Burma Star Association - B.C. Chapter
Where to begin? For the last 12 years or so, I have socialized with Ted at each of our monthly meetings. Frequently he regaled us with delightful tales of his service on the Northwest Frontier. These were always humorous or in lighter vein but we never knew of the untold horrors of war he later suffered in Burma. Ted is such a shy and self-effacing man that it never occurred to him that his endurances should merit further attention, even though he was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery.
Many times I have badgered Ted for more stories, both for our local newsletter and for this website. So at our last monthly meeting he presented me with a manuscript of 130 pages of single spaced text which is an autobiography of his life from birth to the end of the Second World War. Ted wrote it at the insistence of his family and was, and still is, intended strictly for the family archives. He has steadfastly opposed any offers of publication. So I am grateful for the opportunity of reading the entire story and only wish you could do the same
My intention was to read a few pages at a time at my leisure. But once into it I found I could not put it down and finished it in two days. At random I chose extracts from his manuscript, which, being out of context, may lead you to believe that the intent was to publicize the dangerous situations in which he often found himself. Nothing could be further from the truth. His entire remarkable account is without any hint of bravado, self-pity or rancor. In telling it like it was he was humble and fair minded throughout, giving criticism where it rightly belonged and showing admiration for those who shared, and died in these ferocious encounters – even grudgingly extending his admiration, in part, to some of the enemy. After reading the excerpts here, I wonder how may of us could show such fair-mindedness?
My words fail miserably in trying to portray the true essence of this man and his story. But I include below, the ‘Foreword’ to Ted’s manuscript which eloquently says it all.
Joe Arblaster – webmaster.
On reaching the end of William Edward (Ted) Gibbins’ absorbing story, it is difficult to realize that it concludes when he is but twenty-seven years of age, so eventful and engrossing is the account. Ted notes, at the outset, that his intention was to create a record of his early years just for family reading, and he has done that so successfully that it is bound to be a treasured possession within that circle.
But he has done much more. He has produced a tale that will enthrall all others who also have the good fortune to read it.
Ted’s description of the early years in England and Prince George display his wry sense of humour, and his fine ability to skillfully mold language in such a way as to describe hardship, without bitterness, and difficult family adjustments, without rancor.
But this beginning turns out to be but a prelude to the captivating story that follows. His talent as a writer finds its full scope as he tells of his life as a soldier in England, India and Burma during the Second World War. The cataclysmic events of that conflict are known to most of us only as history. It is a rare treat to read the story from such an active participant and one well qualified to provide comment and interpretation. That this work contains these elements will come as no surprise to those who know Ted Gibbins. He has a thorough knowledge of the history and military tactics of the time. His analysis of events, his sensitivity to the nature of Inada and its people, his exhaustive research into his theatre of war, and his anecdotes of wartime, all reflect an informed and scholarly mind, and where appropriate, a humorous bent, in the accounting of those tumultuous years.
Ted’s prodigious memory is evident as he recalls people, places and events without the benefit of a diary or notes from that time. His personal heroism receives only passing mention and that will be understood by those who know this engagingly self-effacing man.
But however captivating the vivid descriptions of the horrors of war, and of the hardships and dangers of a soldier’s life, the most endearing feature of this story is its recurring theme of Eleanor French – “the treasure at the end of the rainbow”. That alone will ensure that Eleanor and Ted’s children and, in time, their grandchildren, will recognize that this work is, truly, a family treasure. For it is, above all, a Love Story.
Barb & Trevor Watson, December 1989
During his first entry into Burma after escaping in a small boat after the fall of Singapore ...
Shortly after I arrived back at the gun position there was an incident which I have always regarded as a minor miracle, and showed that somebody at least was looking after my welfare. It is only very rarely in war that field guns engage in a direct duel with each other. Usually what is referred to as a gun duel means that the guns are busily pounding each other's infantry until one infantry commander or the other can persuade his own gunners to, for God's sake, cut it out. Whereupon the guns on both sides often quit, unless they have some other objective in mind. The normal position for field artillery is well behind their own infantry and out of sight of each other. In this case however, a Japanese battery had entered the fray. Both groups of guns were in clear view of each other, and took each other on with great gusto.
The din of the guns and exploding shells was so great that I was standing directly behind one of the guns so that the crew could hear my orders. A Japanese shell came in directly from in front, smashed the recuperator directly under the barrel, pierced the gun shield where it was deflected downwards onto a tyre which it ripped off together with that side of the axle, and flew off end over end without exploding. The gun was totally wrecked and the oil from the recuperator caught fire, but none of the crew or myself were hurt except for a few minor scratches.
Shortly thereafter we received orders to limber up preparatory to retiring, which is an overworked army euphemism for retreating, which we did with great haste as the Japanese guns must have had more ammunition than we did and were unwilling to call it quits. A message had just come through that Moulmein was being evacuated and the whole of Burma Army was falling back to protect Rangoon. All the area south was being abandoned. So began that long, dreary, heartbreaking 900 mile retreat back to India which was to test the British and Indian troops involved to the uttermost and beyond. To the last, when they plodded wearily into Imphal in India they lacked virtually everything an army required except the courage to continue the fight to the bitter end. It is a blot on the outlook of the British and Indian authorities and people that it went largely unrecognised.
