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This story is contributed by Bernard Deere and added to the site with his permission.

We disembarked at the Gateway to India in Bombay. We went to the railway station...and again no-one tells you anything...but subsequently we found out we were going up to Comilla in North East India and that was seven days on a train, no sleeping accommodation, indeed just a hard seat and prior to embarkation I had developed a very nasty boil on my bottom so I wasn't in very good humour. We were a few days off Christmas 1944. So seven days on the train we got to Comilla which was a transit camp for reinforcements for the 14th Army. There were many men in bell tents some of the older inhabitants greeted us...鈥漎ou can relax now...we've been here six months鈥� ..so we thought we could settle down to this. We went to bed about ten o'clock at night....and at two o'clock in the morning there was shouting around the tents..... any Royal Signals people get outside immediately. We were whisked off to a local US Air strip where about twenty of us were pushed aboard a Dakota which was loaded with animal feed, oil drums, they were secured with ropes, but there was no seating. So we sat where we could. We had about a three hour flight into North East Burma from Comilla....landed on a paddy strip which the Royal Engineers and Indian Engineers had cleared. Then as we disembarked a chap...an MP or somebody ....said 鈥淩ight you report to Divisional Headquarters鈥� - this was the 36th British Division which was operating in the Shan States...the overall commander was one of the Americans, General Vinegar Joe Stillwell, who commanded some American troops, Chinese troops and the British 36th Division. So that's where we were. I was really, now on my own....there would have been two or three of us Royal Signals so we were directed into Divisional Headquarters where I was told... 鈥淵ou're destined for Brigade Headquarters so just keep your kit on....take your weapon with you and go off down the trail to Brigade Headquarters鈥�....completely alone and were now in an active service zone of course.

Anyway I made my way down 鈥� the focal point in that area at that time was the Swalee River a fairly prominent geographical point, which was being contested...the crossing...the division was concentrating on trying to get across and the Japs were trying to stop us. But as I got down there I noticed other troops getting out of the way....and I twigged they were all diving for cover and the Japs had opened a barrage up on us. So I had a few minutes nasty induction into what it was all about. We had to get across the water and they were sending up flares to illuminate the crossing and they had snipers popping away....and as I arrived they were taking some of the injured away (I don't know what happened to them). All the trees were stripped of their foliage from constant shellfire.

I was under instruction to report to Brigade Headquarters and I actually found the Brigadier's dugout. He wasn't too interested in me at midnight and I'm sure he had plenty of other things on his mind. I was just told: 鈥淔ind some cover and we'll see you in the morning鈥�. The snipers were pinging away and the occasional shell coming over.....so I just lay down in what was an active, or had previously been a fox hole. I stayed there until dawn when we could see each other and I was directed to signals....there were just two signallers at Brigade Headquarters ...operating forward to the Batallion and one man was one of the injured who'd gone out the night before. He'd been hit by shell shrapnel while he was down in his own foxhole operating the radio.

I had six months with Brigade Headquarters. We moved every day because that was virtually their last big stand in our part of Burma. The Japs were pulling back and the Division was hot on their heels. We were supplied entirely by air, by the US Air Force 鈥� who did a marvellous job 鈥� and one of our chief roles was to keep in touch with the US airforce. Supplies were dropped where we needed them in what we called a DZ a Dropping Zone .... so that the Japs didn't get what we were supposed to get. And we had six months 鈥� I don't know what distance we covered 鈥� certainly more than a hundred miles maybe 200 miles. And then we travelled to Mandalay.

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