The Daring Dozen (38 page)

One of the officers who joined Wingate’s newly formed brigade was Denis Gudgeon, a 22-year-old from Wimbledon who had worked as a banker in Paris prior to the war. A young subaltern in the 1st Battalion, 2nd Gurkha Rifles, he found himself attached to 77th Indian Infantry Brigade without having any say in the matter. ‘We’d heard about Wingate and heard he’d been successful against Italians in Abyssinia,’ recalled Gudgeon many years later. ‘We knew that he was a very ruthless man but also very eccentric so we were a little wary.’
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Though Wingate was an admirer of the Karens, Chins and Kachins who made up the Burma Rifles, he had little time for the average Gurkha soldier, whom he considered tough but slow-witted. Similarly he found most of their British officers ‘ignorant of infantry tactics and inexperienced’. Gudgeon recalled that the dislike was mutual during their time at Saugor. ‘I don’t think many of the Gurkha officers liked him, he wasn’t popular,’ he said. ‘He was a very ascetic man, not very tall and he had a slight stoop… You couldn’t have a rapport with him, he was a very aloof man. He never said very much. He used to issue reams and reams of instructions. We were quite honestly all terrified of him.’
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Then there were Wingate’s little eccentricities, derided by some as showmanship and others as proof he was a little touched. ‘He carried a fly gun with him everywhere, which was a bit disconcerting when one was eating one’s lunch,’ remembered Gudgeon. ‘He also carried an alarm clock with him the whole time. We used to think he was mad quite simply.’
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During the training at Saugor, Wingate pushed the men hard, and particularly the officers. Experience of guerrilla fighting in the Sudan and Palestine had taught him that the officers operating in small units must be fitter, tougher, and confident in everything they did if they were to retain the respect of the men. ‘TETS (tactical exercises without troops) were dreaded because he would pick a hill several hundred feet high and we had to run up it,’ recalled Gudgeon. ‘The last officer up the hill would have to run down the hill and up again. I always managed to avoid being the last officer. And I was always terrified of being asked some detailed military rules question on these TETS as he would point his ruler at you and fix you with these beady, very clear blue eyes and my mind would go a total blank.’
¹⁵

Wingate had hoped to have his men trained and ready for the first operation within eight weeks; he soon realized that was entirely unfeasible. Obtaining equipment and men proved more problematic than he had envisaged, and there was a further setback in August 1942 when monsoons flooded their camp and washed away equipment and the odd soldier.

Nonetheless the brigade began to take shape, with Wingate dividing it into seven columns of approximately 300 men and 100 mules, all armed with heavy machine guns, mortars, anti-tank rifles and small arms. Supplies would be dropped by air although it wouldn’t be possible to evacuate any wounded.

As the training and preparation progressed, so the brigade took on its own identity. Their standard Far East battledress was dyed green and they wore bush hats. Wingate designed their shoulder patch, a yellow
Chinthe
guarding a small yellow pagoda on a blue background. The
Chinthe
– a mythical half-lion, half-dragon creature, which guarded Burmese pagodas – was later corrupted into ‘Chindits’.

By the end of 1942 Wingate had been briefed by Wavell on the brigade’s first mission; they were to cross into Japanese-held Burma at Imphal and penetrate 200 miles east towards Indaw, attacking the enemy’s supply and communication lines, as well as laying waste to bridges, railways and depots. While Wingate’s men were tying up Japanese forces in a guerrilla campaign, Wavell would launch his main three-pronged offensive towards the river Chindwin with the British 4th Corps. Further north the Chinese forces under General Stilwell would advance towards Myitkyina and the 15th Corps would push east towards Akyab in the Arakan. The aim of the offensive was to open the Burma Road, the main supply route to China, so that the full potential of the Chinese forces could be unleashed on the Japanese.

In January 1943 the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade broke camp and went by paddle-steamer and rail to Dimapur. ‘We eventually arrived at Dimapur where we were met on the platform by Major Calvert, who was to be our column commander,’ recalled Denis Gudgeon. ‘I was immensely impressed by him. He was a very dynamic character indeed. You could tell at a glance that he’d been a professional army boxer by his flat nose and cauliflower ears.’
¹⁶
Calvert marched with the brigade the 130 miles south to Imphal.

