WW2 100 – 29 April 1944 – A Casualty of Kohima: Private Reginald Leonard Critchard (1920-44) 1st Battalion, Devonshire Regiment
Continued from 26 Feb 1944
‘He died that others might have a future’: FLIGHT SERGEANT ALLAN
EDWARD DEARLOVE DAVEY (1922-44) RAAF, RAF 90 Squadron
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/02/ww2-75-26-february-1944-he-died-that.html
L-r: WW1 veteran James Jethro Critchard’s military grave and the name of his
son Reginald, a victim of WW2, on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial at the
junction of Coastguard Road and Salting Hill
Every
picture tells a story: this one tells a double family tragedy, showing the
grave of James Jethro Critchard in St Peter’s Burial Ground, Budleigh
Salterton, next to the name of his son Reginald Leonard on the town’s War Memorial.
Reginald Leonard never knew his father. Evidently a victim of WW1, James Jethro is listed as one of the casualties of the 1914-18 conflict by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which notes him as Stoker 1st Class in the Royal Navy. However, his name does not appear in the WW1 list of those inscribed on the War Memorial.
James Jethro came from Axmouth and is recorded as a farmworker in that area in 1891, but in the following year he enlisted in the Royal Navy, serving on various ships. His last posting was on HMS Powerful.
St Peter’s Church, Budleigh Salterton
After the war, he
married Mary Ann Ford on 17 July 1919 in
St Peter’s Church, Budleigh Salterton. Her father was the manager at the town’s
Gas Works, and the family home was 12 Jocelyn Road. Sadly, James Jethro Critchard,
died in Budleigh’s Cottage Hospital on 24 June 1920, aged only 46. Just a few weeks later, his son was baptised on 12
August 1920 in St Peter’s Church.
Another local
casualty of WW2: Ron Yeats, with his wife Margaret Ethel and their eight-month-old
daughter Jennifer who were living at 17 Boyne Road in Budleigh, just yards from
the Critchards’ home in Jocelyn Road
Reginald was brought up in Budleigh, and the news of his death was reported at length by the Exmouth Journal of 27 May 1944. 'He was well known in the town for his cheery disposition, and had a smile for everyone he knew' was one of the many comments made by his friends.
Reginald became an honorary serving member of the Budleigh branch of the British Legion in 1941, and his fellow-members joined in expressing sympathy in a message to his mother. It was well known that her husband had died a short time after the end of WW1.
Reginald was a keen musician, being a bandsman until he went overseas in 1943. Together with Ron Yeats, who also died in 1944 while fighting in France, he sang in the choir at the Temple Methodist Church on Fore Street. According to the Journal article the Superintending Minister, the Reverend H. Kirby, had met Reginald when stationed at Ilfracombe, and mentioned the sad news of the death at both Sunday services. You can read about Ron Yeats here
Cap badge of the Devonshire Regiment Image credit: Wikipedia
Following the outbreak of war, Reginald joined the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment in 1940, being given the Service Number 5629071. As far as we know, he kept no diary of his experiences, but I have drawn on the accounts of fellow-members of the Battalion - such as those published online in the BBC People’s War series - in the hope that they will create a picture of how conditions were in the 1941-45 Burma Campaign.
The Battle of Kohima and
the Burma Campaign Image credit: Wikipedia
A second Budleigh man, Albert George Watkins, was in the same Battalion as Reginald and also fought in the Burma Campaign, being killed in action on 15 October 1944. This most brutal period of WW2 in which Reginald and Albert lost their lives has tended to be overlooked by many people, giving rise to the name of ‘The Forgotten Army’, referring to those who fought in the Far East.
The Battle of Kohima by Terence Cuneo CVO, OBE,
RGI, FGRA (1907-96) Image credit: Kohima Museum www.kohimamuseum.co.uk
In 2013, the Battle of Kohima was chosen as Britain’s
greatest battle in a contest organised by the National Army Museum. It was ranked
as more noteworthy than even D-Day or Waterloo for the Battle’s political and
historical impact, the challenges the troops faced, and the strategy and
tactics employed.
Image credit: www.kohimamuseum.co.uk
And yet, as a statement
on the website of the Kohima Museum in York puts it, the Battle ‘is virtually
unknown in the world apart from those remaining Veterans who fought so bravely
against an implacable enemy who would not give an inch in retreat even unto
death.’
