Moon Squadron (19 page)

Headquarters, Bomber Command, had long had its acquisitive eye on the Squadron. On
8th March 1945, after repeated requests that had now become demands, Headquarters had its way. No. 138 Squadron ceased its Special Duties work and joined Main Force, No. 3 Group. The Squadron bade a sad farewell to Tempsford, moved to Tuddenham and re-equipped with Lancasters. The long and intimate partnership with S.O.E. was at an end. By then, their vital work in Europe was virtually completed. Victory was in sight and the long travail over. It only remained to say ‘thank you’ yet mere words were pitifully inadequate. With great sincerity and simplicity, S.O.E. referred to the magnificent work of the Squadron in five words: "A marvellous and efficient job."

It had been just that - a marvellous and efficient job.

It was good now to look back and remember the years when a sombre pall had hung over Europe. Swastikas had covered the body of Europe like a fever rash. The tramp of the booted Nazis had crunched on a million conquered cobbles. Rommel had battered on the gates of Cairo, the Russians had fallen back and back and back. How could Hitler ever be defeated? That such a thing could ever come about was beyond the imagination of the enslaved. And then, suddenly, the chains seemed less solid and the night less black. Strange things happened in the moonlight. A British officer came swinging down from the sky to land on the earth, your earth, the conquered soil of your nation. He came to clasp your hand, to share your fate, to throw in his lot utterly with yours. He came because of his creed.
He
believed
in
victory
. Surely, if this man was ready to stake his life on his belief, you could believe too. Look! By the very fact of his coming, had not this British officer already defeated the Germans a little? He had penetrated their defences, he and his brave R.A.F. pilot, already winging back to England to bring this man's brothers and sisters to the battle. They would surely come, with guns and ammunition and explosives. Then it would be someone else's turn to show Hitler the way to the gas chamber. It would become the turn of the French, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Danes, Poles, Czechs, Yugo slavs.

"A marvellous and efficient job."

This was service recognition at its highest. The gallant and tireless captains and crews did not see themselves as others saw them. "All we did," they said, "was to drop the real chaps." Interknit with S.O.E., they were prepared to believe that any dangers that they themselves had had to confront were as child's play compared with those confronted by the chaps who grinned and vanished into the middle airs. They were the unglamorous carriers; the bus drivers; the chauffeurs.

They were brave men and, being so, had the humility to salute it in others.

It is worth repeating the figures. The total number of agents dropped whilst the Squadron was stationed at Tempsford was 995.
Total sorties 2,562. Aircraft missing1942-9; 1944-27; 1945-4.
TOTAL
-70.

Whilst engaged on Special Duties the Squadron dropped 29,000 containers and 10,000 packages. From Tuddenham, No. 138 Squadron completed 29 operations with the Main
Force. Total operational hours amounted to 220, with targets including Kiel and Bremen. Total bomb load dropped: 985,500 lbs.

On the 30th April, 1945, aircraft commenced to drop food to the Dutch. Total food dropped
was 215 tons. The Squadron then participated in operation ‘EXODUS’, repatriating 2,496 prisoners of war. In June, 1945, No. 138 Squadron took part in a photographic survey of Norway and Western Europe.

From the 29th August, 1945, to the 26th October, 1945, the Squadron was detached to Trondheim, Norway, on photographic reconnaissance.

During the winter of 1945, 138 Squadron completed the following non-operational flying hours: October 1945, flying hours were 330. In November, 300; December 110; the following January, 225; February 160. Over to the sweats, the jungles, the heats and the monsoons of South East Asia…

Chapter Fourteen

HEAT, SWEAT AND MONSOON

Long before V.E. Day, aircraft of the Special Duty Squadrons had taken off from England t
o fight a less imaginable enemy- one whose beliefs, actions and behaviour were infinitely remote from our own. They carried the war into the South East Asia theatre, into a gigantic area of jungle and swamp and monsoon where the human foe was reinforced by disease, leeches, snakes and a dread loneliness. The following general survey of the Squadron's activities in the tropics is taken from a lecture delivered within locked doors shortly after the war to a group of high-ranking Royal Air Force officers. I am indebted to Wing-Commander Bob Hodges for a sight of these notes. The maximum of human endeavour, endurance and courage may seem to lie submerged in the cool, casual and factual phraseology. But it is impossible not to see the flashing of the sword.

Many thousand miles away from the Euro
pean scene, a host of brave men: Britons, Frenchmen, Burmese, Malays and men of many other races, were dropped by parachute into the dense jungles of Burma, Malaya, Indo-China and Siam. Here they fought, harassed and outwitted an enemy more treacherous and more ruthless and less comprehensible than any in Europe. The full rich story of these operations behind the Japanese lines, of the agents, the guerrillas and the pilots who flew them, has yet to be told. Here are some of the problems with which the Squadron was confronted.

