General Wingate Performed "Miracles " In The Jungle

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 147, 23 June 1945, Page 8

General Wingate Performed "Miracles " In The Jungle

By A. NOYES THOMAS KANDY, Ceylon. Little more than a year ago, in a violent tropical storm over the 10,000foot Chin Hills, on the India-Burma border, where large-scale maps still show, great areas with "Unsurveyed" printed ominously across, there perished in an air crash MajorGeneral Charleg Orde Wingate.

He was the man who, with the aid of the R.A.F. and specially selected United States "commando" flyers, drew up and tested in Burma the air invasions, air supply, and air-ground co-operation plans which were later developed " and used with such remarkable success against the Germans during the invasion of Europe. In only a year after the death of this brilliant young soldier the principles of warfare in which he had so fiercely believed and which he had so ardently preached during' the whole of his career, proved them : selves in a grander manner, perhaps, than any military theories have ever proved, in the most vital phase in two hemispheres of the greatest war of all times. An Unusual Career His career was as unusual as his personality. Son of an Indian Army officer and a distant relative of Lawrence of Arabia, he was born in India in 1903 and after being commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1923, unexpectedly took up the study of Arabic. There followed years of travel in Egypt and the Sudan, where he lived with the Arabs, learning the> age-old arts of warfare in desolate regions. Next, for five years, he served with the Sudan Defence Force, and then led an expedition from Libya across the desert, searching for the "lost of.Zerzera."

In 1936 he was sent to Palestine, and there he made the friendship which decided the course his life should take: that of General Wavell. On two occasions, Wavell gave him great opportunities, with Churchill's warm approval and with brilliant results.

The first was in September, 1940, when as Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, he gave him the task of organising and leading the Abyssinian patriots in their march with the Emperor across -Ethiopia to the capital, Addis Ababa. In February, 1943, Wingate came to India again to join Wavell, to be given his second great. opportunity —first "Phantom' Army" expedition through the Jap lines into Central Burma. ■

It came at the time when our troops had staggered back to India from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies and Burma, and the myth of the Japanese "superman" was firmly established. . /--

The Four First Chihdits

That was ,the situation in which Wingate set about' building up • the force, only a , brigade strqtig, which was to inflict the first aggressive blow on the Japanese, - ' ; *

For his subordinate commanders, he chose three old associates; monocled Major Bernard Ferguson, of the Black Watch; Major Bromhead, a dour, quiet planner; and young "Mad Mike" Calvert, a champion army boxer, who looks like one, an inspiring leader and an expert saboteur.

Most of the British troops were married men, no longer young, most of whom had been city-bred civilians before the war, the least likely human material for such a plan as Wingate's:

In June, 1942, the training started —in*a torrid Indian jungle where tracks were knee-deep in mud, rivers and streams in flood, and the mosquitoes ravenous. Within seven weeks 70 per cent of the troops were in hospital or hoping to get there. Wingate taught his men to be their own doctors. They learned early the diagnosis of jungle ailments and speedy treatment. By the end of the course, sickness had fallen off to 3 per cent. Then 20 per cent Of the remaining troops were rejected by Wingate as unfit.

The whole training programme was founded on the theory that jungle fighting is "merely normal infantry fighting, in conditions of poor visibility without supporting arms." Men learned to overcome the fear of the jungle and of loneliness. They learned the art, of dispersal and regrouping at'an agreed rendezvous. Most important of all, they learned the value.of unfaltering courage and supreme self-confidence. By Christ■.mas, Wingate declared they had "reached the point in their preparation where they could be committed." He would never agree that any formation was "ready." Used Radio Communication And so, the "Phantom Army," one small brigade, trekked off into the Burma jungle to fight their way through the Japanese lines and back again; to march and battle for months, cut off from the world except for radio communication and the supplies dropped from the sky by aircraft scraped together for the purpose from the ends of the earth; to outwit and, terrify a whole army; to prove a great idea.

The material results did not seem spectacular. They put the main Burma railway out of action for several weeks, disorganised an impending offensive against the Indian border, gained some invaluable intelligence. For most of those Britons and Indians, the expedition must have seemed just an endless battle, with the knowledge that serious sickness on wounds meant being left in the jungle to die.

But they were laying foundations for victory in both the East and the West.

In 1944 Wingate proposed to develop his idea. This time ,he wouldi fly his troops into Burma and usw light aircraft for liaison and the evacuatioh of wounded. *

At the Quebec conference, Mountbatten had put forward the "air commando" proposition as a key to success in jungle warfare, he had won his point and—most important

—promises of full support, Wingate went ahead with his plan to place five brigades of British and Indian Army troops 150 miles behind the Japanese lines with the object of implementing General Sherman's classic dictum, "The enemy's rear is there to play hell with."

On the night of Sunday, March 5, 1944, by the white light of the great Burma moon, Wingate's men, clad in green drill battledress and heavily armed with tommy guns, rifles, pistols, grenades and knives, climbed into transport planes and gliders on jungle airstrips along the Indian border. Many had never before been in the air.

In pairs behind the parent planes, the sky trains roared off into the night, heading for the heart of enemy Burma 150 miles away, beyond 7000 ft mountains. ,

The organisation of the initial flyin was entrusted to 33-year-old Colonel Philip Cochran. The plan for "Operation Thursday" was for the first wave of glider-borne troops to go in and hold the jungle clearing for the landing of the second wave. These would carry more troops, bulldozers, graders, jeeps, mules and ponies and engineers to build an airport between dawn and dusk so that the next night the giant troop-carrying aircraft could land the bulk of the fighting troops, with guns and motor transport.

At their destination the first-wave gliders circled and' went down. Many of them crashed on landing and others piled up on top of them; the "control glider" had made a forced landing near the Chindwin River and there was no one to guide the descent. Men worked like maniacs to clear the ground, but before they could finish the cry of "Gliders" went up and nothing more could be done.

Beginning of the End to the Jap,s

Down they came, some safely, but others to hurtle at 60 miles an hour into the wreckage of the earlier arrivals or, to avoid this, , into the solid wall of the jungle.

By the light of the moon, surgeons amputated limbs and tended ghastly wounds.

At dawn the engineers began to build the airport. Before dusk the great transport aircraft were landing and taking off in a steady stream, bringing in reinforcements and equipment, and taking put the injured. Pour days after the completion of the landings, 12,000 men with 1200 animals were marching, off into the jungle to begin operations against the Japanese lines of communication.

The full contribution of the Wingate Burma expedition toward the prosecution, of the vast war against AMe Japanese will probably not be

appreciated until historians can place The whole of the war under review. This much is certain—Wingate and his motley troops contributed to the successful invasion of.the mainland of Europe, and showed the world the way to victory in Eastern jungle warfare.—Auckland Star and N.A.N.A.