But disasters were to follow in quick succession before that day as staffs and troops strove with all their might to stem the tide of the Japanese invasion. Desperately plans were made and had to be abandoned as the situation changed immeasurably from hour to hour. The truth was, as most officers and men recognized, Burma Army was neither equipped nor trained to withstand even an equal Japanese force in the jungle. It consisted of only two infantry divisions, while the Japanese threw four and later even five divisions into the fight.
Our line of retreat from Moulmein lay over the Sittang River. This six hundred yard wide, swiftly flowing river was spanned by a single railway bridge which had been roughly decked to take vehicular traffic. It was vital to hold this bridge, or at least ensure that it did not fall intact into the hands of the Japanese, when they could sweep almost unimpeded to Rangoon. Retreating by jungle tracks with our cumbersome transport, one brigade had been sent ahead to hold the bridge while the other two brigades fought a rearguard action towards it, only to find that once again the Japanese had cut through the jungle and were now between the leading brigade, now across the river, and ourselves.
A desperate battle now ensued as our two brigades fought to break through the Japanese and reach the bridge which was our only hope of getting ourselves, our guns and our transport' over the river. The fighting was bloody and hand to hand with no quarter given or asked as we battled our way towards our comrades on the West bank. Then came tragedy. The Divisional Commander, believing that the bridge could no longer be held, and oppressed by his duty to prevent the Japanese from capturing it, gave the necessary order and the bridge was blown. We were bitter and outraged, but in retrospect it is easy to criticize the decision; it cannot be easy to make such a decision.
The sound of the explosions created a strange lull in the battle. Both sides knew what it meant; that the Japanese no matter how hard they attacked could not capture the bridge, and that we ourselves were in a desperately hard position. With a final effort we broke through to the bank and saw with horror the broken bridge and the six hundred yards of river before us. I think that most of us, gazing towards the West bank, felt closer to despair at that moment than at any time in our lives.
But despair does not win battles or save lives, and there were things to be done. The first thing was to destroy our so-called guns as there was no hope of getting them back across the river. Although, looking back on it I am convinced that the Japanese would have regarded them with the same wonder as ourselves. This was normally a job undertaken by the sappers who would place a couple of sticks of dynamite in the muzzle and explode it, peeling back the barrel like a stick of celery. Our sappers were busy blowing up bridges so we had to the job ourselves. This was accomplished by ramming a shell nose first into the muzzle and a second one in the usual fashion via the breech. The gun was then fired with a long length of telephone wire. Needless to say, when the two shells met head-on in the bore, they produced a very satisfactory explosion that completely wrecked the gun.
There remained the problem of the river, and this posed a question which I had to face for the second time. (Referring to his Singapore escape). It was no easier. It has always been a tradition and point of honour that a British officer engaged with his men against an enemy in the field will never desert them, but will remain with them and share their fate, for better or worse, whatever it might be. But when the immediate fighting is finished and there remains nothing but to attempt to escape or surrender, and the battle is still raging elsewhere and is likely to for a long time, where does the officer's duty lay? Should he help those with the will and ability to escape and follow after them, leaving those who cannot or will not get away? Or should he help those get away who can and then remain with the others? Common sense dictates the first option - tradition the second. I opted for common sense. After all there was little chance that I would be allowed to remain with my men in captivity, whereas by going I could continue the fight.
With the other officers of the regiment we urged the men into the water with anything that would float to help them across - bits of bamboo, empty petrol tins, baulks of wood - anything that would provide some buoyancy. Then, when no more men would go, I stripped down to my underwear, waded into the water and started to swim. That swim was a nightmare, as by this time the Japanese were on the East bank and firing at anything that moved in the water. Time after time I dived and let the current carry me where it wished to escape the bullets that were churning the surface. Even the bodies of the dead provided a momentary shelter as I and others like me struggled to reach the far bank where, completely exhausted, we crawled out of the water to safety. Many did not make it and were shot or drowned. Eight battalions or about 6000 men of the infantry, plus gunners and drivers and all the support troops of the two brigades were marooned on the East bank. Of these, under 2000 made it to the other side. Almost all were without weapons or even boots and reduced in most cases to their underwear.
There was now the question of my employment. I was a gunner with no guns, and there is nothing more pathetic than that. For a couple of weeks I was detailed to assist in the Intelligence Branch of Burma Corps which was a very sketchy organisation to begin with, as we had nothing like any intelligence setup of the time. Our knowledge of the Japanese was almost non existent, and what we could learn of their movements was out of date by the time it reached us. But it was here for the first time that I worked under Bill Slim in his headquarters and acquired the admiration for his calm, determination and down to earth common sense that I have retained ever since. He was a soldier's soldier in every sense.