In Europe, agents were put into
enemy and enemy-occupied territory by aircraft, submarines and across land frontiers. The enormous distances involved in the Far East made the air the most satisfactory and economical means of transport, and therefore the bulk of these operations was carried out by the R.A.F.

Unlike the secret operations carried out in Europe where agents were
, of course, indistinguishable from those amongst whom they worked, the agents in South East Asia were dressed quite differently. In most cases the men were Army volunteers and, as their greatest enemies were the jungle and disease, they were dressed in the most suitable clothing - ordinary Army uniform. As a result, the glamour and mystery associated with this type of work in Europe was not so evident here and the air operations were more akin to the normal airborne work. The main difference was that individuals, or the small parties of two or three so often dropped in France, were very rarely used. Often as many as 40 people would be dropped in one operation - sometimes considerably more. Also the maximum use was made of the local inhabitants by recruiting on the spot to supplement the forces on the ground. Only leaders and supplies came down from the sky.

T
he ground organisation in South East Asia was basically the same as that in Europe, although on a smaller scale. There were three groups. The first dealt purely with intelligence while Special Operations Executive coped primarily with sabotage, or indeed with any special tasks when fighting might be necessary and intelligence was a secondary role. There was also a third organisation in both Europe and the Far East. It was known as the Office of Strategic Services and it was the American counterpart of both British groups whose functions it combined.

In South
East Asia Command, the H.Q. of these three organisations was located in Ceylon alongside the Supreme Commander. The whole complex set up was co-ordinated by one officer on the Supreme Commander's staff to avoid any overlapping of tasks. The main operational H.Q. was in Calcutta, where all air operations were planned and laid on. Submarine operations on the other hand were planned in Ceylon and set off from Colombo. After the capture of Rangoon, the air effort moved south when the monsoon prevented extensive operations from the Calcutta area. Malaya then became number one priority. That was the background. The first country to consider in any detail was China. China comes first because the British did very little there and was always trying to avoid doing anything at all. We didn't want to overlap.

China was an American sphere of influence. They had a very large and efficient Air Force there, and it was quite obvious that any operations which had to be done in China could be done far more economically and efficiently by the Americans. Politically we still wanted to keep a
‘finger in the pie’, and our people were located at intervals along the China coast from Shanghai to Hong Kong. They kept the Americans in Kunming fully informed of shipping movements along the coast, and enabled the 14th Air Force to paralyse all coastal traffic between the North China ports, Hanoi-Saigon-and Malaya. The Japs were then forced to launch a big land offensive in South China to secure the railway communications with French Indo-China and so supply the southern part of their empire by the over-land route.

So far
, so good. But in December, 1944, the Japs overran South Eastern China and, by doing so, cut off our agents on the coast. From then on, they had to be supplied by air. Although the Americans could supply these men (and they very often did), we still had to fly aircraft to China and operate from Kunming as an advanced base. It was a question of showing the flag. Although the air effort involved was very small, it was a most uneconomical one. Several badly needed aircraft were tied up in ferrying petrol supplies to China because, of course, all petrol had to be flown in. It was not until June, 1945, that the pipeline to Kunming was completed.

French Indo-China presented great possibilities. In spite of the fact that the Japanese occupied the country, it was a very thin occupation and the Vichy Governor still had administrative control. There was a very large French Army in existence consisting mainly of Europeans, and although virtually disarmed, these troops were an element likely to be useful if they could be armed a
nd organised. Thirdly, there were the civilian European element planters and so forth, mainly in Cambodia. Potentially this element could be very dangerous for the Japanese. Thus, from about October, 1944, until February, 1945, French Indo-China had nearly top priority for subversive air operations. It seemed to be the most likely country in South East Asia where an underground movement on the basis of the Maquis in France could be built up. The main areas of operations were in the mountains to the North West of Hanoi where the first agents were put down by parachute in the Hanoi plain itself, along the Eastern seaboard, and in Cambodia in the South.

The plan was to build up dumps of arms and stores in the mountains so that, when the time was ripe, the land communications from China to
Saigon could be effectively cut and the Japs deprived of their land supply route to and from Malaya. To do this effectively, an enormous air effort would be required and with the meagre number of aircraft available, nothing very impressive could be done at first. But a start was made and agents and weapons of all kinds flown in. The net result of it all was that the Japs could not fail to notice a very much increased air effort to French Indo-China. It didn't take them long to find out what was in fact going on. In February, 1945, they issued an ultimatum to the French Governor General in Saigon stating that allied aircraft were operating over French Indo-China and that agents and supplies were being dropped by parachute. Unless the French Government took immediate steps to stop these activities, the Japanese Government would take over complete administrative control of the country. This ultimatum was the prelude to drastic action.

