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Fighting Nature, Insects, Disease and Japanese
The Chindit War in Burma
by Manbahadur Rai (M. Gyi), as told to Marty Kufus

(Ed's Intro: M. Gyi (born Manbahadur Rai) first saw combat in World War II as a young enlisted man in the 10th Burma Gurkha Regiment. He is the author of Command no. 16's feature, "Gorkhali Ayo! Gurkha Soldiers in the Battle for Imphal, 1944." The following account of his later experiences as a medical orderly in the 111th Chindit Brigade is based largely on detailed entries from his wartime diary.]

The morale of the British troops in Asia was at its lowest ebb after their humiliating defeats by the imperial Japanese Army at Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma. The British forces in Burma were forced to retreat into the hills of Assam in northeast India in April 1942.

The Japanese soldiers we encountered were well equipped and trained and had mastered the art of jungle warfare. They were disciplined with superhuman endurance and fought with ferocity and courage. They didn't understand the meaning of the word "surrender," and would fight to the last man. They prided themselves on being the "invincible warriors" of the emperor. They had come - as they saw it - not as conquerors, but as liberators, with a divine mission to defeat the western colonial powers in Asia.

The British defeat in Burma by the numerically inferior Japanese was the result of the Europeans' tendency to fight from static positions. Their strategies were road bound and depended on surface lines of communication. The highly mobile Japanese troops, guided by native scouts along jungle trails, would infiltrate the British positions, forcing them to retreat. The British forces in Southeast Asia at first were not prepared or equipped for such warfare.

British Gen. Orde Wingate, a leader who had gained experience in guerrilla warfare in Palestine, Sudan and Ethiopia, was summoned in the spring of 1942 by Gen. Archibald Wavell, the Commander in Chief of British forces in India. Wingate was instructed to develop a guerrilla force to harass and destroy Japanese lines of communication in Burma.

Burma is larger than France or Germany, and tropical rain forest covered most of its northern half. Over 200 inches of rain fall during an average monsoon season. High mountains, dense jungles and large rivers serve as natural barriers. Large parts of the Japanese lines of communication (railroads, bridges, paved roads, depots) were unprotected or only lightly defended. They had positioned only six divisions and five garrison brigades in northern Burma. The Japanese were confident the British lacked the skills and will needed to infiltrate and engage in jungle warfare against battle-seasoned troops.

But Wingate believed he could beat the Japanese at their own game. He reasoned his long-range penetration force, at first codenarned "Longcloth," could, with the use of radios and aerial resupply, move freely through the jungle and destroy the enemy's vital lines of communication, thereby isolating the Japanese in northern Burma. That would facilitate the advance of US Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell and his two Chinese divisions training in Ramgarh, India - their goal being the capture of the strategic town and airfield of Myitkyina.

The overall Allied objective was to reopen the Burma Road, the vital link between China and her western allies. Chiang Kai-Shek's armies were desperately in need of Allied support so they could continue their resistance against the Japanese.
The Chindits' First Expedition

Wingate's force came to be known as "Chindits," an English mispronunciation of the Burmese "Chinthe," a mythological creature, half lion and half eagle, symbolizing divine power over land and air. Huge stone statues of Chinthe guard the entrances of all the major Buddhist temples in Burma.

Wingate believed the success of his mission would depend on close coordination between ground and air power, and the Chindits symbolized this pioneering concept of guerrilla warfare. Their objective was to infiltrate behind Japanese lines and destroy the railways, bridges and depots between Mandalay and Myitkyina.

Began on the night of 13th February 1943. Wingate's 77th Infantry Brigade of 3,000 men and 1,000 pack mules was divided into a force of seven independent "columns." Most of the men in the brigade were middle-aged British and second-line Gurkha troops. Kachins and Burmese from the Burma Rifles served as guides, scouts, stretcher-bearers, foragers, spies and interpreters.

The Chindits crossed the Chindwin River, infiltrated deep into Japanese territory, and succeeded in temporarily cutting the Mandalay Myitkyina railroad. They destroyed bridges, attacked numerous depots, and ambushed many Japanese convoys.

In March, they crossed the Irrawaddy River to disrupt the Mandalay-Lashio railroad. The Japanese, realizing the seriousness of the Chindits' operation, attacked in force and tried to trap the brigade. By April, the Chindits were forced to retreat with great difficulty back to India. Most of their equipment had been destroyed or left behind. Nearly all of their mules were lost. Five hundred men were killed in battle; 400 wounded and sick were left behind to the mercies of the Japanese. Almost all the survivors suffered from malaria, dysentery, typhus and other tropical diseases. Many of them were unfit for further active military duty.

The first Chindit raid was a military failure. The damage inflicted on the Japanese was not great enough to justify such losses. However, the operation was hailed in Allied propaganda as a great victory: British troops had boldly marched into the heart of enemy territory, wreaked havoc on Japanese lines of communication, and fought their way back through some of the world's most treacherous jungle. In truth, the Japanese had never expected such a daring plan to be initiated by the British. During their 1,000-mile march, the Chindits were able to gather a great deal of detailed information about the terrain, Japanese strongholds and troop dispositions, their jungle craft, the native tribes, the prevalent sicknesses and diseases, enemy medical and ambulance systems, their diet, supply and transportation systems.

Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Commander of Southeast Asia Command, decided Burma had to be reconquered by a land operation from India. The forces for an amphibious invasion in the south were not available.

Gen. Wingate, attending the Quebec Conference in August 1943, was able to persuade British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt to give him their support for a second Chindit expedition, to be codenamed "Operation Thursday."

To carry out the plan, he was given six small infantry brigades organized as the 3rd Indian Division, but more commonly called "Special Forces," or the "Long Range Penetration Force." Five of the brigades, each divided into two columns, were to be flown into the rear of northern Burma. The sixth brigade was to march overland.

An American Ranger force, the 5307th Composite Provisional Unit, codenarned "Galahad," was also trained under Wingate's direction at Delolai, India. These three Ranger battalions came to be known as "Merrill's Marauders," and in fact became an American counterpart to the Chindits. The Marauders were assigned to attack the Japanese positions in the far north, while the Chindits were operating from the center of north Burma.

The most important component of these forces was the American Air Commando unit led by Col. Philip Cochrane (who later served as the inspiration for the "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip). The unit provided C-47 Dakota transports, Waco CG-4 gliders, L-5 light aircraft, B-25 medium bombers, and P-51 Mustang fighters.

During the first week of March 1944, some 200 US planes flew 600 sorties to transport 10,000 Chindits and 1,500 mules into the middle of Japanese-occupied north Burma. Several gliders carrying men and mules crashed and many men died. A few drifted into Japanese positions. But the majority of gliders landed safely in preselected, isolated jungle clearings that were dubbed: "Broadway," "Piccadilly," and "Chowringhee."

The Chindits' main body moved to Mawlu and established a strong defensive position to block the route between Mandalay and Myitkyina. This Chindit stronghold came to be called "White City," because the jungle around it was strewn with hundreds of supply parachutes dropped from US cargo planes. Other columns were spread out across the Japanese rear areas to disrupt their supply lines and create confusion.

On 24 March, Gen. Wingate was killed in a plane crash in a remote jungle area of Burma. His deputy, Brig. Gen. Lentaigne, replaced him. Then the overall responsibility for the Chindit operation was given to Gen. Stilwell. He ordered the establishment of a new base, "Blackpool," at a point roughly midway between Hopin, Mawlu and Mogaung, to block Japanese reinforcements moving into the area.

As ordered, Lt. Col. John Masters, commanding the lllth Chindit Brigade, quickly constructed Blackpool as close to Japanese positions as possible. Soon, as expected, the Japanese attacked with fullforce.

Days and nights of artillery and mortar bombardrnent were followed by repeated banzai charges. The Chindits of the lllth were hard pressed, suffering mounting casualties and exhaustion. The 319th Gurkha Regiment (319th GR) was transferred from the 77th Brigade to Blackpool to strengthen the defense there. But the early monsoon rain and continuous bad weather hampered all of the airstrikes and supply drops by the US air commando, effectively isolating the Brigade.

The battered Chindit brigade was forced to retreat to the mountains near lndawgyi Lake. The wounded and sick were evacuated to India by US and British planes. Other Chindit units that hadn't been as hard hit continued to operate with Stilwell's forces, but Lt. Col. Masters had to take time to reorganize and rearm his battered command.

On 3rd July 1944, 1 visited my brother at one of the large field hospitals in Imphal. He was a jemadar (lieutenant) in C Company of the 1/10 Gurkha Regiment, 63rd Infantry Brigade. On 26 May, during an assault on Gun Hill in Assam, he had suffered wounds to his arms, legs and back from an enemy mortar round. I was happy to see him recovering well.

He said confidently: "I will be returning to my battalion soon. I want to be there when we retake Burma from the Japanese."

We talked at length about the activities of our father and three uncles. We had not seen or heard from our father since 1942. We heard rumors he had been recruited by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), their counterpart to the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). We knew he was still alive somewhere behind Japanese lines.

But the tragic news about two of our uncles was unbearable. Our first uncle, who was with the 3rd Column in the 77th Infantry Brigade during the first Chindit expedition, was killed at the Meza River crossing in May 1943. Another uncle, with the 219 Gurkha Regiment, was killed in March 1944, at Hangman's Hill, part of the Gurkha assault on Monte Cassino in Italy. (Our remaining uncle, in the 219 Gurkha Regiment, would take part in an attack on a German panzer unit at the Passano Ridge in Italy and would be killed there in September 1944.)

I confided to my brother that I had lost my desire to kill Japanese after witnessing so many deaths and so much suffering during the battles for Imphal. I grieved every time I saw a dead soldier, his life snuffed out by a bullet, grenade, mortar shell, bomb, bayonet, sword or kukri. I was sick of killing.

At my brother's convalescent barracks there were several wounded Gurkha officers from the Chindit brigades. Seven of them were with the field ambulance and medical units. They told us the second Chindit expeditionary force had been fighting behind Japanese lines for more than three months and they were in desperate need of medical orderlies for their dressing stations and field hospitals.

Dr. C. Singh and Dr. A. Gupta, two of the Indian medical staff in my brother's ward, had been ordered to report to Blackpool. With my brother's blessing and the help of the two doctors, I got transfer papers from my 3/10 Gurkha Regiment, and was sworn in, with a "90 day contract," to the 136th Field Ambulance and Medical Unit of the 3rd Indian Division on 9 July 1944. 1 was given the rank of havildar (sergeant) and assigned to the 111th Chindit Brigade.