Soon Wavell arrived at the brigade’s new camp bearing bad news – the offensive was postponed because the Chinese had withdrawn cooperation at the last minute. Wingate was dismayed but not downhearted, writing subsequently: ‘The brigade had been raised and trained for operations in the winter of 42/43 and the whole tempo, physical and psychological, set to that tune. Not to use [it] was to lose it.’
¹⁷
Wingate also feared that his detractors at headquarters – the ‘fossilized shits’, as David Stirling referred to senior officers who looked askance at irregular units – would use the postponement to try and break up his brigade.

Initially Wavell insisted that the Long Range Penetration operation must be postponed but he was won round in the end by Wingate, who pointed out that the mission would provide valuable information on the quality of the enemy soldier as well as the practicability of operating deep behind enemy lines. On 6 February Wingate’s force marched out of Imphal south-east towards Tamu on the Assam–Burma border; they were to cross the river Chindwin and then embark on a series of guerrilla attacks, cutting railway lines and ambushing Japanese forces in the Shwebo region.

Wingate split his brigade into two forces, a northern force consisting of five columns and HQ, and a small southern force comprising No. 1 Column and No. 2 Column. The latter’s task was to draw Japanese forces away from the main force by launching a series of diversionary raids on selected targets before making for a rendezvous point 250 miles to the east at Mongmit. On the eve of the operation – codenamed
Longcloth
– Wingate issued his Order of the Day:

Today we stand on the threshold of battle. The time of preparation is over, and we are moving on the enemy to prove ourselves and our methods. At this moment we stand beside the soldiers of the United Nations in the front line trenches throughout the world. It is always a minority that occupies the front line. It is still a smaller minority that accepts with a good heart tasks like this that we have chosen to carry out. We need not, therefore, as we go forward into the conflict, suspect ourselves of selfish or interested motives. We have all had opportunity of withdrawing and we are here because we have chosen to be here; that is, we have chosen to bear the burden and heat of the day. Men who make this choice are above the average in courage. We need therefore have no fear for the staunchness and guts of our comrades.

The motive which has led each and all of us to devote ourselves to what lies ahead cannot conceivably have been a bad motive. Comfort and security are not sacrificed voluntarily for the sake of others by ill-disposed people. Our motive, therefore, may be taken to be the desire to serve our day and generation in the way that seems nearest to our hand. The battle is not always to the strong nor the race to the swift. Victory in war cannot be counted upon, but what can be counted upon is that we shall go forward determined to do what we can to bring this war to the end which we believe best for our friends and comrades in arms, without boastfulness or forgetting our duty, resolved to do the right so far as we can see the right.

Our aim is to make possible a government of the world in which all men can live at peace and with equal opportunity of service.

Finally, knowing the vanity of man’s effort and the confusion of his purpose, let us pray that God may accept our services and direct our endeavours, so that when we shall have done all we shall see the fruit of our labours and be satisfied.

O.C. Wingate, Commander,

77th Indian Infantry Brigade.
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The next day, 14 February 1943, the brigade began moving across the Chindwin, each of the 1,000 soldiers weighed down by a 60lb pack. The two forces moved south and received an RAF air drop the following day before splitting. For several days the Chindits’ greatest foe was the teak forests infesting the area between the rivers of the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy; they encountered no Japanese, much to the chagrin of Calvert (commanding No. 3 Column), who devised his own method of harassing the enemy, in light of their absence. ‘We carried plenty of explosives with us and as we moved about we mined jungle paths if the local Burmese told us the Japs would pass that way,’ he wrote in his memoirs. ‘With the help of my Burma Rifles chaps we also wrote out various signs and warnings in Burmese and Japanese, “signed” them with the names of Japanese commanders and pinned them up at convenient points to add to the general confusion of the enemy. For example some of them said “Follow this path for –”, the nearest village. But any Jap who took them at their word would have ended up either a very puzzled man or a very dead one.’
¹⁹

Apart from the odd light skirmish, it was not until the first week of March that the Chindits engaged the Japanese in any great force. On the night of 2 March the enemy ambushed one of the two southern forces and two days later one of the northern columns was attacked. In the first attack several Gurkhas panicked and fled, as did the supply mules taking with them precious rations and equipment, while the second incident was marred by poor decision-making by the column commander. No. 1 Column, lost contact with the rest of the Chindits after blowing up a railway bridge at Kyaikthin. Though the column did return to India several weeks later it was with a much depleted force after several fierce contacts with the Japanese. As a result of all these setbacks Wingate was left with four of his seven columns with which to continue the operation.

