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Transcript Of Interviews
Of
Sgt. Roy William James Welland 5337618
1st Battalion The Royal Berkshire Regiment
.....My
documents also note that I was charged, 17 January 1941, not wet behind the
ears by then I recon, rifle inspection, got a dirty rifle on rifle inspection,
I got, fined I think, 7 days pay for that.
.....So really as far as Burma’s concerned, I was on the edge of India at
one time, and a few weeks later I was bang in the middle of Burma, ending at
Rangoon. I had Malaria about eleven times, and Dysentery on a couple of occasions.
I also had Blackwater fever; I nearly lost my life, that’s from drinking
bad water. That’s was my own dam fault. They always used to tell you
to keep your bottle full, and you had a sterilising tablet you could put into
it; and it tasted bloody horrible, but when you’re thirsty you can drink
anything. Well on this occasion my water bottle had come off, crawling through
the undergrowth and got left behind somewhere, so I hadn’t got one. So
we got to this marshy ditch, and the water was so clear you know, I thought
there can’t be anything wrong with this, and that’s what it was.
I got whipped away again, by the Americans, an American chap that took care
of me, and after perhaps a week, ten days, something like that I was back again,
and that was that. What they said was that it had burnt itself out, whatever
they meant by that.
.....I would like to add that - We all started
off with the 5th Battalion to start with, the 1st Battalion got a big bashing
at Dunkirk, lost so many dame people
that they had to get some more trained soldiers to take their place, and the
same thing was happing over in India I think. They got understaffed a bit,
so quite a few of the 5th Battalion went over to them, in fact I don’t
think there was much of the 5th Battalion left. It was just the senior NCO’s,
of course the sergeant major. There are there I would like to mention now those
that finished up in the 2nd. One of
them was called, Dave Ottolangui and there was a Crowley, but I’m not
too sure what his Christian name was, but Crowley was a particularly good mate.
There was also Godley, now Godley the last time I saw him was at Brock Barracks
I think, and he was a sergeant and his got a DCM.
.....The Hackney Gurkha’s, in actual fact it was the 10th London, when we
joined the T.A., we thought we were joining the 10th London, until after awhile
when they started to issue us with new uniforms, because it took time to issue
uniforms to the T.A. in those days, or to get them fitted. They said, you will
get your badge and your collar dogs and your cap badge and that sort of thing
later on. We got these dragon’s, two little dragon’s and one big
one, one for your hat and two for your collar. Because we used to wear the
old First World War uniform, with ‘Box Crease’s’ below the
kneecap. That’s what we had to do; we used to have to do a boxed crease
over the top of your putties, which met, just right under your kneecap. To
do a ‘Box Crease‘ you used to get the bottom of your trousers and
tuck it up to your knee then press it where it finishes, then put it back on,
then you get this line, pull the line down over the top of the puttie to the
top, just pull it down so it’s level all the way around, we used to put
them under our bed mattresses.
.....Unfortunately I got involved with two or three different units during the war.
I spent most of the time with the 1st Royal Berkshire Regiment, three and a
half years in the jungles in Burma, but prior to that I was with the commando’s
and special service in Norway and places like that, but that’s another
story.
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Sgt. Roy Welland