Another Man's War Read online

  And yet were able to produce wry laughs,

  In days when Delhi dithered, Kandy tarried

  And things were left undone or done by halfs,

  When Japs were pushing India to her fate,

  The world found out that black men held the gate!

  Captain David M. Cookson,

  De Bello Kaladano: An Unfinished Epic‌*

  December 1943

  The Arakan, Burma

  It was some of the worst fighting country in the world, according to the British officers. General Slim had decided that the 81st Division should be part of the British offensive into the Arakan. Isaac and his fellow West Africans would be battling not just the Japanese, but also a landscape, a climate and even the vegetation.

  The Arakan, today known as Rakhine, is a narrow strip of land, about four hundred miles in length, along the Bay of Bengal, in western Burma. It is cut off from the rest of Burma by a range of mountains called the Arakan Yomas, which helped to isolate the area’s people, who developed a history and culture distinct from the rest of their countrymen. In southern Arakan, the land is open and largely flat – paddy fields, mangrove swamps and wide, serpentine rivers. But in the north, along the Indian border where the West Africans were entering the Arakan, it is very different – mountains and dense forest. ‘This jungle is so thick that, when you are in the middle of it, you need a torch to see, although the sun may be high in the sky,’ Isaac would say. ‘We don’t have jungle like this in black Africa.’

  At night, even the light of a full moon could not penetrate the canopy. A soldier walking just a yard or two ahead of a colleague was swallowed up by the darkness. On the ridge tops, jungle gave way to bamboo, but this provided no relief. There was so little space between bamboo stems that the soldiers, trying to manoeuvre their way through, often had to turn sideways. Their heavy head loads or backpacks would invariably get snagged on the stems, making any movement extremely difficult. The only solution, they learnt, was to hack a path through with a machete. This made for slow and exhausting progress, but worse it was so noisy it could alert the enemy to their presence. The aroma of freshly cut bamboo also attracted swarms of bluish green flies, which would find their way to the men’s exposed skin and deliver a nasty bite.

  The mountain ranges of the northern Arakan rarely reach above two thousand feet but the ridges and peaks are razor-steep, packed together as tightly as nature allows and divided by countless narrow and deep valleys. The soldiers cursed them. Marching across this landscape, Trevor Clark predicted, ‘we would be like microbes traversing corrugated cardboard’.* On the ascents and descents, the tribesmen who lived in the hills recommended long walking sticks. ‘Make a mistake, and you’ll slip,’ the officers warned their men, ‘and fall all the way to the bottom of the hill.’

  The hillsides are intersected with waterways, or chaungs, which cut deep grooves into the sandy soil. These made for yet another obstacle to overcome. Sometimes the only way for the men to advance was to walk along the beds of the chaungs. As they followed the tortuous routes down hillsides and valleys, clambering over slabs of sandstone, splashing through water, they were in constant fear of an ambush from the dense vegetation above.

  For all these difficulties, the West Africans had arrived in the region at its most benign. It was the relatively cool, dry season, and the British generals were keen to take advantage of the conditions to get some hold on the land. Their window of opportunity would close in May, when the monsoon rains would begin once more, and any advance ran the risk of getting bogged down in mud and water. In the space of five months, from May until early October, as many as two hundred inches of rain could fall – about three times what the steamy coast of Nigeria receives in an entire year, making the Arakan one of the wettest places in the world. During the fighting of the previous two years, the British had learnt that in the monsoon season many paths became so slippery and muddy as to be almost unusable. The chaungs swelled into raging torrents. Mosquitoes and leeches feasted on the blood of the miserable, soaking combatants. But the trials of the monsoon lay far ahead. Isaac and his fellow soldiers had more immediate problems.

