Rfm. Harkaraj Gurung, 3/2 Gurkha Rifles and the story of Column 4
Gurkha Rifle Vickers Machine Gun team on the North West Frontier.
In the autumn of 2013 I was very fortunate to contact ex-Gurkha Rifles Officer JP Cross. He has been exceptionally kind, and has given me permission to reproduce the stories of five Gurkha Riflemen contained within his book, 'Gurkhas at War'.
These men were all at one point or another part of 3/2 GR and took part in Operation Longcloth. JP Cross with the help of companion Buddhiman Gurung, travelled over 10,000 miles within the borders of Nepal, to speak with many Gurkha soldiers who had served with the British Army, spanning many years and fighting in places such as Burma, Malaya and the Falklands.
'Gurkhas at War' is a wonderful book and more so, an amazing testimony and resource to those studying the history of the Gurkha Regiments during these times.
Featured below is the story of Harkaraj Gurung, originally of 2/2 GR. Firstly, let us begin with JP Cross's brief overview of the original Chindit operation in 1943:
"The history of the first Chindit operation, a thrust behind the Japanese lines in north Burma to cause havoc by blowing up rail and road links, and the order to retreat in small groups, abandoning wounded and dead, men and mules alike, remains controversial. Poignant stories are still graphically told and nightmares still disturb the sleep of the dwindling band of survivors."
Harkaraj Gurung of 2/2 GR and 3/2 GR, joined the Army on 16th October 1929. He recounts that:
In about 1936 we were on the North-West Frontier, in Waziristan. We were posted to Bannu, Razmak, Malakand and other places. One location was Damdil, where a battalion from Abbottabad suffered heavy casualties, a company being destroyed by Pathans. The Pathans captured some of the men at night when they slept. 2/2 GR was also posted there. I was in the Machine Gun Platoon. We went on column, using flags to signal, and mules, not vehicles. The incident that Harkaraj recalls involved the 2/5 and 1/6 GR's and resulted in over 50 Gurkha casualties.
One day when we were playing football, the Pathans sniped and killed the goal-keeper, even though we had pickets on the high ground to left and right. I was involved in four or five sniping incidents. The Pathans were really wicked, almost the most wicked I ever met, but the Japanese were even worse. Why, even one Japanese soldier could hold up a brigade. A sniper would hide up a tree but we could never find him.
In 1939 we heard that we were fighting a war. I was posted to 3/2 GR when it was raised. I can't remember any names of our officers. None in 2/2 GR could speak good Khaskura but they were worse in 3/2 GR, except one who had been a tea planter in Darjeeling (I believe this to be Major Vivian Stuart Weatherall the original commander of Chindit Gurkha Column 1 during training for Operation Longcloth). We were put into a Chindit column with 1,500 mules. I was a muleteer and my mule carried two machine-guns. We crossed the Brahmaputra being pulled over by rope. The war with the Japanese was very far away. We moved by night and slept by day. We went through Kohima, Manipur and Tamu.
We crossed the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin. Nothing but jungle. One of our elder Majors lost the way and we had to wait until he sorted things out, but an English-speaking Major with a beard came and took over, sending the old Major back to Brigade HQ. This event places Harkaraj with Column 4 in 1943. His story relates to the change of leadership of the Column, when Major Philip Conron was replaced by Wingate with Brigade-Major George Bromhead.
Harkaraj continues:
We reached a village and made a recce for any enemy. We stayed near there for the night and were fired on from the village. The bearded Major ordered me to fire my guns and I fired in the direction of the enemy fire, seeing nothing, but the enemy fire stopped. I was given no orders to advance and yet, when I stopped firing, I was on my own. All the rest had moved off. I also moved off and found all the mules stuck in a swamp.
I found my two and, as they tried to leap clear, I pulled them and helped them get out. There were no other mule handlers so I did not know whether to stay until they came back or go on by myself. I tracked forward and, that evening, caught up with the rest. I found that the wireless set had had its aerial shot off and was useless. We saw some Japanese, but remained there seven days. When I fired my guns my mules immediately took cover behind a tree without being told to, much cleverer than a person. We had insufficient food but no liaison. By then there was an ox in the column. We were ordered to kill and eat a mule but we didn't. However, we may have eaten the ox as it was no longer there.
