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The following contains material that has been summarised and full extracts from 鈥楲est we Forget鈥� 鈥� Mr. Peter Crowe鈥檚 autobiography of his wartime memories of serving as a Lieutenant with the 4th Field Regiment, R.A. of the 5 Indian Div. during the Second Arakan Campaign. Mr. Crowe was subsequently posted to Battery 72/86 of the 16th Field Regiment, R.A. of 2 Div. 2 Div. was withdrawn from Burma for combined operations training and were sent back to a camp west of Calcutta, to Kanchrapara Camp. Mr. Crowe was later moved to a camp in Coimbatore in Southern India where they were put onto local security operations.

Summary
Mr. Peter Crowe enlisted in the 鈥楪unners鈥� R.A. (Field) after volunteering in the Autumn of 1941 and he joined up at Bonhill on the side of the river Clyde six months later. They were trained to fire and handle 25-pounder field guns. After attending an Edinburgh University Course Mr. Crowe was posted to the Royal Artillery OCTU at Catterick, Yorkshire for further training and exercises. In the Autumn of 1943 Mr. Crowe was posted to Woolwich in London and they were eventually issued with 鈥榗old weather鈥� kit and they set off on a Troop Train to Liverpool. They embarked on 鈥楾he Strathmore鈥� and sailed up the Clyde to join a convoy of eleven ships which formed the centre of an O.C. Convoy. After a circuitous voyage the ship steamed into Gibraltar harbour. The convoy was attacked by German aeroplanes once the RAF had left the convoy crossing the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of two Hood destroyers and two ships. The Strathmore arrived at Bombay and they travelled by train across to Calcutta. Travel notices were posted daily in the Grand Hotel and Mr. Crowe was given his marching orders to the Arakan. Mr. Crowe joined 4th Field Regiment, R.A., part of 5th Indian Div. in the Arakan, Burma to take part in the Second Arakan Campaign, December 1943 鈥� April 1944. Mr. Crowe (5th Indian Div.) was located on the right of the steep range of hills called the Mayu Range on their left, 7 Div. were the same thing in the next valley. 7 Div. held out and General Slim was able to move 5 Div. to Imphal to reinforce the Divs. forming the Garrison.

The Road to Imphal is blocked.
鈥淚 had been detailed to take the 4th Field regimental transport by road to Imphal; this was a long and tedious journey which we carried out for 24 hours in each day. It took us through the tea plantations of Assam (including the small towns Sylhet and Shillong) to Dimapur, which was a huge, virtually undefended British Army Ordnance Depot. We then took the Dimapur to Imphal road to rejoin our unit with the necessary transports, or so we thought!

As we started to go down the road towards Imphal, we were stopped at milestone 8 in a village called Nichuguard. The Japanese were attacking Kohima and they had cut the road to Dimapur just beyond Kohima. What had happened was that the Japanese had surrounded the troops in Imphal cutting the road north to Kohima. They had split their force, part turning south and, on the 11th April, had attacked the British Stores Depot at Kanglatongbi, 15 miles north of Imphal and 109 miles from Dimapur, obtaining a lot of clothing amongst other things. The Dimapur to Imphal road had been our main supply-line, other roads being unfit for heavy motorised vehicle use. Now the main force of Japanese had advanced up the Dimapur road to Kohima, which was at milestone 44 or thereabouts, and surrounded it. The allied forces in Kohima and in Imphal were now cut off from all their supplies!

Progress to date of the Japanese attack on India and it鈥檚 effect on me.
At this stage, it would be appropriate to sum up the general situation in central Burma; Imphal is on a plain lying about 3,000 feet up in the heart of the Manipur mountains, shaped like a pear, it鈥檚 area being about 600 square miles. The entrance to it, from India is via Dimapur in the north, up the steep Kohima road, through Kohima and so down into the valley of Imphal beyond. Roads continue from Imphal via Tamu to the Kabaw valley and via this to the Chindwin which is just inside Burma and runs parallel to the boundary. Around Imphal are mountains which rise up to 8,000 feet above sea level or about 5,000 feet above the Imphal plain. Here lived the Naga tribesmen who were fiercely loyal to us.

In March 1944 the Japanese army, 100,000 strong, crossed the River Chindwin into Manipur in a last great bid to capture India. The Japanese had advanced with great speed and the allies had hurriedly drawn back over the frontier into Imphal. It was touch-and-go whether the Japanese would succeed in Burma and then march into India and on to Delhi. Once again trapped, out defenders, supplied from the air, fought back. 5 Div. had been flown into Imphal but, at the last moment, it had been decided that their 161 Brigade should be Div.erted to defend Kohima. In fact, only the Royal West Kents of 161 Brigade got into Kohima. The whole garrison was only the Assam Regiment, the Burma Rifles, the Royal West Kents and a few other troops, altogether totally only 3,500 men and, against it, the Japs unleashed 15,000 crack troops.