  When the British lost control of Burma in May 1942, they had also retreated from the Arakan. General Irwin’s ill-fated attempt to recapture the region later that year and in early 1943 had left the morale of the British and Indian troops at breaking point. A liaison officer who visited the British forces in the Arakan in May 1943 painted a pathetic picture. It was painfully clear, he said, that the men had not received the right training to fight in this sort of terrain, and that their officers had lost all faith in them. ‘Our troops were either exhausted, “browned off” or both…both Indian and British troops did not have their hearts in the campaign. The former were obviously scared of the Jap and generally demoralized…the latter also fear the jungle, hate the country and see no object in fighting for it, and also have the strong feeling that they are taking part in a “forgotten” campaign in which no one in authority is taking any real interest,’ he wrote.*

  One year later, under the command of General Slim, the British were preparing to try again. Whatever the difficulties of waging war in the Arakan, the territory had an enduring strategic importance. A successful offensive would not only remove the threat of a Japanese advance up the Bengali coast to Calcutta, but could also provide a launch pad for the British to make an eventual attack on the Burmese capital, Rangoon. In this regard, retaking the Arakan’s main port, Akyab, was a key objective. Akyab could serve as a base for amphibious attacks further south along the coast. It also had an airfield, which would enable the British to supply the forces as they marched towards Rangoon, and to launch bombing raids on the capital.

  A private, much less an African private, was told little of such grand strategy. Isaac could only assume that his division was going to push as far south into Japanese-occupied territory as they could, maybe all the way to Akyab – he had been told that taking the town was their aim. His British commanding officers were given many more details. They were informed that the main British–Indian force, also pushing southwards, would be trying to make headway against the Japanese forces that were positioned closer to the coastline. However, General Slim feared that the Japanese would be able to outmanoeuvre this advance. So the 81st Division would provide protection to its flank, by simultaneously fighting its way down the Kaladan Valley, about fifty miles further inland to the east. It was a sort of wide left hook. And the Kaladan River was in itself a useful prize. It emerged into the Bay of Bengal at Akyab, and for most of its length it was wide enough to accommodate steamers, making it a handy route for transporting men and materiel, as well as communications. If the West African division could take the valley, the Japanese might be forced to withdraw from the Arakan.* That was the plan.

  Establishing British control of the Kaladan Valley would not be easy. The West Africans were being ordered to cross an unforgiving landscape – no roads, no railways and, for the first stretch of their designated route, no navigable rivers either. They had no heavy machinery to clear away the jungle. How could they advance in these conditions, let alone fight and defeat the Japanese? General Kit Woolner was not being presented with a choice by his superiors – the 81st Division must move forward. An extraordinary physical effort was necessary. Using only picks, shovels, machetes and explosives, the men built a jeep track, some seventy-five miles long, through the wild jungle hills and ravines, all the way from Chiringa, India, down to the village of Satpaung, on the Kaladan River. In some sections, the track had to be cut into a cliff with a sheer drop of hundreds of feet. It took two months to build. The men called it ‘West African Way’.

  When the track was declared open on 17 January 1944, General Woolner hailed the ‘enthusiasm and endurance’ of his men, who had worked through sweltering days and slept outdoors on bitterly cold nights. But the effort had been costly. On a hot and still afternoon in late December 1943, a group of Gambian soldiers had stopped to drink water
from an apparently clear stream. Forty-four would die of cholera in the days that followed.

  Though the track would be abandoned with the start of the rains, it gave the 81st Division the opportunity to move its few artillery guns, as well as some jeeps, to the banks of the Kaladan. From there, they were transported downstream on barges, and eventually unloaded on the floodplain, further south, where more makeshift tracks would be built.

  At this stage in the advance the 29th CCS was positioned some way behind the frontline troops, at the village of Mowdok, India, on the banks of the River Sangu. The commanding officer, Major Murphy, had been instructed to set up a makeshift hospital at Mowdok, in anticipation of the casualties that would be arriving from the Kaladan Valley. Isaac and his colleagues would look to the east, to the brooding green hills of Frontier Ridge. Beyond the trees silhouetted along the top of the ridge, just a few miles away lay the Arakan, and Burma. No wonder they called Mowdok ‘the last village in India’. They felt restless, close to the war, yet isolated. They hoped for an order to advance, but they also feared it.

