My Lost Birthday

My Lost Birthday

Edited and Typed by Louise Collier

Having recovered from bombing injuries when Hull was blitzed on the 7th and 8th of May 1941, I persuaded the Recruiting Sergeant that despite a disabled right elbow, I was fit for the Army and was accepted for the Royal Corps of Signals as a Wireless Operator. Having passed out at Catterick, I was posted to the 52 Mountain Division and trained in Scotland, for what was presumed to be an attack on Norway. However I then retrained as an Electrician in the Royal Signals and ended up in India on my way to Burma.

The train journey from Bombay to Dibrugarh in North East India, took about 14 days’ included crossing the Brahmaputra River by ferry and then onto a narrow gauge railway to Kohima (scene of the notorious defence to prevent the Japanese from entering India)

During the longest rail journey of my life, which was from the 8th to the 22nd of December 1944, we had to make unauthorized stops for toilet, washing and eating purposes. Apparently there were long intervals between trains, so a delay didn’t seem to bother anybody. During the stops we would take our empty jam tins up to the steam engine hauling the train, with our loose tea in the tin and the driver would inject boiling water into our jam tins to “mash up” for us. Food would be followed by a wash, we always stopped nearby an unoccupied river. This was followed by impromptu football matches’ for exercise. During one of these “breaks,” I announced that it was my 21st Birthday and I had kept a tin of peaches back to celebrate. “That’s unlucky,” someone said, “being 21 on the 13th.” “No, I’m 21 on the 12th of December,” I said. “Oh well, that was yesterday!” I was told, so I missed my 21st Birthday.

My service with the Northern Combat Command under General (“Vinegar Joe,”) took us into Burma and included the capture of Mandalay. However, I contracted Amoebic Dysentery and was flown out to hospital and subsequently repatriated to England, in December of 1946. The discovery that I’d served with a disability helped me to avoid an occupation force to Japan and I returned to civilian life in February, 1947.

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