I felt then I had a new mission in life: not to kill Japanese, but to ease the pain of the wounded and honor the dead, friend and foe alike.

Before dawn on 10 July, we left a small airfield at Lalaghat, south of Imphal, in a light aircraft bound for Burma. It was piloted by an American named Tom Hall, from the Air Ambulance Corps, which was part of the US Air Transport Command. Hall comforted us, saying there was nothing to fear; he had made many trips into Burma to evacuate the wounded to India.

I was glad to hear our wounded soldiers were not being abandoned. During the first Chindit expedition, many wounded Gurkhas, including my uncle, had been left behind. He had been a platoon leader in Column 3, commanded then by Col. Michael Calvert. During the crossing of the Meza River, near the village of Tawma, a strong Japanese force tried to trap Calvert's force. My uncle's platoon served as the rear guard, and nearly half those men became casualties.

Calvert ordered the wounded be left behind, along with the mules, medical supplies and extra ammunition. The bodies of those Gurkhas, including my uncle, were never recovered. I felt angry and confused about the abandonment of the wounded in hostile territory. I made an oath to myself I would never leave any wounded man to die in Japanese hands.

We flew for several hours over high mountain ranges capped by dense jungles and divided by winding rivers. The small plane bounced and rolled with every gust of wind from the mountains, some of which rose to more than 7,000 feet. I wondered how the Chindits could march, fight and survive in such rugged terrain day after day, week after week, during the monsoon season. Finally, after flying over the large Indawgyi Lake, we landed at a small, flooded airstrip near the village of Mokso Sakkan. Another small plane landed behind us.

A section of Gurkhas from the 319th rushed up and unloaded the planes. The Gurkhas were led by Jemadar Yambahadur. There were also some 20 mules led by Kachin tribesmen. The hardy animals were quickly packed with the medical supplies, tents, blankets, two light machineguns and several ammunition boxes we had brought with us on the flight.

Two Kachin scouts came running and warned us a large column of Japanese was approaching. The two planes quickly took off and disappeared over the mountains, while the Kachins took us onto a swampy trail to avoid the enemy.

Monsoon rain began to fall, followed by loud thunder and lightning, slowing us down. The nervous mules did not make a sound except for occasionally snorts; their vocal chords had been cut by the Chindit veterinarians several months earlier.

We marched without rest for five hours through elephant grass that was 10 to 12 feet high. There were needle-like thorns and sharp leaves that stabbed and cut our faces and hands, leaving open wounds. Thousands of flying and biting insects swarmed around every man and mule in the column. We all slipped and fell several times in knee deep water. Leeches crawled on us.

We and the mules became exhausted after several hours of moving in this way. The scouts took us to higher ground on a wooded knoll for rest. Two other Kachins, serving as rear guard, came and warned us yet another Japanese patrol was tracking us from the north side of the trail. That force was only about 400 yards away.

We Gurkhas and the Kachins quickly moved the mules deeper into the jungle, then came back to set an ambush. The rain had stopped, making Visibility better. Two Browning Automatic Rifles (BARS) were set up behind large trees some 70 yards apart; three Gurkhas took a position to block the path. I joined the rest of the men on top of the knoll.

The Japanese patrol was vigilant as it moved up the trail. As they came into full view, the Gurkhas fired. The Japanese took cover in the elephant grass below us, but did not return fire. We knew several of them had been killed or wounded. Our men kept firing until the jemadar ordered them to stop. We could see movement in the tall grass as the enemy tried to flank our knoll. The jemadar repositioned his men and waited.

Suddenly the Japanese charged, firing their weapons and screaming at the top of their lungs: "Nippon Banzai! Banzai!"

The jernadar threw a box of grenades toward Dr. Singh and me. He yelled, "Throw them! They are coming up!"

I did not throw a single grenade, but took them from the box and passed them to Dr. Singh. He threw them one after the other. Many Japanese fell before us, some only a few yards away, rolling in the bushes with pain.

Unexpectedly, the other Japanese patrol came up from the south side of the trail and attacked our position. We were suddenly trapped. The jemadar quickly repositioned his men again. Four or five Japanese succeeded in reaching the top of the knoll. The jemadar and his men leaped up and cut them down with their kukris, the curved short sword of the Gurkhas.

Dr. Gupta, a Kachin scout and two Gurkhas were killed. Three other men were seriously wounded. The jemadar ordered us to leave the wounded and the dead and withdraw to where the mules were.

One Kachin guide rolled a pasty substance in his fingers, spat on it and put it inside the mouth of each wounded man and said, "This will make your pain go away."

Dr. Singh and I quickly administered field dressings. One young Gurkha with a serious stomach wound requested: "Leave an ammunition box here. We will hold them off."

We wanted to carry the injured men on our shoulders, but we could not. All of us were exhausted from the long march. I looked at the dead and wounded men and silently asked for their forgiveness for abandoning them. I saw a vision of my uncle who had been left behind during the first Chindit expedition.

