Rangoon Battalion: The Burma Battalion - Part 6

PART 6
The Burma Battalion

My last letter took you up to 1st March, on which day our AA Company hit the road for Magwe. On leaving Mingladon we decided that we would take our journey leisurely and in easy stages. This was because several of our motley collection of vehicles were being driven by very inexperienced drivers, with the result that the convoy became very difficult to manage and at times occupied anything between five and ten miles of road. Also, no arrangements had been made in advance, with the result that we did not know where food would be obtainable or which would be the best places to halt for the night.

The final demolition of Rangoon and Syriam was accomplished on 2nd March, the day after we left, and the demolition parties were evacuated by sea to India. On 7th March the Japs broke through from Pegu and, instead of driving south to the 21st mile crossroads on the Pegu road, they cut straight across country and established themselves firmly astride the Prome Road at 27th mile, thus successfully cutting off the line of retreat of our armies. A terrific battle ensued at the 27th mile road block and it was not until the second day of the battle that our tanks managed to smash through the road block and so release the solid mass of our mechanised transport which had been trapped. We, however, were well on our way northwards by then and so missed this battle.

The first day of our journey took us just beyond Hmawbi where we halted to gather in the rest of our flock from Highland Queen landing ground. We slept the night by the roadside and next day we proceeded to just beyond Prome. At Prome we collected our guns and ammunition with the rest of our heavy stuff from the railway and made arrangements to have them sent on by river to Magwe. Prome was heavily bombed the day after we left. Our journey continued via Allanmya and Taungwindyi and we eventually arrived at Magwe on 6th March.

I do not propose to describe the journey in detail. It was comparatively uneventful and was unimpeded by the enemy. The heat was pretty terrific throughout but our discomfort on this score was amply compensated by the respite from bombings. Unfortunately, however, some incidents occurred during the journey about which I cannot tell you in a letter and the result thereof was that we arrived at Magwe with only about 52 men. During the journey we also shed two of our Jeeps and four private cars. The Jeeps we handed over to another unit at Thorrawaddy as they were very short of transport and we had more than enough. The cars cracked up one by one and, having neither the time nor the facilities to repair them, we destroyed them by the roadside. All our lorries and the remaining Jeeps and private cars (including my recently acquired Austin) we got through safely. The stuff we had sent up by river also arrived at Magwe safely.

The RAF were very pleased to see us as the AA defences of the large aerodrome were practically negligible. Jack Villiers was immediately appointed Magwe Area Defence Commander and we started work sighting our gun positions. Unfortunately, however, after we had been at Magwe for only three or four days we received orders to proceed to Yenangyaung to rejoin the remainder of the Rangoon Battalion who were going to re-form there. We tried to persuade the authorities to send us another 100 men to Magwe, where we could have soon trained them and got cracking with all 18 guns but our efforts were unavailing and to Yenangyaung we had to go. We handed over our guns to the RAF and that was the last we saw of them.

We arrived at Yenangyaung on about 10th March and joined up with the remnants of the Rangoon Battalion who were awaiting further orders from AHQ. We were at Yenangyaung for nearly a week and we enjoyed our first and very much needed rest. We officers of the AA Company were given a very comfortable and fully furnished BOC bungalow for our mess and for the first time sine 6th December we tasted something like home comfort again. At that time Yenangyaung was well behind the battle area and had had no air raids. The place was normal and the oilfields were still going full swing. Our rest was, however, short lived for we were soon put on to working out defence plans to counter a possible attack on Yenangyaung from the river. We were just getting our plans well developed when we received orders to proceed to Mandalay.

We got to Mandalay, via Meiktila, on 18th March and it was there that we did our re-forming. The total strength of the Rangoon Battalion who had remained embodied were sufficient to form only one Company. The other infantry units of the BAF, that is, the Tenasserim Battalion and the Upper Burma Battalion who had also arrived at Mandalay were in a similar position. All three units were therefore joined together to form the new “Burma Battalion”, and they retained their respective identities only as the Rangoon Company, the Tenasserim Company and the Upper Burma Company of the Burma Battalion. Much to our disgust the AA Company was not re-formed. Two of our old armoured cars had, however, found their way to Mandalay where they were awaiting repairs (which, incidentally, were never carried out) so the Armoured Car Section was re-formed with Jack Villiers as OC and myself as second in command.

The re-forming process took some time so for the first week or so there was nothing for us to do except rest and enjoy ourselves. To start off with we of the AA Company were again given a bungalow to ourselves and we made the most of our first spell of real relaxation. Our mess was inside Mandalay Fort and just behind our bungalow was a very fine swimming pool. It being the hottest time of the year, and Mandalay being about the hottest town in Burma, we made good use of the pool. Very few people seemed to know of the existence of this pool so we made it almost our private property.

At this time Mandalay was functioning as a perfectly normal city, made rather more crowded and thriving because most of the banks and business houses had moved thereto from Rangoon. Nearly all the military were stationed inside the Fort. The Fort was an area of about one square mile, square in shape and surrounded by high thick walls and a wide moat. In the old days it had been the Palace and Court grounds of the Kings of Burma and the red and gold wooden Palace still stood in the centre. The only entrances and exits to the Fort were by bridges across the moat and through massive gateways in the walls. The wide moat was still kept full of water. In Mandalay town itself, although there were a fair number of brick built buildings in the main streets, the vastly major part of the town was, like all Burmese towns and villages, built of wood. At the time of our arrival Mandalay had only been bombed once (in February) and then the bombing had been confined to the Fort where the only damage done was to the Upper Burma Club, which was burned out.

Jack Villiers and I soon found a couple of charming young maidens and for the first week of our stay at Mandalay we had a darned good time. We threw parties at the bungalow, had moonlight swimming parties at our pool and occasionally went to a dance at the Ava Club in the town. On the whole it was a glorious relaxation from the trials and tribulations we had recently been through.

One night we were having dinner with the girls at the Unica Café in the town when in streamed a bunch of American AVG airmen looking very haggard, dirty and unshaven. They had driven straight up from Magwe and brought the news that after two days incessant bombing, Magwe airport to all intents and purposes no longer existed. Magwe was our last big air base to which the major portion of the RAF and AVGs had gone after evacuating from Mingaladon and “Z”. Nearly all our stuff had been caught on the ground and the Japs had just enjoyed themselves for two days with high level bombing and low level machine gunning. In the absence of any warning system our boys never had a chance to take off, and after the show was over the AVGs had four planes left in the whole of Burma.

The elimination of Magwe marked the end of our air resistance in the Burma campaign. It was an unspeakable tragedy. There was no need for Jack and I to tell each other that, had we had our way, Magwe would have been protected by eighteen of our guns, in which case the Japs would never have had the chance or the nerve to have machine gunned everything on the ground from a height of only 150 feet, as they had done. We had kept them high at Mingaladon and could have done so at Magwe. As it was, our guns had not been manned when the Japs came over. Jack and I got very drunk that night!

When the Battalion was re-formed it was found that we had far too many officers for the number of men remaining and my own job as an Armoured Car Officer without any effective cars was rather mythical. However, I was more fortunate than most of our officers who had practically nothing to do all the time we were in Mandalay for, on 25th March, I was loaned to Movement Control and became Railway Transport Officer at Mandalay station, thus beginning what proved to be my most hectic period throughout the Burma Campaign.

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