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..return to Personal Recollections & War Diaries Captain Boys Foreword: My father Captain Boys, volunteered at the beginning of the war. Many years later he wrote his memoirs, not for publication, but for the benefit of his five children, who - as so often happens - until that time knew very little of his early life, and nothing at all about 'his war'. In those memoirs, he described his training the Observer Corps, continuing after contracting - although relatively mildly - poliomyelitis, and managing to fool the medics by hiding the resultant slight leg problem. In due course, he was posted to Burma, and it seemed to me that it is this description of his - sadly rather brief - time and adventures there might be of interest to members of 656, and worth printing in the Chinthe. The following is an extract beginning at his arrival in India. 'My orders were to get to Calcutta quick, but to get there whole: no fancy business! The Army had rules, of course, for every occasion, and in particular for that sort of road movement: speed, vehicle densities and so on. I tried to remember what we had been taught at Filey, however irrelevant it might be in India, but nothing came back to me. I was left with common sense as my only guide. The distance was about 2,000 kilometres over dirt roads, with no tarmac, as I recall, except near the cities. At least I was in the lead on this occasion, so others got my dust. The main thing obviously was not to lose the way: it would be no joke trying to turn a convoy of twenty or thirty vehicles on those roads! Fortunately they were mostly pretty new, which helped, and many of them were of American manufacture, which helped even more. I had a Dodge command car, tougher than anything I had driven before, superbly sprung and equipped for rough work in bad conditions, four-wheel drive and all. So I and my driver were happy. With hard going, we could have done the distance in two days, but the convoy was perforce slower. We took about a week and arrived without casualties. I had time to drink in the novelty of the sights and sounds of the Indian countryside. We passed through everything from semi-desert to near-jungle. We saw hundreds of holy but starving cows; hundreds of coolie women with children at the breast, humping baskets of earth to make up the road; all the commonplace sights of India. At that time of the year, January, there was no rain, of course, and we saw much hardship, indeed starvation, for the 1943 famine was at its height. The worst scenes I had already experienced in Calcutta and on the railways: bodies lying about wrapped in rags; pot-bellied children scampering up and down the line whenever the train slowed, screaming 'No Mammy, no Pappy' and smacking their bellies, but laughing their heads off at the same time. It was impossible to distinguish between those in need and jolly kids exploiting the soft hearts of British soldiers fresh from home. We also saw some beautiful sights on the road, both scenery and the occasional palace. I remember one in particular which, perhaps because of some trick of the light, reminded me of Petra, but I was concentrating too much on my responsibilities to think about the 'Rose red city half as old as time'. However enjoyable it may seem in retrospect, it was deadly serious then, and I felt my responsibility. I had only to take a wrong turning to have chaos on my hands. Nor of course was it only I who found myself in a novel situation. Almost every man in the convoy was in India for the first time in his life, and the long drive in such circumstances was a wholly new and rather tough experience. So it was vital to maintain morale and let everyone know that I was fully in command of the situation and of any emergency that might arise. When we stopped for one of our periodic halts in a coconut grove I walked back along the length of the column joking with the men. It was perishing hot, and although we had plenty of water, the idea of some coconut milk was attractive. 'Shoot us one down, sir!' some wag shouted pointing aloft. 'Sure,' I said, drawing my pistol and aiming up into the tree. Bang! And to my amazement, down came a coconut. Prolonged cheers and we set off again in high spirits. When we were about half-way, we received a radio signal from Headquarters that equipment in some of our vehicles was urgently needed in Calcutta as the Squadron was about to go into action at Arakan. I therefore took the necessary trucks out of the convoy and led them in my command car, driving more or less day and night. On our last halt on the outskirts of Calcutta, we stopped for breakfast and a shave so that we should not arrive bedraggled and exhausted. Denis took over the essential vehicles and sent them ahead to Cox's Bazaar where his headquarters and 'A' and 'C' Flights were already established on the airfield. I waited for the rest of my column and, when it arrived a few days later, we went straight on board ship at the Hooghly River, finally reaching Cox's Bazaar at the beginning of February 1944. Having been out of touch with Squadron Headquarters for so long, I did not know at all what was going on except that my Flight had been detailed to build the first forward airstrip, just over the hills in the Kalapanzin valley and therefore not far from Taung Bazaar. We were in support of the 7th Indian