  They did not have long to wait. Within a few weeks, the division’s senior officers decided that the track to Mowdok was too steep. It would be impossible for jeeps to carry casualties back from the Kaladan Valley to the village. The 29th CCS needed to be closer to the fighting, if it was to be of any use. When Isaac and his colleagues received the order to move into the Kaladan Valley, they each put on a brave face. Nobody wanted to show fear, no matter what his secret thoughts might be.

  They followed the route already taken by their colleagues in the 81st Division. Major Murphy oversaw the transport of the heavier medical equipment for the field hospital – the tents, blankets, generators, lamps, stretchers, operating instruments, glass bottles of chloroform, oxygen cylinders, steel bowls, even an X-ray machine – in a convoy of jeeps bumping along West African Way. The rest of the men travelled on a small river towards the Burmese border. They were paddled by Indians in khistis, wooden canoes, to a deserted village. It was evening when they arrived and set up their camp. In a hut, by the ashes of an old fire, Isaac picked up a small muslin bag and unwrapped it to find biscuits, sugar-ball sweets and tinned fish. Japanese rations. It seemed the enemy had left in a hurry.

  The following morning, there was a surprise. A group of West African soldiers appeared with two Japanese prisoners that had been captured near the Kaladan River. Everybody crowded around to get a good look. Isaac had built up an image in his mind of what a Japanese solider would look like, but these two men did not conform to it. There was nothing formidable about them. They were obedient, pathetic even, in their ragged clothes, as they smiled and saluted their captors. When Isaac tended to their wounds, he noticed that their rifles were old. ‘They were small men, their khaki uniforms and rubber-soled boots were scruffy, and they were living proof that, despite all the stories, some Japanese could and did surrender,’ wrote one British officer.* When the news was radioed back to the divisional headquarters, the senior officers could scarcely believe it. Japanese prisoners were a valuable source of information about the enemy’s strength and intentions, but a very rare prize.

  Later that morning, in the distance, the men of the 29th CCS thought they could hear the sound of artillery. Or was it thunder? No one was sure, but the Indian guides would not take them any further. Now, they would be forced to march through the hills. The men split into small groups, each one led by an officer with a map and a compass, and they headed east. Boots were laced tight, and heavy loads balanced on heads. They tramped and splashed along the chaungs, and their boots and socks were soon soaking wet. They sweated and panted up steep ridges. Each step was an effort on these climbs, the walking stick vigilantly planted to maintain balance, teeth gritted and eyes screwed tight to maintain concentration. After the first ascent, their thighs throbbed with pain. Eight miles a day was considered good progress in the Arakan. It must have been sometime on their first day of marching that they crossed into Burma.

  Isaac had expected the going to be tough, and yet he’d never felt stronger. He carried his backpack, full of rations and clothes, as well as a forty-pound load of supplies on his head. His gaze never swerved from the path ahead, his head ever erect and steady, as they crossed the valleys and ridges. The lieutenant leading his group was helped by his ‘boy’, the personal servant tasked with carrying many of his possessions, but he still had to stop frequently to take compass readings and consult the map. These moments provided welcome respite from the gruelling trek. At the end of one especially long ascent, they paused and someone spied a piece of paper attached to a tree. A soldier from an earlier group had written: ‘Congratulations! Rest and Thank God’. But they’d barely caught their breath when the lieutenant hurried them along. He had reports of Japanese in the area, and was anxious that they get to a protected camp before dusk. The nights in the hills were cold. Isaac slept in his clothes, with his blankets wrapped around his head as bats hovered and danced above.