This is Harkaraj's way of saying that he did, probably eat some of the ox meat, being sacred to Hindus, it could never be acknowledged that it had been eaten.
These men were all at one point or another part of 3/2 GR and took part in Operation Longcloth. JP Cross with the help of companion Buddhiman Gurung, travelled over 10,000 miles within the borders of Nepal, to speak with many Gurkha soldiers who had served with the British Army, spanning many years and fighting in places such as Burma, Malaya and the Falklands.
'Gurkhas at War' is a wonderful book and more so, an amazing testimony and resource to those studying the history of the Gurkha Regiments during these times.
Featured below is the story of Harkaraj Gurung, originally of 2/2 GR. Firstly, let us begin with JP Cross's brief overview of the original Chindit operation in 1943:
"The history of the first Chindit operation, a thrust behind the Japanese lines in north Burma to cause havoc by blowing up rail and road links, and the order to retreat in small groups, abandoning wounded and dead, men and mules alike, remains controversial. Poignant stories are still graphically told and nightmares still disturb the sleep of the dwindling band of survivors."
Harkaraj Gurung of 2/2 GR and 3/2 GR, joined the Army on 16th October 1929. He recounts that:
In about 1936 we were on the North-West Frontier, in Waziristan. We were posted to Bannu, Razmak, Malakand and other places. One location was Damdil, where a battalion from Abbottabad suffered heavy casualties, a company being destroyed by Pathans. The Pathans captured some of the men at night when they slept. 2/2 GR was also posted there. I was in the Machine Gun Platoon. We went on column, using flags to signal, and mules, not vehicles. The incident that Harkaraj recalls involved the 2/5 and 1/6 GR's and resulted in over 50 Gurkha casualties.
One day when we were playing football, the Pathans sniped and killed the goal-keeper, even though we had pickets on the high ground to left and right. I was involved in four or five sniping incidents. The Pathans were really wicked, almost the most wicked I ever met, but the Japanese were even worse. Why, even one Japanese soldier could hold up a brigade. A sniper would hide up a tree but we could never find him.
In 1939 we heard that we were fighting a war. I was posted to 3/2 GR when it was raised. I can't remember any names of our officers. None in 2/2 GR could speak good Khaskura but they were worse in 3/2 GR, except one who had been a tea planter in Darjeeling (I believe this to be Major Vivian Stuart Weatherall the original commander of Chindit Gurkha Column 1 during training for Operation Longcloth). We were put into a Chindit column with 1,500 mules. I was a muleteer and my mule carried two machine-guns. We crossed the Brahmaputra being pulled over by rope. The war with the Japanese was very far away. We moved by night and slept by day. We went through Kohima, Manipur and Tamu.
We crossed the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin. Nothing but jungle. One of our elder Majors lost the way and we had to wait until he sorted things out, but an English-speaking Major with a beard came and took over, sending the old Major back to Brigade HQ. This event places Harkaraj with Column 4 in 1943. His story relates to the change of leadership of the Column, when Major Philip Conron was replaced by Wingate with Brigade-Major George Bromhead.
Harkaraj continues:
We reached a village and made a recce for any enemy. We stayed near there for the night and were fired on from the village. The bearded Major ordered me to fire my guns and I fired in the direction of the enemy fire, seeing nothing, but the enemy fire stopped. I was given no orders to advance and yet, when I stopped firing, I was on my own. All the rest had moved off. I also moved off and found all the mules stuck in a swamp.
I found my two and, as they tried to leap clear, I pulled them and helped them get out. There were no other mule handlers so I did not know whether to stay until they came back or go on by myself. I tracked forward and, that evening, caught up with the rest. I found that the wireless set had had its aerial shot off and was useless. We saw some Japanese, but remained there seven days. When I fired my guns my mules immediately took cover behind a tree without being told to, much cleverer than a person. We had insufficient food but no liaison. By then there was an ox in the column. We were ordered to kill and eat a mule but we didn't. However, we may have eaten the ox as it was no longer there.
