M A R K F O R S D I K E
H I S T O R I A N A N D A U T H O R
THE MEN
Veterans of Second Suffolk were always fewer in number at Regimental gatherings than their comrades in the 1st Battalion and when they did meet, they seldom talked of their war in Burma, choosing to remember instead, the rosy days of 'bull and polish' in India beforehand and the endless sport afterwards, before the Battalion finally left India in 1947.
It was often quite difficult to get them to talk of their bitter jungle war, and many only gave scant mention to it, but those who were prepared to talk of it and the accounts they have left, form the backbone of my Burma book.
You can read below, the biographies of just a handful of those who served with the Battalion in the Burma campaign whose testimonies are included in the book.
“He promised me a Mention in Despatches, but I never received it!"
Reggie Leake
D Company
A pre-war regular, ‘Reggie’ Leake joined the Regiment in 1936. A crack shot, he won numerous cups and trophies at Bisley. He had served with Wingate on his first expedition and had saved Lord Louis Mountbatten and Lieutenant-General ‘Bill’ Slim from a Japanese sniper on an Arakan river jetty. After returning home in March 1944, he served with the 8th Battalion at home.
“What a relief I thought, nothing has changed!"
Ernie Bates
C Company
A militiaman being mobilized in October 1939, Ernie was sent to join Second Suffolk at Razmak in January 1940. He served throughout the Arakan campaign and at Imphal until he was invalided home with illness in late 1944. Later he was an ardent correspondent to the Regimental Newsletters and a member of the Harrow and Wembley Branch of the Burma Star Association.
"One or two inches one way would probably have been fatal”
Kenneth Henderson
D Company Commander
Major Kenneth Henderson joined Norwich Union Insurance as a Boy Clerk aged 12 and spent all of his working life with the company. Whilst studying to be an accountant pre-war, he joined the Honourable Artillery Company and upon the outbreak of war he was commissioned, joining Second Suffolk at Razmak in 1940. He was wounded a Moirang; the Battalion’s last action of the war.
“A few feet to the right and myself and the ammunition would have all gone up"
Clifford Price
Carrier Platoon
Often fighting as regular infantryman when the call arose, Clifford Price also crucially conveyed the wounded from the battlefields to Regimental Aid Post by carrier, and then to the Field Hospital. After he returned from India, he opted for regular service and finally left the Regiment in 1950 when he left to become a R.A.C. motorcycle patrolman in the Lake District.
“We had bully beef every way you can think of - fried as fritters, as stew - you name it!”
Lionel Ruffles
C Company
Lionel Ruffles was called up in 1941 and after service with the 8th Battalion, joined Second Suffolk in 1943, serving with C Company. His account of the battle for Isaac is the only known other ranks account of the action, written to Arthur Smith in the late 1990s. Later, he was a founder member of the Ipswich Branch of the Burma Star Association and did much to promote the branch and care for its members.
“Not surprisingly, he never rose above the lowest rank of private!"
Arthur Partington
HQ Company
A barber in civilian life, Arthur Partington was called up in 1940 to serve first with the 8th Battalion, before being transferred to Second Suffolk in 1942. A Battalion Bugler and stretcher bearer, his role was crucial and yet arguably the most difficult in conveying the wounded from the battlefield. In 1945 he recorded a message to his family in an edition of ‘Calling Blighty’ recorded in 1945.
“My fate was not to return thank goodness"
'Gordon' Brown
A Company Commander
E.G.W. ‘Gordon’ Browne was commissioned into the Suffolk Regiment in 1936 and had already seen action with the 1st Battalion in France in 1940 being evacuated from Dunkirk. He was to command Second Suffolk in Imphal in 1944. Later, he resigned his commission in 1950, joined MI5 the same day and was instrumental in unmasking the Soviet spy, Kim Philby.
“The smart, polished Suffolk soldier of the plains of India was no more"
Tom Warren
B Company
Tommy Warren was a career soldier spending all his life with the Suffolk and East Anglian Regiments. He was later commissioned into the Suffolk Regiment and served as the Captain (Quartermaster) of the 1st Battalion in Cyprus. In later years he was President of the Sergeants Dinner Club and a leading figure in the Old Comrades Association helping to organise 'Minden Day' each year.
“It was a filthy business”
Charlie Parr
B Company
A pre-war territorial with the Cambridgeshire Regiment, Charlie Parr signed on for regular service and joined Second Suffolk at Mhow in 1938. A crack shot, after leaving the Battalion at Imphal, he joined the Royal Military Police, serving with them in Korea. He still retained the title of champion pistol shot on the Short Siberia range at Bisley when the title was abolished in the late 1950s.
“We heard the thud of a grenade, then crashing through the Bamboo...”
Cyril Wilkinson
17 Platoon D Company
Cyril Wilkinson served in the same Platoon, throughout the Burma Campaign, having arrived as a reinforcement from the Lincolnshire Regiment in late 1943. After being demobbed from the Army in 1947, he spent several years in the Merchant Navy, before retiring to Long Eaton in Nottinghamshire. He was a prolific letter writer and regularly contributed to the Regimental Newsletters throughout the 1990s.
“He refused and resigned. I admired him for this"
Rod Gray
Battalion HQ
Rod Grey was the Signals Officer at Imphal. He had been commissioned into the Regiment in 1941, having previously served in its ranks as Lance Corporal - being called up in October 1939. He served both as a platoon commander in the Arakan, and later as Liaison Officer to 5th (Indian) Division HQ. He was later an active member of the Old Comrades Association in Ipswich.
“That was the last time I saw my friends, they were on stretchers having been wounded”
Sidney Izzard
C Company
Sergeant Sidney Izzard came to the Battalion in the Arakan as a reinforcement from the Royal Berkshire Regiment. He was only with themm for a few months before he was badly wounded after the attack on the 'Pyramid' feature, by a Japanese mortar and invalided home. Declared partially disabled, he became an early and prominent member of his local Burma Star Association branch in Reading.
“The men were worn out. Eighty per cent including myself had chronic diarrhoea”
Idris Jones
B Company
Born in London in 1924, Idris Jones was a dairy roundsman when war was declared. Called up aged 18 in 1942, he was sent to Bury St. Edmunds to complete his training before joining the 8th Battalion. He joined Second Suffolk in early 1944 when they were in the Arakan and despite several bouts of illness, served through to Lahore. He later went onto work in the NHS for many years.
“We are doing our stuff. And now on with the battle”
O.K. Leach
D Company
A pre-war regular officer, Major 'Ossy' Leach had been with Second Suffolk since late 1943 having left 1 Suffolk in England. He showed great skill when commanding 'D' Company in their attack on the Pimple and it was often remarked later how he did not receive a Military Cross for his actions. He later served with 1 Suffolk in Malaya before leaving the Army in 1956.
“I was shot in a rather awkward place - the bum!”
Peter Hill
B Company Commander
Educated at Ipswich School, Peter was commissioned into the Royal Norfolk Regiment in 1940. Transferred to Second Suffolk, he gallantly held the enemy back on two fronts during the attack on the 'Pimple' and was wounded in the attack on 'Pyramid'. He returned to re-command B Company after he had recuperated. He later became a successful farmer in Norfolk having met his wife in a Kashmir hospital.