By Rob Forsyth - from conversations with Len

'somewhere' in the Far East 1944/45 - Len is 2nd from the right
(all photographs in this article are from Len's album)

Len did his training as a flight mechanic (engine fitter) in Bristol specialising in Bristol 14 cylinder radial sleeve valve engines. His first appointment was to Bomber Command air station RAF Stradishall in Suffolk where he worked on Wellington (2 engine) and Stirling (4 engine) aircraft. He then moved many times around Bomber Command 3 Group's airfields - Waterbeach, Wratting Common and Marham amongst them.

It took 50 ground crew and 7 aircrew to turn round a bomber returning from a sortie early in the morning to have it airborne for the next nights sortie over Germany. The top of a Stirling's engines were 22 feet from the ground and, in winter on an east coast airfield, this could give you frostbitten fingers working on cold metal. Sometimes they hardly slept for days at a time when big raids were in progress.

Many aircraft were badly damaged of course and could not make it back to base; in which case Len would be part of the support team for his aircraft that was dispatched to find, recover or salvage it. Len recalls that the racecourse at Newmarket was a favorite place for belly landing aircraft with damaged under carriages. No doubt race tracks were similarly useful elsewhere across the country.

In 1944 he embarked on SS Athlone Castle and spent 6 weeks travelling to Bombay in convoy. The ship was crowded with troops and clearly was not much of a pleasure cruise. He does not know which route they took because they did not call in any where (?) and every time they looked at the sky the sun was in a different place due to the zig zag courses they steered as an anti submarine precaution.

His unit went by train to Chittagong (link to google map) in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and from there they set off down the east coast of Burma as a mobile Beaufighter support unit at in variety places as far south as Cox's Bazaar.

A page of pictures from his photograph album gives some idea of the culture shock for a young lad away from England for the first time. (click on image for full page view)

Admiral Mountbatten had decreed that in order to defeat the Japanese allied forces would fight through the monsoon period - previously it had been thought too wet to do this. Len's unit was flown in to small strips cleared in rice paddy fields which would be a runway for one or two days before they moved on. They were a long way from any civilization, never sure which side of the front line they were, and so supplies were dropped in canisters kicked out of the doorways of low flying Dakotas operating out of Dum Dum in West Bengal, India. A very important part of the supply were cigarettes; not so much for Len and his mates but because they were the only 'currency' that villagers valued in return for good information on the whereabouts of Japanese army units.

Mosquito aircraft suffered from being made of wood - termites could eat them! - and from wood rot in the monsoon rains. Wings sometimes fell of because of the combination of both! An account of life for the troops is contained in a contemporary press article

As had been the practice back in UK, support parties were dispatched on trips of up to 6 days to find crashed aircraft; only this time they were issued with compasses and silk maps (paper maps were useless in rain) to navigate the jungle plus compo rations for food. These were almost inedible once you had consumed the bar of chocolate and the small can of bully beef. The rest was sawdust. So they also learned what was edible from the trees. All the usual jungle problems existed - getting lost and very small snakes being the worst. When an aircraft was found it had to be destroyed by fire and all sensitive instruments removed to stop the Japanese getting them.

Nearly everyone contracted Malaria at some time or other and it took Len several years to get over it on his eventual return to the UK.

When Rangoon fell to Allied Forces his unit was brought back to Madras in India were they were re-outfitted in new 'Jungle Greens'. There were 2 sizes - Big or Bigger! They embarked on a New Zealand ship, SS Tamaroa, and carried out a beach landing on August 5th 1945, rifles at the ready, at Port Swettenham on the east coast of Malaya. The first Atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima next day and Nagasaki 3 days later.

Len remembers that finding clean water was a major problem because the Japanese had poisoned the water in surrounding villages and even the drinks in shops and bazaars. The problem was solved by using Japanese POWs to drink the water first!