2nd Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment

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THE ATTACK ON KIN-U VILLAGE
By
Lieut. C. Besly, M.C., B.A.
Page 4

 

....Of the three men in L/Cpl. Bailey's section one, Pte. Lees, had fallen into a hole on the way up and had injured his shoulder, though he did not report this to me at the time. In addition, Pte. Elwell had been hit in the chest just before he reached the Pagoda, and dropped behind a hedge in a most inaccessible position about 50 yards short of us. He moaned a lot during the day, and kept calling on me to send him the stretcher-bearers, which I was quite unable to do. At intervals I shouted back trying to encourage him, but I could do nothing for him. In the middle of the afternoon two private soldiers, entirely on their own initiative, sprung up and ran over to him. They were so quick that they caught the Japs napping, and nobody fired at them. These two sat with Elwell for the rest of the day, and kept him company.

....When Dodd got back (about 1 p.m.) I recovered somewhat from my lethargy. I had a good drink from my water bottle, I had eaten the emergency ration, which I carried in my pocket, and I felt much better.

....Assuming we could not go back to the Company. The most obvious way was to cross the Broad Road and make a detour round to the North. But I thought it was highly unlikely that the enemy would leave this wide, straight road on the flank of their position entirely uncovered by fire; still, on the off-chance, I sent a man over to look. He was able to crawl along a small hedge which ran from the Pagoda to the road. Presently he returned to say that as soon as he showed his face on the road bullets came at him from all directions. I fancy this was an exaggeration, but I took him at his word. Anyway, it was obvious that, with so many wounded, we could not cross the Broad Road in daylight.

....The next possibility requires a little explanation. Simultaneously with "B" Company's attack, "D" Company were supposed to have launched an attack down the main road on to the enemy position South of the T junction. If this were successful it seemed to me that we should be able to crawl due East from present position, and link up with "D" Company, without ever having to cross the Broad Road. The intervening ground was mostly bare paddy-fields, but if "D" Company had cleared out all the Japs facing them it looked as though we could cross this ground in safety. Earlier on I had heard heavy firing on the main road; I could not see anything, because of some scrub in the way, but by listening carefully to the firing I had come to the conclusion that "D" Company's attack had gone in, and had been successful. In this I was completely mistaken, but of course I did not know that at the time. Before adopting this plan it was necessary to find out for certain where "D" Company were. This meant sending a patrol across the paddy-fields to the main road, with the object of finding out who was there. I was discussing the situation with those beside me, and as soon as I mentioned this patrol a certain man offered to go on it. This man was Pte. Dodd. It was wrong of me to overwork the willing horse, but I was not feeling very sharp, so I told Dodd and L/Cpl. Bailey to go together. Without hesitation they started crawling across the paddy, and were soon lost to view. It seemed as though they were gone an eternity. If time had gone slowly before, it now stood still. I pinned very strong hopes to this method of getting out, so I was in a torment of anxiety to see them back.

....Personally, I had so much to think about— taxing my ingenuity to find a way out— that my mind could not dwell for long on the unpleasantness of our situation. But the men did not have the diversion which this responsibility gave me. As the hours dragged by, our strange predicament began to get on their nerves. For a long time everything had been very quite; we knew there were Japs close to us, we had very little ammunition, and there seemed to be nothing we could do to help ourselves. It was unpleasant having our own men wounded amongst us, together with the

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