But this was not what I wanted. If there was no vacancy in our now meagre artillery I could fill I would have to look for something else. The infantry were honed down very thin and were terribly short of officers, and although I had no training as an infantry officer, I applied to be attached to an infantry battalion, perhaps as an observation officer for whatever artillery support they had; any position where I could be of some use. The application was immediately accepted and I was sent forward, ignorant as I was, to join a Punjab battalion as an attached officer. I had found my home.
This is not intended to be a history of the first Burma campaign which, for those involved, was a long agony of fighting almost impossible odds in seemingly hopeless conditions. Endlessly, time after time, we would trudge off towards the sound of the guns and another fight, and then retire only to do it all over again. There were no reinforcements and a man lost meant the unit stayed a man short.
We could see our tired commands shrinking visibly before our eyes. Men coming back for a few hours of rest would drop by the roadside and sleep in their dirty, torn uniforms as they were until, looking around you could almost believe that you were commanding a platoon of dead men. Sometimes we officers would look at our men and think to ourselves "They are finished, they have nothing more to give". Yet when the call came we would go around and shake them into some sort of wakefulness and they would pick up their rifles and plod off to yet another fight
The casualties among the British officers of the Indian infantry battalions were horrendous and could not be replaced Even had officers from other services been available they would have been of no use, as without any knowledge of the language they could not have communicated with their men, so that platoons and even companies were commanded by Indian Subedars or Jemadars, normally subordinate to even the most recently joined second lieutenant, because there were no others. I was thankful that even during my service in India with a British battery I had taken the trouble to hire a munshi to teach me some Urdu, though the others in the battery thought I was mad to waste my time on such idiocy. In point of fact most of the Subedars and Jemadars were fine soldiers of fifteen to twenty years service who had risen from the ranks by merit and were better in command than many of the British officers of lesser service, although it would have been heresy to say so. It was certainly so in my case.
When the men of Burma Army reached Imphal in India we were physically and mentally very near the end of our strength. We had endured casualties, hardship, hunger, sickness and, above all the heartbreaking frustration of retreat to a degree that few armies have suffered and yet held together as armies. We were ready, even yet if called upon, to turn and fight again, but we had been buoyed up by the thought that once we reached the border into India, not only would other troops interpose between us and the enemy to give us a respite from the strain, but that welcome and rest would await us.
Instead we found that the only forces India had been able to provide this threatened frontier were a single infantry brigade of raw troops, with the promise of the gradual arrival of the rest of a division. We had expected to rest and recuperate behind the protection of fresh troops. Instead we were harshly told to do the covering ourselves. We did not expect to be treated as heroes, but we did expect to be treated as soldiers who, even if defeated, were not disgraced. Yet the attitude of certain commanders was that we were only to be dragooned into some show of soldierly spirit by hectoring and sarcasm. Apart from its lack of comradely feeling this was bad psychology. How much wiser was the treatment of the troops who escaped from Dunkirk. Their courage was generously recognized - they were received as if they had won a great victory, not suffered a disaster. We felt we had endured a longer ordeal with at least equal courage. We felt we deserved an equal welcome.
This was not true of at least some of the senior officers on the spot who did everything in their power to ease the lot of Burma Army. These were the tough, soldierly men, some of whom were to achieve high rank later on, who recognized that the fighting troops of Burma Army, the infantry, artillery, and tank crews, who came out in disciplined ranks, every man with his weapons but little else, were very different from the hodgepodge of improvised units, non-combatants, civil and military deserters, officer-less men and riff-raff who swarmed out ahead of us. Others did not, and nothing was more galling to tired, exasperated fighting men who knew they had done their duty.
If the welcome we received in India was not what we expected the comfort provided was even less. As our wasted units marched wearily into Imphal through sheets of monsoon rain, we were directed to areas of jungle on steep hillsides and told to bivouac there. It seemed that no preparation whatever had been made for our reception. We arrived with nothing but the torn, filthy clothing we stood up in. We did not have blankets, no waterproof capes, no tentage, nor did we find any awaiting us. The slogan seemed to be "Isn't that Burma Army dead yet?" We were bitter, and who could be surprised at it except for the thoughtless staffs in India who had never, throughout the campaign and after done anything for us. If we had come out of Burma as a fully equipped corps with our full equipment of transport, tentage and medical supplies, we might have managed. But we had not. We had practically nothing, even if, as was pointed out, that was OUR fault. Many lost the will to fight longer against the malaria, dysentery and exhaustion. It was later estimated that eighty percent of the fighting men who came out of Burma fell sick, and many died.
But when all was said and done there was no denying that we had been out-generalled, out-manoeuvred and outfought all along the line. We knew that we had lost over 13,000 men killed, wounded and missing. Information obtained later put the Japanese casualties at only a third of this, some 4,600 killed and wounded.
Amongst some of the remnants of our division there was the feeling, enhanced by the reception and lack of any organisation with which we had been received, that we would never be able to defeat the Japanese except by sheer luck, and our luck was, apparently, run out. But among many more, the retreat had engendered a furious rage against the Japanese, who we considered little better than animals, and an iron determination to exact retribution in full and overflowing measure for all we had suffered when our day came.
