Surviving amidst dying men and muddy swamps

~ Remembrance Day 2006. In this the second in his three-part series on the forgotten heroes of the Burma Campaign of World War 11, Sergei DeSilva Ranasinghe traces the exploits of one intrepid Ceylonese volunteer, Bonaventure Schofield

Bon Schofield was born in Ceylon in 1922 to a Burgher planting family of four boys and two girls. He attended school at St. Joseph’s College, Maradana, but left school when he was 17 years old to start a career as a tea planter with his father’s up country plantation at Talawakelle.

When the Second World War began, Bon and his three brothers Joe, Paddy and Charles were very keen to enlist to fight overseas, which he says was spurred by his family tradition of military service in the British Army. In November, 1941, Bon, who was then 19, and his three brothers volunteered to join the British Army, affirming: “I was fighting to protect Ceylon, my mother country.”

Once enlisted, they travelled by train to Talaimannar and embarked on a ferry to Dhanushkodi, then once again embarked on another train to Wellington, where they all joined their new unit, the 2nd Worcestershire Regiment. In February, 1943, Bon was drafted as reinforcement for the 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers (RWF), 6th Independent Brigade, 2nd British Division, a unit and formation he would remain with until February 25, 1945.

As reinforcement Bon was sent to Chittagong and then on towards Donbaik, to participate in a major offensive thrust against the Japanese in the Arakan, as he explained: “The 1st battalion RWF were in Burma. I joined them with 224 others on the 22nd February, 1943 as reinforcements. The battalion had been in action, and had suffered heavy casualties in Burma. I was posted as a Rifleman to B Company, 12 Platoon.”

After months of inactivity at the frontline, the British Army launched a divisional sized offensive into the Arakan, with the aim of capturing the strategically important Mayu Peninsula and air field at Akyab.

The First Arakan Campaign extended from December, 1942 to May, 1943. The British advance at Donbaik met fierce and well fortified Japanese resistance, which in counter-attack after counter-attack proved impossible to dislodge. Practically upon arrival Bon was thrown into action and received his ‘baptism of fire’ in a skirmish action against Japanese snipers. The 1st RWF sustained heavy casualties around Donbaik and was forced to withdraw by night, along with the rest of the division, to the village of Indin, 20 miles away.

Parallel to these events, the Japanese 112th Infantry Regiment had outflanked the division’s exposed left flank in a surprise attack, overrunning several units including the 6th Brigade headquarters. The 1st RWF was immediately involved in heavy fighting when it arrived at Indin. Heavy fighting continued all day and a dire situation developed for the entire 14th Indian Division, as Bon put it: “We suffered more casualties and retreated at night along the beach. We fought our way back to India over mountains, rivers and jungle.”

After recuperating for 39 days in hospitals around Northern India, Bon was rewarded with three weeks leave in Ceylon. Afterwards, he rejoined his battalion in June, 1943, at Ahmednagar, 117km northeast of Pune. The 1st RWF underwent more jungle training and a refit until March, 1944, when it was transferred to Assam to relieve the siege of the desperate British garrison at Kohima.

The over-ambitious Japanese offensive code named Operation U-Go, began on March 7, 1944, with the primary objective of capturing Imphal, the capital of the hill state of Manipur Province and Kohima, with the principal intention of invading British-India’s eastern periphery, Assam.

The Japanese were keen to capture the massive supply dumps that existed at Imphal and Kohima, which they heavily relied upon to sustain their grand offensive plans. Burma, was considered the gateway into India, where the Japanese believed a general insurrection against the British Raj would take place once their troops along with Subas Chandra Bose’s, Indian National Army, had established a foothold in Assam, within reach of Calcutta. The Japanese began their siege on April 5, 1944, which forced the British to supply the garrison by air. The desperate battle received accolades from the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who described it as "probably one of the greatest battles in history... the British/Indian Thermopylae.”