Budleigh’s Burma Star Association Memorial, at the north
end of The Green, near Moor Lane
Reading of the horrors of the Burma Campaign and of its importance has made me wonder whether Budleigh’s Burma Star Association memorial should be in a more prominent position, tucked away as it is in a shady corner of The Green. Especially as Reginald Critchard and Albert Watkins, both Budleigh men, were members of the Devonshire Regiment which played such an important part in the Battle of Kohima.
The 1st Battalion in which Reginald Leopold Critchard and Albert George Watkins served had a long association with India, having served there since 1929.
Military training for British servicemen in India had the advantage of having large open spaces for manoeuvres, as opposed to back home.
7th (Bengal) Mountain Battery going into action near Kaniguram, Waziristan, 1920. Oil on canvas by Ralph N Webber, 1984. This painting depicts Indian Army gunners leading mules carrying artillery and equipment up a hillside. From the collection of the National Army Museum
In addition, it was felt that there was a need for
British troops to maintain the prestige of the Crown in the days of the Raj. News
of the threat to the British Empire posed by its enemies during WW1 had no
doubt reached tribes on the mountainous North-West frontier and had increased
unrest in that area. Lance Dennys, a future General in the Indian Army who had
grown up in Budleigh, saw the seriousness of the problem.
'In future campaigns on the frontier we may encounter tribesmen, either equipped themselves with, or supported by other troops possessing modern artillery and aircraft,’ he wrote, as Major L.E. Dennys, in an essay for a 1929 competition organised by the Journal of the United Service Institute of India (JUSII). ‘How can we best, both on the march and in bivouac, combine protective measures to safeguard ourselves against tribal tactics, as we have known them in the past, supported by such modern weapons.’ Quoted in ‘Passing It On: The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare (1995) Timothy Robert Moreman MA (PhD thesis King’s College, London University).
The area remained troublesome up to WW2 and beyond. In what became known as the Waziristan Campaign, the British Army waged an unsuccessful war from 1936 to 1939 against Mirza Ali Khan, a mullah and so-called Fakir of Ipi who had united the warring tribes of the mountainous province of Waziristan. The government increased the number of both British and Indian troops in the area to reinforce the garrisons at Razmak and other towns near the Afghan border, but guerrilla warfare conducted by Pashtun tribes against the British continued and the Fakir of Ipi was never captured. You can read about Major General Lancelot Dennys here
The outbreak of war in September 1939 found the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment at Rawalpindi in India, training to become a motorised machine gun battalion which would enable them to reach quickly any part of the front where the enemy threatened to break through.
I have not discovered when Reginald joined up, but the chances are that he would have done initial training at barracks in Honiton and/or Exeter. He would have sailed by troopship to India, with shore leave possibly at a port in South Africa on the way. At this stage of WW2 there was nothing to suggest that the Middle and Far East would become a seat of conflict.
Having arrived in India, the Battalion moved 40 miles north in April 1940 to Abbotabad where they trained in mountain warfare.
The Razmak Gate. This is one of 12 photographs taken by a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO), possibly Sergeant H Smith, 1st Battalion 60th Rifles. From the collection of the National Army Museum
Then came a move in September to the North West Frontier near Razmak, where the main garrison of Waziristan had been established in January 1923 after the tribal uprising of 1919-1920. It was a self-contained cantonment, capable of holding 10,000 men. New roads linking the garrisons and camps in the area had been constructed to permit speedier troop movements and trying to keep the roads open meant that British soldiers were often in action against the local tribesmen.
By 1941 it was clear that the North-West Frontier would play no part in the principal operations of WW2. North Africa seemed to be the most likely destination for the Battalion. To train for desert warfare it moved in April over 200 miles south, to Jullundur in the Punjab, where temperatures in the summer reach an average high of around 48 °C (118 °F).
El Alamein 1942: British infantry advances through the dust and smoke of the battle. Chetwyn (Sgt), No 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit - This is photograph E 18474 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 4700-32)
Had Japan not been involved in WW 2, Reginald and Albert in the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment would have fought in the heat and dust of North Africa, in scenes like the above from the Second Battle of El Alamein.
But the Battalion was destined to fight elsewhere. On 8 December the British government declared war on the Empire of Japan, following the Japanese attacks on British Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong on the previous day.
Electrical equipment and oil installations at Yenanguang being destroyed as part of the ‘scorched earth’ policy, in the face of the Japanese advance. Official photographer of No.9 Army Film and Photographic Unit - Imperial War Museum Collections Online at Reference No. K 2204
With the bombing of Rangoon on 23 December and the invasion of Burma, the Battalion was preparing to embark for that country to repel the Japanese forces. However, Rangoon was evacuated on 7 March 1942 after the destruction of its port and oil refinery, and the Battalion moved further south again, eventually embarking for Ceylon – now known as Sri Lanka. Here they settled into jungle training with the specific aim of learning how to counter and engage the Japanese.