As we were sure it would.
By now I had joined the battalion as second in command of "B" Company. Although fresh and untested the men were good, well disciplined, confident and skilled in the use of their weapons as we knew they would be. But I feared for them when I saw their utter lack of knowledge of how to fight in the jungle. The company commander and I tried our best to overcome their fear of the jungle by sending them out on patrols into it, even though we were not in contact with the enemy, and by lecturing them on the fact that the jungle had many advantages for those prepared to use them. It neither helped nor hindered one side more than the other. It was up to the men. We knew what the Japanese were like in the offense and they were very good. We were to discover that in the defense they were very good also. But we were advancing to meet them and there was very little time or opportunity to improve our men.
We had one advantage, as we thought. Our intelligence efforts had disclosed that Arakan was held by only one regiment of the Japanese 55th Division equal to about four battalions. As opposed to this we had a complete division with its full complement of divisional troops including artillery. It would seem that on paper at least we comfortably had the three to one superiority which is said to be the theoretical requirement for attack over defence. The writers of the book had neglected to emphasize certain other factors, and we were about to learn the difference between the theory and the practice. One of these factors was ground.
The Mayu Peninsula down which we were advancing was like a "V" with its point facing southwards. At its point was the port of Akyab which was our objective. The peninsula was about ninety miles long by about twenty wide at its northern (India) end. Down its centre runs the Mayu Range, a razor sharp ridge from one to two thousand feet high, precipitous but jungle covered, that is to say about half the height of Grouse Mountain but steeper and even more thickly wooded. On the sea side it descended in a series of broken and tangled spurs to within a thousand yards of the water, and on the other side equally broken ground to the Mayu River. The narrow strips of level ground on both sides were split by innumerable streams, or chaungs, which on the sea side are tidal and with treacherous banks of mud at low tide. Such a terrain would afford, at frequent intervals, ideal positions for defence, and gravely hamper the deployment of an attacking force.
The obvious answer to this would have been a series of amphibious hooks down the coast to bypass these defences in turn, or to use paratroops to drop on Akyab or the point opposite to it and cut off the Japanese on the peninsula. But there were no landing craft to carry the troops or bombarding ships to cover them as they landed. Nor were there paratroops or aircraft to carry them. There was nothing for it but a head-on attack. Everybody knew that a straight-forward advance over such terrain would be a slow and costly business, and knowing the Japanese tenacity, might well be held up.
To begin with all seemed to be going well, and Xmas Eve 1942 found us at the little port of Maungdaw. That night our battalion lay in the pouring rain awaiting "H" hour to assault the port and, as we thought, our first major engagement with the Japanese defenders. There was little of the Xmas spirit, and laying beside me in the mud the company commander expressed the feelings of all of us when he muttered "Peace on earth and goodwill towards men! If there are any shepherds watching their flocks tonight I'll bet they have one eye cocked to the sky in case somebody drops a bomb on 'em!"
But we were to be spared a battle on that day of peace on earth. The Japanese had decided not to defend Maungdaw, and except for a few men left to harass us as we entered the little town, and many booby traps that cost us some casualties, we were unopposed. One of the buildings had been occupied by the Japanese Intelligence staff and it contained a piano. On it was a note in English from one of their officers asking us to take good care of it, as they would like it to be still there when they returned. Whether it was or not I do not know, but I doubt it. During our occupation the Japanese air f orce bombed the little town unmercifully, and after they reoccupied it our R.A.F. returned the bombing with interest. Little remained of Maungdaw by then.
Our advance continued slowly and cautiously down the coastal plain to the west until we reached the little village of Donbaik which was to write its own page in the history of the British and Indian armies. Here we met, for the first time, a properly prepared and manned Japanese defensive position and what was to be our most trying problem in the theatre which was bunker busting. And in our caution and snail like approach we had given them plenty of time to prepare. These Japanese bunkers were small strong points usually made of heavy palm logs covered with four feet or so of earth, and so cleverly camouflaged that they were almost invisible even from fifty or sixty yards. They were manned by anything from twenty-five men upwards and well provided with machine guns. The soggy, fibrous palm logs were virtually impervious to bombardment by field guns, and even a direct hit by a medium bomb rarely penetrated. They were sited in groups so that it was impossible for assaulting troops to reach a bunker without coming under the fire of at least two others.
The first one was located, not surprisingly, by a Forward Observation Officer of the artillery. He noticed slight signs of digging in a scrubby little mound a few feet high standing between the Japanese and British lines. He registered it and gave it the target number S5 - "Sugar Five". A more ill-omened target number was never entered on a target record form.
