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Recorded Interview 1
by
Pte. Alfred Raymond Mason 466698
.....It’s
stupid, as I was sitting there waiting, all the one side of me face, where
I got hit in the head, had gone dead. As I say, I was sitting there in the
jungle on this bit of a log waiting for the ambulance to get through, because
they had to cut their way through most of the jungle most of the time to get
to me and of course they got me back, the ride was over all the stumps and
what have you, you know it was all jungle, quite a way back to the Forward
Dressing Station, it was a ride and a half, kind of thing, if you survived
that you’ve got a good chance of surviving. They got me back, operated
and took out the piece of shrapnel and they patched me up. The hospital’s,
oh they were quite good, you had women, nurses, and I think they’d come
out from England, and of course you’d got some out there as well, it
was a very good hospital actually, I’d got no complaints at all, I can’t
think of anything that was not, you know, not acceptable, being treated and
that sort of thing, you knew that you were there to get well again, they give
me the piece of shrapnel, but it got lost, and I also had me bush hat, where
the bullet had gone through the turned up rim. I’d never think about
it, but it’s all coming back to me.
.....While I was in hospital Mountbatten’s wife, (Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten,
Countess Mountbatten of Burma) came around the hospital and had a little chat
with us and it was quite an experience, she just asked, who you were and where
you came from and how you felt, kind of thing and what you felt about the war,
and as I say just general talk, just a little chat, and she stopped and had
a chat with everybody who was there, she said, oh she said, that looks nasty,
I’d got a, well it wasn’t a hole, it was a wound as big as the
old half-a-crown, kind of thing, as I say she saw that and she hopped that
I’d soon get better, which I did, as soon as I started to feel better
they sent me up to Darjeeling, I think it was there three months convalescents
and then I come back down, and they sent me back into action again.
.....I get through the war zone, they get me right again, and they send me back
into action, I can smile and laugh about it now.
.....Oh, the Brahmaputra River, yes I’d been on that, I was on the boat with
General Slim, crossing the river, he was going up to the front to see the lads,
and I was going back to join, I think I’d been wounded or something,
yea it must have been when I’d been wounded, then I was going back to
join, join the happy band again, and General Slim was on the boat going across,
of course he’d got his aide-de-camps around him.
.....I served with Colonel Hill, he was in B Company, I served with him, I served
at the side of him, but of course I’d got communications with H.Q. which
kept me in touch with base, I had to be up with Colonel Hill, because he had
the instructions about what to do, and I used to hand him the phone. The Japs
were retreating as fast as they could, and of course we were chasing them,
and annihilating what we could or anything we could, doing that job and kind
of thing; the same as they did with us when we were on the run, you know that’s
war and that’s how it goes, as I said there was some that did go a bit
wild shall we say, and that, and done stupid things, we done things that we
shouldn’t have none, I mean, we wouldn’t own up to doing that kind
of thing, you know, such as you’ve captured a Jap, which is very rare,
because there was no love loss between us of course, and you gotta keep an
eye on him, so you’ve probably got a couple of blokes there watching
them, which you can’t afford to do when you’re moving fast, so
you got one of the lads to take him out and come back on his own, if you understand
what I mean, it’s not a nice job, but it’s war and your fairly
indifferent when you’re in war, that their the enemy and you’ve
gotta do this sort of thing, to kill another person, it’s not a thing
that you would do normally; shall I say; you get a different outlook on things,
you do things then that you wouldn’t think of doing when your not at
war. I’ve thought of things that I’ve done, and after, thought,
you haven’t done that have you, you know, but it’s just things
that you’ve got to do that harden’s you, shall we say, you got
to let your feelings go, your normal human feelings, stopped there, especially
when you’ve seen one or two of your mates killed and come close to it
yourself, you have a different outlook on life, that it’s more or less
them or you so, and that’s how it went.
.....Coming home, there was nothing to it, I’d done me time out there anyway,
I done close on four years I think it was, and when they got me back at Doolally
they sorted me out and sent me back to Bombay and caught a boat back to Southampton,
and just landed back in Southampton, got off the boat and I went up to Reading,
with the Royal Berkshire Regiment at Brock Barracks, and they sent me on leave
from there. Because I hadn’t had any leave all the while I’d been
abroad, it was nice to get a three months leave pass, and get back to civilisation
again and that was it, there was no home coming or nothing, it was just routine,
you know, it was just as though it was the Army, just one of the Army things,
no welcome home or that. I was glad to be home, I was quite happy about that.
.....Whenever you came back, of course your parents and everyone else think that
you must just fall back into their way of life, but you got a different way
of going about things, and doing things, you know, you’ve got hardened,
to different things that you would normally do. Before I went into the army
I was at home, and I’d got a nice home, everything was nice and quiet,
I mean I used to do the Armature Boxing and that sort of thing, but no bother
at all, and everything was fine, and then of course went into the army in 42,
and that was it, and people don’t understand you know, they think that
there’s something wrong with you, I think though that, you seem to see
life in a different way to normal, I think I must have changed as I say, nearly
4 years abroad. I had my 20th birthday in Burma fighting the old Japs, of course
you didn’t take much notice, but you realise after that, that you must
have had spent it in there, of course you didn’t know half the time what
day it was, strange old world it was, you can’t tell people how it affects
you.
Pte. Alfred Raymond Mason