This is Harkaraj's way of saying that he did, probably eat some of the ox meat, being sacred to Hindus, it could never be acknowledged that it had been eaten.
Gurkha muleteers prepare to move off after crossing the Irawaddy River in 1943.
The story continues:
Then a recce party went to a village and the villagers signalled not to advance because there were Japanese there. Later, after the Japanese had left, the villagers signalled to go forward. With what little money the patrol had some rice was bought and we had a handful to cook that evening. Those who were unlucky in not getting any rice picked edible leaves and stuffed their equipment and pouches with them. We were all very hungry. We found some jaluko and caladium (local edible plants). We cooked it out of sight of the Japanese and suffered no ill effects. There was nothing but walking. Sometimes we chased the Japanese away. The locals seemed to like us Gurkhas and did not let us down by informing on us. I suppose our operation served its purpose as an in-depth reconnaissance, as we did find Japanese. We had no training for the operation and there were no tactics, just walking and walking. It was very hard work. We were like a condemned Army and nobody cared what happened to us.
In No 4 Column we had no sickness and only one young British Officer wounded in the arm but he came back with us. In the other columns I heard it was not like that and people were left behind if they could not walk. At the end it seemed that we would either go on till we got some bahaduris (gallantry awards) for dying or go back without any results. I can't remember how long we were on this operation. It could have been a month. (It was around one month, Column 4 were compromised by the Japanese in early March around the Pinbon-Wuntho region of Burma, Bromhead decided it was best to lead them back to India, see his short account of those times towards the end of this page).
We went back to Tamu. We had not taken our clothes off and we were covered in lice. We were given new everything, including weapons. I managed to bring my own two mules back to Manipur, the only two to survive. I gave them back into the mule pool where there were thousands more. In Manipur we stayed near the hospital which was then bombed by Japanese aeroplanes. Our people tried to shoot them down but were unsuccessful. We stayed there two months and our men came back during that time in twos and threes. Then Colonel Scone sahib of 2 GR came from Eastern Command, so we now had an officer who looked after us properly.
That is the end of Harkaraj Gurung's testimony. It is both interesting and valuable to hear such stories from the ordinary Rifleman's point of view. There now follows a short narrative account of what happened to Column 4 after Major George Bromhead had taken command:
In early March 1943 the manoeuvrings of Columns 4, 7 an 8 had stirred up a hornets nest of Japanese activity around the the area of the Mu River. However, 4 Column's days were numbered. 4 Column was the first of the seven to break up and return to India. It had been led from the start by Major Conron of 3/2nd Gurkhas and had reached the Brigade rendezvous at Tonmakeng on 24 February. Thereafter it was tasked to protect a Brigade supply dropping and then to reconnoitre and improve Castens Trail, the secret track of the Zibyu Taungdan Escarpment.
It was hard work clearing the route, but necessary to avoid the Japanese. As the columns descended they saw a deep valley, in reality the head-waters of two: the Chaunggyi or Great Stream, which went northward for a few miles before turning abruptly to the west to break through the Zibyu Taungdan in a deep gorge; and the Mu Valley proper. Across the valley rose the hills of the Mangin range, running up to 3,700 feet of the Kalat Taung opposite. Beyond the hills was the Meza Valley and beyond that, the railway and the important communications centre of Indaw.
As the columns reached the valley floor, Major Fergusson noted that 'Wingate was not in the best of tempers.' He was annoyed with 4 Column for some sin of omission. That day, 1st March, Wingate relieved Major Conron of his command and replaced him with Major Bromhead, his Brigade Major. The official reason for such a drastic step is hard to fathom. The change of command was not mentioned in Wingate's debrief report.
Bromhead however, remembers it thus: "We were halfway across Burma when the 4 Column Commander lost his nerve. He could not stand the sound of a battery charging engine, so he turned these off and his radios failed. Wingate withdrew him to Brigade HQ and I took his place. We managed after a day or two to get the main radio working and set off to follow Brigade HQ, now way ahead."
Conron was never able to tell his side of the story. After Wingate later ordered the dispersal of the columns he was last seen near the Shweli River in command of a group from Brigade Headquarters. According to an eyewitness account he was drowned through the treachery of Burmese boatmen while attempting to cross that river.