  There were also flashes of beauty and moments of calm. In the heavy morning mist that shrouded the valley, dew-covered vegetation caught the sun and sparkled like a field of diamonds. Emerald dragonflies and black-and-white butterflies flitted along the forest paths in front of them, seeming to guide their way. A sudden blaze of scarlet or electric blue would signal the flight of a forest bird. The birds were all but invisible when they sat in the canopy, but they could always be heard. Isaac came to recognise the song of one, an endless cascade of delirious notes; another resembled the tinkling of a small bell. Sometimes the men would find themselves on an elephant track, littered with great balls of droppings. A British officer in the Arakan reported that the West Africans often picked these up and carefully wrapped them in rags. Good juju, he was told.*

  The local tribesmen, small people with muscular bodies and few clothes, were known as the Kumi. They survived by fishing and growing rice on little patches of cleared land. When they’d exhausted the soil, they’d move on, building a new village of raised bamboo huts, or bashas, in a different location. The men wore their black hair long and carried a sharp knife, or dah, on the waist; the women had silver ornaments dangling from their ears, and the mothers among them went about their work with babies and baskets suspended on their backs from a broad band they looped across their foreheads. The elders spent their days smoking tobacco from long bamboo pipes, or cheroots. They looked up and, with wrinkled faces and squinting eyes, carefully watched the Africans march by. They seemed, in Isaac’s eyes, desperately poor.

  The Kumi were wary, ready to melt into the forest if one of the West African soldiers came too close. And indeed, they had learnt over the past two years that this war was nothing but trouble. Before the fighting had come, they had been able to move freely back and forth between India and Burma. They had sold tobacco and melons and bought cotton and metal hoes. Now, there was no trade. Worse, there was no safety. Give information to one army, they feared, and the other would soon take its revenge. Best to keep a distance from both. As Isaac and his colleagues travelled deeper into the Arakan, he saw that more and more of the Kumis’ settlements were abandoned.

  The soldiers carried ‘dry rations’ – tins of corned beef, sardines and fruit, as well as chocolate, biscuits and jam, and tea – but, three days into their march, they had to radio the Royal Air Force for fresh supplies. The pilots were flying C-47 Dakotas, which needed a drop zone with flat and open ground, so that they could circle, descend safely and jettison their cargo where it could be easily retrieved. The jungle hills could not have been less suitable for airdrops, and there were many frustrations. One day, Isaac’s group made a rendezvous with other troops in the jungle, at a point where a drop was due to take place. They watched as the precious boxes tumbled from the Dakota, and then as their little parachutes – red for ammunition, white for food – got snagged in the tallest trees. A sudden breeze carried some of the supplies over a nearby ridge, into territory the officers feared was not safe. Sometimes, a b
undle would lose its harness, or sacks of rice and flour, or coils of barbed wire, would be ‘free dropped’ without parachutes. Then, the soldiers ran to hide behind rocks and trees as the supplies came hurtling towards the ground. ‘Not a few men, who have survived the worst that battle can produce, have been killed by a bag of rice or crate of bully beef,’ wrote a British intelligence officer serving in the Arakan hills at that time.*

  In the first weeks, the food deliveries were few and far between. Isaac and the others grew accustomed to eating if and when food became available. Isaac would wolf down three days’ worth of rations at once, everything mashed together in a ghastly-looking stew. It made for less to carry in the coming days. Thank God, then, for an officer, an old-time ‘Coaster’ who’d lived in Sierra Leone before the war, who’d arranged for the airdrops to include kola nuts.* These gave them energy at the end of a long day’s march, and kept hunger at bay.

  The diet was monotonous. They all craved fresh fruit and vegetables. Invariably, they ate their food cold, because the officers would not allow fires. Smoke drifting up through the trees, one sergeant liked to say, ‘will draw the Japanese artillery like angry wasps to a jam pot’. The men grumbled. Japanese artillery? They had only heard the faintest rumblings so far. The officers also made the men bury their empty tins, so as to leave no trace of their presence. At times, it seemed as though Isaac’s officers had forgotten that an army marches on its stomach.

  Over the months, the pilots and their crews perfected their techniques, and learnt to drop their loads with greater accuracy. They flew above the Burmese jungle in all weathers, sometimes as low as two hundred feet above the hill ridges. The Allies’ dominance of the skies would be of vital importance to the 81st Division. The West Africans had no conventional ground lines of supply. Instead, like General Orde Wingate’s Chindits, but on an even larger scale, they would be almost completely dependent on what was dropped from the sky.