Time and time again we hurled ourselves against this position. Battalion after battalion in turn fought their way up to the bunkers and were thrown back with bloody losses. For our own battalion it was one of the bloodiest in the whole history of the regiment, exceeded only by the battalion in the defence of Hong Kong, which was completely annihilated. We fought our way forward over the dead of those who had preceded us, to no avail. At the end, when we were forced to withdraw, only thirty of the men of our original company remained, and many of them were wounded but carried on. The Company Commander and my gallant Subedhar were among those we left behind. When the attack was finally called off over a thousand of our dead from many battalions littered the ground in front of the position. A Punjabi battalion, with great gallantry, actually managed to get on top of the position but was unable to silence the bunkers and were driven off by a hail of shell and mortar fire by the Japanese, who unhesitatingly brought down fire on their own positions. It was a ghastly defeat but was the precursor to much worse.
In our own unit, of the four company commanders, two were dead and a third severely wounded. Two of the four company officers, or seconds in command, were also dead, so that of the eight British officers of the rifle companies only three remained. The companies themselves were mere shadows of their former strengths. Cooks, clerks, signallers, runners and any others at hand were rounded up and sent into the rifle companies and with them we were able to form three instead of four companies of moderate strength, and each of the remaining three British officers took command of one of them. I was finally a company commander but under circumstances I wished from the bottom of my heart had been otherwise.
The R.A.F. was asked to deal with the position by heavy bombing. Owing to the known inaccuracy of bombing and the fact that bombing runs tend to creep off the target area, they insisted that the troops be withdrawn a thousand yards from the position. The infantry refused to give up ground they had won at the cost of so much blood for an endeavour that had no guarantee of success. The artillery, at night, brought up a disassembled 3.7" mountain howitzer to within sixty yards of the central bunker. Even at such point blank range the shells failed to penetrate and the gun crew sustained casualties from it as they withdrew. Even the navy was asked if they could assist, the idea being that a depth charge thrower could hurl depth charges at the bunkers. This would likely have destroyed them had it been possible to devise a suitable percussion fuse instead of a depth actuated one. No ideas seemed acceptable to eliminate the problem.
General Irwin's reaction to this disaster was to pour in more troops. Brigade after brigade was sent into the holocaust as if there was no limit to the number of men to be sacrificed in what was now a hopeless venture. With nine brigades instead of its normal three, Headquarters 14th Division, efficient as it undoubtedly was, could not cope. The Staff was overworked and worn out. In his history of the Burma War Bill Slim relates that he went to Irwin and insisted that his Corps Headquarters be interposed between Army H.Q. and the beleaguered 14th Division to take some of the load off them. He argued that 14th Division was already at the strength of a corps but with a staff of only divisional strength to deal with it. He received permission only to go down and assess the situation but not to take command. On his arrival he found the situation far worse than he had thought possible. He believed that unless something was done quickly a greater disaster was to follow, and his assessment, gloomy though it was, was accurate in every detail. The only man who could have done anything to avert it had been given no power to do so by his army commander.
His main preoccupation as he saw it was the Arakan Yoma, the ridge running down the centre of the peninsula. It should not be thought that the west side of the range at Donbaik was the only area where fighting was going on. On the other side of the Yomas fighting of almost equal ferocity was going on at the same time as other troops of 14th Division fought for their lives against massive Japanese attacks, for here the Japanese were not merely sitting on the defensive but were effectively driving our brigades out of the area. By the time the Donbaik fighting had died down and we were licking our wounds, wondering what was to happen next, the Japanese had occupied the whole eastern level area on the Mayu River. We did not think it could be worse than we had suffered so far, but we were wrong.
The situation now was that the Japanese occupied the East side of the peninsula while we occupied the West side as far as Donbaik, with the precipitous Yomas dividing us. Although I did not know it, this was what was bothering Slim. It was also bothering me. The Yomas were still considered impassable by nearly everybody from General Lloyd downwards, and this led to the assumption that whatever else happened, our left flank at least was safe. But this was predicated on the premise that the hills constituted a barrier between us and the Japanese that could not be crossed from East to West. But did it? If the Japanese could cross then 14th Division was in the most terrible danger and would not only be outflanked but cut off.
Looking at them I was not so sure and would have been more comfortable had there been a line of piquets on top of that ridge to give us warning of a Japanese approach in case the assumption was wrong. I felt that with properly trained troops, and the Japanese were properly trained, I would face no insuperable difficulty passing over and through them. I was only a very junior officer and no great tactician. But it was flattering to discover later that Bill Slim and I were thinking along the same lines, possibly because we had previous experience of Japanese capabilities which few of the others possessed. For he, too, thought that these jungle covered ridges were not a protection but a great danger. But generals do not ask advice of captains, and the only general available to give advice did not have the power to issue orders to see it was carried out. For in truth the Yomas were passable as the Japanese soon demonstrated.