Please see the witness statement of Rifleman Dalbahadur Pun for more information about the death of Major Philip Conron here:
Dalbahadur Pun
Major Philip Alfred Ronayne Conron
Born 21st November 1902.
First Commission 31st August 1922.
Lieutenant/Indian Army 30th November 1924.
Attained the rank of Captain 31st August 1931.
Specialist in small arms weaponry and became an Instructor in 1938.
Died close to or whilst crossing the Shweli River on 3rd April 1943.
Then a recce party went to a village and the villagers signalled not to advance because there were Japanese there. Later, after the Japanese had left, the villagers signalled to go forward. With what little money the patrol had some rice was bought and we had a handful to cook that evening. Those who were unlucky in not getting any rice picked edible leaves and stuffed their equipment and pouches with them. We were all very hungry. We found some jaluko and caladium (local edible plants). We cooked it out of sight of the Japanese and suffered no ill effects. There was nothing but walking. Sometimes we chased the Japanese away. The locals seemed to like us Gurkhas and did not let us down by informing on us. I suppose our operation served its purpose as an in-depth reconnaissance, as we did find Japanese. We had no training for the operation and there were no tactics, just walking and walking. It was very hard work. We were like a condemned Army and nobody cared what happened to us.
In No 4 Column we had no sickness and only one young British Officer wounded in the arm but he came back with us. In the other columns I heard it was not like that and people were left behind if they could not walk. At the end it seemed that we would either go on till we got some bahaduris (gallantry awards) for dying or go back without any results. I can't remember how long we were on this operation. It could have been a month. (It was around one month, Column 4 were compromised by the Japanese in early March around the Pinbon-Wuntho region of Burma, Bromhead decided it was best to lead them back to India, see his short account of those times towards the end of this page).
We went back to Tamu. We had not taken our clothes off and we were covered in lice. We were given new everything, including weapons. I managed to bring my own two mules back to Manipur, the only two to survive. I gave them back into the mule pool where there were thousands more. In Manipur we stayed near the hospital which was then bombed by Japanese aeroplanes. Our people tried to shoot them down but were unsuccessful. We stayed there two months and our men came back during that time in twos and threes. Then Colonel Scone sahib of 2 GR came from Eastern Command, so we now had an officer who looked after us properly.
That is the end of Harkaraj Gurung's testimony. It is both interesting and valuable to hear such stories from the ordinary Rifleman's point of view. There now follows a short narrative account of what happened to Column 4 after Major George Bromhead had taken command:
In early March 1943 the manoeuvrings of Columns 4, 7 an 8 had stirred up a hornets nest of Japanese activity around the the area of the Mu River. However, 4 Column's days were numbered. 4 Column was the first of the seven to break up and return to India. It had been led from the start by Major Conron of 3/2nd Gurkhas and had reached the Brigade rendezvous at Tonmakeng on 24 February. Thereafter it was tasked to protect a Brigade supply dropping and then to reconnoitre and improve Castens Trail, the secret track of the Zibyu Taungdan Escarpment.
It was hard work clearing the route, but necessary to avoid the Japanese. As the columns descended they saw a deep valley, in reality the head-waters of two: the Chaunggyi or Great Stream, which went northward for a few miles before turning abruptly to the west to break through the Zibyu Taungdan in a deep gorge; and the Mu Valley proper. Across the valley rose the hills of the Mangin range, running up to 3,700 feet of the Kalat Taung opposite. Beyond the hills was the Meza Valley and beyond that, the railway and the important communications centre of Indaw.
As the columns reached the valley floor, Major Fergusson noted that 'Wingate was not in the best of tempers.' He was annoyed with 4 Column for some sin of omission. That day, 1st March, Wingate relieved Major Conron of his command and replaced him with Major Bromhead, his Brigade Major. The official reason for such a drastic step is hard to fathom. The change of command was not mentioned in Wingate's debrief report.
