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One Of The First Into Mandalay
by
L/Cpl. William Vale 14654372

 

.....I was in the 2nd Battalion The Royal Berkshire Regiment, I’ve still got my kit-bag and I wouldn’t take a pension for it. I was the first of two British soldiers’ to walk into Mandalay, as part of the 19th Indian (Dagger) Division.

.....The day, the very day your 18, they call you up. I was living in a place called Kingstanding, it was a nice place, and my two mates got called up, because they were that little bit older than me, and I was on me Jacks, (‘Jack Jones’ – Alone).

.....I tried to join up, at the Recruiting Office in Brighton. The strange part about this is that I can see that blokes face to this day, and I’ve got a bad memory. He had a round red face, and was sitting behind the desk at this recruiting office. When I went up to him he said, ‘What do you want lad?’ I said, ‘I’ve come to join the Army.’ he said, ‘Oh have you, how old are you?’, I said, ‘18’, he said, ‘Do you want a bit of advice?’ I said, ‘Yea’ He said, ‘Go back home and wait until your 18, you’ll be called up when your 18.'

.....When we were on our troop ship, nearing Bombay, we were attacked by the Italian Fighter Bombers. I said to my mate, Ginger Riley, a farmer’s son. ‘I’m not stopping down here, I’ve gotta get out, were three decks below the water line; if we get torpedoed, we’ve had it.’ Ginger Riley said, ‘Were never get out, there’s about 4 or 5 officers stood, with their revolvers drawn, and when you go to climb the stairs they shout, if anyone tries to come passed us you’ll be shot.’ Their own officers, were there fighting the Japs, and their standing there with guns on us.

.....I said to Ginge, ‘Are you any good at acting? Pretend to be sick; put your hands to your mouth and try to puff your face up a bit.’ Ginger did this and I pretended to help him up the steps and as we got close to the officer, Ginge pretended to retch and I shouted, ‘Quick get outta the road, his gonna throw-up, he’ll throw-up all over ya.’ Well this officer got outta the road, we went quickly passed him and up the stairs until we were on deck, and that’s when the Italian Dive Bombers started bombing the ships, the ship took a salvo. We finished up in India, after landing at Bombay, then onto training.

.....The one thing what sticks in my mind was at one particular training camp, there was a kid there, he was a smashing kid. One day they took us down onto the parade ground; there was this huge mound of earth, it must have been, 10, 12 foot high at least, and we’d often wondered what this was for, we found out that day. The sergeant, Sergeant Major, Savage, he got us down there, in the scorching sun; you couldn’t hardly breathe for the heat. There were a number of us forming a half circle, and this one kid, smashing kid, who had done something a little bit wrong, nothing at all really, and the Sergeant Major said, ‘Right, come on, your down the punishment block.’ We had to form a three sided square around this huge mound of earth, all the lads were saying, ‘What they doing Brum?’ I said, ‘Criky, I don’t know, I’ve never seen this done before.’

.....The sergeant shouted, ‘You think you’re clever, don’t you?’ you know the kid had never done anything. We then saw him get the lad to one side of this huge mound of earth, and made him run up to the top, over the crest and down the other side. He had to turn around and run back again. We couldn’t hardly breathe watching him, and I turned round and said, ‘What this we’ve gotta to watch?’ He threatened us that this would happen to us if we stepped out of line. I said to the lads, wait a bit I’ve got an idea here, and in a good loud voice, the loudest I could muster, shouted, ‘Squad about turn.’, and everybody turned around, so we had our backs to the mound. Sergeant Savage kept us in the sun for hours, out in that stinking heat before he dismissed us.

.....When we were going through the jungle, heading towards Mandalay with the Japs in retreat, the officer shouted to us, ‘You’ve got the honour of being the first through Mandalay, you lot.’ We were all in stitches when he said that. But I wasn’t in stitches after, because he was stood there looking at us all cleaning our weapons and re-stacking up with ammunition and Grenades, we carried about, 3 or 4 Grenades fastened to our belts. Heading towards Mandalay we caught sight of Fort Dufferin in the distance and the officer said, ‘O.K. get in extra ammunition, get plenty of Grenades looped around your belts, charge them up.’ He stood there looking around, and I said to my mate, Ginger, ‘Ginger, I’ve got a funny feeling that something is going to happen.’ and it did. The officer pointed to me and said, ‘Brummie, come here and bring your weapons with you.’ adding, ‘you’ve got the honour of being the first two into Mandalay.’ Anyway, I was the first to enter Mandalay.

.....When we walked in, Fort Dufferin was on the corner, and there was a big moat all around it. We walked down the street. Well the buildings had flat roofs with a tube in-between the pillars, creating a bit of a barricade. We went in there and had a look around. Ginger said, ‘How are we gonna settle this Brumm?’ I suggested that we tackle this buy one of us moving down one side of the road, and the other going down the opposite side of the road, so we were covering the roof above each other. As we moved forward up to 5 or 6 women living in Mandalay came up to us in a circle and started shouting, oh British, the British, the British are coming, and I’m shouting, Chibbero, Chibbero, which means, be quiet, be quiet, and moved off the best way we could; all of a sudden one of the women said, ‘Japanee, Japanee, and I said, ‘Kehan sai’, which means, where.’ There was one Jap hiding behind these brick pillars where the tubes formed a sort of safety rail. I could see a slight movement. I gestured to Ginger, and he came over to my position. I said, ‘Two rifles are better than one now. Get a bead on that pillar; don’t fire till I tell you.’ We both got a bead on the Japs position, and sure enough a bit of his head came out. I said, ‘Wait till I tell you.’ Then a bit more of his head come out, then a bit more, and the Jap got curious, because he didn’t know where we were, and he come out just enough, we both opened up on him, and he came four flights down and landed on his head, and that was it. The officer came forward and said, ‘You done a good job there.’

