Site Updated 18/05/2013.
A new search function, as seen in the top right hand corner of the Home page, type in who or what you are looking for and it should show you where they or it is.
Remembering today. Including a new feature showing a casualties memorial in Burma/India and also in their hometown.
Did You Know? A new page of Longcloth facts and anecdotes. Located off the Sources and Knowledge button in the main menu bar.
Pte. Robert Valentine Hyner
Pte. Leonard Grist
Gallery Column 5. Prince Sao Man Hpa, Rfm. Maung Kyan and Lieut. Jim Harman.
Pte. Arthur Troth. A new story.
Gurkha Citations. Several new citations added.
Dennis Walmsley. New information updated to his story the fourth on the page.
Denis Gudgeon
Gallery HQ Brigade. Moti Lal Katju (Longcloth's Official Observer).
A new search function, as seen in the top right hand corner of the Home page, type in who or what you are looking for and it should show you where they or it is.
Remembering today. Including a new feature showing a casualties memorial in Burma/India and also in their hometown.
Did You Know? A new page of Longcloth facts and anecdotes. Located off the Sources and Knowledge button in the main menu bar.
Pte. Robert Valentine Hyner
Pte. Leonard Grist
Gallery Column 5. Prince Sao Man Hpa, Rfm. Maung Kyan and Lieut. Jim Harman.
Pte. Arthur Troth. A new story.
Gurkha Citations. Several new citations added.
Dennis Walmsley. New information updated to his story the fourth on the page.
Denis Gudgeon
Gallery HQ Brigade. Moti Lal Katju (Longcloth's Official Observer).
This website is dedicated to my Nan, Bella Howney, my Grandad, Arthur Leslie Howney and to all the men of the Chindit operation in 1943.
My thanks go to all the Chindit families who have sent me their man's story or have learned about his time in Burma through this coming together of information and knowledge. My hope, apart from wanting these pages to be their special place, is hopefully to find more stories and Longcloth tales.
"Now my mind
Faint and few records their showings,
Brave, strong, kind-
I'd unlock you all their doings
But the keys are lost and twisted."
Above is a small piece of the poem, 'Their Very Memory' by Edmund Blunden, which was used by Lieutenant Philip Stibbe in his book about his experiences in Burma as an original Chindit in 1943. It was his way of lamenting the lost and forgotten from that operation and honouring the men who in his view would never be written about or whose wartime pathway ever found.
During the past four years it has been my determination to search out their story and re-trace those long lost footprints. My inspiration for this project was my Nan. She like so many women back then had found herself widowed in WW2, but had fought hard to bring her young family through those difficult times. She succeeded and was the centre of our lives until she passed away in June 2006.
I know in my heart that this relentless and near obsessional attempt to trace the men of the first Chindit operation is my way of staying connected to her memory and honouring her life, perhaps more than it was about finding my Grandfather, or any of the other Wingate guinea pigs from that fateful year.
This website concentrates not so much on the military actions of 1943 or the main leaders and players who directed the operation, but is about the extraordinary courage and stoicism of the humble soldiers involved. The idea has been in my head for a number of years now and has at last been put to the page.
My thanks go to all the Chindit families who have sent me their man's story or have learned about his time in Burma through this coming together of information and knowledge. My hope, apart from wanting these pages to be their special place, is hopefully to find more stories and Longcloth tales.
"Now my mind
Faint and few records their showings,
Brave, strong, kind-
I'd unlock you all their doings
But the keys are lost and twisted."
Above is a small piece of the poem, 'Their Very Memory' by Edmund Blunden, which was used by Lieutenant Philip Stibbe in his book about his experiences in Burma as an original Chindit in 1943. It was his way of lamenting the lost and forgotten from that operation and honouring the men who in his view would never be written about or whose wartime pathway ever found.
During the past four years it has been my determination to search out their story and re-trace those long lost footprints. My inspiration for this project was my Nan. She like so many women back then had found herself widowed in WW2, but had fought hard to bring her young family through those difficult times. She succeeded and was the centre of our lives until she passed away in June 2006.
I know in my heart that this relentless and near obsessional attempt to trace the men of the first Chindit operation is my way of staying connected to her memory and honouring her life, perhaps more than it was about finding my Grandfather, or any of the other Wingate guinea pigs from that fateful year.
This website concentrates not so much on the military actions of 1943 or the main leaders and players who directed the operation, but is about the extraordinary courage and stoicism of the humble soldiers involved. The idea has been in my head for a number of years now and has at last been put to the page.
This is my Nan and me in 1964 on the front steps of our family home in Neasden, north west London. I have no idea of the cat's name. Only 18 years had passed by since she received the terrible news that her husband was never coming home from Burma. She never faltered in ensuring that her young family were cared for and brought up in a secure and loving home, something she carried forward into the lives of her grandchildren too.
I suppose the question I would like to have the answer to, is how she felt about her own life, from her own personal perspective. But like so many families touched by the catastrophe of war, nothing much was ever spoken, for the fear of reviving too painful a memory.
The intention of this website is to bring the men of Chindit 1 together in one place. The ethos of the site is to share with and inform the extended Chindit family and hopefully the wider audience too.
My philosophy is to open out this information to all, but please do not abuse the spirit in which it is presented. Thank you.
If you have some information to share or are a relative of a Longcloth Chindit, or simply want to ask a question, please do get in touch using the contact page below.
NB. It is my intention to always answer any email sent via the contact page below. If you do not receive an answer then it is possible that my reply has gone into your spam box, this does seem to happen quite frequently in my experience.
I suppose the question I would like to have the answer to, is how she felt about her own life, from her own personal perspective. But like so many families touched by the catastrophe of war, nothing much was ever spoken, for the fear of reviving too painful a memory.
The intention of this website is to bring the men of Chindit 1 together in one place. The ethos of the site is to share with and inform the extended Chindit family and hopefully the wider audience too.
My philosophy is to open out this information to all, but please do not abuse the spirit in which it is presented. Thank you.
If you have some information to share or are a relative of a Longcloth Chindit, or simply want to ask a question, please do get in touch using the contact page below.
NB. It is my intention to always answer any email sent via the contact page below. If you do not receive an answer then it is possible that my reply has gone into your spam box, this does seem to happen quite frequently in my experience.
