Herbert Edwin (Eddie) Burton

Born in Salisbury, Herbert Edwin (Eddie) Burton, was a Wiltshire man through and through but was enlisted into the Royal Warwickshires in 1942.

Why the Warwickshires? He said that although there were a great number of Midlanders in the regiment, after the horrific slaughter of men wiped out from villages and towns across the UK and Ireland in WW1, recruits were often conscripted into different county regiments so it wouldn’t happen again.

Eddie embarked on a troop ship in late 1943 and arrived, along with his platoon of Warwickshires, just in time for the epic Battle of Imphal, April to July 1944. He was aged 20 and a Private.

1 Warwicks were kicking their heels on reserve in India and he and the platoon were diverted to Imphal to 1 Northants, commonly known as the 48th of foot, and formed a composite company made up of theirs and other men, mainly from Scottish regiments.

They arrived bereft of training in hill or jungle warfare in March 1944. There then followed a series of engagements, mainly withdrawals in the face of Japanese advance. They eventually just beat the Japanese to Point 5846 above the Silchar Track in April and dug in on the South West sector of the battle to face the formidable Japanese 33rd Division.

They were met by an officer with a terse 12-word sentence: “Here we are and here we stay, there will be no prisoners.” In the next three months there followed what can only be described as some of the heaviest fighting in WW2, let alone the Burma Campaign. They fought under horrific conditions and had to contend with diseases such as beri beri and malaria (Eddie was hospitalised later in the advance into Burma having contracted the disease) as well as jungle sores and leeches.

They fought through the monsoon producing what one commentator called ‘Somme-like conditions’. They were constantly suffering from what can only be described as running dysentery. A verbal order was issued that no man would be evacuated with dysentery unless he was actually passing blood. These raw troops, just arrived, had to contend with full frontal Japanese attacks, bugles and screams, Samuri sword and bayonet and, at times, hand to hand fighting – but they held out.

Supplies dropped by parachute could end up either in no man’s land or in the hands of the Japanese. They fought mostly on no more than half or third rations and minimal water, and until the monsoon broke, men were ordered not to shave. Trips to the latrines or the one watering hole were under constant sniper fire from the enemy.

I cannot give every detail but there is a wonderful book by Terence Molloy, an officer of the 48th, called The Silchar Track, which I would recommend as a most authoritative account of the three month battle and the trials and tribulations of the 48th. They grew to loathe and detest bully beef, as Pte Ron Parker recalled in the book. “You name it, we had it – bully beef cold, bully beef hot, bully beef fried, bully beef boiled, bully beef sausages, bully beef stew, bully beef rissoles, bully beef steaks, bully beef sandwiches – oh my god, I still can’t face bully beef today 50 years later.”

At the end of the battle, in mid July, of that composite No 4 company of 120 officers and men who began it, nine walked of that hill, of which Eddie was one. The survivors of the battalion went to Laktok Lake, a beautiful freshwater lake, and stripped off their jungle greens which they had worn constantly for four or more months and placed them in a huge pile. It was liberally doused with petrol before being burned. They bathed in the lake washing off months of grime, and were issued new kit. Fresh fish was being cooked; they’d had no fresh food in all that time. Loaded up with two mess tins and a mug of tea, Eddie headed for the mess tents only for a kite to knock it from his hands – off went his fresh fish in its grateful claws.

They fought on into Burma and Eddie ended the war as a 22 year old Sergeant at Changi, Singapore. He remained with 1 Northants and finally arrived home in late 1947 to one of the most brutal winters of the century.

Eddie died aged 83 in 2007. He once told me that the two most difficult things he ever had to contend with in life were during the advance into Burma. Number one – the customary 10 minute break every hour, lifting a water bottle to his lips and having to have the discipline not to drink it all in one go. Number two – getting back to his feet after the break, donning his equipment and rifle. Considering the hand to hand fighting and constant shellfire of Imphal, that is quite a statement.

A lot of kit, including steel helmets, had by then been ditched down the precipitous hillsides to save weight. They fought on in slouch hats. Some men had to be literally kicked to their feet, and if they refused they were either left to die or, if they were lucky, to be picked up by a non combatant unit.

This may sound a full and frank account of my father’s war but it is nowhere near it. There was so much I wish I had asked him. Which ship did he sail on? Where did they land? How did he reach the front? Now, aged 71, I beg and implore you, if you have a relative who served, question them, ask them about their experiences whether it be WW2, Korea, the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland or wherever. When they are gone, the chance to ask them will have gone with them.

My father, having fought with the Forgotten Army, was always somewhat dismissive of the European campaign. “Well,” he would say, “Montgomery had everything. We had to make do with leftovers.” I once asked: “What did you do when VE Day was announced?” His terse answer was: “We loaded up another magazine and kept firing.” Their war was over, bully for them, who knew how much longer his war would last?

I write this as a tribute to my father and all the other men of the 14th Army. When you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrows, we gave our today. Thanks dad.