Bromhead however, remembers it thus: "We were halfway across Burma when the 4 Column Commander lost his nerve. He could not stand the sound of a battery charging engine, so he turned these off and his radios failed. Wingate withdrew him to Brigade HQ and I took his place. We managed after a day or two to get the main radio working and set off to follow Brigade HQ, now way ahead."
Conron was never able to tell his side of the story. After Wingate later ordered the dispersal of the columns he was last seen near the Shweli River in command of a group from Brigade Headquarters. According to an eyewitness account he was drowned through the treachery of Burmese boatmen while attempting to cross that river.
Please see the witness statement of Rifleman Dalbahadur Pun for more information about the death of Major Philip Conron here:
Dalbahadur Pun
Major Philip Alfred Ronayne Conron
Born 21st November 1902.
First Commission 31st August 1922.
Lieutenant/Indian Army 30th November 1924.
Attained the rank of Captain 31st August 1931.
Specialist in small arms weaponry and became an Instructor in 1938.
Died close to or whilst crossing the Shweli River on 3rd April 1943.
George Bromhead and Wingate discuss tactics in the temporary Map Room located on the Imphal Golf course in January 1943.
On 2nd March, the day after Bromhead took over command, the Burrif (Burma Rifles) reconnaissance detachment bumped a group of Japanese soldiers near Pinbon and one man was lost. A fighting patrol out searching for the missing man encountered another Japanese patrol and shot dead an NCO. In the meantime Wingate had decided to shift his attack on the railway from the Indaw area to the Wuntho-Bonchaung area, thirty-five miles further south. He instructed 4 Column to rejoin the main group without delay.
During the morning of 4th March, while the column was marching south-east along the base of the mountains, all hell broke loose. The column was in the usual single-file 'snake' formation and strung out over 1,000 yards when the undergrowth came alive with enemy small arms fire. Half of the formation had already crossed a small stream, when a shower of enemy mortar bombs began to fall on the ford, preventing the rest from crossing. The column had walked into a trap.
While a rearguard platoon held the enemy at the stream, Lieutenants Stewart-Jones and Green and Subedar Tikajit Pun led 135 men and thirty mules away to the north. The remainder of the column that had already crossed the stream dispersed in small groups and headed for the pre-arranged rendezvous twenty miles to the south. Bromhead's own group comprised about fifteen men, including Captain Ray Scott of the Burma Rifles, whose knowledge of the countryside would help to get them home. However, their radios were finished. Bromhead recalled:
"We met a Jap patrol and although we beat them off our only radio got a bullet. Since the Japs used soft-nosed bullets it was the end of that radio. The column was split by the encounter, but all reached the RV that evening and we sat down to consider our situation. No communications, little food and no way of getting more except courtesy of the locals, and the British officers of the Gurkha column reported very poor morale. What to do? We could not influence the war, so I decided to turn back. At this point our luck changed a bit. A villager told me that at the top of a steep hill behind the village there started a forest boundary trail, going, roughly, the right way.
The hill was certainly steep, but the Gurkhas with their kukris cut steps for the mules and we all reached the top. And there was a well marked trail and I could recognise the forest blazes. We managed to buy enough rice and had an uneventful march back to the Chindwin. I mapped the route and by coincidence a battalion of my regiment used most of it later when Burma was invaded. On the way back my main worry was that we might be mistaken for the enemy by our own forces. Fortunately we spotted a British patrol east of the Chindwin before they saw us and made contact.
We crossed the river where a battalion of a state force held the front. Jaipur I think. Memorable because the CO said, "I expect you could do with a bath", and his men dug a hole, lined it with ground sheets and filled it with hot water. The best bath I can remember. I had written a series of non-committal air grams before we went into Burma and left them back at air base to be posted weekly. Thus it was that my mother got a brief letter saying that all was quite routine at the same time as she opened her morning paper to see my ugly mug spread across the front page.
I went back to Imphal and set up shop at the Army HQ. My tummy rebelled in a big way at the rich food and I realised that when the Brigade got back some hospital checks would be necessary. Eventually Wingate and the columns returned but, alas, with many a gap. The Gurkhas to their own centres and the British to Bombay. Wingate and I visited Simla, the summer capital, to report. Finally he started raising the next year's force. At that moment the Army sent me to Staff College at Quetta, presumably to learn how it should be done. Next year I was in New Guinea with the Aussies."