By the 5th April 1944, the Japs had surrounded not only the Kohima Garrison but also the remainder of 161 Brigade, approximately 5 miles to the north, by cutting the road again at milestone 37.

A few days previously, on the 29th March, 鈥榶ours truly鈥� had arrived in Nichuguard and was immediately sent down to the Dimapur base to get guns. I managed to obtain three 25-pounders, and one medium gun (I think it was a 6 inch). Then I set up a gun position on the left of the road. It had been our job to give support to the local troops and also defend a track which branched off to the left and led to Kohima. I then went up to a narrow gorge through which the road runs a short way south of Nichuguard and established contact with the Officers commanding the forces on each side of the gorge. These forces were entirely make-shift units made up of sick, clerks, orderlies, troops freshly out from India and so on. The one on the left was called 鈥榃hite鈥檚 Foot鈥� after the name of the Captain White who was in charge and similarly on the other side of the gorge. Whilst I was up with White鈥檚 troops, there was some strife between two different ethnic groups, which had resulted in a murder. The tension was very high at the time as you can imagine.

Chaos Reigned
The Japanese were attacking the last outpost (currently manned by untried troops) in the defence of India and in front of them lay the 鈥榯otally soft鈥� target of our Base at Dimapur. It would then be very difficult to stop them from marching on India and, particularly with civilian support, taking the country over. The only reserve troops available were 2 Div., who had been training in Combined Operations on the west side of India. They had been ordered to come up to the front as soon as possible. In the meantime the small garrison in Kohima and the hotchpotch of troops, of which I formed a part, was all that was left to defend the last strong point, the Nichuguard gorge. In truth, the latter had virtually no hope of delaying the Japs for any appreciable time.

As a further temporary duty, I was acting assistant to the Temporary C.R.A., Major Watson R.A. We were present when Major General Ranking, temporarily in charge of the defending Dimapur, ordered 161 Brigade to withdraw from the high ground adjacent to Kohima. The next day he reversed his orders too late! The Japs had not been slow to occupy the vacated heights!

The monsoon was approaching and no effective major action would be possible during the rainy season. Therefore, the number of troops holding our line could be reduced, providing pressure was kept on the Japanese. 5 Div. was withdrawn to the Chittagong area to rest and refit and, while there, we were acting as Reserve Div... Both the previous Reserve Div..s, the 26th and 36th, had taken over from ourselves and 7 Div. respectively.

In the meantime it was clear that a major Japanese offensive was imminent in the middle of Burma. The various tracks coming from Burma to Manipur converged onto Imphal, a town set in the middle of an upland plain, and they then diverged again as they travelled towards India. This was the second occasion on which the Japanese thought they would break through our defence (of Imphal on this second occasion) and take the whole of India. In March 1944 therefore, General Slim decided that the whole of 5 Div. should be sent to Imphal by air, to reinforce the garrison there.

5th Indian Div. is moved to Imphal in central Burma
The 4th Field Regiment R.A. was part of 5 Div.鈥檚 move to Imphal and it prepared to be flown into Imphal airport. This was the first time a regiment of guns had ever been flown in in this way, so loading planes were improvised and the guns were dismantled at strategic points along the airport taxi-tracks so they were ready for the planes when they would draw up alongside.

When Maungdaw was re-captured by 5 Div., we were able to withdraw one of our 25-pounder gun barrels out of the Ordnance Store (which the Japanese had captured from us originally). Now we had the barrel back, we fitted it to my no.4 gun, whose barrel was rapidly reaching the end of its life. Having to provide so much artillery support to 7 Div. Admin Box and to 5 Div. including defence of our rear and to the troops attacking the Razabil Fortress 鈥� although we could not calibrate the new barrel (i.e. we did not know whether the gun was firing identically to my other three calibrated guns) 鈥� we needed every gun available to give flat-out support, even if we had to make off-the-cuff alterations to compensate for lack of calibration, gained from experience of how the no.4 gun behaved in practice.

It is a great tribute to the men involved that the 7 Div. Box held out and that, in due course, the Japanese were defeated and started to withdraw. In the meantime 26th Indian Div. had moved up to give assistance and they had been replaced by 36th Div. as the reserve Div. near Bawli Bazaar.

At this stage of the Burma Campaign a great number of planes had been allocated towards supplying the troops, the very first time it had been done. The Dakotas flown by the American Air Force and by the RAF were ideal for air-drops. Stacks of packages would be loaded onto a pallet with a parachute and then the pallet would be kicked out of the side of the aircraft by two men as it flew over 鈥榯he dropping zone鈥�. From then on, it became an established technique for supplying our troops whenever they were isolated from their supply lines.
Japanese Zero fighters became very active over the front and, to protect our Dakotas which were relatively slow and lumbering, it was extremely important to win the battle against the Zeros. Although they were badly out-numbered, Spitfires of the RAF which proved to be the much more maneuverable, tore into the Japanese Zeros and soon drove them out of the sky.