The Kachins led us deep into the jungle to escape the Japanese trap. I had no idea where we were. We became completely dependent on the Kachin scouts. We must have fled for hours. Darkness came, and the Kachins took us to a large rock formation where we settled for the night. We were completely spent. The Kachins made a small camp fire, and we sat around in small groups, removing bloated leeches from each other's necks, arms, backs and legs. Dr. Singh had 20 leeches on his legs alone; I had 16 on me.

"Where is our brigade? We are to report to the Brigade medical officer at Blackpool. Where are we going?" Dr. Singh asked the jemadar in Hindustani.

The jemadar explained Blackpool had been abandoned several weeks earlier, after the Japanese had delivered a series of intense artillery and mortar bombardments, followed by furious infantry charges. The Chindits had tried to hold the position, calling in airstrikes, but the bombs failed to stop the enemy. They requested the other Chindit brigades come to their aid, but none had. The other brigades were engaged in serious battles of their own against equally determined Japanese attackers

Casualties had mounted quickly at Blackpool, with no help in sight. Bad weather made supply drops impossible. Several attempts were made, but much material landed in Japanese positions. The enemy had succeeded in penetrating the defensive perimeter and established several forward assault positions. The Chindits counterattacked, but were forced back. The Brigade commander, Lt. Col. John Masters, finally decided to abandon Blackpool and withdraw with his survivors to Mokso Sakkan, more than 30 miles over rugged terrain.

There had been much confusion when the Brigade abandoned Blackpool. Some of the dead were buried in the trenches they had been defending. Many others were not buried at all, and the stench of rotting corpses settled across the whole valley. Blackpool became a black hell hole.

The Japanese tried to trap the Brigade during its retreat. The brigade was largely defenseless; it had abandoned its howitzers, mortars and heavy machineguns. Sick and wounded men were in the retreating columns, and under the orders of Lt. Col. Masters, several Gurkhas with severe inj'uries were shot in the head and buried in shallow graves.

Jemadar Yambahadur and his platoon from the 319 Gurkha Regiment were assigned to serve as rear guard and pick up the sick and stragglers who could not keep up with the main column.

According to the Kachin scouts, they had contacted their relatives and friends serving in the American Kachin Rangers (AKR), asking them to come to Master's aid. Two days later, a company of AKR, led by an OSS officer, marched more than 70 miles over Bumrawng Bum, a rugged and roadless mountain range, to provide assistance. They set up several ambushes to delay the pursuing Japanese. After several days of such constant harassment, the Japanese pulled back to Hopin.

One morning, after marching six or seven hours without rest, we came upon a small Kachin village of several rows of bamboo huts. The Kachin leader there, Duwa Naw, welcomed us and fed us boiled rice, bamboo shoots and python meat. It all tasted wonderful.

After lunch, Dr. Singh and I were led to a thatched hut where we found three seriously wounded Americans: two pilots and an officer from OSS Detachment 101. They were under heavy sedation from opium. Dr. Singh examined their wounds and concluded they could not be saved.

In another hut there were seven wounded Kachin Rangers. They were also under heavy sedation. Only two of those men could be saved. As we unwrapped the blood stained bandages from one man, we found maggots in a wide and deep wound on the lower side of his back. In another case, we found four bloated leeches inside a man's stomach wound.

To our surprise, in yet another hut we discovered two Gurkhas from the 316 Gurkha Regiment, one Lancashire Fusilier from the 77th Brigade, two Cameronians from the lllth Brigade, a Leicestershireman from the 16th Brigade, and two Nigerians from the 3rd West African Brigade. These wounded Chindits had been brought in on bamboo stretchers by the villagers.

These dying men had been left behind by their original units because of the seriousness of their wounds or because the ambulance units could not find them in the thick, tangled foliage. They were all hopeless cases, with severe head, chest, stomach and spinal injuries. Morphine did not seem to help their sufferings. Several pleaded to be shot. Their haunting cries could tear at the hearts of the bravest soldiers.

An elder Kachin nurse instructed me how to administer the native opium treatment. He told me there were several types of opium. Some you smoked; some you drank or ate; some you rubbed on the skin and some you injected. Opium has a powerful effect on human sensory perception, generating a euphoric state; it is also very addictive.

He rolled the paste between his fingers, then diluted it with alcohol in an empty K-ration can, heated it and placed it in the mouth of each dying man. This was against British medical practice, but Dr. Singh, who had been trained in England, did not intervene. He knew it would free the men's souls from their mangled bodies. I felt these brave men should die with dignity and peace. Several of them passed away before our eyes. We dug shallow graves and buried them in a cemetery near the jungle field hospital.

By late evening a group of Kachin Rangers came into the village. They brought two Japanese tied to a bamboo pole. Duwa Naw spoke Japanese fluently and interrogated the terrified prisoners. He slapped their faces with the flat of his dha (long sword), causing profuse bleeding from their mouths and noses.

I felt it was inappropriate to brutalize these prisoners, but they began to answer all of his questions without hesitation. They told him the Japanese garrisons in Taungni and Mogaung were greatly in need of medical supplies and equipment. The doctors could not provide adequate medical aid to the wounded and sick. Their food and ammunition were also desperately low. The Chindit columns in that sector had been destroying their lines of communication, and the Japanese wounded could not be safely evacuated to Mandalay. They said their patrol had been ordered to capture any mule train carrying medical supplies, rations and ammunition.

