Rangoon Battalion: The Railway Transport Operations, Mandalay - Part 7

PART 7
The Railway Transport Operations, Mandalay

I do not propose to bore you with what the duties of an RTO are. They are many and varied, and the job is extremely interesting. I was to learn the ropes from and assist another young subaltern called Mayhew, and actually I was only supposed to be temporary until the arrival of a Captain fellow who was supposed to be on his way to take over at Mandalay with Mayhew as his assistant. With the railway south of Thazi in enemy hands, Mandalay station was the busiest and most important station on the whole of the Burma Railways system, and Mayhew and I were accordingly kept mighty busy. We had a staff of one sergeant, a night clerk and a couple of couriers. The railways were then being used almost entirely for military purposes and were functioning more or less normally, although they were very short staffed, a great number of the staff having already run away.

I soon settled down to my new job and began to thoroughly enjoy it, although the work was extremely hard and the hours long. One of our greatest difficulties was to stop looting on and around the station and another was to dispose of corpses. Mandalay was badly afflicted with a cholera epidemic and its victims invariably seemed to choose the station to die on. We were seldom without two or three bodies lying around and, needless to say, I was not long before getting a cholera inoculation.

The exciting part of my adventures as an RTO began on the evening of 2nd April, when I had my first introduction to Myohaung station, of which station I shall have much to say later on. Myohaung was a tiny station about four miles from Mandalay and I had to drive there this particular night to push through a highly important rations train. I arrived there at about 10.00 p.m. and the station presented the most extraordinary spectacle. There must have been about two or three thousand Indian men, women and children fighting each other to get on this train, which they had heard was going to Mongwa whence they could get to India by a comparatively easy route. Nobody appeared to be in control and hundreds of people had already succeeded in boarding the train. They were all over it, in the goods wagons, on top of the wagons, on the coal tender and even on top of the driver’s cab of the engine. There were no less than ten corpses lying on the platforms, and I think the mob was more scared of cholera than of the Japs.

The train being a military special, my orders were that no passengers were allowed to travel on it. There was nobody there to assist me, and it took me three solid hours of swearing, persuading, bullying, and threatening to clear the train of its human occupants and get it away. It was a tough and heartbreaking job. As I approached the train I was besieged by a stinking howling mob who clutched my knees and licked my boots in the hope that I would get them on the train. I dared not show any weakness or sympathy however, and had to kick them out of my way. The stench was awful and I had to tie a handkerchief over my nose and mouth. Those who were already on the train were very difficult to remove and some I had to throw off bodily. I had to draw and flourish my revolver to show that I meant business. The job was done eventually and I gave the driver orders to pull out. I then beat it like hell in case the exasperated mob turned on me.

I looked in at Mandalay station on the way back, and although it was then about 1.00 a.m. I found Mayhew up to his eyes in it, as a Chinese troop train and a hospital train had just arrived. It was about 4.00 a.m. before we both got clear of the station and as one of us had to be back at the station at 6.30 a.m. we tossed for it. I lost, and as it as not worth while going all the way back to my own mess inside the Fort, I snatched an hour’s sleep on the floor at Mayhew’s mess near the station. I was back on Mandalay station at 6.30 a.m. and worked solidly until relieved by the bleary eyed Mayhew at 10.30 a.m. I then returned to my own mess and, utterly exhausted, threw off all my clothes and was asleep almost before I had time to lie down.

This was on Good Friday, 3rd April. I could not have been asleep more than a couple of minutes when I was rudely awakened by a terrific shower of bombs which sounded as if they were bursting all round me. This was at about 11.00 a.m. and it was a most uncomfortable feeling to be caught in a raid when entirely naked and on the first floor of a wooden bungalow. I instinctively dived under my bed, realised it was only a canvas camp bed, so grabbed my dressing gown and dashed downstairs and out to our trench in the compound, where I arrived just in time for the second wave of bombers. Fortunately for me, neither wave dropped any bombs inside the Fort.