We succeeded in supplying our troops by air whenever they were cut-off, regardless of whether they were in hills, valleys, jungles or plains; this was the first time it had been used and it proved to be very successful. The standard Japanese philosophy of attach 鈥� hooking around the back of the enemy, cutting the road, forcing them retreat, attacking them again, hooking behind them again, forcing a retreat again, until eventually they had nowhere to go and were destroyed 鈥� this no longer worked!! Air supply was used by us throughout the remaining war against the Japanese in Burma. Clearly, enough credit cannot be paid to the RAF and USAF who worked continuously on a 24-hour basis, the planes making three or four runs a day, sometimes in appalling conditions, over extremely difficult terrain and with the pilots often very exhausted. Initially, having to fly at night so as to avoid any chance meeting with the Zeros had been an added hazard. At the same time the ground crews were stretched to the absolute limit packing goods for air-dropping, loading them onto planes and also servicing the planes. It is quite novel having the days鈥� mail, or a parcel from your family at home, or even your basic rations, arriving by parachute at night!

By the 7th February 1944 the Japanese attack in the Arakan had been broken and they started to pull their forces out under the cover of 鈥榮uicide鈥� detachments who hung on until the very last. 7 Div. had passed to the offensive and 5 Div. had regained the Ngakyedauk pass and were about to recommence their offensive. Counts of Japanese dead showed that 70% of the main strike force had been killed and hundreds more undiscovered in the jungle, having died from exhaustion or from trying to get away. The Japanese troops who had attacked in the first place carried Japanese Occupation money and Notices for the civilian population on them. They had been instructed that they were marching on Delhi, the capital of India, from their position in the Arakan and they fully expected to do this. It was only the bravery of 7 Div. particularly and the altimate action by 26, 5 and 7 Divs. ably supported by the West African Division to the north, that eventually destroyed this ambition. I, personally, acquired some of these worthless Occupation Rupee notes.

The Arakan Campaign was not a large one in terms of the number of men engaged in battle but it was the first time that a British Force had met, held and then distinctively defeated a major Japanese attack. They were to follow this by driving the enemy out of strong defence positions that they had been preparing for months and, in which, they had been prepared to hold out at all costs. It proved, in the process, that the soldiers of our Indian Divisions, man for man, were superior. At the same time, although heavily out-numbered, the RAF had met the Japanese and had decisively defeated them in the air. The effect of this on the morale of General Slim鈥檚 鈥淔orgotten 14th Army鈥� was tremendous.鈥�

Summary
Mr. Peter Crowe was evacuated 鈥榮ick鈥� from 5 Div. on the Tiddim Road on 23rd June 1944 due to contracting Jaundice and in due course boarded a Dakota. Mr. Crowe and was taken by ambulance to a hospital ship at Chittagong bound for Madras. Mr. Crowe had lost 50% of his usual weight, his normal weight being 10 stones 10 lbs. They disembarked at Madras and boarded a hospital train to a military hospital at Avadi, 15 miles outside Madras. Mr. Crowe was then discharged to a convalescent home at the Aranmore Palace at Ootacumund. Mr. Crowe eventually arrived in Calcutta were he was posted on to Manipur at a place called Maram where 16th Field Regiment R.A. of 2 Div. were positioned. Mr. Crowe was posted to 72/86 Battery. They went down the road to Tamu, through Imphal and entered the Kabaw Valley 鈥� 鈥楾he White Man鈥檚 Grave鈥�. 2 Div. had withdrawn from Burma for combined operations training and were sent back to a camp west of Calcutta, to Kanchrapara Camp. Mr. Crowe was later moved to a camp in Coimbatore in Southern India where they put onto local security operations. They used to sit in an open topped Army 3 ton lorry to 鈥榮how the flag鈥� and where there to the control local population in case of riot situations.

Goa
鈥淲e, the 16 Field Regiment, were on a training exercise in the Belgaum jungle district of India and we went to the coast for a relaxing final day before returning to camp. We were a few hundred yards south of (the then) Portugese Goa. I remember sunbathing on the silver sands with dark green palms overhead gently stirring in a pleasantly warm zephyr of a breeze, the clear blue water gently lapping onto the pure white beach and the soothing warmth of the sun slowly spreading through every fibre of my war-battered body, gently lulling me to sleep. For the first time, for many a long moon, I had not a care on my mind. What sheer unadulterated bliss! I turned to share the pleasure of the moment with my partner, an attractive, tall, lithe, beautifully proportioned blonde girl of 21. The wonder of the moment was rudely shattered!! No one was there! Reality returned and my semi-conscious dreams of a few moments ago were gone 鈥� my 18 months鈥� celibacy would be continuing for a few months more yet. But seriously, I would love to return there with my wife to savour the bliss of this tropical beach again or would the euphoria of a treasured memory of over 50 years ago be destroyed in the cold light of the present day?

The war ended on August 15th and I was, in due course, called home to UK for demob.鈥�

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