139
a game, I suspect, long known to Burma, which until 1937 was a mere annex to India. The counters were not only things, such as aeroplanes, or guns, or cement; but also persons, such as administrators, or pilots, or corporals. It all depended where you were on the list of priorities. Top priorities took their pick of what was going. When a battalion commander, or the head of a government department, is instructed to detail so many men to such and such a job, outside his own sphere of interest, being human, he will naturally discard the men he can best spare. They will not be his best men; he will get away with what he can. It would be dangerous to try to impose too far on a high priority. All is permissible. A low priority is fortunate to receive anything, but must accept what is offered. Burma was at the bottom of all the priorities.
Needless to say by the time our troops were due we had received no cooking pots, no hurricane lamps, no latrine buckets, and no brown paper. I borrowed what I could from our father and mother, the Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the night before the troops arrived went into the bazaar to purchase the rest out of my own pocket.
Our troops were a grand lot: they were collected from the Commandos in all parts of the world. Some came from Australia, while others had only recently taken part in the evacuation from Greece. We were put through the motions of S.K. (silent killing) and taught the art of booby-trapping. Our Chief Instructor, Calvert, later to win renown as a Brigadier under Wingate, was a regular sapper, with a bent for thinking up ever more ingenious ways of perplexing the enemy. We developed all sorts of devices, and blew up as much as we dared. The Maymyo valley echoed to the sound of explosions, and the local inhabitants, or the visitors from the plains, would say, "There are those Bush Warfare people at it again.”
I must confess that my first impressions of Burma had been poor. Rangoon looked decayed and depressing in the heat. The walls of brick, covered with plaster, showed large mould stains, the result of the damp monsoon climate. On arrival at Maymyo, a stranger, insufficiently briefed, and knowing no one, I was shocked at the formality, in the second year of the war, which required every one to change into evening clothes for dinner at the Club. It may have been something to do with the name by which the school was known, or the free and easy ways of our Commando men, but at first people seemed to look on us with a slight suspicion, not unlike the attitude towards the stage villain who is expected to do the wrong thing by the modest maiden. However, in time the
139
a game, I suspect, long known to Burma, which until 1937 was a mere annex to India. The counters were not only things, such as aeroplanes, or guns, or cement; but also persons, such as administrators, or pilots, or corporals. It all depended where you were on the list of priorities. Top priorities took their pick of what was going. When a battalion commander, or the head of a government department, is instructed to detail so many men to such and such a job, outside his own sphere of interest, being human, he will naturally discard the men he can best spare. They will not be his best men; he will get away with what he can. It would be dangerous to try to impose too far on a high priority. All is permissible. A low priority is fortunate to receive anything, but must accept what is offered. Burma was at the bottom of all the priorities.
Needless to say by the time our troops were due we had received no cooking pots, no hurricane lamps, no latrine buckets, and no brown paper. I borrowed what I could from our father and mother, the Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the night before the troops arrived went into the bazaar to purchase the rest out of my own pocket.
Out troops were a grand lot: they were collected from the Commandos in all parts of the world. Some came from Australia, while others had only recently taken part in the evacuation from Greece. We were put through the motions of S.K. (silent killing) and taught the art of booby- trapping. Our Chief Instructor, Calvert, later to win renown as a Brigadier under Wingate, was a regular sapper, with a bent for thinking up ever more ingenious ways of perplexing the enemy. We developed all sorts of devices, and blew up as much as we dared. The Maymyo valley echoed to the sound of explosions, and the local inhabitants, or the visitors from the plains, would say, "There are those Bush Warfare people at it again.”
I must confess that my first impressions of Burma had been poor. Rangoon looked decayed and depressing in the heat. The walls of brick, covered with plaster, shewed large mould stains, the result of the damp monsoon climate. On arrival at Maymyo, a stranger, insufficiently briefed, and knowing no one, I was shocked at the formality, in the second year of the war, which required every one to change into evening clothes for dinner at the Club. It may have been something to do with the name by which the school was known, or the free and easy ways of our Commando men, but at first people seemed to look on us with a slight suspicion, not unlike the attitude towards the stage villain who is expected to do the wrong thing by the modest maiden. However, in time the
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.