Fortunately Calvert was intent on causing mayhem, which he did with a well-coordinated attack on the village of Nankan. Having arranged with the RAF for an air strike on a Japanese camp ten miles south of Nankan, Calvert launched his attack against the railway station and two bridges on the morning of 6 March – his 30th birthday. It was, he recalled, ‘an unpleasant day’ for the Japanese with the two bridges destroyed, the railway line cut in 70 places and a large number of their soldiers killed – with no Chindit casualties in return. Calvert was awarded a DSO for this action.

Further north, Major Bernard Fergusson and his No. 5 Column blew up a bridge and then dynamited Bonchaung gorge, causing a massive landslide that completely blocked the vital railway line. Fergusson recalled that he woke the next morning with a feeling of ‘exhilarated guilt’ at what they had accomplished at Bonchaung. His elation soon turned to concern when he received a message from Wingate:

Owing no news received from No.1 Group for ten days crossing of Irrawaddy possibly hazardous … no news Four Column … leave it your own discretion whether you continue movement or make safe bivouac in Gangaw Hills to harass reconstruction railway.
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Fergusson was running desperately low on supplies and he estimated that the next suitable spot to receive a resupply by air was in a village 20 miles east on the other side of the Irrawaddy. They were running low on rations, though even the rations were poor; a day’s ration pack weighing 2lb consisted of 12 Shakapura biscuits, 2oz of cheese, some nuts and raisins, some dates, 20 cigarettes, tea, sugar and milk. There was also some chocolate, or a packet of acid drops, depending on the whim of the ration packer.

Wearily Fergusson’s column set off for the resupply drop on the other side of the Irrawaddy, hacking their way through elephant grass, just as Calvert’s column was doing too. Once on the eastern bank of the Irrawaddy Calvert and Fergusson were tasked by Wingate with blowing up the Gokteik viaduct, but before the sabotage could be carried out Wingate decided to withdraw his brigade. They were almost out of RAF supply range and Wingate was also concerned that if they pressed east the brigade might be encircled by the Japanese, now hot on their trail. Wingate issued instructions for the columns to make their way back west over the Chindwin. ‘The task now in front of us was a tough one,’ recalled Calvert. ‘We had to travel that 150 miles through some of the worst country in the world, and every inch of the way we had to keep a careful watch out for the Japs. They were becoming more and more determined to get rid of the cocky Britishers who had calmly walked into the middle of a country occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. And they were out to teach these white men a lesson – if only they could find them.’
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On one occasion during the withdrawal Calvert found the Japanese first, leading his column in a devastating ambush on a force of pursuing Japanese, which left 100 of the enemy dead. Calvert’s column crossed the Chindwin to safety on 15 April – exactly two months since they had traversed it in the other direction, having survived by eating snakes, lizards and any other living creature they could find. The rest of the brigade crossed in the days and weeks that followed, with Fergusson’s column, ravaged by hunger, exhaustion, dehydration, lice and mosquitoes, reaching safety six days after Calvert. Fergusson had lost three of his 12 stone in weight during the operation and, when he wrote his account of Operation
Longcloth
in 1945, Fergusson turned to Shakespeare to describe the experience.

‘… Perseverance, dear my Lord,

Keeps honour bright; to have done is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail

In monumental mockery.’
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Wingate followed Fergusson across the Chindwin four days later, having swum the river in broad daylight with the Japanese swarming up behind. Nothing was heard from No. 7 Column until June, when they reached China, while other Chindits continued to turn up in ones, twos and small groups until as late as July.