It was in this setting that Bon Schofield encountered fanatical resistance from Japanese soldiers and his hardest fighting of the entire campaign, which he vividly described: “In March, 1944, we were rushed to Kohima in Assam, the Japs had already captured most of the Kohima ridges. Our battalion reached Dimapur from Ahmednagar on April 12, with a full strength of 35 officers and 869 other ranks. The next day we advanced 18 miles down the road digging in and sent out recce patrols. My platoon reached Zubsa at Mile Stone 38. The battalion then positioned itself covering the road to the south of Zubsa, with a small force in the village itself.” On April 18, after much fighting the British led forces finally lifted the siege at Kohima, but considerable fighting still lay ahead.

The next day his unit was involved in heavy fighting, as he stated: “From then on we were in constant contact with the enemy and many hand-to-hand battles and we occupied Garrison Hill.”

Although the siege was lifted, the Japanese still held the forward positions they had taken around Kohima and fiercely defended it. As Bon testified, a grim war of attrition ensued: “On April 29th, the battalion was brought up in carriers along the road still under fire by enemy snipers, and relieved the Durham Light Infantry on Garrison Hill. B & C companies came under fire while crawling through the shallow muddy communication trenches to take over the forward dug outs and fox holes. The most lasting impression of all was caused by the stench of decaying bodies, half buried or lying in the open between the lines. The fighting in Kohima was bloody hand to hand fighting with no quarter asked and no quarter given. The few yards of no man’s land were strewn with the dead of both sides. In some of the trenches, rotting bodies of Japanese were used as a protective parapet. But mercifully lime was available to make the task less distasteful. Space was so limited that dug-outs, latrines, cook houses and graves were all close together. When the rains came it poured in buckets and the trenches filled up with water. We were so tired, that we went to sleep with the water up to our chest. It was almost impossible to dig anywhere without uncovering a latrine or a grave. Flies swarmed everywhere and men were wretched as they dug in. The stench hung in the air and permeated ones clothes and hair. The ground everywhere was ploughed with shell fire and it stank.

“I will never forget C Company going in to attack Kuki’s Piquet. Coming out of their trenches, they reached a jeep track near the top of hill, when the Japs opened up with their machine guns killing everyone in their sights. The following morning was our turn. We went through A Company lines and attacked the Japs. Almost immediately, our Company Commander, Platoon Commander, and Sergeant were wounded by sniper fire. We all dropped where we were, out of line of the sniper, but this was not for long. We were ordered to move forward. I’d only just started when a grenade came over.

“I got down quickly and saw Bren Gunner, Fusilier Ron Jones running not ten feet in front of me, I yelled out ‘Get down, Get down!’, but tragically the grenade exploded with Private Jones crumpled up on the ground in front of me on the slope. Fusilier Morris and I crawled up to Fusilier Jones. There was not a thing we could do, he was dead. Planes came over parachuting our rations, when a huge basket of rations came with a bang dropping close to both of us. The mortars then dropped some smoke bombs and we pulled out back to our lines.”

By June, 1944, the Japanese had been forced out of many positions around Kohima. His unit was subsequently involved in combat with the rear guard elements of the retreating Japanese Army. “After 4 months rest and with reinforcement we started after the Japs again, and marched about 1,000 miles over mountains and jungle. We were in the Kabaw Valley.”

On February 24, 1945, his battalion prepared for a renewed advance, in a risky night operation to capture a key island in the middle of the massive Irrawaddy River. The objective was a small island in the middle of the river.

His section, almost immediately, was hit by Japanese machine gun fire from across the river. When disembarking near the shoreline, Bon’s boat was hit and he sustained a serious leg wound. As he recalled, his ‘Mae West’ life jacket prevented him from drowning, while he sat helpless in the water up to his armpits for hours: “I managed to drop my ammunition vest off to stop the weight pulling me down. I just sat there and hoped for the best. I was many hours in the water with an open gash in my thigh. I could feel things eating at the open wound. I was so thirsty I drank pints of muddy river water.”

Hours later, he was rescued by two unknown British soldiers in a motor boat: “They threw me into the boat and took me back across. I never knew who they were.”

For Bon, the war was over. He was taken to a field hospital and then transported to India for treatment spending 10 months in hospital, and was bedridden for seven of them. After recovery, he was discharged and returned to Ceylon on December 17, 1945.
After the war Bon migrated to Australia in 1949, where he has since lived. Bon was awarded the Burma Star, War Medal, 39-45 Star and Defence Medal.