While we rested with an entirely false sense of security the Japanese arrived and struck at that exposed flank. Assailed all along the line the division started to disintegrate. The fighting developed into a general melee as our brigades fell apart, and the battlefield developed the aspect of a grotesque layer cake with layers of British and Indian infantry and artillery and Japanese troops interspersed between one another. Hundreds of small battles flared in all directions as our troops fought savagely to regroup and the Japanese fought with their usual ferocity to prevent them. Groups of soldiers collided in bloody combat with flashing bayonets and exploding grenades, to reel apart and meet yet another group further on. There was no time for thought or tactical niceties, but simply slaughter everywhere. The Japanese took no prisoners, and knowing this our men fought with grim determination as they sought to recombine themselves into some sort of fighting formation. There was no time or opportunity to recover wounded. They were left where they fell. Few of them survived Japanese bestiality when the fighting was over. The Brigadier of the 6th British Brigade died, whether from our own shellfire or murdered by the Japanese is not known, but is believed to be the latter.
While this mutual destruction was going on General Irwin came to the front, relieved General Lloyd and assumed command himself, but by this time such troops of the 14th Division as remained had struggled back. Irwin's contribution was to establish some sort of line to stop the Japanese incursion. The entire responsibility was heaped on General Lloyd, but although he had made many serious errors in generalship, largely through ignorance of Japanese methods and capabilities, it was not all his fault. A large part of it was the intransigence, ineptness and unwillingness on the part of Irwin to recognize that in Slim he had an officer who was better able to do what had to be done than he himself. Perhaps he wished to reap the credit for himself of a successful re-entry into Burma. If so it badly backfired. But a scapegoat had to be found, and who else but Lloyd who was the man on the spot?
The battle by no means ended there but went drearily on for several weeks more after which a line was established almost at the original starting point of the operation. All our losses and suffering had been for naught. But there is no point in going further into it here. 14th Division was finished as a fighting force and was gradually replaced by another Indian Division commanded by General Lomax, who was to become one of the outstanding generals of the rest of the war in Burma, and commanded one of the Corps which brought about the final defeat of the Japanese. But that was still in the future. There was another beneficial result. Irwin was of necessity compelled to bring in Bill Slim and the rest of his XV Corps. A great deal still went wrong, and Irwin tried to re-establish his vanishing credit by blaming Slim and relieving him also. But other eyes had seen what went on. Irwin was fired.
But it was too much like 1942 all over again, with the added bitterness that this time we had been defeated by forces smaller than our own.
We were marching hard towards a place we had never heard of before, but about which we were to hear a great deal in the future, Kohima. The staff probably knew by this time, but we had not been told, that we were facing an entire enemy division and were out-numbered by almost three to one. But I do not think it would have made any difference to us if we had known. We were full of confidence and considered ourselves high quality, blooded troops. We had already met the enemy man for man in the field and beaten him. We had no doubt of our ability to stop him in his tracks no matter how many of them there were.
Kohima lay about thirty miles east of Dimapur, but unlike the base it was an excellent defensive position. The base was surrounded by hills which dominated the masses of administrative units. Clerks, storemen and Indian labour were doing their best to place it in some sort of condition for defence, but it was certain that if the Japanese could not be stopped at Kohima, which had excellent defences, they could not be stopped at Dimapur which had none. Kohima was therefore the key to the position, but there was practically nothing to hold it with. Without going into a great deal of detail it was the task of our brigade to reinforce Kohima and hold it to the last until Dimapur was strengthened by a complete division which was then in the process of moving.
We set out, and such was Warren's energy that by the next day our advance units were in contact with those of the enemy twenty miles beyond Kohima. Now came confusion. The general in command in Dimapur, who was an administrative officer and had been thrown willy-nilly into a fighting command for which he had no experience, decided that 161 Brigade would be better positioned for defence of the railhead if it was close in, and orders were sent to Warren to withdraw our brigade there. He protested bitterly but to no purpose. We marched back to Dimapur, which prompted Warren to dub our brigade as the Duke of York's Own, whose troops in a previous war had ‘marched up the hill and marched down again’, which witticism earned him a ponderous rebuke from higher authority. This left Kohima with a scratch force of about 1200 men while fourteen thousand ravening Japanese closed in on it.
Once more came counter orders. Some of the reinforcing division had arrived in Dimapur and the general decided that our brigade could again move off to Kohima to fulfill its original task. Off we went again, but the situation had badly deteriorated in the meantime. The enemy had closed up, and the best Warren could do was to place a single battalion of our brigade into Kohima to bolster the defence, and halt the remainder with its artillery some four thousand yards short of it. There was a great deal more to it than this, but I do not wish to burden this account with a mass of tactical detail having no direct bearing on my own story. But here I made a serious error that showed me that I was not as good a small unit tactician as I thought I was. One of the greatest problems of the garrison was a shortage of infantry officers to command such ad hoc units as could be raised from among them. My company commander was also second in command of the battalion and as such he had been "left out of battle" so that he could come forward and take over command immediately should it be necessary. I was temporarily commanding the company, and I received orders to take my company into Kohima and escort out some 500 non-combatants who would be a hindrance to the defence. We had no problem getting in, but once there I could see how terribly short they were of infantry officers. I decided to ignore my orders and dropped off one platoon while using the rest of the company to escort out the non-combatants. Except for a few snipers who were easily brushed aside there was no difficulty. In retrospect it was a bad move. Having varied my orders to that extent I should have gone the whole hog, kept the company in Kohima and used only a section or two as escort. Had I done so it would have provided the defence with five competent infantry officers and a hundred good Rajput troops. We might have been able to hold a few positions that were otherwise lost, and had to be retaken afterwards at such terrible cost.