After his intense interrogation, Duwa Naw killed the two prisoners with his dha. Then he ordered his men to throw the bodies into a large bomb crater behind a row of huts. "There are over 100 Japanese in this hole," he boasted.

We were told there was intense hatred between the Kachins and the Japanese. The Kachins were loyal to the British and the Americans, and a year or so earlier, Japanese soldiers burned several villages and shot the inhabitants as they tried to flee. Women and children were bayoneted, and the old men were cut down with samurai swords. From that time the Kachin strove to kill Japanese anywhere, any time, and any way they could.

Duwa Naw said to Dr. Singh, "Please leave some of your medical supplies with us. We are desperately in need of them, as you very well know."

Dr. Singh and the jemadar discussed the matter and decided to leave half of the medical and other supplies. They also decided to leave 10 mules for transporting wounded. The elder Kachin nurse in turn gave me a bag containing a large opium ball. He said in broken English: "You give this to men in pain. This is more gooder than whiteman medicine."

I thanked him for his generosity, and wondered how many more wounded men I would have to offer this paste to free their souls from pain.

Then Duwa Naw explained: "Your brigade was driven from Blackpool. They retreated to Mokso Sakkan. They dropped off their wounded there to be flown back to Assam. They then marched to Lukhren, fighting the Japanese along the way. They were in Pohok several weeks ago, and fought the Japanese there too. Last week, I heard they were marching toward Punga. They are in desperate trouble. There are a lot of sick men in the unit. The men in your brigade are in terrible condition."

We were amazed by his knowledge of our brigade's movements. He continued: "I will send two of my scouts to guide you to Punga. Your brigade used many of my scouts. They report back to me every week. Now goodbye. We will meet again soon after we defeat the Japanese."

The Kachin Rangers had been trained by the OSS. They had taken part in many invaluable support operations in northern Burma for Gen. Stilwell and his Chinese troops, and for Merrill's Marauders. They had also assisted the Chindits during their first expedition, and again during the second.

Various other Kachin units - Rangers, Levies and Burma Rifles - were trained by both the British and Americans. Kachins killed more than 10,000 Japanese during the war. They are rugged mountain tribesmen, known for their skills as jungle fighters. They were fearless and tireless during military actions, and US military analysts ranked their AKRs above the British-trained Gurkhas in kill ratios. I felt no jealousy, and was happy they were on our side.

The next day we marched more than 12 hours over hill after hill of the Bumrawn Bum mountain range. On the second day we started down into a valley toward the Namyin River. The jungle became more dense. The tangled foliage and thick brush made our descent difficult. The monsoon rains brought out leeches and insects by the thousands, attacking and clinging to us and the mules.

The slopes became more slippery. One of the mules fell into a ravine some 150 feet deep and was impaled in a thick bamboo grove. All 12 stretchers the mule had been carrying were shattered and torn, but the jemadar ordered us to load the broken pieces on to other mules. "We can repair them," he said.

By accident, the Kachin scouts discovered a cave about 10 feet high and 20 feet wide, hidden behind dense bushes and the thick bamboo in the ravine. The jemadar and his men went in. After a few minutes they came back out and he said there were many dead and wounded Japanese soldiers inside.

Dr. Singh and I entered the cave. The stench was unbearable. There were several rows of decomposing bodies with thousands of crawling maggots and insects. We covered our noses with our spare socks. Deeper in the cave we found about a dozen Japanese soldiers barely alive. They were in horrible shape, just skin and bones, lying among rotting bodies.

The Kachin scouts said to Dr. Singh in broken English: "You no help them! No help them!" Then they drew their dhas and ended the miseries of the Japanese with quick strokes.

I saw Dr. Singh begin to cry and I cried with him. We could not stay in the cave too long; the stench of death was overpowering. I did not count the number of dead in the cave, but there were many. We realized the Japanese forces were facing enormous difficulties. They were being attacked from all sides; their supply lines were being repeatedly cut by the Chindits. Still they fought on with unmatchable tenacity.

With the permission of the jemadar and Dr. Singh, I built a small shrine from loose stones in front of the cave. I cut three bamboo trees and formed a pyramid with them over the stones. I knelt and prayed that the spirits of the unknown Japanese warriors inside be freed to join their ancestors. The Kachins looked on my ritual in complete amusement, but Dr. Singh and the jemadar knelt behind me.

"There is Punga," a Kachin scout said, pointing at a distant hill to the east of us. Then there were more explosions followed by the sounds of BARS, Bren guns and carbines - British weapons. It appeared the 111th Brigade was attacking a hill a few miles south of the small farming village of Punga. This hill stood above Taungni, a strategic town with a railway station and paved roads connecting it to Mandalay in the south and Myitkyina in the north.

We pulled at the mules and rushed toward the scene of battle. It took about five hours before we were stopped by rugged Scotsmen from the King's Royal Regiment who were guarding the brigade headquarters. They directed us to the main dressing station on the western side of the hill.

There we found several large canvas tents. Men from the ambulance unit were bringing in the wounded. They helped us unpack the mules, and the medical supplies were immediately taken to the surgical tent.