.....Unfortunately poor Ginger got killed. He was a Shropshire farmer’s son. We was rationed for cigarettes, you only had so many cigarettes each and Ginger used to give me his cigarettes, and one day I said to him, ‘What about you?’, he said, ‘I don’t smoke.’ All along, through thick and thin, I never knew that you know. Bill Riley, we called him Ginger, and do you know that kid hated pulling that trigger. He was a Bren Gunner and I was his number two. When a magazine, emptied, Ginger would shout, ‘Brum’ and I would, as quick as lighting, knock the empty mag off and put a fresh magazine on, and cock the bolt, pull the bolt back ready for firing again. That’s the way we worked, number one and two Bren Gunners.

.....We were far from Mandalay and the Japs started shelling us and they got poor Ginger, he used to hate pulling that trigger, hated it, he didn’t like killing and he got killed himself, didn’t he.

.....Bill Dale was the company runner and he used to of a night, have to go out before dark, to every fox hole, as we’d got all round defensive positions, and he used to have to go down there with nightly orders. The Japs used to lie there in wait, and I remember Bill Dale, (L/Cpl. William Henry Dale 5114812) it’s funny because, I kept looking at this company runner, because I thought I knew him. This particular night I said to him, ‘I seem to know you, somehow, I don’t know why, or how, but I seem to know you,’ and asked him, ‘where do you live?’ He said, ‘Frankfort Street.’ Blimey, I said, ‘Oh my God Almighty, I don’t believe it.’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘that’s where I come from. I was born there.’

.....In the old days, we used to live in long terraced houses with no inside toilets, the yard was cobble stone, and right in the middle you had a gas lamp. If you needed to go to the toilet, we had to go out in the pitch black dark, up the yard and use the communal toilets. As kids you used to be frightened to go to the toilet, so we started burning candles, or a paraffin lamp, and Bill dale came from the same area.

.....Well we was in our fox holes, because you had to go down in your fox holes at night, which were either a square or round hole in the ground. I used to cut a ledge in the dirt, to put the Grenades on, so if I needed them I could grab them quick.

.....Bill Dale came round one night, and I said, ‘Halt who goes there?’ he said, ‘company runner.’ I said, come on and he jumped in the fox hole with us. Well this Bill Dale, he’d only been married about a week before he got called up. I said to him, ‘Bill, don’t go to any more, its pitch dark, you’ll lose yourself.’ He said, ‘No I’ll be alright.’ I said, ‘You won’t be alright will ya? How can you be alright in the dark, in the jungle? Go back to your bloody fox hole. You don’t want to carry on now in the dark.’ He hadn’t left our fox hole, about 10 minutes, and we heard gun fire.

.....I later said to the sergeant, ‘Do you know if they captured Bill Dale last night serge?’ and he said, ‘Yes, he got killed.’ I said, I’d guessed it. What he’d actually done, he’d strayed behind Japanese positions, and they shot him. The officer said, ‘Did you know him?’ I said, ‘Yea we were born and bred within yards of each other.’

.....He was devoted to his job, he hadn’t left us minutes, when we heard rifle fire, and I looked at me mates and said. ‘His had it.'

.....I did something in Burma, that I thought I wouldn’t do, or could do. I cut a Japs throat. An officer came to me one day and said, ‘Brom, take a forward patrol out. ’I said wait a bit. I’m supposed to have stripes on me arm to take a patrol out.’ So he said, ‘I’ll put you right.’ He never did.

.....Well I took the patrol out with these lads, we hadn’t been gone long and I saw this Jap there, I put me hand up quick, and the two lads stopped, and said, ‘What is it Brum?’ I said, ‘Look up there, a Jap.’ Standing there was this Jap, and their bayonets were about three foot long. They’d get about three of us on the end of that.

.....During training we developed, what we call a heal and toe walk, you put your foot forward, and put your heal down first and lower your foot slowly to the floor and moved one foot in front of the other like that, which stops you breaking the twigs. In the jungle, you’d be surprised, when you crack a twig, it sounds like cannon fire in the jungle, at the night. So I done the old heal and toe walk, and I pulled my knife out. I got behind him and he never heard me, I got my hand around the front of him, over his mouth, I pulled his head back, and when I pulled his head back I cut his throat.

.....We was going through the jungle, off the highway, when we saw this camp, a bamboo stockade, about 6 or 7 foot high, they put pillars in the ground and make a fence, to keep wild animals out the village, the animals would carry the kids off. There were huts inside and a big double gate for their wagons to in and out of. This stockade had been built, and what we didn’t know and found out obviously; our prisoners of war was in there, what the Japs had captured, and when we entered the stockade we found out that most of the Japs had fled. The POW’s all come out crying, and do you know, as I think about it I can feel their bony arms around me neck. I can feel their bony arms around me neck to this day; they’d got no flesh on them. The Japs starved them. I said there and then, ‘Don’t ever ask me to take prisoners, I’ll kill every so and so I ever meet.’, and I did.

.....I asked a POW if the Japs had all left, and he said, there were still some Japs in the compound. I asked an officer for permission to take a patrol in, and he said yes. I went and killed every so and so we found, Japanese of course.

 

 

 

L/Cpl. William Vale