Some of the training would have been valuable, but no doubt some was of dubious quality and was intended to build up the confidence of troops who would face an unknown enemy. Denis Price served in the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment and, according to his son, in a BBC People’s War Series recording of 2006, was fond of repeating the story of how intelligence officers would brief recruits on the shortcomings of Japanese soldiers. They were, apparently, ‘all short with bad eyesight from eating too much rice so don't worry too much'. Discovering the truth about the enemy when they gingerly approached dead Japanese bodies made Denis and his fellow-soldiers realise that the ‘intelligence’ was ‘either morale boosting fibs or just ignorance or a bit of both’.
The Battalion finally reached Burma in the late summer of 1943. It was classed as part of the 80th Indian Infantry Brigade, which had been formed in India in April 1942, and assigned to the 20th Indian Infantry Division, part of the Indian Army. Serving alongside it in the Brigade at this time were the 9th Battalion of the 12th Frontier Force Regiment, and the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Gurkha Rifles.
1943 saw the formation of the Fourteenth Army, of which the above units were part. With the creation of South East Asia Command in late 1943, the Eastern Army which formerly controlled operations against the Japanese Army in Burma and also had large rear-area responsibilities, was split into two. Eastern Command (reporting to GHQ India) took over the rear areas of Bihar, Odisha and most of Bengal. Fourteenth Army, part of the British 11th Army Group, became responsible for operations against the Japanese.
The Army's commander was Lieutenant General William Slim, a figure who was much admired by his soldiers for his leadership qualities, and is still remembered with affection by those associated with the Fourteenth Army. You can read about him for example here at the online exhibition staged by the Gurkha Museum in Winchester.
Such an inspiring leader was vital to compensate for the appalling conditions in which soldiers were expected to fight. Perhaps the weather was one of the worst factors, as suggested by Burma veteran Ronald Cox. A member of the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, like Reginald, his memories were recorded in 2006 in the BBC People’s War Series.
The region of Burma in which they were based was reckoned to be the wettest place in the world, receiving on average 480 inches per year, mostly during the monsoon season, he told the interviewer. ‘Dartmoor only gets just over 40 inches! You can imagine walking about soaked and steaming during the day, with mud up to your eyebrows, a glorious mess, and at night, cold and trying to get some sleep without any light - still holding out against the Japs.’
Along with the weather, there was the jungle environment with its host of unpleasant and dangerous inhabitants. Leeches and ticks could cause festering infections with their bites, and poisonous snakes were a hazard.
Finally there was the menace of deadly and unfamiliar tropical diseases faced by British troops fighting the Japanese. According to the Imperial War Museums, in 1943, for every soldier evacuated due to battle wounds, 120 soldiers were evacuated due to sickness. Diseases included dysentery, skin conditions and typhus, but mosquito-borne malaria was the most serious problem, as General Sir Archibald Wavell stated in 1943. ‘We must be prepared to meet malaria by training as strict and earnest as that against enemy troops,’ he warned. ‘We must be as practiced in our weapons against it as we are with a rifle.’
Another veteran of the Devonshire Regiment’s 1st Battalion, Private John Jobbins, according to a 2005 recording in the BBC People’s War series in 2005, apparently suffered from the disease on 11 occasions.
Denis Price’s son recalled how the war had left its mark on his Devonshire Regiment veteran father in many ways, remembering him for several years afterwards with a doctor in attendance as he sweated and shouted in a malarial fever. The shouts were all about ‘the Japs’ and how they were always coming. ‘I never thought he would live to be 95, but thankfully he did’.
A Mule convoy crossing a stream in Burma. The water is muddy and leech infested. Image credit: Imperial War Museums © IWM HU 87182
As if all those hazards were not enough, the terrain of Burma presented its own problems. The usual methods of transport were impossible. Mules were the only answer, and the Battalion had its own Animal Transport Platoons.
Burma veteran Ronald Cox remembers mules as stubborn and cantankerous creatures who kicked out at the first opportunity. ‘But on our advance later, they proved invaluable, carrying our extras, like ammunition, bombs, bed rolls and ground sheets.’ And the animals provided entertainment, he recalled. ‘We actually had mule races. The first race resulted in the participants going straight on, instead of going round the track! It seems strange to have mules but mechanised vehicles could not operate in the jungle; such was our transport!’