Jemadar Yambahadur and his men went to look for their unit. Dr. Singh and I reported to Dr. Desmond Whyte, the battalion medical officer. When we found him, his face looked drawn and tired, but with precision he removed several bullets from the thigh and hip of a young British officer. A Gurkha medical orderly (MO) was fanning the flies and bugs away from the wounds. Dr. William Baine stitched a wide and deep gash stretching from the left shoulder across the chest and stomach of a Gurkha from the 314th. This young Gurkha had been slashed by the samurai sword of a Japanese officer.

More wounded men were laid outside the tent on the muddy ground. The nursing orderlies quickly gave them morphine shots. The dead were separated from the living and placed neatly in a row.

Then Japanese artillery shells began landing near the dressing station. The explosions ripped several medical tents. The smoke from the shells was thick and blinding. In the chaos, stretcher bearers tripped over each other, dropping the wounded. Several medical orderlies and men from the ambulance unit were killed or injured.

Dr. Whyte ordered his staff to move the entire dressing station. The tents, supplies and equipment, the sick, wounded, dead soldiers, and the mules had to be relocated to the other side of the hill. The Japanese shells continued to come in, adding more confusion to the evacuation. The dead were taken last. Dr. Whyte instructed the MOs to place the round identity tags in the corpses' mouths, and remove the oval tags to be given to the Graves Registration Unit.

During the previous days, the 314 Gurkhas had attacked the hill and cleared a path to the crest, but that night the Japanese counterattacked in force. They continued their shelling throughout the night.

Explosions from Japanese artillery shells were extremely loud, shaking the whole hillside with every blast. The enemy was also firing 150mm mortar rounds, each weighing 200 lbs. The British called them "coal scuttles," because the thick black smoke from the blasts could blind a person for several minutes.

One such shell landed in a shallow foxhole containing two men, ripping their bodies into small pieces. Flesh, bones and blood showered neighboring men. Several young Gurkhas suffered from "shell shock." They started shaking, mumbling, crying and urinating and defecating in their pants. One jumped out of his foxhole, screaming and running in circles. A Gurkha subadar (captain) chased him, knocked him out with a blow and dragged him by his feet to the dressing station.

I had never seen a shell shock victim before. Previously I was told by my superiors that Gurkhas never suffered from it. They were wrong. I gave the young Gurkha some of the opium paste to calm him down. I also gave the same Kachin remedy to some other boys.

There were more than 1,000 Gurkhas in the two Gurkha battalions, the 314th and the 319th, in the 111th Brigade. More than half of them were under 18 years of age. They had been recruited from various tribes in Nepal. Many of them had volunteered for "90 Day Contracts." These young mountain warriors were assigned to various platoons and companies led by able Irish, Scots and Welsh officers. Without question or hesitation, the Gurkhas followed their officers if the commands were simple and direct. But because of the language differences, the British officers had to make extra effort to avoid abstract concepts in their commands.

At dawn, B and C Companies of the 319th were ordered to take the hill. The Gurkhas in those units looked exhausted; they had no sleep the night before. The enemy shelling had also stretched their endurance, but they were determined to secure the hill at any cost.

I saw Jemadar Yambahadur with the lead platoon; he was assigned to B Company. I rushed toward him and knelt down, touching my forehead to his feet. This native gesture was also against British military rules, but I performed it any way. An image had suddenly flashed in my mind that it would be the last time I would see the brave jemadar.

Maj. John Thorpe, commander of B Company, gave a signal and led his men up the hill.

A British Captain, Frank Blaker, about 20 years old, came to our dressing station and asked for MOs to be assigned to his platoons in C Company. During previous actions he had lost several of his MO's. I volunteered and was assigned to the 1st Platoon, under Jemadar Rahasing. My section leader was Havildar Manprasad.

C Company was ordered to detour about two miles and come up from the rear of the hill. The monsoon rains had not stopped. We struggled through deep and slippery ravines, and climbed through tangled vines and thorny scrub. Our movement was slow. The trackless jungle became more dense as we tried to climb the steep 2,000 foot hill.

One Gurkha slipped and fell into a snake pit. Before he could regain his footing, a large King Cobra rose above him and struck him in the face. The man groaned and writhed in agony, but the snake continued to strike until he lay motionless. The men behind me were horrified. Jernadar Rahasing rushed forward and chopped off the Cobra's head with his kukri before it could strike again.

I wanted to attend to the victim, but the Jernadar signaled me to move on. The climb became more difficult. At some places we had to crawl on our hands and knees and hold on to trees, roots, branches or vines to avoid falling. Leeches, mosquitoes and other insects attracted by human sweat began to attack us. A Gurkha next to me had about 20 tree leeches on his face. With his hands busy climbing, he could only bite at the ones that attempted to wiggle into his mouth.

After five hours of strenuous climbing, we reached the edge of the second plateau, followed by 2nd and 3rd Platoons. We discovered eight men were missing from our company. No one could say if they had been bitten by snakes, or fell and died for some other reason, or simply lost their way in the thick and tangled bushes.

A Gurkha scout crawled silently to Capt. Blaker and told him there was another ridge to climb. He had spotted two machinegun nests, well hidden behind thick brush between the trees. There were also two large bunkers near the top. The enemy was well dug in. Capt. Blaker radioed for a mortar barrage to weaken the Japanese defense' and cover our movement.

