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Dear Dad,

I have given nearly six years of my life to the Army, the first three of which I spent in Blighty with frequent visits Home, the second three years I have spent wandering in foreign lands and you have been dependant on my correspondence for a picture of my wanderings. This correspondence would at times give you a very incomplete picture as censorship has been strict and rightly or wrongly I have always been very obedient to the censorship regulations not just from a security point of view but also to try and keep you from worrying as you would have done if you had known exactly where I was at certain times. Now that the Security Regulations have been relaxed and I am also standing bye more or less to start my long journey to Blighty for Demob., I am at liberty to give you most of the dope. The picture will be much more complete, the SEAC souvenir will be much more interesting to you, and some of my previous "episodes" will get a more solid background. This will make up for lack of "Episodes" this year and keep you interested until I come home sometime about August or September, I hope.

I am afraid I can only give you a very brief outline as air mail is restricted in weight but I may be able to write more episodes if time permits.

Over the three years and in various hops some repeated many times I have driven Army vehicles from Bombay to within 30 miles of Rangoon, a feat unheard of prior to the war, I should think.

When I landed in India sometime in August 1942 I went straight to Ranchi by train - Indian troop train! I was only there a week and went back to Bombay on a special mission. I was in Bombay with a small party for nearly two months and had a grand time there apart from the want of cash which you have heard all about. I then drove back to Ranchi in convoy, this took about a fortnight. Ranchi is a second class hill station in Bihar in Central India. After a spell there, I drove in convoy to Calcutta and sailed by boat to Chittagong which at that time was fairly near to the Japs. They were at the top of their form and we had air-raids every day. This did not worry me unduly for I had had a thorough grounding in Blighty.

On Christmas Day Reveille was half-past Three and I commenced another long interesting journey by road. On New Years Day we stopped at Shillong, the Capital of Assam. It was one of the coldest nights I have ever experienced and Reveille was about Four in the morning, that was my festive season 42/43. We drove across the famous Manipur Road to the Imphal Plain. In doing so I passed Kohima which I have passed many times before and after the Battle. We camped in the Jungle about 40 miles up the Yiddim Road which was then being built and we lived in Bashas (Episode 1). After a time I travelled on a truck as a passenger for 50 or 60 miles and then I dismounted and was dismounted for about six weeks, with the object of making a road - the road to Yiddim and perhaps some day the road to Tokyo. You remember the episode about the mule this was it. The 4th Corps at that time had a front of 500 miles along the natural barrier of the Chin Hills. We dug a road out of a mule track at the other end was Yiddim, Kennedy Peak, Fort William and the Japs and then more hills and then the Promised Lands - the Plains of Burma. Actually we were now in Burma on the unknown Chin Hills!, about 7/8000 ft. up.

One had the feeling that the yellow gentlemen were watching us from neighbouring hills but we had good fighting men, very much at home - the Gurkhas amongst others patrolling round. It was very hard work the marching and the digging but I amazed myself by sticking it very well and I felt very fit. Of course, it was an excellent climate and beautiful unspoiled scenery like some parts of Scotland. I always will remember getting a big Kirkie parcel there. I often like to think of its journey - I expect you and Rogie carried it to the Post Office, it then went by SMT bus, then train, boat, train, plane, L of C. Truck, jeep, mule and then a bloke carried it to my basha. We got a real kick out of seeing the first truck coming up, the road was finished. I then travelled back to Manipur and went on a M. T. Course to Imphal. I subsequently left by truck for Dimapur across the Manipur Road and caught the Civvy train to the Brahmaputra, there I caught a civvy bus which took me up the beautiful Shillong Hills to Shillong where the Governor of Assam lives. This was a pukka hill station, plenty of white people mostly the wives of tea planters etc. We were in barracks or huts for the monsoon, there was a picture house, and canteens decent shops etc and I had quite a nice time there. It was very cold at nights and the air was crisp and cool. The natives were Khasis reckoned to be the finest porters in the world.

About November, I was now a jeep driver, and along with a convoy of jeeps descended the Shillong Hills to Silchar and crossed the Silchar jeep track, a short cut over the Naga hills to the Manipur Plain thus avoiding the long journey through Assam and thereafter over the Manipur Road. It was a most hair raising journey and a scenic railway had nothing on it. You know the breadth of a jeep, well there was just room and the slightest slip meant hurling down thousands of feet. Hair-pin bends! I had to reverse sometimes twice to get round the corners which were cambered at an alarming angle. Well in the middle of the Naga Hills probably one of the wildest places on the Earth my jeep broke down. I was left with five others for four days before help arrived. It was, the locals informed us, tiger country (By Gad! Sir). We took turns at night keeping the fire in to scare off Mr Tiger. The locals were the famous primitive Nagas and until recently head-hunters. They had no English or Hindi but by means of a picture book I found out there was tiger but no wild elephants. I was eventually towed to the other end of the track which later was to witness some of the bloodiest fighting of the Manipur Plain as the Japs wanted to use the short cut into Assam.

Once again I went up the road to Yiddim but this time I drove up in my jeep all the way. At Yiddim I worked pretty hard mostly jeep driving to Kennedy Peak and back. Although I had been in operational areas many times before I was now definitely in action because our guns were firing in anger. Our opponents were the crack Japanese 33rd Div., up hill now all conquering and experienced professional soldiers - Imperial Troops. I never saw any of these blokes but chaps who had, said some of them were six footers and broad in proportion, not the common conception of the Jap soldier.

(To be continued)

Cheerio,

GEORDIE

P.S. Not in my best vein, but I finished my last Burmese Claret yesterday, as for fags -!

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