Forgotten Burmese WWII heroes who put their lives on the line fighting for Britain are being tracked down by a charity so they can be thanked before they die.
Help For Forgotten Allies (H4FA), which was founded in 2007, wants to bring together as many lost veterans as possible for a Remembrance Sunday service in Burma’s former capital Yangon this year to demonstrate gratitude from Britain.
Sally McLean, founder of H4FA, said that the Burmese veterans greet her with pride. ‘They put on their berets, pin on their medals, and salute as they enter the simple camp office,’ she said.
‘They are not looking for a handout. It is rather the sense of honour about what they did over 70 years ago. It is never too late to acknowledge this. Most of them have very few years left to go now.’
A former Burmese member of the Royal Artillery, David Daniel, 93, in his old dress uniform
Mr Daniel’s collection of wartime mementos including a photograph of himself during the War
Burmese soldiers advancing through grassland during the campaign against the Japanese
A member of Help For Forgotten Allies meets a Burmese veteran who fought for Britain
Allied troops in action against the Japanese in Burma during the Second World War
A film company is crowdfunding for a documentary called Forgotten Allies to capture their testimony before it is too late. ‘This project has moved me more than I could have imagined,’ said Alex Bescoby, Co-Founder of Grammar Productions.
‘They are the last whispers of a story that cannot, and must not be lost.’ The appeal is supported by Dame Vera Lynn, actor Griff Rhys Jones, the Royal British Legion and the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League.
The former soldiers are not entitled to an Army pension but they are supposed to receive welfare grants. However, due to the difficulties of finding them and getting money into Burma many have not received any help over the years.
They are not looking for a handout. It is rather the sense of honour about what they did over 70 years ago
Sally McLean, founder of H4FA
H4FA is trying to track down as many as possible so that they can receive the money to which they are entitled as well as other charitable support.
Thousands of Burmese fought for Britain against the Japanese from 1942 to 1945. Their contribution to the Allied victory has in large part been overlooked as Burma left the Empire shortly after the war.
Britain’s ‘Forgotten Army’ – as the 14th Army responsible for retaking Burma from the Japanese is known – was the largest army in the world between 1943 and 1945, a force of half-a-million volunteers drawn from across the Empire.
Britons who had survived the D-Day landings fought alongside soldiers from across the globe as they battled the Japanese in the mountains and jungles of Burma.
Burmese troops were in the thick of the fighting. They played an integral role in the war’s turning-point battles of Imphal and Kohima in 1944 and took part in daring resistance operations along the Thai-Burma border.
Soldiers crossing a river on a makeshift raft during the Burma campaign against the Japanese
A Help For Forgotten Allies representative in discussion with a Second World War veteran
The town of Prome (Pye) on the southern Irrawaddy River is liberated from the Japanese
Mr Daniel, 93, told charity workers of the psychological damage left by his years of service
A Burmese villager shows off memorabilia from the fighting that took place there in WWII
Alex Bescoby, left, presenter of Forgotten Allies, on location with a veteran in Burma
‘It was the most successful guerrilla campaign of the Second World War and the greatest defeat the Japanese army suffered in its entire history,’ said Philip Davies, author of Lost Warriors: Seagrim and Pagani of Burma.
A huge number of Burmese fighters were killed, wounded or subjected to horrific torture. ‘If the Japanese caught me they’d have peeled off my skin and poured salt underneath, like they did to the others,’ former army scout Liau Chang, 93, said in footage already recorded for the film.
Many Burmese fought in an elite SOE unit called Operation Character, which is credited by British forces as having killed 10,964 Japanese enemy.
A former Burmese member of the Royal Artillery, David Daniel, 93, who goes by a Western-sounding name, told charity workers of the psychological damage left by his years of service.
I still see the fighting, the enemy around the walls. I still get the nightmares
David Daniel, 93, former Burmese member of the Royal Artillery
‘I still see the fighting, the enemy around the walls,’ he said. ‘I still get the nightmares. I get startled. Even now sometimes I shout in my sleep.’
With only a handful of soldiers remaining the race is on to bring them recognition. Sally McLean and her H4FA colleagues have found veterans living in appalling poverty in a country still torn being torn apart by conflict.
As young men, the Burmese veterans engaged in top-secret special forces operations against the Japanese under British officers. But many have not seen a Briton since the end of the War.
One memorable case for Sally was that of Saw ‘Joshua’ Yoshoo. Having fought bravely for Britain against the Japanese, he was living in destitution with just one pair of clothes and no medication for his asthma.
‘Aged 87, he was recruited into the British Army’s Burma Rifles regiment in 1934,’ Sally said. ‘Still perfectly lucid, he reeled off his name, rank, number and the name of his commanding officer.
‘When I asked him what he would like me to do for him, he replied that I should “inform his officers” that he was still alive. His own poverty was clearly secondary.’
Mr Daniel said: ‘I still see the fighting, the enemy around the walls. I still get the nightmares’
General Douglas Gracey, Commander of British 20th Division, pins an MC on Captain de Souza of the 1/19th Hyderabad Regiment during the battle for Imphal Kohima, Burma
Sally McLean, founder of Help For Forgotten Allies, in Burma on an expedition to find veterans
A member of Help For Forgotten Heroes on his mission to find forgotten veterans in Burma
A British helmet and a Japanese rifle from the Second World War held by a Burmese villager
Members of the Grammar Productions crew on location in Burma filming The Forgotten Allies
A distant view of the Burmese mountains and jungle where fierce fighting took place in WWII
While similar campaigns for the Gurkha regiments have gained national attention with celebrity support, the work of H4FA has long been under the radar.
‘Our key objective, in the last days of these soldiers lives, is to do everything we can to give these men the feeling that they are being acknowledged for what they did, and that they’re being remembered,’ said Peter Mitchell, one of H4FA’s trustees, whose father fought in Burma.
After the Allied victory, Burma secured its independence from Britain. Unlike other former colonies, however, Burma’s new government decided not to join the Commonwealth.
Decades of war, dictatorship and international isolation would further sever the ties between Britain and Myanmar’s ex-combatants that were preserved in the Commonwealth by the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League.
‘They stood by us and fought by our side against the Japanese but at the end of the war we walked away from Burma and washed our hands,’ Davies said.
‘The whole Burma campaign was seen as a sort of forgotten sideshow and disappeared behind this bamboo curtain. The veterans who fought and died for the British were completely forgotten.’
For more information about Help For Forgotten Allies visit h4fa.org.uk and for details of the Grammar Productions film visit grammar-productions.com