Now, for the previous five or six days in Mandalay we had received an air raid warning every morning but no bombers had come over. When the bombers did come on Good Friday, however, there was no warning whatsoever — an excellent piece of fifth column work! Mandalay was caught completely unawares and the casualties were accordingly very high. As soon as the bombs ceased falling I could see a huge conflagration in the direction of my station, so I thought I had better get down there as quickly as possible. So I dressed, jumped into my car and drove out of the Fort through the South Gate.

The scenes outside the South Gate and along the South Moat Road were indescribably horrible. Several bombs had fallen along the road and there were bodies and bits of bodies all over the place. The firefighters were already at work at their hopeless task and I found it impossible to drive through to the station, around which the whole area was ablaze. The fires were so terrific that sparks jumped the road, the moat and the wall of the Fort to set fire to and entirely destroy the British Military Hospital inside the Fort. (The hospital was not bombed although I have read to the contrary in some English papers. Fortunately all the patients were carried out in time.) After four unsuccessful attempts to get through to the station by various routes I returned to the Fort to try to find someone with a motor cycle which might be able to get through where a car was unable to go. I found Donald Price who had a motorbike and he eventually got me to the station by a devious route and dropped me there.

The station buildings, although somewhat knocked about, had not caught fire and No. 1 platform was comparatively undamaged. The rest of the station and the marshalling yards, however, were just a blazing inferno. Every wagon within sight appeared to be burning merrily and the heat was absolutely terrific. There was no one about and obviously anyone who had arrived at the scene before me had decided that nothing could be done until the fires abated. I was just about to leave the scene of devastation when I was joined by another young subaltern (I never found out who he was) and together we stood on No. 1 platform for a few minutes watching the rather awe-inspiring spectacle.

Then, all of a sudden, there was a most colossal explosion. The whole world seemed to blow up in front of our faces in a terrific blinding flash. We both instinctively flung ourselves flat and I was horrified to feel that I seemed to be travelling upwards instead of downwards. We eventually both finished up flat on our backs against the wall. Although we were within a foot of each other we could not see each other so great was the volume of smoke and dust. When the muck and debris (which subsequently proved to be the roof of the platform) had stopped falling we scrambled off the platform and got outside the station, where we were surprised to find that neither of us had the slightest injury apart from a tiny cut on one of my fingers. We very solemnly shook hands with each other! We both presented the most extraordinary spectacle, being absolutely black with dirt and smoke from head to foot.

I was at a complete loss to understand what had caused the explosion. I had had bombs burst fairly close to me on many occasions before but they had been nothing like this. It was not until some time afterwards that I discovered that what had actually happened was that a full wagon load of RAF bombs had blown up about forty to fifty yards from where I had been standing! The explosion, which occurred about three hours after the bombing, shook the whole of Mandalay and when I eventually returned to my mess I found that my own CO was suffering from bomb-blast from the explosion although he was, at the time, at our HQ inside the Fort at least a quarter of a mile away from the explosion. Later that evening I returned to the station to see if I could salvage some important papers I had left in my office. I found everything on No. 1 platform smashed to smithereens and, surveying the scene, it seemed incredible that anyone who had been standing there when the explosion occurred could have escaped alive. It was certainly a narrow squeak and I hope I shall never have a narrower one.

This Good Friday raid on Mandalay was the most accurate and effective piece of bombing the Japs did in Burma. Their objective was Mandalay Railway Station and Mandalay Railway Station was wiped out. Of course, the Japs were completely undisturbed by any AA guns or fighter opposition, but nevertheless their aim was uncomfortably accurate considering that they bombed from a high altitude. They also hit the Power House but did not succeed in putting it entirely out of action. They also started the Great Fire of Mandalay which continued to burn for a fortnight until the whole of Mandalay Town was consumed. The Japs started these fires which were kept going, I swear, by our dear friends the Burmese. Every night and night after night fresh fires broke out and these fresh fires were nowhere near the scene of the bombing nor were they in the direction of the wind from other fires. By the end of April the whole of Mandalay, with the exception of the Fort, was reduced to ashes. The extent of the devastation was absolutely unbelievable by any who had not actually seen it.

