May – June 1945
The main task that was carried out by 4 Corps Engineers, together with other units, was the construction of a Bailey suspension bridge across the Pegu river to replace the temporary arrangements at the demolished road bridge. We had not come across such a design and had been used to the conventional constructions which we were adept at. The senior officers of 4 Corps Engineers were presented to General Aukinleck, the C in C, and we were photographed with him at one of the anchorages. On completion it was necessary to test the construction and this was to be done by taking a fully loaded 10 ton truck across slowly, stopping from time to time and recording the sag by using a dumpy level on the bank sighted onto a staff on the centre of the bridge. A driver was asked for and I volunteered. The MAC 6 x 6 truck was loaded with a D4 bulldozer and stores to the required load. With some trepidation I progressed in short stages across, as directed from the other side, and all was shown to be OK after some adjustments to the tensioning of the cables. An excellent model of the bridge is on display at the R.E. Museum at Chatham but it gives the impression that it was erected in open country whereas it was in fact in an urban area.
At one stage we tried to activate the Pegu electricity generator. It was powered by a gas engine but when we discovered the whole thing was seized up we abandoned the attempt.
We heard about the atom bombs on Japan but their significance was not immediately realised. However as events unfolded our hopes rose that peace was coming. When the surrender was finally announced there was much imbibing among us together with hearty singing of “God Save the King” and “Land of Hope and Glory”.
I was among many from the 14th Army detailed to take part in the Burma victory parade before General Slim and Admiral Mountbatten (?) in Rangoon. At a transit camp outside the city I was put in command of a miscellany of troops and issued with 2″ of our medal ribbons (1939-45 Star, Burma Star, and General Service Medal). These were sewn on with much cackhanded use of the needle. The parade march past went off well. It so happened that one of the newsreel cameras (Gaumont British or Pathe) caught me marching past full face. My family history records that my dear Aunt Mamie, watching the newsreels in the Gaumont cinema at North Finchley, caught sight of me coming towards her, sprang to her feet, pointed to the screen and informed the audience “That’s Peter!”
At this time there was a welcome distribution of games to the company for our leisure (?) time. Our mess, set up in a very nice two storey house got a set of badminton and after our D4 levelled out a suitable area and we had no excuse for not getting enough exercise. There was one drawback because the extra humidity at this time lost us a lot of weight in sweat.