Behind the Jap lines in Burma

This story is taken from an interview with William Telford at the Ballymena Servicemen’s Association, and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was David Reid, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
====

[stationed in]
India, Burma and China. Either we went by glider or by Dakotas. We used to go in a glider, maybe 10 men in a glider. And the first thing you had to do with that glider was to chop it up into wee bits and hide it. Because the Japanese knew there was a subversive element in their midst.

From wherever you were. India.
I flew “Over the Hump” in a 4-engine American aircraft loaded with petrol and oil, and he flew at 37 thousand feet. And I said to one of the crew of the aircraft, “Why go so high?” And he says - This aircraft, she’s flying like that, and all of a sudden she drops maybe 20ft, no air, and he said “The Himalayas are all over 29 thousand feet. Well, you had to go … The aircraft had to fly, Katsunjunga was the highest. And we landed in China and worked with the Chinese.

We worked with the Chinese, and knew nothing in western China. Do you know that, a big convoy of Japs, and that was the short-legged camel that came down out of the mountains. And the experts that were guarding them were armed with muzzle-loading rifles. They didn’t know there was a war on, and weren’t interested. You see, China was 2500 ft [miles?] wide and 1 thousand feet [miles?] deep, so nobody knew anybody else. Chairman Mao thought he controlled it, he didn’t control anything.

I have plenty of memories, but I’m not allowed to tell you them. We done things that, whenever you went on an LRP job — you know what LRP meant, Long Range Penetration. The officer in charge says “You’ll see nothing, and you’ll hear nothing, and you’ll say nothing”. You were going to do something that wasn’t nice. And before you went on an LRP jump you were searched. You weren’t allowed Cigarettes or cigars or any ... The only tobacco you could take was Chewing tobacco. Because if you smoked in the bamboo jungle, the Japanese could smell it a week after you threw the cigarette down.

A whole lot of the Japanese Officers, because they were in India and they were working with Indian troops, well they had to learn English.

[the only common language]
English- it didn’t matter where you went, you could always find someone who spoke English. It didn’t matter what country you went to.

In the early days, the Japanese officers and the senior NCOs were bastards of the first … they were cruel, dangerous. But as time went by and they were being annihilated, the Japanese soldiers, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. They hadn’t a clue.
I never had no feelings of compassion for anybody.
Cruelty to cruelty. If they wanted to be cruel, we were capable of being cruel too. There’s no doubt about it.

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