Since my arrival in India I have been staggered to read in the English illustrated papers that when the Japanese walked into Mandalay they were amazed at the amount of demolition that the British troops did before they withdrew. In actual fact, the only demolition done by the British was to blow open the vaults of the Imperial Bank, someone having lost the keys. No other demolition was done by our forces for the simple reason that, days before it became necessary to evacuate Mandalay, there was nothing left standing in Mandalay to demolish. The object of the fifth columnists who burned the whole town to the ground was obviously to render Mandalay untenable for any large force of British or Chinese troops.

At about this time (3rd April) the general situation did not appear to be unfavourable for the holding of Upper Burma. Two distinct fronts had been created. The British forces were resisting the Japs fiercely on the Prome/Yenangyaung front whilst the Chinese 5th Army which was being rapidly reinforced by their 6th Army, were doing remarkably well on the Toungoo front. As far as I know, the Chinese did not go into action before the Japs began their onslaught on Toungoo, in which area the Chinese armies were massing. The Chinese were, however, without air support (as indeed were our own forces after Magwe) and were also very short of artillery thus, after sustained bombing attacks and artillery barrage the Japs were able to drive the Chinese out of Toungoo.

The Chinese, however, fought back very magnificently, recaptured Toungoo and drove the Japs 20 miles south of that town. They then seemed to have the Japs definitely on the run and things were beginning to look much brighter. Just after the recapture of Toungoo I met a Chinese General just returned from the front and he was most emphatic that the Chinese would be in Rangoon within a month! Then, however, the entire British army got into a beautifully laid trap around Yenangyaung. Once again road blocks were the cause of the trouble and the whole army was cut off in a series of road blocks culminating in a very strong block at Pin Chaung. The rocky country around there lends itself to road blocks and the Pin Chaung road block was set up in a deep gorge or ravine from which there was no avenue of escape. The Japs had, as usual, infiltrated and outflanked our troops and the position for the British Army in Burma looked really desperate. We never seemed to find the answer to the Japanese infiltration tactics.

The British Army was, however, saved by the Chinese, who were persuaded to cut across from their own front and burst open the Pin Chaung road block, which they did successfully after what was, I believe, a hectic battle. But this Chinese effort, of course, weakened their own front and the Japs burst through the middle. What happened then is very confused and I have not yet been able to get a clear picture of it. I know we heard disquieting rumours in Mandalay that five fresh Jap divisions had arrived by sea at Rangoon (there is no reason why these rumours should not have been true because there was absolutely nothing to stop the Japs pouring reinforcements into Rangoon) and not long after that the Japs seemed to break through everywhere and Burma was lost. But I race ahead of my story.

After the little episode of the explosion, I left the station in search of Mayhew, regarding whom I was rather anxious as he had been on the station when it was bombed. I found him at his bungalow safe and sound and as his place was uncomfortably close to the fires we packed up his things and he moved into my mess inside the Fort. By this time I and the remaining AA Company officers had joined the other Rangoon officers at their mess. Also that afternoon I called at Burma Corporation office and found them packing up preparatory to leaving for Namtu. In fact this bombing caused a general and rapid exodus of civilians from Mandalay who fled to Maymyo and other places further north. Then Mayhew and I contacted our bosses of Movement Control and received orders to stand by until further orders. I had no difficulty in getting to sleep that night!

Movement Control HQ decided eventually to move their offices from the station to Brigade Area HQ just north of the Fort, whilst the Railway Operating Company moved across the river to Ywakaung just beyond Sagaing. In fact everyone had decided that the vicinity of the railway at Mandalay was a good place to keep away from. Mayhew was posted to Ywakaung as RTO and I was posted to that delightful spot of which I have already told you a little — Myohaung! Mayhew immediately decided that he had dysentery and disappeared to Maymyo hospital, where they found that he was suffering from concussion on the eyeballs and he, lucky devil, was sent to India by air. My sergeant did not turn up again for over a week and the night clerk I never saw again.

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