But Private John Jobbins, who was a mule leader, in his 2005 recording for the BBC People’s War series, recalled how even the animals were sometimes unable to cope. He often spoke of how the soldiers would lose them down the ravines, along with the food and medicines.
One little-known aspect of wartime mule transport was the need to silence the animals. Their braying as they made their way on trails through the jungle risked alerting the enemy to the presence of Allied soldiers. It's shocking to realise that thousands of the animals were de-voiced during WW2, their voice boxes being removed under anaesthetic.
In a battlefield of swiftly moving forces to and fro across a jungle terrain where exact locations were difficult to locate from the air ‘friendly fire’ was a constant danger. Devonshire Regiment veteran Denis Price recalled how RAF bombers would attack British positions newly captured from the enemy, killing and wounding the new occupiers because of ignorance caused by poor communication. Reginald and Albert Watkins may even have been two of the victims in such a catastophe.
By October 1943 the Battalion were in action near Tamu, patrolling the Kabaw Valley and the line of the River Chindwin until the enemy offensive began in March 1944.
Japanese forces were led by Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, who had been made commander of the Fifteenth Army from March 1943. Described by historians Ian Nish and Mark Allen as ‘a man exuberantly confident of his own destiny’, he had strongly pushed forward his own plan to advance into Assam, a move which would lead to the Battle of Imphal. The operation was known as the U Go offensive; its twin aims were to forestall the Allied plan to retake Burma, and to create a gateway to India via Imphal, the hill town of Kohima and the railway station at Dimapur.
Subhas Chandra Bose. Image credit: Wikipedia
To some extent the U Go offensive had been influenced by Subhas Chandra Bose, a Cambridge-educated Indian nationalist, who led the Azad Hind, a movement dedicated to freeing India from British rule. Bose was also commander in chief of the movement's armed forces, the Azad Hind Fauj or Indian National Army (INA).
The INA was composed mainly of former prisoners of war from the British Indian Army who had been captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore, and Indian expatriates in South East Asia who had decided to join the nationalist movement. Bose was eager for the INA to participate in any invasion of India, and persuaded several Japanese that a victory such as Mutaguchi anticipated would lead to the collapse of British rule in India. The idea that their western boundary would be controlled by a more friendly government was attractive to the Japanese. It would also have been consistent with the idea that Japanese expansion into Asia was part of an effort to support Asian government of Asia and counter western colonialism.
Mutaguchi’s confidence and belief in his grand destiny was matched by the fanaticism of his soldiers. Much has been written in studies of the reasons for the ferocity with which the Japanese fought in WW2 and for the cruelty with which they treated their Prisoners-of-War. The studies include the theory of the development of a death cult within the Japanese military, coupled with the view of the Emperor as a godhead.
Whatever the reasons for the enemy’s ferocity there is no doubt that it ranked with other grim aspects of the Burma Campaign to make the war in the Far East a vile experience for all the participants.
On 8 March 1944, following orders from General Mutaguchi, Japanese troops began to cross the Chindwin River and move on Imphal and Kohima.
English names had been given by the Allied forces to many of the strategic positions in this area of Burma. ‘Gibraltar Hill’, ‘Malta Hill’, ‘Scraggy Hill’, ‘Lynch Pimple’, ‘Crete West’ and ‘Crete East’ were just some of them. By the second week of March, most of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment had gathered at a high point which had been given the name of ‘Devon Hill’, to the east of Sibong Bridge. Enemy attacks and ambushes were daily becoming more frequent as Japanese forces drew nearer, and the Battalion became increasingly the target of artillery fire aimed at the ridge behind Devon Hill.
The Allied defenders were also targeted by psychological warfare. Propaganda leaflets like the one shown here were left or air-dropped by the enemy as part of this psychological battle.
The text reads: 'You are like fishes caught in a net, without an outlet. The only faith left for you is Death alone. When we think and give consolation about your loving wives, parents and brothers we would never carry on inhuman-like actions. Therefore stop your useless resistance. Throw down your arms and surrender. It is then that we will guarantee your lives and will treat you according to the International Law. How to surrender to the Japanese Forces 1. The surrenderers are required to come holding some white cloth or holding up both hands. 2.Carry the rifle on the shoulder upside down. 3. Show this bill to the Japanese soldier. Nippon Army. [The Japanese writing at the end of the note is translated as: Any persons carrying this leaflet will be accepted as a prisoner of war and would be given protection accordingly. Japanese Imperial Army.] Image credit: www.burmastarmemorial.org
Veteran John Jobbins recalled how rapidly night fell, and how, in the darkness, he would hear Japanese voices. Enemy patrols would seek to infiltrate the Battalion’s positions, calling out ‘You die!’ to John and his friends.