There were mass arrests and massacres of the European pop
ulation in Hanoi and Saigon causing fighting to take place between the French Army and the Japs. The French, ill-armed and ill-organised, retreated from Hanoi into the hills. The Japanese despatched punitive expeditions to squash any further quiver of resistance and this they did most effectively. A mere handful got away to a very small town in the mountains in Northern French Indo-China. A few Frenchmen and women were evacuated by air from a small hacked-out strip. Ten days later the Japs reached this town and burnt it to the ground. That was the end of a gallant failure. Eyes turned towards Siam.

Siam lies sandwiched between French Indo-China and Burma. Up to February, 1945, very few operations were carried out to Siam. It was a difficult country to work in, very mountainous in the West and flattening out into a plateau in the East on the borders of French Indo-China. This part of the country to the East was eminently suitable for parachute o
perations and if a strip could be constructed, for landings.

The great disadvantage was that there was no European element to form the basis of any underground resistance movement
, despite there being quite a large Chinese underground. Early in 1945, when it was thought that we should have to fight a land battle for Siam and Indo-China after the liberation of Burma, a paper was written at Air Command South East Asia outlining a plan for bringing the Siamese people to our cause purely by subversive methods. There were elements in the Siamese government which were definitely pro-Ally and the ground was fertile.

The plan called for a large
scale air effort. British officers with arms and radio equipment were to be dropped by parachute. They would recruit local labour and form guerrilla bands who would undertake the building of airstrips so that further supplies could be flown in in large quantities. Once a sufficient stock of arms and ammunition was built up in the country, it was thought that the Siamese government would come over to our side and take an active part in overthrowing the Jap forces in Siam and cut the retreat route from Malaya.

In May, to fulfil this plan, the main weight of the air effort shifted to Siam. A Royal Air Force officer, a Siamese, was parachuted to enlist the aid of the Siamese Air Force and a small hidden disused landing strip was made available. It was used to fly in stores. Another disused strip was taken over by a British Major who recruited local labour and set to work to enlarge it and make it suitable for landing heavier loads. The great difficulty was to get a surface which would stand up to the ravages of the monsoon. Almost all low lying country becomes completely waterlogged in the rainy season and the search was long. Operations went ahead reasonably satisfactorily until the monsoon broke. Then
, of course, the streaming weather made large scale operations much more difficult and the number of sorties had to be cut down. This was possibly lucky. The Japs had been quick to notice the increase in the intensity of the effort and they started putting the screws on the Siamese government. For a time, it looked as if Siam would go the same way as French Indo-China. A period of enforced quiet intervened until operations were resumed. Now, for security reasons, they almost always took place at night.

The leader of the resistance movement was the Regent of the country and he was aided by the Prime Minister and other government officials. The first contact with the underground had been made in 1943 when two Siamese officials reached China from Siam. These men, and members of the Free Thai movement in America, were trained for undercover work and two groups were sent to the Far East by the American O.S.S. who were becoming highly interested in Siamese activities.

One group went to China to infiltrate over-land. Theirs was a tragic journey. Nine of these men were killed on the border and the others were taken into protective custody by the Siamese police. Two were landed by parachute (after an unsuccessful submarine landing attempt) and of these only one succeeded in reaching Bangkok and the Regent. After this disastrous beginning, the infiltration of agents became a routine business. It had a considerable reward and served two main purposes. It proved to be a source of direct intelligence concerning Japanese troop movements and strength, and it gave the location of prisoner-of-war camps. Secondly it was a means through which a large-scale guerrilla organisation was set up. By the time the war was over, twelve jungle camps for training guerrillas had been established and two airstrips were in regular use. The grip we had on the country accelerated the speedy evacuation of all prisoners, some of whom were in a physical state which beggars description.

There were two
other main areas of operations: Burma and Malaya. Operations to Burma had always had top priority up to the capture of Rangoon whereas intensive operations to Malaya did not begin until about June of 1945, long after the bells of Europe had ceased to chime.

The task in Burma was rather different in that all the operations were of a more tactical nature working closely with the Army. The real show didn't get going until December, 1944, due to lack of aircraft. But from then onwards, the importance of this type of work was realised and a very large number of men, both European and Asiatic, were dropped behind the Jap lines. The size of the parties varied; they were not normally less than six men or more than 40. With them, they had all their radio sets, weapons, ammunition and stores. These parties would usually operate in a fixed area harassing Jap communications, ambushing columns and destroying enemy transport
. Eventually they would be overrun by the Army as it advanced. They would then be returned to India by air, and, after a short period of rest and further training, would be dropped again. They had immense endurance and were avid for action.

With characteristic understatement, the lecturer says: "These Burma operations were all fairly
straightforward; our only headache was the country and the weather. In the early stages of the advance across the Chindwin, most of our operations were done at night to achieve the maximum security from the paratroops' point of view. As the dropping zones were mostly in valleys with very high mountains all round, the flying was sometimes quite difficult and it was necessary to have moon. Of course, once we got out into the Irrawaddy valley, we could operate comfortably without moon. If it was not a piece of cake, it was a bowl of rice."