Division whose Headquarters were in the hills above our airstrip, although no operational sorties had yet been flown. I had no further knowledge of the tactical situation, and there was no one at Squadron Headquarters to brief me. In the absence of Denis, therefore, it seemed to me that the first thing I should do was to see what was happening on 'my' airstrip, and then report to Divisional Headquarters. It was a long time since I had flown an aircraft and I felt quite light-headed as I set off on what was to become a very long journey. I intended only to inspect the work that was being supervised by Captain McLinden, a reliable officer several years older than I, who had served his time in the ranks as a regular soldier. He was not, I thought, a frightfully good pilot, though he proved his ability later in the capture of Akyab and other operations, and not the brainiest of men. But he had a heart of gold and was utterly fearless. It was another lovely day and I flew in bush shirt and shorts, expecting to be back in an hour or so to pick up the other threads in our Squadron life. It was no more than fifteen minute flip, and the hills, which ran more or less north and south, were no obstacle, as I already knew from walking across them. As soon as I cleared the hills I could see the airstrip, but to my surprise none of the activity I expected, particularly no dust from the bulldozer's blades. There was no one to flag me down, which was something I expected on a newly constructed strip, and when I landed I could see no sign of life. Then Mac came running up to me from a clump of trees at the corner of the airstrip where I could see the bulldozer parked and the men from Mac's Section crouching in the grass. 'What the hell's going on?' I began to rage, thinking they had 'stopped for tea'. He pointed away into the hills and shouted above the noise of the engine: 'The Japs are just over there,' almost behind us, in fact, just where they should not have been. So I taxied to the clump of trees, stopped the engine and got out. We held a council of war. Someone had warned Mac to stop work because he was now between the front lines, but had given him no orders or any other information. Mac was the ideal man for the circumstances. He had ordered his men, and I suppose the driver of the bulldozer, to take up a defensive position under the trees and load their rifles. He was quite unflappable and would doubtless have sold his life as dearly as he could. Yet he was, I imagine, glad to have his Flight Commander turn up in the nick of time to assume responsibility for a difficult situation. I had no idea what to do next, as my military training had not covered such circumstances. There is, however, one thing about the Army: you should always be able to find someone to give you orders before you have to act on your own initiative. So I hurried off to Div. H.Q., hidden on the hillside among the trees, to seek out the C.R.A. or some subordinate under whose command I assumed myself to be. He was nowhere to be found, being no doubt in conference with other senior officers about the day's sudden development, and planning for its consequences. Air O.P. could not have loomed large at that critical moment even if I had been able to find him. But at least he would have given me an order, probably to push off back where I had come from and leave the battle to him. All I could find was a baffled-looking junior officer who told me no-one had any idea what was happening or where the Japs were, and he could not advise me what to do. So I returned to the airstrip, thinking hard. The only thing clear in my mind was that I must do something. Mac's Section might be surrounded by the Japanese at any moment as there apparently were no ground troops between us. The Division was facing south and was not expecting its flank to be turned. It was the same old story, but this time with a difference. 15 Corps, of which 7th Indian was a part, was ready to fight a defensive battle on the spot and had no intention of withdrawing. This was at last made possible by the huge improvement in our air capability, which enabled beleaguered troops to be supplied by air. Thus developed the 'Battle of the Admin Box', the first occasion on which the Japs were fought to a standstill, and in due course driven into their disastrous rout down the length and breadth of Burma. That, however, lay in the future and did not help me to decide what to do. Since as far as I could tell nobody knew where the Japanese were, it seemed a good idea to find out. I did not, of course, know that all this time Tony's 'V' Force had been feeding information through about Japanese movements and intentions - he told me that part of it later - and that there must already have been a great deal of information, much of it no doubt based on rumour, in Corps and/or Divisional H.Q. It seemed to me that under the conditions of almost total ignorance, as I had been informed, I was probably the best man for the job of finding out where the Japs were because of my previous experience of the Kalapanzin Valley to the east of us. When I told Mac of my decision to make a reconnaissance he asked me to let him go. I did not even think about it. I did not consider that he was suitable and anyway the Kalapanzin was 'my' valley. Apart from that, it was clearly my responsibility and I could see no other way of assessing the