For eleven days the defenders held on, being driven into an ever contracting circle until the perimeter was a bare five hundred yards in diameter. Bullets fired into one side, if not stopped before, passed out the other side. We gave them such help from the outside as we could by harrying the Japanese with fighting patrols and artillery fire, but it was not much, and they underwent their ordeal largely alone. As the perimeter was shortened by the relentless attacks of vastly superior numbers the position was in continuous eruption from the storm of shells and mortar bombs raining down upon it. Their casualties were severe. At one point in the defences only a tennis court separated the two sides, each holding one end of it with grenades shuttling back and forth instead of tennis balls. There was no place of safety, nor any evacuation of the wounded, and men were hit again and again as they lay in the casualty clearing station. But more troops were arriving until it was thought possible to go over to the attack. We were once more ordered forward and finally relieved the tortured garrison who had held on so valiantly for so long.
Now began the task of recapturing from the Japanese all the positions we had lost, and which developed into the bloodiest and most prolonged fighting of the whole Burma war. All the difficulties faced by the Japanese in taking the defences in the first place had now to be faced by us in retaking them. The rains had now started and troops clawed their way up muddy hillsides to reach their enemy at the top of one hill after another. Tanks, often pushed by a bulldozer, half buried themselves in the mud trying to get into a position from which they could support their infantry. Relays of stretcher bearers often took as much as six hours to carry a wounded comrade two miles to a casualty clearing station, as ambulances were unable to get further forward The Japanese showed themselves to be as tenacious in defence as they had ever been, and every yard of ground exacted its toll of blood as we inched our way forward. There comes a point where words can no longer describe the suffering and endurance of the men on both sides. They are beyond description. Even after the war survivors of the Kohima battle admitted to having nightmares of it for years afterwards.
It was during this phase of the battle that occurred what had been bound to happen sooner or later; which in fact was already long over due. A group of our battalion officers were discussing how we were going to assault our next objective when there was a deafening roar and the earth seemed to erupt. When I came to I was on my way to the casualty clearing station as a first stop before being flown back to a field hospital. Kohima was the last battle in which I would fight.
As I would take no further part in that bitter, prolonged struggle there is no point in going into it further except, perhaps, to give the final results of what was one of the decisive battles of W.W.II. The Japanese had suffered the greatest defeat in all their military history, far worse than any that took place in the South Pacific, although this is not generally known. Five whole divisions had been destroyed, while two others had been so badly mauled that they were no longer effective fighting formations. Fifty thousand Japanese had been killed and their bodies counted on the Arakan and Imphal/Kohima fronts. Allowing only half that number for badly wounded - and a very high percentage of their wounded died - the enemy had lost permanently some seventy-five thousand men. Added to this were some fifteen thousand in the extreme northern sector of 14th Army operations, and the total inflicted by them comes to some ninety thousand casualties on the Japanese side, mainly dead. In addition to this all the equipment of these divisions including their artillery and armour had been lost.
Our own losses, as was to be expected in such fighting, had been heavy, some forty thousand killed and wounded. Many of the wounded would recover to fight again, but losses had been heaviest where they were hardest to replace in the officers and N.C.Os of the fighting units. We had yielded few prisoners; of these the wounded were almost invariably murdered or left to die. We had lost no guns. We had done well, but the price we paid was bitter. We had shown that the Jap was not the invincible jungle fighter he seemed to have been. We had met him man for man and had bettered him, and the debt between us that had been accumulating since 1942 was being paid back. With interest...
It is astonishing to the men of 14th Army that so little of this was known, and is still not known, to those who remember W.W.II. The 14th Army always called itself the "Forgotten Army" and to a large extent this was and still is true. The reasons for this are not hard to find. That army was the largest Allied army ever to take the field. At its peak it numbered nearly a million men. But unlike other allied armies, over three quarters of them were Indian. The number of British troops compared with those in other theatres of the war was small.
None of the well known British or American news reporters went there, and the war there was almost unwritten about in the world press.
This is regrettable, as the Indian soldier and his British counterpart received little or no credit for their part in winning the war under appalling conditions unknown in any other area. The Japanese were not their only enemy. Malaria, dengue fever, jungle typhus, typhoid, deadly amoebic dysentery and a host of other maladies took a higher toll among us than the Japanese. In the face of this it would be thought that the 14th Army would have received special consideration in the allocation of medical facilities to the various theatres. Not so. It was actually on a far LOWER scale than other areas. The Forgotten Army could put up with shortages of everything else, and they did. But this one was the hardest to forgive and forget.
The trip home ... and the end of the rainbow. From London it was possible to phone to Canada, although calls had to be booked in advance and were limited to three minutes. I booked a call and phoned Eleanor. I will not attempt to describe my feelings at hearing her voice after so long a time.