According to Blaker, our C Company was to coordinate its assault with B Company, which was approaching from the other side of the hill. There was still a considerable distance for us to cover before we would reach our target. The captain therefore signaled us to move onto a narrow but well-trod path made earlier by the Japanese. It was the only direct route to the objective.

Our mortar bombardment stopped, and soon we heard gunfire and loud yells coming from the other side of the hill. B Company had begun its assault. Realizing our company was behind schedule, Capt. Blaker rushed up the ridge along the path, leading the column. The Japanese opened fire, and several Gurkhas from lst Platoon fell. The rest of the men dove behind trees, rocks and bushes to find cover. Some crawled through the underbrush to try to silence the machineguns, but they were stopped by Japanese grenades. We were caught in a crossfire.

When the firing stopped we could hear the wounded men groaning. I crawled toward several wounded and administered field dressings. The men lay low and waited for orders. The Japanese machinegunners were also waiting for us to rise.

To our horror, Capt. Blaker suddenly sprang up and charged at the concealed enemy position up the path, firing his carbine as he advanced. A blast from a Japanese machine gun hit him. He fell sideways, and Jemadar Rahasing shouted, "Sahib, stay down! Stay down!"

But Blaker stood up and charged again, firing wildly and yelling, "Charge! Charge, men! Charge!"

Another blast threw him against a tree. He dropped his weapon, clutched his chest and shouted, "I'm dying! Come on C Company! Take this hill!" Then he collapsed, his body riddled with bullets.

Inspired by the daring of this British officer, the Gurkhas sprang up, yelling: "Gorkhali Ayo!" ("The Gurkhas are coming!")

With drawn kukris and fixed bayonets they charged. The Japanese continued to fire, and more Gurkhas fell, but they fanned out and rushed through the dense trees and tangled thickets. When they reached the enemy positions, they cut down the Japanese in their foxholes and trenches. They succeeded in securing the second plateau.

Capt. John Sweetrnan immediately took command of C Company, and quickly reorganized the men surviving from 2nd and 3rd Platoons. Then he ordered: "Men, we have to take the bunkers at the very top."

He led the renewed attack, and the young Gurkhas charged with him up the hill, again yelling, "Gorkhali Ayo! Gorkhali Ayo!"

The Japanese, realizing they were being encircled, at first fought furiously, but then fled along an escape trail back into the jungle. B and C Companies linked up on the crest. The Japanese flag there was lowered and the Union Jack was raised in its place. I saw Sweetman cry as he saluted that flag atop Hill 2171.

Capt. Sweetman placed me under the company's senior nursing orderly, and ordered us to organize the evacuation of the wounded and dead. I instructed the six survivors from lst Platoon to search for fallen men. The foliage was thick; we could not see more than five or six feet. We at first passed several wounded men without knowing they were there; their moans were our only clue to locate them.

Jemadar Rahasing was dead. A bullet had entered his right eye and exploded his head. Havildar Manprasad was also killed, as were many other brave young Gurkhas. The 1st Platoon had suffered more than 60 percent casualties. The 2nd and 3rd Platoons had six dead and 13 wounded.

The medical unit ran out of its supply of morphine, and the injured were groaning in pain. I gave them opium paste to ease their agonies. It took our ambulance unit more than six hours to carry the wounded and dead down the hill. Two Japanese snipers harassed us along the way, killing and wounding several more men. By the time we reached the dressing station it was midnight.

Dr. Whyte officially pronounced Capt. Blaker dead, and the Graves Registration Officer ordered us to wrap the dead in tent canvas and push them into a deep ravine nearby. The men in our ambulance unit had no time or strength to dig so many graves. I wept as we pushed Capt. Blaker's body and the bodies of the fallen Gurkhas into the tangled jungle below.

For his daring leadership and self-sacrifice, Capt. Blaker was later posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the British armed forces' highest award for bravery. After the war, a unit from the Graves registration Office searched for and found the remains of the soldiers in the ravine. Tall bamboo trees had grown through and around the corpses. I also returned to the site with some friends and built a small stone shrine there to honor and appease the spirits of the fallen Chindits.

The torrential monsoon rains returned with full fury, and the Japanese counterattacked to retake the strategic hill. Their field guns began an intense bombardment that lasted all day and night. When the shelling stopped, their infantry launched several suicidal assaults. The 319th repulsed every attack, but both sides suffered a heavy toll. More dead and wounded were taken down to the dressing station every few hours.

Lt. Col. Masters came up the hill to inspect the men in their defensive positions. His rugged face turned pale when he saw the physical condition of the Gurkhas.

The men were exhausted from continuous fighting and weakened by tropical diseases. Fatigue had become so serious several men fell asleep while actually firing their guns. It affected both sides. Once, when our medical unit was searching for casualties in the thick brush around the hillside, we came upon three Japanese in deep sleep - only a few feet away from two Gurkhas who were also sleeping. We also found two Japanese and a Gurkha sleeping in the same foxhole, all half-buried in mud. They were too weak and sick to try to kill each other.

