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Recorded Interview 1
by
Pte. Alfred Raymond Mason 466698
.....I
had some good times and some very bad, it hardens, and made you see life in
a different way kind of thing, when you’re up against the Japanese who
were fanatic’s, and they’d came all the way through Burma, and
of course they thought they were going to go through India and eventually,
I should think they were going to take over Europe and all, of course we were
able to stop them there and that was it; that was what we were trained for.
They used to dig and cover up large holes with bamboo spikes in them, and things
like that, and trip wires and all those sort of things that they used at times,
at the time was illegal, against war crimes, which the Japanese didn’t
care about, they just did what they did actually, they done some; well we did
some terrible things. As I say, I had one of me mates there, they had captured
him, tied him upside down and bayoneted him to death, that’s the sort
of thing you see, and it just kind of hardens you. Yes you had that to contend
with, you had to be very very careful, it was the same if anybody got wounded,
in the middle of the field, you’ve got to be very careful, because all
the Japs at the other side of the field were just waiting for somebody to come
out and rescue this chappie and they’d shoot them as well, we were eventually
able to out to him and get him back, it was a bit dicey, but anyway, there
all your own mates, you’ve gotta look after them, you had to look after
each other. At night we used to sleep back to back, when you could, under the
tarpaulin on a bed made out of bamboo, especially if it’s been pouring
of rain, all you had is your groundsheet, and all your other doings went in
the bivouac on each side, and you just lay on there, back to back to dry out,
take your shoes off, ring your wet socks out and put them back on again because
you never knew when they were coming, I can always remember those sort of things
that stick in your mind.
.....The thing was it was all the Second Front then, (Europe) all the armoury and
what have you, we just got poor outdated equipment, I think the most dangerous
thing we got was a blooming flamethrower. The Japs used to go down into their
dugouts and we used to play this flamethrower onto these dugouts, which wasn’t
very nice, burnt them alive you know, it sounds terrible now, but as I say,
it was them or you, and that was it, it hardens you. We were cut off and the
Air Force were dropping food parcels, I know a couple of lads went out and
they got shot, the Japs were just waiting for them to do that, and it meant
we had no food of course, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know
whether the Japs had it, or what happened at the finish, a lot of people wouldn’t
realise that this sort of thing went on, that people could be so cruel, to
each other, you’ve got to do these sort of things, I mean now I wouldn’t
think of harming anybody, you know. It’s the things you had to do, you
can’t think otherwise actually, you can’t think of them as being
human, because if you did it would get very very hard. I could see them playing
this flamethrower on this dugout where all these Japs are, but that’s
when it hardens you up, they’re there, and they can’t get out,
they must have perished with the vast heat, but I’ve never thought of
that, but it’s just come across me now that these sort of things, these
wicked things that had gone on that was part of life and as the months went
on and on you got harder and harder, it’s self preservation and looking
after your mates and that, and that’s it. I’ve seen them tied to
a tree, tied upside down where they have been bayoneted or with a sword through
them and that, and left there, it must be terrible, being tied upside down
and being stabbed by these officers swords and these bayonets, you wouldn’t
think people would be so wicked, that’s how it was, and that’s
how war makes you, kind of thing.
.....The 2nd Battalion, we were up north, making our way down, I was a signaller
and I think I was out with D Company at the time, as you were a signaller in
H.Q., you went forward to meet the Japs and one of us would have to go with
them some of the time, I was up with the officer because you’ve got the
communications to get back with the telephone and that’s how they kept
in touch, of course if they wanted to speak to the officer you gave the phone
over to him; you get a lot of these young officers who’d just come out
of training and they want to prove themselves, and many a time I said, ‘I
wouldn’t go that far down the track’, and I know the one time,
that if we’d gone much farther we’d have been ambushed, and probably
the whole lot of us would have been killed; it’s funny you get these
feelings, that their’s somebody waiting for you there, and I told this
officer, we don’t go any farther because in that gully their waiting
for us; I mean that it would have been our lot, anyway I managed to persuade
him of it and we went back. I believe they were waiting for us, I mean I’ve
got no definite proof. A lot of times you know, you sense these things when
you’ve been in action that long, you sense where trouble lays, if you
understand what I mean, in the jungle, that if it didn’t look too healthy,
we didn’t go in there, and fortunately went back. We later found that
they had been there; we could see where the remains of some of their food and
whatever there.
.....When they played that song, ‘On the road to Mandalay’, years ago.
It was on the way to Mandalay, that sorted me out, when I got wounded, I’d
had as much as you could take, I’d say more than you could take, possibly
if I’d had gone on I should have just, literally got me self killed,
you know, it gets to you so much, I’d had enough, you know I had had
more than a sickening of the war and doing things, wondering what was around
the next corner, so much that you don’t care so much about looking after
yourself as you would normally, but as I say fortunately I got wounded. I was
at a very low ebb, we’d been in there fighting the Japs, everything was
getting to me, getting us down, and you know, you got to that stage, and I
was very glad when I got wounded, it got me out of it, you know, because it
was such a hell whole. I thought at least I’m out of this, this hell
hole, I’m either going to die, or I’m going to live to be an old
age, that’s what went through me mind, I can remember it now. As I say,
you’re of course most vulnerable, to them finishing you off, they had
a good try, they wounded me and that was it. We were, around Shwebo and that
area, and you’re in a slit trench waiting for them just before it gets
dark, and you get this light go up, and all the trees in front light up, and
in your imagination of course when you’ve spent two hours looking for
them, watching for movement down this one path, you could hear them going through
the jungle, and of course you’ve got booby traps set up, and you keep
looking and looking; and you see the leaves, and they begin to look like the
face’s of the Japanese, I can picture it now, shell’s were coming
over and that sort of thing, I was running from slit trench to slit trench,
I couldn’t settle, and of course it was like strip lighting, the flashes.
When they started shelling again, I had it, I started running from one slit
trench to the next and that, but you only just fit in those slit trenches,
diving from one to the other, to which you think is the safest, these flashes
make you believe you’ve seen the Japs just not too far in front of you.
Pte. Alfred Raymond Mason