risk to which we were exposed. It never occurred to me to be afraid. The alternative would have been for Mac and me to fly back over the mountains taking a man with us in each aircraft. That was unthinkable. And we could not just sit there. 'Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted' was a popular Army catchphrase. Perhaps it was a wrong decision. It certainly caused a great deal of trouble for all concerned, though I suppose what happened to me was part of the body of experience that led the Squadron to its subsequent successful operations throughout the campaign. It would certainly have been bad for our reputation and our morale to have turned away from danger. Anyway, I took off for the river, which was quite close, and flew up and down the banks seeing nothing. For the first time, I realised how little one could observe through dense forest even at low altitude. The whole area could have been teeming with Japs for all I could tell. Then I flew south to Taung Bazaar. There was no longer a Union Jack on Tony's basha. At once the Japs came swarming out of the village huts and began to shoot at me. I tried to count. Impossible. There were groups of men everywhere and flashes of small arms fire. Splendid targets, but I had no guns to call on. I saw no signs of vehicles or artillery. I was about to turn back when I realised I had lost control of my aircraft, which went crashing into the ground from about 500 feet. It happened very suddenly: no time to think. I should have been dead except that my guardian angel was watching over me and has continued to do so ever since. Even now as I write these words, aged nearer eighty than seventy, and continue to enjoy good health, I thank him for it. But on that afternoon the odds against my earning an old age pension would have been pretty long. My guardian angel's main achievement was to put me down in a small clearing in the forest and prevent the aircraft from catching fire as it might well have done. I do not know how long I was unconscious, and the first thing I dimly realised was that I must get out quick. I opened the door and tumbled out bottom first, dragging my broken legs after me, and lay beneath the wing, losing consciousness again. When I came to, I was aware of shadowy figures creeping around under the trees. These, as Tony Irwin was later to inform me, were Texas Dan and his mates, all set to earn the reward that 'V' Force offered for rescuing pilots who had force-landed. Seventy-five rupees was the official rate, but in the confusion of the Japanese attack, accounting procedures went by the board and Texas Dan was thought to have got away with nearly a thousand. I would not have quibbled. My silver cigarette case was the only thing of value I had with me. I pressed it into his hands, mumbling incoherently. The Japanese must have been close by, and it was touch-and-go whether Texas Dan would get me away before they came. He left me, and for a while I was alone. The teak forest all around, which had looked so fresh and green from the air, was an ugly dusty world of bare tree trunks and big dry leaves. I dozed off into unconsciousness again. When the gang returned, they brought a long bamboo pole on to which I was hoisted, sitting sideways with my arms round a couple of necks, the others taking the weight on each side. They were small men and as they scurried off across the fields, my dangling legs banged against the paddy bunds as we passed, while I clung for dear life to my rescuers' necks. It was rather desperate, and my right leg in particular, which as I visualised it afterwards could have been severed with a sharp knife, was covered with dirt, protruding bone ends and all. I thought we were going in the wrong direction, towards the Japs on the river and away from the airstrip, and I had some anxious moments. But Texas Dan had organised his team with courage and resourcefulness and if I had ever been able to find him again I would most willingly have paid my debt. I tried several times after the war, and sent money to the local District Commissioner, but Burma was soon overwhelmed by communism and there was no way of making contact. Texas Dan's planning was exemplary. He had sent some men ahead to secure a sampan and another party down river to a Field Ambulance which happened to be there, to warn them of my approach. The doctor in charge, Major Crawford as I afterwards learned, had been ordered to withdraw in the face of the Japanese advance, but he decided to ignore his orders until I arrived. To him also I owe my life. I was bundled into the sampan, again scarcely conscious. They covered me with leaves and grass and paddled cautiously downstream, crossing from side to side to avoid Jap patrols. Some of the party were doubtless reconnoitring ahead. I do not know how long that journey took, not too long perhaps though it seemed an age, partly because I had no idea where we were going. I was aware that it was getting dark when we reached the Field Ambulance, so it must have been four or five hours after my crash. Major Crawford was standing on the bank and came down to meet me, plunging a hypodermic needle into my arm without a word.' Afterword: Captain Boys spent the next ten months in hospital, first in India for seven months, Egypt for one month, and then in London. ..return to Personal Recollections & War Diaries updated 4th September 2010 |