Rowland William Button's War Story - Chapter 4

ROWLAND BUTTON’S WAR STORY AS TOLD TO HIS GRANDAUGHTER RACHEL

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

CHAPTER 4

My memory fails as to what happened next or at least the order in which various events happened. I can remember going to Ranchi to be taught how to drive jeeps through paddy fields. I can remember being assigned for a while to an airborne army division just out from England. It was during the monsoon period and we had to dig ditches round the tents to try to get dry beds to sleep on. The flies were terrible, so many that they use to kill themselves in heaps on the toilet doors. It was difficult to eat ones meals, the flies were everywhere, even on sauce bottles. Then for a while I was somewhere helping with aircraft dropping supplies to our troops in Burma and with a unit using small light aircraft in Burma. But now it all seems a mystery I cannot solve. Could it all be a dream?

What I do remember though is that on VE day I was south of Bombay at a place called Sambre. This was a very big camp used mainly for airmen in transit from one assignment to the next. While I was here the war in the East against Japan was still on. There was no enthusiasm on the big victory parade that was attempted. As we marched round on the parade, the airmen scampered off from the end of the parade so I think the air officer commanding had far fewer men when he finished than he did when he started. We were not really interested in parades and ceremonial. We still wanted to get on with our war and finish it off.

Soon I was on my way again — right to the north of India, right up to Rawalapindi, very near the foothills of the Himalayas. I was on my way, to a PTS. I thought this was a physical training school but it turned out to be a school for parachute training.

It’s a long way again by train from Bombay to Rawalapindi and a lonely one if you are on your own. But I had been on these sorts of journeys before and I had equipped myself well. I had a tin trunk with all my clothes in. I had some bedding to sleep on and I bought a map of India so I could tell where I was. All went well till Lahore — a big city in the north of India and while the train was stopped there my tin trunk went missing — so I was left with nothing! Worse thing of all I had lost my Sten gun for at that time all troops carried a gun and just at that period I had put it in the tin trunk. So what to do?

I decided to stop in Lahore for a day or so hoping that the tin trunk would turn up, that it was just mislaid and not stolen. I hunted around the goods sheds, asked a lot of people but the chances of finding the trunk were remote. I never did find it — I wonder what happened to it. I bought a shirt and shorts with what money I had because you soon get dirty travelling in India. I caught a train to Rawalapindi, reported at the training centre and no one was the slightest bit interested in me and my lost tin trunk — or the Sten gun.

The experience of the first day at the camp was a sandstorm. Sand grit was blowing everywhere. Quite different to the monsoon weather. Every morning now we were up early. I think I was the only one who couldn’t jump off the hanger roof properly. You had a harness on and you had to swing one leg out and jump down to the hanger floor. It seemed that I had not enough courage! But the day came and I had to jump out of a Dakota aircraft. We flew at 600 feet only, it was a bright morning and I was the first of the stick to jump. A stick is a number of men who are to jump one after the other. The aircraft put its tail up, the green light came on and I had no option but to go because someone pushed me in the back with a hefty slap. After that we had to do it again several times. One thing I remember Rachel will make you laugh. One of the things you are taught is that if the parachute lands on top of you, you should follow the seams and find your way out. One night I went to sleep on my charpoy and tucked the mosquito net in around me under the blanket so that the mosquitoes could not get in.

During the night I must have been dreaming about parachutes for I remember waking up frightened that the parachute was on top on me. I tried to get out by following the seams but of course it was only a mosquito net. I think the other chaps in the hut wondered if I was going mad.

After 14 days I was an air force parachutist and sent to a new unit being formed in Hyderabad called Air Commando. At this time the 14th Army was fighting its way back through Burma. At yet Mandalay had not been recaptured and the fighting was hard. The troops were having a difficult time because much of Burma is not suitable for the sort of tank warfare that had been common in Europe.

Soon I was flying over the very hills that had been so difficult for our troops to cross. You will read someday of the battle of Imphal and you will learn of the memorial at Kohima and its inscription. Our aircraft was heavily loaded, we took off from Comilla and eventually we landed in Burma. I’m not sure where now but I do remember being at Kan where there was a squadron of RAF Hurricanes or Spitfires. But I wasn’t really with the airforce, I was attached in some dubious way to 33 Corps Army HQ. I think our role was to act as visual control posts to help the RAF and American fighter-bombers identify the bridges and other targets. The idea was that a fighter pilot and a wireless operator would be on the ground very near and in sight of the target and the pilot would direct the pilots in the air exactly where to attack. The idea was used successfully I believe in many places.

We spent several days, probably weeks in Kan. We slept out in the open. Around in the countryside there was the devastation of the war in Burma. All the iron telephone poles had been bent to the ground. Every river crossing was littered with abandoned trucks and equipment. I remember seeing heaps of empty tins from eaten food and petrol. Many Japanese had been buried with one leg sticking out of the ground so that their bodies could be collected later. If I remember correctly we never took our boots off for fear of hookworm — a worm that buried itself in your feet and then invaded your tummy. I can remember a singer visiting us there to entertain us just like Vera Lynn used to do. While we were there, in England, they were having the first election for a new parliament after the victory in Europe. Churchill the famous wartime leader was beaten by Attlee, another famous leader. It all seemed so far away from us in Burma. The one most important thing I wanted was a drink of pure cold English water. It seemed so long since I had one. The water we drank all had to be purified with tablets, which made it taste more like water from a swimming pool.

The days went by, I cannot recall the exact sequence of events but I was on my way again. I was flown in the bomb bay of an American Mitchell bomber to a place called Feni on the borders of what was then India and Burma. Feni was an air base where many aircraft used in the war in Burma were based. Here for once in the war I felt I was doing something useful for we set up a signals link between Feni and the 14th Army. As messages came in asking for air support we decoded them and passed them on to the Americans to send their aircraft to attack the targets.

Mandalay, one of the biggest cities in Burma had fallen to the British troops but the push further south was proving difficult and progress was slow. I do not know why now but I was on my travels again. This time for a fortnight in a railway goods wagon, all the way from Feni to Agra where the Taj Mahal is. It was a fantastic journey, crossing the big rivers of India by boat and going through many of the famous cities of India. We stopped in goodness knows how many goods yards and sidings. We made — there were only two of us — tea from the water of the steam engine. We had ‘K’ rations to eat and we were able to get oranges.

I was very tired when we arrived at Agra and hoped I would never see an India railway truck again. I slept a night or two in the famous Red Fort at Agra. I ought to have taken the opportunity to have a close look at the Taj Mahal. I had seen it from a distance. At the time I was more interested in finding out what I was supposed to do next. Looking back in retrospect, for most of my time in India I seemed to be trying to do things on my own. I was rarely in a large unit and always going from place to place. Now at this time I fail to know exactly what the objective was. Anyway failing getting any instructions I decided to go back to my base at Hyderabad — one thing was certain I would try not to go by train. I hitched a lift in an aircraft going that way and was glad to be back at base.

But you’ve guessed, not for long

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