Mandalay and Beyond
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MANDALAY AND BEYOND An Army Doctor’s Diary Charles Evans All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission. Copyright © The Estate of Sir Charles Evans, 2019 Book formatting and cover design by Cathy Woodhead (Delfryn Publications) The author (right), his driver Ata Mahomed (left) and Lim i Chi (centre) in Jesselton December 1945 Introduction When Charles Evans died in 1995, he left a manuscript of his experiences as a doctor in the XIVth Army - Burma 1944 -1945, the so called Forgotten Army. In 1998 I secured a publisher - Leo Cooper of Pen & Sword Books - who wanted it shorter so some sections were cut, including a delightful account of two weeks ‘leave’ over New Year 1945, to Darjeeling and beyond in the shadow of Kangchenjunga (see Chapter 13). It was published in the Alpine Club Journal (Volume 110 2005) for the first time as a special tribute to Charles Evans to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the first ascent of that majestic mountain on 25 May 1955 by the British team led by Charles himself. In his own prophetic words at the age of 26, ‘I was at the edge of what I wanted to do and yet it seemed utterly unattainable.’ A second chapter called Kumaon Trek was also cut from the Pen & Sword book, A Doctor in the XIVth Army, and the remaining text pared down to about 60% of the original manuscript which is now printed here in its entirety Charles Evans’ recollections of his service in Burma are in a different vein. This quiet, unassuming young officer in the RAMC, who was mentioned in despatches in 1945, had a marked bent for exploration and mountaineering and was open to all new impressions. Unusually observant and perceptive, his keen eye missed no detail of his surroundings. Where most servicemen saw only an unpleasant and inhospitable environment, he was able to appreciate and to convey, in words and sketches, the geography and vegetation, the bird life and the peoples of Burma, as well as events as they occurred and the personalities and idiosyncrasies of his companions. He writes with humour and compassion, in a simple, direct style which shows his deep love and understanding of language. After the war he studied surgery and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He climbed and explored extensively in the Himalayas, was deputy leader of the famous 1953 Everest Expeditions and, in 1955, led the successful Kanchenjunga Expedition, for which he was awarded the Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He was appointed Principal of the University College of North Wales in 1958 and was twice Vice- Chancellor of the University of Wales. He was knighted in 1964 and died in 1995, leaving behind an inspiring and lyrical account of his part in the Burma campaign. Denise Evans Ardincaple Capel Curig March 2019 Contents Foreword ......................................................................... 10 Chapter 1 Reserved Occupation ............................................ 11 Chapter 2 Doctors in Uniform ............................................... 21 Chapter 3 The Draft ........................................................... 29 Chapter 4 HM Trooper Ranchi .............................................. 37 Chapter 5 Egyptian Interlude ................................................ 50 Chapter 6 India and Cawnpore .............................................. 68 Chapter 7 Lucknow ............................................................ 84 Chapter 8 The Assam-Burma Border .................................... 105 Chapter 9 Assam............................................................. 108 Chapter 10 The Central Front ............................................. 136 Chapter 11 The Tiddim Road ............................................. 140 Chapter 12 Tiddim ........................................................... 161 Chapter 13 Darjeeling ....................................................... 179 Chapter 14 Central Burma ................................................. 199 Chapter 15 The Myinmu Bridgehead .................................... 205 Chapter 16 The Devons (1) ................................................ 225 Chapter 17 The Devons (2), Kyaukse (See map) ...................... 240 Chapter 18 The Race for Rangoon’ ...................................... 251 Chapter 19 Sitkwin .......................................................... 267 Chapter 20 Kumaon Trek .................................................. 283 Chapter 21 Saigon ........................................................... 304 Chapter 22 Borneo ........................................................... 319 Additional Chapter Last Days in Burma ................................ 