2nd Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment

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Phantom Japanese Column
By
Col. Lionel John Lindsay Hill 77668

 

.......My company fared well and had no casualties; C Company were again unlucky. Tree bursts were becoming a problem, with some enemy shells sending splinters down on us. We did not have time to prepare headcover for our shallow trenches.
.......During the night an incident occurred which to this day bothers me. At about 03.00 Cpl White, one of the acting platoon sergeants, crawled into Company HQ to tell me that a column of Japanese was passing our perimeter about 60 yards out in the rather open jungle. He and I crawled in silence some 20 yards to the forward section post, where the sentry was in some excitement. 'Over there, sir,' he whispered pointing and, sure enough, I could clearly see a line of Japanese in single file passing steadily along our flank to our rear. A man on a horse could also be seen and, although in uniform, all were perfectly silent. Cpl White and I counted over 60 men, while the word was passed for all to 'stand to', that is, to wake up and man the trenches we had dug for the night. The sentry, Cpl White and I were quite certain that we had seen something which we had all been expecting: an enemy encircling move to attack us or more rearward units. Wireless silence was broken as we relayed the news to Battalion HQ, who in turn passed the information to Brigade HQ. Nothing else happened during the night. No one else saw this column and when dawn broke Cpl White and I went to verify the tracks which it must have left in the damp, sparse undergrowth. The ground for some 100 yards out was untouched and virgin jungle; not a footprint or hoofprint! No one could possibly have passed! Over-tiredness? Hallucinations? Or spiritual experience? How could three of us independently have seen what we saw? The Japanese were surely not that good at covering their tracks. If so, we really did have more to learn!

 

 

 

Col. Lionel John Lindsay Hill
Col. Lionel John Lindsay Hill

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