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Holbeach World War II veteran looks back at Burma Campaign ahead of 75th anniversary of VJ Day




Today, commemorations will take place across the UK marking the 75th anniversary of VJ (Victory over Japan) Day and the end of World War II.

RAF veteran Jack Mills (99), of Holbeach, was part of the so-called "Fourteenth Army", more than 600,000 troops from across the Commonwealth who defeated the Japanese during a campaign that lasted from December 1941 until August 1945.

Jack relives some of his experiences during the Burma Campaign, while Winston Brown looks back on what led up to the very first VJ Day.

Allied troops launch and assault on the Japanese during the Battle of Ramree Island, part of World War II's Burma Campaign, in January 1945. Photo supplied by the Press Association. (40061840)
Allied troops launch and assault on the Japanese during the Battle of Ramree Island, part of World War II's Burma Campaign, in January 1945. Photo supplied by the Press Association. (40061840)

I joined the RAF as a Reservist at the age of 19 in 1940 and served in London during the early part of World War II, seeing Nazi German bombing with rockets and buzz bombs (V-1 "doodlebugs") before my service in Burma.

I was part of an RAF Mobile Wing, occupying landing strips in Burma with Dakota (Douglas C-47) aircraft that were used to drop supplies of food, water and ammunitions to troops on the frontline, as well the Chindits who were specially-trained Allied troops operating in the jungle behind the enemy Japanese forces.

Before flying to Burma, I was on board a troopship that headed to Bombay, India, followed by a troop train journey to the Bay of Bengal where I was kitted out with tropical gear, including a Sten submachine gun, steel helmet and gas mask.

Jack Mills speaks at the Remembrance Day parade outside All Saints Church, Holbeach, in November 2019. Photo: 101119-8.
Jack Mills speaks at the Remembrance Day parade outside All Saints Church, Holbeach, in November 2019. Photo: 101119-8.

My small RAF unit was then picked up by a supply-dropping Dakota aircraft carrying some well-used tents and flown to a landing strip in the jungle.

The hurriedly constructed landing strip was made of earth, covered with hessian material soaked in tar and model toy-like metal sheeting.

Landing in a clearance in the Burmese jungle was like landing on the far side of the moon, but the excitement of being posted overseas to an unknown destination at the age of 23 exceeded all thoughts of any dangers that may have been ahead.

Jack Mills holds his beer ration card while wearing the Burma Star and the same bush hat he used in World War II. Photo supplied.
Jack Mills holds his beer ration card while wearing the Burma Star and the same bush hat he used in World War II. Photo supplied.

Dumped alongside the metal track, with our tents elsewhere and nowhere to go, we spent the night sleeping on the side of the track with a tarpaulin sheet over us.

Thankfully, we had a cook in our unit and he rigged up a 44-gallon oil drum with a wood fire where we queued up with our enamel mugs and billy cans.

The noises you heard in the jungle at night included the howls of jackals, the babble of monkeys in the trees and the croaks of bullfrogs during the monsoon.

However, it was the noiseless animals who were the ones to be feared, the mosquitos, snakes of all sizes and the rats that would crawl into your tent, climb on your mosquito net and sometimes in your bed.

All this in pitch darkness and no illumination at all.

You also had to be on your guard against the Japanese troops who roamed through the jungle in small parties, just like wild animals.

The landing strip where we were, with its trees and ten-feet high elephant grass, offered no defence.

Water was scarce and the food we ate was either powdered or dehydrated, with tins of bully (corned) beef as our staple diet.

We never saw an egg or bread, while tea was usually jam on dog biscuits.

Despite the dangers, our unit was the most forward of its kind in Burma, able to move to other landing strips as the fighting moved south.

Life was primitive, although we did have a few stable lanterns for loading the Dakotas at night, ready for take off at first light.

The Dakotas were essentially flying trucks with wings, a bare fuselage and a large hole in the side for dropping supplies off.

They were flown by young pilots in their early twenties who had possibly never even driven a car.

But together, they saved the lives of Allied troops on the frontline and, in turn, saved our lives from a Japanese onslaught.

Less than five months after World War II ended, my name was published in the London Gazette after I was included in the King George VI's New Years Honours List.

I received a Mention in Despatches for Distinguished Service in Burma, along with the words "recorded His Majesty's high appreciation".

. The Burma Campaign was the longest Allied military effort of all World War II, set off by a Japanese surprise raid on the US naval base of Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, in December 1941.

Japan then declared war on Britain and went on to invade Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia (formerly Dutch East Indies), with Burma being the Japanese forces' next target.

At the start of the campaign, malaria, diarrhoea and other tropical diseases were as equal a threat as the Japanese opposition, with an estimated 80 per cent of Allied troops having to be evacuated from Burma, either because they were wounded or seriously ill.

By June 1942, the Japanese had advanced to the Burma/India before an attempted fightback by British and Indian troops in the Arakan region at the end of the year was put down.

But in 1943, the Chindits special operations units began to disrupt Japanese supply lines in the jungle and when the South East Asia Command was reshuffled, with the appointment of Lord Louis Mountbatten by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to lead British forces in Burma, the tide started to turn.

Lieutenant General Sir William Slim was appointed as Commander of the Fourteenth Army in October 1943 before decisive battles took place at the Chindwin River, "Admin Box", Kohima and Imphal between March and July 1944 after which the defeated Japanese withdrew.

Between March and May 1945, the Fourteenth Army attacked down Burma's Arakan Coast and when both Mandalay and Rangoon were recaptured, a Japanese surrendered was just months away.

But it was the dropping of two US atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about the first VJ Day on August 15, 1945.



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