332 Foreword Senior Officers did not much like us to talk of ‘The Forgotten Army’, they thought it bad for morale . I liked the phrase; it was how men told you that they could put up with things; they knew that we were not much in the news and were low on lists of priorities, but they could laugh at all that, and they could carry on . I kept a detailed diary during nearly all my short time in the army, and these notes are assembled from it . I have departed from the diary form where it would interrupt the narrative, but dates and places and events are taken from the diary and from letters . Without them many of the details would have been forgotten . Conversations are as I wrote them down at the time, and comments about people and things are my own as written then in the heat of the moment . They often say more about me than about the subject of the comment . Although I have used the official histories and other material to place the story in the general setting of the 1944/45 campaign in Burma, I must emphasize that the book is personal reminiscence, not an attempt at history . Some paragraphs, and some whole chapters, are printed in italics: they deal with the geographical and strategic background of my text and are intended to introduce the reader to the setting and circumstances of the story . Charles Evans from A Doctor in the XIVth Army 10 Chapter 1 Reserved Occupation In the summer of 1939 England was far from ready for war, but plans had at least been made to direct many people into work that would make use of their skills . Scientists, doctors, schoolmasters, farmers, miners and others who were needed to run the country found themselves in ‘Reserved Occupations’; and the muddle of an uncontrolled rush to join the forces as happened in 1914 was avoided . It was all very sensible . The training of medical students was shortened, and if in the end they went into, for example, the Army, they went as doctors, and not as recruits who for some time would not be useful soldiers . It was assumed that doctors, like others with a special trade, would have much to give: like cooks and clergymen, mechanics and paymasters, they were needed to keep fighting men at the front. When war came in September my return to work was delayed because of a mountain accident which had happened in August, and it was from a hospital bed that I heard Chamberlain tell us on ‘the wireless’ that we were at war with Germany . I had been climbing in North Wales with a friend and one evening when we came down from the rocks we found a party just setting out to recover a dead body that two walkers had reported lying in the South Gully of Tryfan . It was the custom to join in and give a hand . The gully was a sort of steep ravine with rocky sides and a floor of scree and loose stones, some of which were several feet long . The side walls were vertical in places and the slope of the floor was interrupted by drops of ten or twenty feet . The body lay at the bottom of one of these drops, and while lowering it on a rope a loose stone was dislodged . I was below and the stone struck me on the head, causing a lot of bleeding and, though I did not realise it, breaking my skull . I was bandaged and with the 11 MANDALAY AND BEYOND help of several companions made my way unsteadily down the thousand feet to the road where I had a disagreement with my friend about who should drive the car (it was my mother’s) to Bangor hospital . Fortunately he persuaded me to let him drive and we arrived without further mishap. I was kept in hospital and the only lasting effect as far as I was concerned was the memory left by the look of the body we had gone to fetch . We guessed that the man had been unused to mountains and, perhaps surprised by mist near the summit, had taken a wrong turn which led to a cul de sac above the place where we found him . He was middle-aged and unsuitably dressed for his adventure, for he wore a cheap full-length mackintosh, a threadbare suit and light town shoes, the soles of which were worn smooth . His thin white legs stuck out at unnatural angles . It seemed to me, aged 20, a very pitiful business, and completely unnecessary. * When I went back to Oxford in January 1940 I found the place very different from the Oxford I had known . My friends who had not been doing medicine had left and were either already in the forces or were waiting their turn to be called . The colleges where we had lived were turned over to other uses and we lived that first winter of the war in Worcester College where I had a room in a part that seemed mediaeval . The small coal fire did not heat it; one window overlooked a quadrangle thinly dusted with snow; another overlooked the frozen pond and snow-covered lawns of the Fellows Garden . It must have been pleasant in springtime. We ate our morning and evening meals in college; midday meals were taken at a sort of soup kitchen called a ‘British Restaurant’, a feature of that period of the war . We worked for long hours at the laboratories in Parks Road, in the libraries and later at The Radcliffe Infirmary, but we felt frustrated at still being students, and sought release for our energies in exercise arranged on the spur of the moment . When the pond in the Fellows’ Garden at Worcester was frozen hard we found old skates and hockey sticks, and played a game with no rules .