Midsummer 1945
The company was moved to Waw east of Pegu where the Rangoon-Pegu-Waw-Sittang Bridge-Moulmein railway crossed the Pegu canal. The rail bridge had been destroyed and wrecked locomotives lay on the approaches. Although hostilities had officially ceased towards the Sittang River, mopping up operations continued so long as some of the remnants of the Japanese army still tried to battle their way from the Pegu Yomas towards the river. One company task was to maintain the tarmac road back towards the Rangoon-Mandalay road. This was a difficult task. The monsoon was still pouring down and Burmese labour had been recruited by a local contractor. We were responsible for supervising the work which consisted mainly of cleaning out potholes, ramming in hardcore and sealing them with an area of Bithess. The locals had no skill in this sort of work and getting the proper standard was an uphill job. At the end of a week I had to pay the contractor with the re-established rupees but with no confidence that we were getting value for money.
To me as 2 I/C fell the novel responsibility of keeping the company chest and accounts for pay, mess bills, paying contractors etc. and including one for the company goat which we had acquired.
The monsoon and its aftermath brought millions of all sorts of insects, particularly at night. By now it was safe to have a little light at night (the Japanese were more concerned with making a quiet escape from the Pegu Yomas and cross the Sittang River than engaging in fighting). This was a benefit, but the hurricane lamp over the mess table attracted thousands of monsoon bred insects. On touching the hot glass they dropped into the meal. The solution was to string up a piece of mosquito netting to catch them. By the end of the evening this was visibly weighed down by a mass of dead bodies.
The company occupied a series of bamboo and thatched bashas with some tents. The workshop was a bamboo, poles and tarpaulin contraption and it was here disaster struck. Against all orders and experience somebody, (no names no packdrill), began to cut a hole into an empty (?) 40 gallon petrol drum with a oxy-acetelene flame. With a whoosh of flame up through the open filler hole at the top the tarpaulin caught fire and quickly spread. The canal was nearby and Jemadars Sheik Usman organised a bucket chain and the workshop Havildar courageously dragged the two cylinders away and the day was saved and nobody hurt.
Another company task was to clear the track on either side of the canal of damaged locomotives and damaged rails and then operate the opening and closing of the folding boat Bailey across the canal to enable the local river traffic to get back to normal. There were efforts to construct a Bailey lifting bridge with panel counterweights but we did not see the scheme completed.
Jock Beaton, the O C, left for home and I was promoted and took over the company.
The metre gauge railway line was repaired on the east side of the canal towards the Sittang River and the troops in that area who were intercepting the Japanese who would not surrender, were supplied by fixing railway wheels to jeeps and running these as locomotive-cum-goods wagon, the paddy fields being under water and not motorable.
For much of the time our senior NCO had been Company Sergeant Major CSM Evans. He could put his hand to anything and was a mainstay of the company. My fondest recollection of him is that, when in his cups, he would give us his maudlin rendering of a sentimental Victorian ballad called “When the good ship Victoria went down”. It was all about a mother whose only son had been lost at sea and ran to a number of verses describing the tragedy. The last line of the ditty ran:
Picture his aged mother
The loneliest widow in town
Who lost the best friend that she ever had
When the good ship Victoria went down
by which time his tears were falling into his beer.
For a long time during the campaign provision of drink for the two messes was reasonable. A ration of both beer and spirits (usually Canadian whisky) was provided and we swapped our ration of beer with the NCO’s mess for their ration of whisky.
The next task was part of the job of reinstating the infrastructure of Lower Burma and this took us up north near Mandalay to help rebuild the railway crossing of the Mintha river, all part of helping to bring Burma back on its feet. So I took the company to its new site in the Burma Railway maintenance town of Mintha.