Great Britain. Army. Indian Infantry Brigade 77th - Jocks in the jungle: the Second Battalion of the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment, the Black Watch and the First Ballalion of the 26th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) as Chindits

Of course this book is dedicated to all the men who fought the Japanese in the Burmese jungle, but in particular to the ones I met and to whom I was privileged to listen: Pipe Corporal Bill Lark, Corporal Jim McNeilly and Colonel David Rose DSO. I only wish that their words to me could have been amplified and reinforced by words from my own father, Private/Rifleman 14254229 Andrew Douglas Thorburn, sometime Lance Corporal, who was there but never said a thing about it.

He joined the Black Watch at No 8 Infantry Training Centre, Queens Barracks, Perth, on 16 September, 1942, where he was classified as a signaller and sent on to the Training Battalion, the 10th, on 30 December, stationed at Thurso, and then at Alnwick in Northumberland. He proceeded overseas on 12 March, 1943, as part of a draft of 120 officers and men, and was in Bombay on 11 June.

The first Chindit expedition had begun in January 1943 and ended in April, and its initial success had resulted in a new Chindit Brigade being formed; the 111th Indian Infantry, made up of 1st Battalion Cameronians, 2nd Battalion Kings Own, and 3rd Battalion of the 4th Gurkha Rifles.

The 120 Black Watch, sent to India for the purpose although not told so, were transferred to the Cameronians on 31 July to begin training in the jungle and eventually to fly in to Burma, 200 miles behind Japanese lines, with 111 Brigade, Special Force.

I am fortunate in having the personal account of an exact contemporary of my father, Frederick C. Patterson, Black Watch and Cameronians, on which to draw for this part of the history.

I say my father never spoke of it. Well, hardly ever. I can remember one occasion driving along in his car with the radio on, when the death of a man was announced. Good God above, said my father. Last time I saw him was on Hill (whatever it was).

He was six feet tall, my father, and 154lb (11st) when he joined the army. He came home from the jungle, after contracting amoebic dysentery, weighing a little over six stone. This was the only fact to become part of family history; that my father was six stone when he was invalided out, and is the reason why the medical disaster of the Chindits, usually neglected in telling the story, is such an important part of this book.

He recovered at a hospital in Southport, and went back into the police force he had volunteered to leave. For many, many, years afterwards, until eventually persuaded by my mother, he never would go abroad for holidays. Abroad, you see, was an awful place.