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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
P 1 ::
P 2 :: P
3 :: P 4
:: P 5 :: P
6 :: P
7 :: P 8 :: P
9
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