From Shildon to Rangoon and back
Timeline
Bill wrote as the memories came back to him rather than in order, and he dated very little. This page sets out what can be dated, and links each entry to the chapter that tells it.
Entries marked the wider war are not from Bill's account. They are added for context and are drawn from published histories of the Burma campaign. Where accounts differ on a date, that is said.
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29 September 1918
Born in Shildon, County Durham. Tom Raine, born in the same town, is his friend from the beginning and will one day be his best man.
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At seventeen
Both fathers, railwaymen, are transferred to York, and the two boys move with them.
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Late summer 1939
Bill and Tom sit on a fairground ride, killing time until two o'clock, when they are to register for the Militia at the Employment Office. The pay is a shilling a day, out of which they must buy their own polish and Brasso.
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3 September 1939the wider war
Britain declares war on Germany.
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15 September 1939
Called up, twelve days after the declaration. Training begins at Fulford Barracks in York, and the pay is raised to two shillings.
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Winter 1939
After about ten weeks, on draft to India to join the 1st Battalion, The West Yorkshire Regiment.
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1940–41
Two years in India.
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14 December 1941the wider war
Japanese forces enter Burma. The campaign begins.
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Early 1942
Sent from India to Burma to reinforce the regiments already there.
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7 March 1942the wider war
The British evacuate Rangoon.
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Spring 1942
Outnumbered and overrun, the battalion falls back. A sergeant is detailed to blow the bridge over the Salween, sees his own brother on the far bank, and blows it anyway.
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Spring 1942
Deserted by their officer and left without maps or money, they reach a river many of them cannot swim, and are surrounded and taken prisoner.
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March 1942
A War Office form reaches the family home in County Durham: Cpl W. Troughton is posted missing. Nothing further will come for more than three years.
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1942
Marched to Rangoon Jail — the “Big House”. Searched at the gates, where the guards take their knives, forks and the needles from their housewives as possible weapons. Held in No. 3 block, about thirty men in a cell built for twenty.
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May 1942the wider war
The British retreat into India is completed, just before the monsoon breaks.
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1942–1945
More than three years in the jail: working parties loading ships, re-treading tyres and lifting unexploded bombs; roll call twice a day; no mail either way.
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Late April 1945
The men judged fit are marched out of the jail towards Pegu, hand-carts and all, and learn on the road that they are bound for Thailand to work as coolies. Allied aircraft are overhead often, and the roads are being mined.
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29 April 1945
The guards go, knowing they cannot get clear with the prisoners in tow. After being strafed in error and losing the Brigadier who had led them through the jail, the men are met by African paratroopers and handed to the 1st West Yorkshires — Bill's own battalion. “The day before my father's birthday.”
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1 May 1945
A second War Office form: no longer missing, reported in Allied hands. It is the first word his family has had that he is alive.
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Early May 1945the wider war
Allied troops retake Rangoon. Prisoners left in the jail paint “JAPS GONE” on the roof, adding the RAF slang “EXTRACT DIGIT” to show the message came from British hands. Accounts differ by a day or two over when it was seen and when the jail was reached.
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1945
Home by way of Akyab and India.
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1945
Treated at York Military Hospital. Strongyloides is diagnosed there but not passed on to his doctor, and goes untreated for decades.
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September 1945
A welcome-home letter from King George VI: “The Queen and I bid you a very warm welcome home.”
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13 September 1945the wider war
Japanese forces in Burma formally surrender, at Rangoon.
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After the war
At a christening in the local church he finds his own name on the Roll of Honour, among the dead. The family have it erased.
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2 October 2008
Bill, just ninety, appears in the Keighley News holding the printed book. He wrote it at his doctor's suggestion, most of it while staying at a Combat Stress home, and gave the proceeds to the charity.