The
Shenam Saddle in peacetime Image credit:
www.sevensistersholidays.com
In April 1944 the Battalion found itself defending the Shenam Saddle, a series of hills on the Tamu/Palel road in Assam. This was the approach to Imphal and Kohima and the scene of some of the most bloody and horrific battles of WW2.
A Gurkha examines a Japanese bunker at 'Scraggy' hill during the 1944 Burma Campaign Image credit: National Army Museum [Image number: 95982]
It was the only metalled road the Japanese could use, and it was vital for them to break through to allow tanks and heavy artillery of ‘Yamamoto Force’ - named after Major General Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese 33rd Division’s infantry - to attack the main defences around Imphal itself. A few miles north of Shenam Saddle was Palel airfield, one of the only two all-weather airfields in the plain, and vital to the defenders.
On 4 April 1944, a major Japanese attack on the road fortunately proved to be uncoordinated. The enemy’s infantry were not ready to take part and twelve Japanese tanks were caught exposed on the road by British anti-tank guns. For almost a fortnight, from 8 to 22 April, there was heavy fighting for five peaks which commanded the road east of the Saddle. The Japanese captured a number of them, but Indian and British counter-attacks regained some of those initially lost.
The remains of Japanese
dead, equipment and caved-in bunkers on 'Scraggy Hill' which was captured by
10th Gurkha Rifles in fierce fighting in the Shenam area during the Battle of Imphal.
Image credit: Imperial War Museums Official photographer of No.9 Army Film and
Photographic Unit. Photograph IND 3714 from the collections of the Imperial War
Museums (collection no. 4700-38)
Fighting in the sector continued as Yamamoto Force fought to overcome British defensive positions around the Shenam Saddle. Among the celebrated achievements of the Burma Campaign was the 1st Battalion’s refusal to yield to the Japanese onslaught. They held out stubbornly, on a battlefield which had been turned from green jungle to a scorched and muddy landscape, so battered and desolate that it was compared to the battlefield of the Somme in WW1. Casualties were heavy on both sides.
The 'Flying jeep', a Stinson L-5 Sentinel aircraft. Image credit: Wikipedia
Denis Price counted himself lucky to have survived. On ‘Scraggy Hill’ his war came to a close when shrapnel from an enemy mortar pierced his helmet. The result was a severe head injury, but the helmet had saved his life in taking the brunt of the shrapnel. He remembered being flown out of the jungle by the Americans in what he thought was called a 'flying jeep'. This would have been a Stinson L-5 Sentinel, like the one shown above. A very small light aircraft with short take-off and landing capability, it was used by all branches of the US military and by the RAF. It needed great skill to fly but saved the lives of many British wounded.
To the north of the Shenam Saddle and the 1st Battallion’s location was the celebrated last stand of British and Indian forces defending Kohima – 1,200 men against 12,000 Japanese. On 20 April, Kohima was relieved and by 31 May the enemy had withdrawn to Imphal, which in turn would be relieved after an 80-day siege.
The U Go offensive would be a resounding failure. Allied casualties and losses have been estimated as between 16,987 and 21,000, but a total of 30,502 Japanese were killed and 23,003 hospitalised. General Renya Mutaguchi was dismissed in disgrace and the Imperial Japanese Army suffered an enormous loss of prestige.
The Rangoon Memorial bears the names of almost 27,000 men of the
Commonwealth land forces who died during the campaigns in Burma (now Myanmar)
and who have no known grave. The memorial stands in Taukkyan War Cemetery,
which is the largest of the three war cemeteries in Burma. Image credit: Commonwealth War
Graves Commission
Somewhere in that murderous Burma Campaign, probably on the hills of the Shenam Saddle, 23-year-old Reginald was one of the men of the Devonshire Regiment’s 1st Battalion who lost their lives. He is remembered on the Rangoon Memorial as well as on Budleigh’s War Memorial. But in that scarred and blackened battleground Reginald was one of those who have no known grave.
His mother, Mary Ann Critchard, never remarried. She continued to live at 12 Jocelyn Road in Budleigh until her death on 28 January 1964, at the town’s Cottage Hospital.
The next post is for LIEUTENANT COLONEL ADRIAN FORTESCUE PENRHYS EVANS DSO (1903-44) who died on 21 May 1944 while serving with the 2nd Battalion of The Royal Fusiliers. You can read about him at https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-75-21-may-1944-england-he-loved.html
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