Finally I received orders from the India Office to go to Southampton and board the Aquitania for passage home. They got the date wrong and I arrived a day early, before boarding was to take place. The ship had its own Canadian military staff as all those aboard were Canadians and their wives bound for Halifax. They kindly allowed me to board early.
Once there I was detailed as Orderly Officer. I don't know why unless there was no Canadian Officer willing to do the job, or they wanted to see how this strange Indian officer would perform. The duties were not onerous and mainly consisted of supervising the issue of chocolate bars which some organisation had kindly donated, and following the Captain and O.C. Troops around on their inspections of the ship. And here I had a great shock. In the bowels of one of the troop decks there was none other than Bob Bickford (previous friend). He had been taken prisoner with the rest of the regiment, but had escaped the horror of the Burma Siam Railway, where it was estimated that every yard cost the life of an allied prisoner of war or enslaved coolie. Instead he had spent the entire war in Changi Jail. That was bad enough, but it possibly saved his life. He had been returned to England where he met a girl he was about marry, and had enrolled in the National Fire Service as a fireman. He was going to Canada to see his family again before returning to England permanently.
There is little more to said about the trip home. I was consumed with impatience to see Eleanor, and Vancouver, not Prince George, was my first destination. I think the family understood.
There had been much hardship and some danger and a great deal of grief in those intervening years, but when I saw Eleanor standing on the platform awaiting me all faded into the background and I was truly home and where I belonged. The storm had passed and I had found the treasure at the end of the rainbow.
I would like to bring this epic to a close with a bit of philosophizing with which you might or might not agree. During the war we lost much treasure and even worse many valuable lives. Families were left with vacant spaces that could never be filled. The suffering endured by soldiers and civilians alike cannot be comprehended by succeeding generations. And the question often asked is "Was it worth it?" To this I give an unqualified "Yes". We gained nothing and we lost much, but we preserved a great deal that we would otherwise have lost.
It is the fashion nowadays to talk of one's God-given rights to certain things; the right to freedom of speech; the right of assembly; the right to worship the God of our choice or none at all; the right to go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that we will not be pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by storm troopers or secret police; the right to educate our children as well as we can and not to fear what we say in front of them.
And most of all the right to elect whom we want to govern us and reject those we do not.
But I have news for those who hold these to be of divine endowment. God had little to do with them. They were bequeathed to us by previous generations of men who took sword or rifle in hand and defied those who would take them away. And we will retain these rights and privileges only so long as we are prepared to defend them, by force if necessary.
History provides many examples of peoples who have reached a high standard of civilization only to become complacent and eventually succumb to other less civilized but more vigorous societies. The soldier needs no lectures on the horrors of war. He has seen them at first hand. Nobody who has not experienced it can understand the sinking feeling of knowing that in a few minutes he is going to have to get to his feet and walk forward into a hail of steel. No one who was not there can understand the sadness when the roll is called after battle and the silence when names are called that will never be answered to again. Imagine, if you can, the agony of writing to the widow of one of your men whose shattered remains have made even hardened burial parties sick, and telling her that her husband died a quick, painless and heroic death.
Think, if you can, of trying to sink into the earth while it erupts around you. Soldiers have done these things and many more that cannot even be recounted without sickening. Yet the strange thing is that, although they do not talk much about it, there are few who would not do it again if circumstances required them to.
Like it or not, a decision must be made by all who value and benefit from the way of life we have in our democratic countries. Are these rights precious enough to defend or not? And if they are, it must be accepted that there are times when they can only be safeguarded by war or threat of war. No other way has been found to deal with the Hitler’s, Mussolini’s or Stalin’s of this world, whose signatures on a piece of paper are worthless and whose promises are not worth the breath it takes to utter them, and whose ruthlessness and brutality exceed anything the present generation can comprehend. For be assured that there have always been Hitler’s and Stalin’s and will be again, and those not prepared to defend their rights and values against them will lose them.
A far greater man than I, in talking about the Hitler war, stated "I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees." It is a thought to ponder and decide one way or the other should we be again threatened.
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The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations presents his compliments and has the honour to transmit the enclosed Awards granted for service in the Indian Forces during the war of 1939 -1945
Gazette of India extract Vol. 56 Issue 217 dated 8th March 1943
EC12077 GIBBINS W.E. Captain.
7th Rajput Regiment
On 17th February 1943 this officer took over command of his infantry company on the death of his company commander and whilst his company was attacking a strongly entrenched Japanese position at Donbaik on the Arakan coast of Burma. Captain Gibbins courageously led several assaults on the enemy position, which proved impossible to capture. On being ordered to withdraw, the remains of the company found itself unable to advance or retire, being pinned down by enemy machine gun fire. Captain Gibbins single handedly engaged the Japanese position with grenades and so distracted the enemy machine gunners that his company was able to retire without further casualties.
During subsequent fighting Capt. Gibbins led his company with consummate skill and complete disregard of his own safety, and in the highest tradition of his regiment.
His Majesty is therefore pleased to authorize the Immediate Award to this officer of the Military Cross.