which we had been told would be provided for us at all points en route had also not turned up, but fortunately some of us had a few tins of stuff stowed in our packs so our little bunch settled down, this time well away from our original site, and shared a rather miserable lunch.

At about 16.00 hours we received the astounding message — every officer for himself, get to India as best you can !! If you look up Alon on the map you will see that it was quite a pretty little problem. We had no maps and all we knew was that India was somewhere a few hundred miles the other side of the river and there were no known roads or paths except the unfinished Tamu road from Kalewa which was several days journey by river up stream, and we had no boats. Definitely something seemed to be going wrong with the lovely typed programme with which we had been issued at Shwebo! Our little clique was then about eight strong and we held an immediate council of war. We decided to pool all our resources of foodstuff and cash and stick together as far as possible. Our first objective was to be Kalewa and our only chance of getting there was by country boat.

At this stage Jack Villiers suddenly disappeared leaving his revolver on the ground and we spotted him going down to the river. He was still badly shaken by his narrow squeak earlier in the day and I don’t think he really knew what he was doing. It was, to say the least, rather foolish to wander around those parts alone and unarmed, so another officer and myself dashed after him with revolvers. We continued down to the river to investigate the possibilities of procuring a country boat and actually succeeded in finding one which would have just taken the eight of us with considerable discomfort. Fortunately the other officer spoke fluent Burmese and, after much haggling, the owner of the boat agreed to take us to Kalewa for the sum of 200 rupees. He told us that the small open boat would take at least eight days to do the journey. I should point out here that we had been told that the civilians in the party were no concern of ours — they would be looked after by the originally detailed officers as best they could. We were to fend for ourselves.

We got back to the others in the field and reported the success of our negotiations, We then got hold of a bullock cart and loaded all our kit on to it and sent it off to the river under the care of one of the officers. We had just done this when we heard artillery fire coming from the direction of Monywa. Taking it for AA fire which presaged another raid we scattered in the fields. We waited awhile but whereas the gunfire continued we could hear no planes. We all guessed what was happening but hardly dared voice our thoughts. The civilians were already in a state of panic, and no wonder considering the pasting they had had that morning. Soon we heard the unmistakable rat-tat-tat of machine guns mixed up with what was now plainly discernable as trench mortar fire.

We all hastened back to the station to try to contact the HQ of the party. There everyone was in a flat spin. Word had just come through that the Japs had come up the river on rafts and were gaily walking into Monywa where we had hardly any troops to stop them! Things did not look too good. In the whole of our party our total armament amounted to 30 revolvers. The Japs, complete with trench mortars, machine guns, rifles etc, were already at Monywa barely four miles away and it was known that we had no troops between Monywa and Alon. We were not long in reaching the decision that a rather speedy strategic withdrawal was indicated. Luckily we still had our train (no doubt this detail had been overlooked by AHQ when they arranged our picnic) but the engine had lost steam. This defect was being remedied, however, and we were all ordered to be on board the train at 19.00 hours to go back to Ye-U.

So we set out to find our kit on the bullock cart. On the way we had another diversion. We spotted some Burmese dacoits in the act of carting away some stuff they had just looted from our party. We opened fire with our revolvers at about 100 yards but they disappeared into the jungle and we had no time to chase after them. We could not find the wretched bullock cart and we were just about to go down to the river when we received word to get back to the station as quickly as possible. By this time the sound of battle from Monywa was getting pretty close. No sooner did we arrive at the station than the train started pulling out, so on we jumped. And bang went the last of my worldly possessions! We subsequently learned that the chap we had left in charge of our kit actually got it down to the river and into the boat whereupon our friend the Burmese boatman immediately sailed merrily away without even thanking us for our fine presents! All I had left at this comparatively early stage of the proceedings were the clothes I was wearing, my revolver and my wristwatch.

Next morning found us weary and dirty back at Ye-U, where there was more chaos and confusion. One possibility was to strike westwards from Ye-U on foot along the road to Kalewa but this was a four or five day trek and it was feared that the Japs, having got to Monywa so surprisingly quickly, would be at Kalewa before we could get there. Actually we learned later that this was yet another miscalculation by the powers that be because, the next day, the Japs were driven out of Monywa and we could have got through Kalewa with a day or two to spare and then out to India via Tamu, as originally planned. The trouble was, there were no communications at the time and no one really knew where the Jap main forces were and all we knew about our own forces was that they were fighting their way to the Chindwin on their retreat to India.

We were eventually told to walk to a tiny village called Kinu, 14 miles away, which was on the main Myitkyina railway line. From there they were going to try to get a train up from Shwebo to take us northwards. So Jack and I and the others set off on another stroll and fortunately Jack and I managed to get a lift most of the way by car. Captain Joe Slade, who could not walk much owing to something wrong with his knees, dropped out of our party at Ye-U. He subsequently died of exhaustion trying to trek the Tamu way. We arrived at Kinu at about 10.00 hours and found that it was going to be some time before a train could be summoned to our aid. Jack and I were dead tired so we found a shady spot well away from the railway line and promptly dozed off to sleep.

We had only been dozing for a few minutes when we were rudely awakened by the mighty roar of a large formation of bombers. It was too late to run for it and in any case there was nowhere to run to for cover. So for the second morning in succession we were caught without shelter and could only lay flat on the ground and hope for the best. This time it proved to be our old friend pattern bombing. It was just like a short sharp hail storm with bombs instead of hail. The shower started a little way behind us, swept right over us and finished up ahead. I hope I never again experience the awful sensation of lying in the open and hearing the terrific roar of bursting bombs get nearer and nearer until almost deafened by bombs falling all around. It is not to be recommended as a nerve tonic. However, when it was all over Jack and I found, once again to our great surprise, that we were still alive and unscratched. We found that the whole of Kinu village was ablaze (in two hours there was hardly a single house left standing) and the trees just near us were also burning merrily. We decided to move.

Back we went to the railway station where we arrived just in time to get the news that there was no hope of getting a train up from Shwebo as the line was blocked just north of Shwebo. The only chance was to get a train from Kanbalu, about 60 miles north, to come south and pick up the party. Again we were advised to get to India under our own steam if we possibly could. Jack and I with six other officers decided that we had had enough of the AHQ party which had led us only from one bombing to another so we made up our minds to strike out on our own. We reckoned that our best chance was to get to Kanbalu in the hope that we could find a train there to go northwards. The problem was, how to get to Kanbalu which was about 60 miles away. There was no proper road and we felt rather too tired to walk it.

It was then that we had our first bit of good luck. We met an office whom Jack Villiers knew, a Captain Oscar Milton, who from somewhere had obtained a Ford station wagon and was determined to drive it to Kanbalu over a bullock cart track. He already had twenty of his own men in the thing but we nevertheless persuaded him to take the eight of us. Looking back on it, it seems inconceivable how we managed to cram 28 bodies into a station wagon which was designed to carry 8. We threw out the seats and jammed ourselves in one on top of the other and off we went. It was an amazing journey Several times we all had to get out and push the car over bad bits of road and then we would be faced with the complicated job of getting all of us inside the wretched thing again. On the way the sides of the vehicle burst open and the mudguards fell off but on we went. After a halt at a village about half way where we managed to get some food we finally arrived at Kanbalu some time after dark.

There we found several trains waiting to go northwards. The whole line up to Myitkyina was absolutely blocked and congested. There had just been another terrific rail crash at Naba which was holding everything up and the whole situation was one of utter chaos. However, we ascertained which train was leaving first and we all managed to get a few square inches of floor space in a mail wagon wherein we started our slow journey northwards.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.