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Transcript Of Interviews
Of
Sgt. Roy William James Welland 5337618
1st Battalion The Royal Berkshire Regiment
.....We’d
hardly been back at Dimapur very long when the Kohima incident had started.
The Japs decided to have a go at Kohima, and then push on into Dimapur. We
were flown in from the Arakan to Dimapur and got organised, up to a point.
The Royal West Kents were having a hell of a time keeping the Japs out, so
they thought, well we better do something about this, so the division decided
to take up some form of action. They sent in the Glosters to recce the road
up to the firing line, and they reported it a little bit snipish, and they
cleared that area for the first battalion of troops, the 1st Battalion The
Royal Berkshires, that’s how we rout marched up there, the best we could,
quite a few miles actually, and started to climb up the hill at the back of
where the West Kents were defending the top of Garrison Hill, we got up there
with the snipers piping at us all the way. We lost one or two blokes; through
sniping, but we finally got to the top and boy, these West Kent boys were absolutely
excited to see us, I think, they couldn’t get out of those trenches quick
enough to let us in. At the same time there was a bit of Mickey taking because
we looked a bit cleaner than they did, and got about heavy beard growth, not
having water and all the rest of it, and of course there dead bodies lying
about all over the place as you can appreciate, Japanese as well as British,
and they couldn’t be cleared, because of the snipers. Anyway we got to
the top, and I replaced the men of the very first trench that was up there.
Glad to see you corporal, he said; ‘If I’m going to see you corp,
but then again if I don’t, it’s about bloody time.’ That’s
just the way it was then, and they started to creep down towards the road,
well they didn’t creep down, they ran down as fast as they could actually
because of the atmosphere, then we settled down.
.....On the side of the trench they had got erected a sort of barricade for a bit
of extra defence they put a drum, oil drum. I thought crikey, I don’t
like the look of that there, so I went a bit closer to it, and got that sort
of particular smell you know, so I thought, I don’t know, shall I shift
it, it’s protecting me up to a point, and what would I put in its place,
it’s a hell of a difficult situation. I spoke to the commander about
it, I had to crawl from my trench to his and he said, ‘Well it’s
entirely up to you to, but I’d leave it. If your gonna go, your go one
way or the other.’ You know, the army had that sort of sense of humor.
.....That very first night, it was reasonably quite and we couldn’t understand
that. The Japs obviously knew that we were relieving them; the following night
was different kettle of fish. Jitter Parties - Are fresh troops, do your wives
know that you’re going to fight us, and all the rest of it, Tommy and
Jock or whatever nationality they thought you might be, and take the Mickey
a little bit, about the Yanks being over here sorting out all the girls and
the wives.
.....Well they tried to frighten us during the night time. It must have been around
three or four o’clock in the morning. I could hear these voices, and
thought crikey, what voices are these, they definitely weren’t British,
and then again you had to be very careful, because the India’s were sending
patrols out, so you had to be very very careful, so I listened carefully a
bit longer, then I realised there’s nothing Indian about this, because
the Indian’s have got a sort of a lilt in their voice when they speak,
where as the Japs are just a gabble.
.....I looked about until I some shadows appearing in front of me, and again they
started talking and laughing and joking and that sort of thing, you’d
think they were going up the pub to have a game of darts and a pint or something
like that; anyway they started talking and gradually got near; I thought, well
this is it. I fixed the Bren gun I had beside me at the time in that direction,
that’s all it was, the direction of a shadow and I fired my first burst.
As soon as I had opened up, the rest of the platoon, who were in a Box formation
covering each other’s trenches followed suit as they saw where my tracers
were going, so they had a rough idea where these Japs might be, then there
was a lot of screaming and howling. We knew then that they were Japs. The following
morning there was quite a few dead Japs lying around outside, on the perimeter.
We unfortunately lost a corporal and four or five of his men who were sitting
in their trench, because the Japs had crept up and managed to get in-between
the trenches somehow. The poor corporal he was unfortunate, him and his lot
went. Unfortunately I witnessed quite a few of these deaths, one was a captain,
when he went it was terrible really. I wouldn’t want to relate it to
his relatives even if they wanted to know how he died.
.....Well anyway the following morning there were quite a few dead Japs lying about
and we couldn’t count the dead because there were bullets flying about
all over the place, snipers here, there and everywhere. Not only just ours
I think, with respect, I think the Indians sometimes, got a bit uptight you
know, bit panicky and started throwing a few about unnecessarily. Anyway that
carried on, for two or three days. We were running out of rations by then,
they couldn’t get them up to us. So what happened, the Yank’s and
there, Dakota’s, which were the carthorses, they done all the dirty work;
they went over the Hump, to China and all the rest of it. Anyway they were
carrying food rations, and that sort of thing, and dropping them by parachute
over the various battlefields because there was three or four, we were all
literally fighting on the same front, only a few miles difference between us
of course. Anyway we got supplied by planes; some got stuck up in the trees.
Those that got stuck up in the trees, if they were hanging by one parachute
cord, we’d get a sharp shooter to see if he could break it so it’d
drop down. The Japs done quite well out of it too. Anyway we had seventeen
or eighteen days of this altogether, we were just as bad as the West Kents
at the end, due to the fact that we couldn’t wash or shave, didn’t
even like the smell of each. That’s the way things were, and we had a
few casualties, quite a few actually until we were eventually relieved.
P 1 :: P
2 :: P 3 :: P
4 :: P 5
Sgt. Roy Welland