As for Lieutenant Stewart-Jones, his troubles were only just beginning. On the evening of the ambush he led his men north in an effort to contact the other columns. After two days he handed over command to Captain Findlay of the Commando detachment and went ahead with eight others. Six days later, out of food and near collapse, they made contact with 8 Column. In the meantime Captain Findlay and his party had turned back for India, menaced by starvation. Weeks later, Stewart-Jones and his four faithful Gurkha Riflemen reached safety in Fort Hertz, a British outpost on the border with China.
Thanks go to Phil Chinnery for permission to use this account from his book, 'March or Die'.
Copyright © Steve Fogden 2013.
During the morning of 4th March, while the column was marching south-east along the base of the mountains, all hell broke loose. The column was in the usual single-file 'snake' formation and strung out over 1,000 yards when the undergrowth came alive with enemy small arms fire. Half of the formation had already crossed a small stream, when a shower of enemy mortar bombs began to fall on the ford, preventing the rest from crossing. The column had walked into a trap.
While a rearguard platoon held the enemy at the stream, Lieutenants Stewart-Jones and Green and Subedar Tikajit Pun led 135 men and thirty mules away to the north. The remainder of the column that had already crossed the stream dispersed in small groups and headed for the pre-arranged rendezvous twenty miles to the south. Bromhead's own group comprised about fifteen men, including Captain Ray Scott of the Burma Rifles, whose knowledge of the countryside would help to get them home. However, their radios were finished. Bromhead recalled:
"We met a Jap patrol and although we beat them off our only radio got a bullet. Since the Japs used soft-nosed bullets it was the end of that radio. The column was split by the encounter, but all reached the RV that evening and we sat down to consider our situation. No communications, little food and no way of getting more except courtesy of the locals, and the British officers of the Gurkha column reported very poor morale. What to do? We could not influence the war, so I decided to turn back. At this point our luck changed a bit. A villager told me that at the top of a steep hill behind the village there started a forest boundary trail, going, roughly, the right way.
The hill was certainly steep, but the Gurkhas with their kukris cut steps for the mules and we all reached the top. And there was a well marked trail and I could recognise the forest blazes. We managed to buy enough rice and had an uneventful march back to the Chindwin. I mapped the route and by coincidence a battalion of my regiment used most of it later when Burma was invaded. On the way back my main worry was that we might be mistaken for the enemy by our own forces. Fortunately we spotted a British patrol east of the Chindwin before they saw us and made contact.
We crossed the river where a battalion of a state force held the front. Jaipur I think. Memorable because the CO said, "I expect you could do with a bath", and his men dug a hole, lined it with ground sheets and filled it with hot water. The best bath I can remember. I had written a series of non-committal air grams before we went into Burma and left them back at air base to be posted weekly. Thus it was that my mother got a brief letter saying that all was quite routine at the same time as she opened her morning paper to see my ugly mug spread across the front page.
I went back to Imphal and set up shop at the Army HQ. My tummy rebelled in a big way at the rich food and I realised that when the Brigade got back some hospital checks would be necessary. Eventually Wingate and the columns returned but, alas, with many a gap. The Gurkhas to their own centres and the British to Bombay. Wingate and I visited Simla, the summer capital, to report. Finally he started raising the next year's force. At that moment the Army sent me to Staff College at Quetta, presumably to learn how it should be done. Next year I was in New Guinea with the Aussies."
As for Lieutenant Stewart-Jones, his troubles were only just beginning. On the evening of the ambush he led his men north in an effort to contact the other columns. After two days he handed over command to Captain Findlay of the Commando detachment and went ahead with eight others. Six days later, out of food and near collapse, they made contact with 8 Column. In the meantime Captain Findlay and his party had turned back for India, menaced by starvation. Weeks later, Stewart-Jones and his four faithful Gurkha Riflemen reached safety in Fort Hertz, a British outpost on the border with China.
Thanks go to Phil Chinnery for permission to use this account from his book, 'March or Die'.
Copyright © Steve Fogden 2013.