About one hour before first light on the morning of May 13th 1944, 47 Column, Leicestershire Regiment were ambushed in their bivouac, by a patrol from the Japanese 53 Division. This was the Columns second choice bivouac site, the first had generated a sense of unease and the Column had retreated further away from the railway corridor into the jungle

Two officers, a sergeant major and six privates were killed, thirteen men were wounded and five were missing.

Harold, was one of the wounded, shot through the lower leg. In 1990 he recalled:

The column were not pursued, and although not having a dispersal map reference, quickly managed to regroup, and two days later also made contact with the Nigerians, further to the west. Harold feels it was due to the help of the Nigerians, and the constant attention of the Column's Medical Officer, that he lived to tell his tale.

The column missed one of the supply drops due to the ambush, and had to sample the delights mule meat, the discomfort compounded by the full onset of the monsoon, when the column was on the steep exposed mountainside. In "The Chindit War", by Shelford Bidwell,(Hodder and Staughton), the "escape":

"The terrain to the west of the Railway Valley is difficult enough in dry weather. Ridge and valley have no distinguishing pattern......the  spot-heights on the map jump from 1000 ft to 5000ft and the whirls of the contours are so close that at first glance the map presents a uniformly brown tinge. Every step of the way was up one impossible slope and down another.........When the monsoon downpour began, the hundreds of chaungs draining the area changed from clear rills or dry ravines to torrents of foaming water that could sweep away a man or mule. The flanks of the hills became mud slides. Steps had to be cut and revetted with bamboo, mules off-loaded and led to the top while the men carried up the weapons and heavy gear. a good day's march was five miles, a bad one a mile, but in that country horizontal distance meant nothing"

Harold was evacuated by light aircraft from an airstrip on the shores of Lake Indawgyi, then by Dakota to India where he was hospitalised for several weeks in a temporary military hospital where his wounds were "cleaned up", before being transferred by boat for a 4 day journey down the Bramaputra River to a larger hospital and, and then to Madras, enduring several painful skin grafts.

It was only then that Harold realised how lucky he was when he learned the full extent of the casualties in the ambush.

Harold`s real fear was that he would become separated from his colleagues, in the confusion and darkness after the ambush, but due to the professionalism of his colleagues, and the dispersal plans that the column had practised time and time again, his worries were unfounded.

The evacuation of casualties, was a wonderful morale booster for the Chindits second Expedition, following the heavy casualties of the Chindits first expedition. John Masters, in "The Road Past Mandalay (Michael Joseph 1961} writes about an incident during training when an emergency called for speedy evacuation:

"The strip for an L-5 was supposed to be 500 feet absolute minimum, but the only place available at the scene of the accident was a bumpy field no more than 4500 feet long. An l-5 went in, rescued the wretched man and took off safely. The whole force had heard of it within 5 hours. The commander's hopes and the soldier's morale rose sky-high. Now if we got hit in the middle of Burma we would not be left under a bush to die."

In one case, two men were evacuated within 10 minutes of getting wounded, and time after time again the American pilots risked there own lives to evacuate wounded and ill Chindit's, from obscure, bumpy tree shrouded strips ,many miles behind enemy lines.

From Harold's memories and various written sources, it has been possible to locate of the Commonwealth War Commission's "Debt of Honour" website, the following soldiers of 47 Column, 7th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment who lost their lives on Saturday May 13th 1944. I do not believe this is the full record of those who lost their lives, and would welcome any additions of amendments.

The following roll is designed as a further memorial to these brave men