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Grandfather's Story
A CIVILIAN GOES TO WAR, (AND RETURNS UNSCATHED)
by
Cpl. Arthur George Pike 14260370
Page 6
The battle of Kin-u
involved B Company and was a brilliant victory. Bobby Bunn, who,
amongst other things gave his captors the slip, was awarded the M.M. I met
him at a reunion I organised for Major Hill, his company commander at Taunton long after
the war. After all he had done in the war, it was sad that a hospital problem saw
him off.
And where was I, you may ask. The Brigadier had been warned of a hut in the
jungle showing up on an aerial photograph, and Scott Selwyn and myself had the job
of leading A Company on a compass march through fairly thick jungle. It was several miles,
and we were only eight yards out when we came to the first turning point, and found
the hut quite safely. "There's your hut", I said to the A Company Corporal with
us. His reply was predictable. He outranked me and said "somebody's got to go in".
Bless him, the hut was empty.
Somewhere along this bit we did a left flanking move and cut off the enemy
from their base. We occupied the Zigon crossroads in their rear. On the way, our C. O.
came up and redirected me, stopping us from going too far in their rear. One soldier walking
into an ambush was believed to be a bobagee, or cook. We were cut off from our supplies,
and supper was brought up next morning with the breakfast, and tasted better than
it smelt. We were not allowed to break into our emergency food.
Shwebo had been our target, and on its capture we were told we could have a
rest. We even acquired some food from the natives. Before we could cook, we were rushed
into trucks to go and relieve the Sikh MMG battalion near Kabwet. They had been
strategically placed by the Div Commander to watch a possible crossing point.
The enemy sent a force over and threatened to annihilate the gunners who lacked
mortars and were in a very uneven battle. After the war I received a letter from one of
their officers who had heard of my unit, and thanked me personally for saving his life. We
were able to distract the enemy from their action against the Sikhs.
The battle of Kabwet belonged almost entirely to our battalion with support
from 115 Field Regiment of artillery. They were restricted to a very small
ration of shells per day. We used the village of Koktet for our HQ with companies
between us and the
enemy, who had the River Irrawaddy behind them. They actually used nullahs
at the top of the cliff for protection. The height of the cliff was given on
the map as 15R,
and the battle became known as 15R when the enemy had been driven out of the
village.
Our part in the battle was to man the Observation Post on a hill known as 'Masts'.
I felt this to be rather a pretentious name until I realised that masts would have
been used in peacetime for communications between the ferryboats and the shore. We were
really stuck out in the wild by ourselves in pairs. I suppose we kept the enemy's
heads down if nothing else. On one occasion we came under very heavy fire, and I guess
it was 'overs' from an action below.
It was at Kabwet we had our casualty. George Iles, a Reading member of the
I Section, came walking back to HQ with a clean bullet wound in his arm and announced
he was off to Blighty. This was very convenient for me, because I had just arrived and
was able to
P 1 :: P
2 :: P 3 :: P
4 :: P 5 :: P
6 :: P
7 :: P 8 :: P
9 :: P
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Cpl. Arthur George Pike 6400751