Shortly before his untimely death, Gen. Wingate had mandated that no combat unit should be expected to maintain itself in the jungle beyond 90 days. After that, he said fatigue and sickness would weaken its men to the point the entire unit would become ineffective in battle. But the Chindits had been behind Japanese lines, marching, running, climbing, crawling, digging, hiding and fighting for more than 120 days. They each carried 60 lb. packs on their backs, and had walked an average of 500 miles over some of the most rugged terrain on earth. The monsoon season added more miseries to their daily operations. Yet they had boldly assaulted the Japanese, achieving all of the second expedition's assigned objectives at great cost.

Wingate also maintained the Chindits would have to overcome three obstacles in fighting the Japanese: 1) Nature - the jungles, mountains, monsoons, flooded rivers, and mud; 2) Insects and parasites - including leeches, black flies, red ants, scorpions; and 3) Diseases, such as rnalaria, typhus, and dysentery.

"If we can overcome 'NID,' then fighting the Japanese will be our least worry," he had summarized.

By July 1944, the 111th Brigade had suffered about 450 dead and 600 wounded. Most had been evacuated to Assam, but a few of the most seriously wounded Gurkhas had been put out of their misery during the long retreat from Blackpool. About 100 men were listed as missing; the remaining Chindits were in poor health.

Lt. Col. Masters ordered us to construct a medical examination center a few miles from Pohok, where an American field hospital had been established. From 19 to 21 July, the Allied Medical Commission, made up of two English and two American doctors, and six nurses, conducted a thorough medical examination of every man still with the brigade.

They discovered all of them were suffering from malarial fever and amoebic dysentery. Their weight loss averaged between 35 and 40 lbs. Many had typhus, foot rot, tooth rot, septic sores, dengue fever, fungi, yaws, scabies, leech ulcers, insect bites and blisters. Several suffered from meningitis, pleurisy, beriberi, pneumonia, anemia, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, pulmonary embolism, neuralgia, narcolepsy and other diseases. There were also a dozen psychiatric disorders.

The Commission concluded only 120 of the men were fit for further duty - eight British officers, 22 British soldiers, and 90 Gurkhas. The rest were evacuated for hospitalization in India. Some of the 120 "healthy" men from the battalion volunteered to retake Hill 2171 after the Japanese had counterattacked and reoccupied it. But their offer was turned down by higher headquarters, and they were instead reassigned to different units.

Dr. Singh and 1 were transferred to a battalion medical unit in the 72nd Brigade of the newly arrived British 36th Division. That unit was moving down from India to relieve the withdrawing Chindit brigades. Two Gurkha battalions from the division were attacking a mountain known as Hill 60, north of Sahmaw. A strong force of Japanese was well deployed in deep trenches and tunnels securing the crossroads there. They made repeated banzai charges against the British and Gurkha positions at night. It was like Hill 2171 all over again.

Every night a Japanese suicide team attempted to penetrate our defensive perirneter. On the night of 3 August, while operating on a wounded Gurkha, Dr. Singh was killed by a mortar shell that exploded near the medical dressing station. I received minor injuries and was treated at the American 23rd Evacuation Hospital. The death of Dr. Singh affected me deeply.

Because of my brother's persistent requests, in October 1944 I was transferred to his 1110th Gurkha Regiment, which was then stationed at Ranchi, in Assam. I was assigned to D Company, under Capt. J.F Russell and Lt. John Willcox. My brother was still attached to C Company. The 1st Battalion was making preparations to participate in the attack on Mandalay in the early months of 1945.

My brother said, "With my own eyes I want to witness the Japanese surrender of Burma." Tragically, though, he never lived to see that day. On 17 March 1945, during the battle for Mandalay/Meiktila, my brother and his commander, Capt. Arthur Wilson, were killed by a Japanese artillery shell near the village of Inpalet.

By the middle of 1944, the "invincible" Japanese army began to suffer defeat after defeat. Their invasion of India ended in disaster for them. Their supply lines had gradually been cut along all roads, rivers and railways. The British and Americans controlled the sky. All the major Japanese strongholds had been attacked continuously by the Chindits, Merrill's Marauders, Stilwell's Chinese divisions, and OSS Kachin Rangers. But even though the Japanese in northern Burma were isolated, they continued to fight with tenacity, courage and self-sacrifice.

Finally, on 3 August, Myitkyina fell to Stilwell's forces. Japanese Maj. Gen. Mizukami, commander of the defense there, sent a telegram to the Emperor asking for forgiveness for his failure to hold the town. He then obeyed the bushido code by committing ritual suicide.

American combat engineers completed the "Ledo Road" from India, connecting it to the old "Burma Road" into China. Allied military supplies started rolling into China soon after to support Chiang Kai-shek's armies. The fall of Myitkyina was in fact the beginning of the end for the Japanese army throughout the China-Burma-India Theater.

The second Chindit expedition had been costly, with nearly 4,000 men dead, wounded and missing, and another 6,500 sick with malaria, typhus, dysentery and other tropical diseases. But the Chindits had caused more than 15,000 Japanese casualties. The entire operation had been a daring experiment, totally consistent with the tradition of the British pioneering spirit. It was also a grand military adventure that uplifted the morale of the British forces after their humiliating earlier defeats in Southeast Asia. The British Chindits beat the Japanese at their own game in the jungles of Burma. Gorkhali Ayo

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updated 5th September 2010