91Čȱ¬

When I was called up, I lived in North Wales. In those days, the system was that you were never sent to somewhere local. If you lived in Scotland, they sent you to Wales for your first 6 weeks in the Army, to break all connections.

When I joined the Army, my name was a slight embarrassment, because everything in the Army is based on alphabetical order. If your name began with, for instance, A, B, C, you went into ā€˜Aā€™ company, but they gave you a little square about 1Ā¼ by 1 inch to sign your name in. I could never get mine in properly and they put me right at the end with XYZ, so I always ended up in ā€˜Dā€™ company. There was a sergeant who said ā€˜Whatā€™s your name?ā€™ When I said ā€˜Cave-Browne-Caveā€™, he looked down his list and yelled ā€˜Smithā€™. I didnā€™t take any notice, then he came up and yelled ā€˜Smithā€™ in my face, and the whole time I was there, I had to answer to ā€˜Smithā€™.
I got my calling-up papers on my 18th birthday. I opened this envelope and the first thing that came out was a five shilling postal-order. I thought ā€˜Ooh, Iā€™ve got a good birthday present hereā€™, but when I went a bit further, it was my expenses to go with my travelling warrant. I had to report up to Inverness for my first six weeks in the Army.
From there, they posted you to various units. I was called into the office and told Iā€™d been posted to the Brecknock Battalion which sounded a bit Scottish. They asked if Iā€™d got any relations in the Army that might have requested me to join them. There was only my elder brother and he hadnā€™t.

From Inverness I went to Rye in Sussex. I reported to the unit and on the day I arrived, we all got sent off and divided into groups. We all lined up outside the company office and this captain asked our names and numbers. He got to me and said ā€˜Cave-Browne-Cave? The Duchess of Bedford wants to see you.ā€™ I didnā€™t know her, but it turned out she ran a canteen there. Sheā€™d met a Cave-Browne-Cave in India, years before, but it was nobody I knew, but this must have started the idea that I must be well up or something. Not so!
When we got to the huts weā€™d been allocated in holiday chalets along the coast this corporal asked our names and occupations. I told him my name and for occupation I said ā€˜art studentā€™, because I was at Liverpool College of Art. He looked at me and said ā€˜All of you, just wait hereā€™ and he shot off to the company office. He came tearing back and put me in a room by myself. I sat there and nothing happened but everyone else seemed busy. When the clang went for lunch, I thought Iā€™d better join them. Everybody was turning and looking, I turned to look and I realised they were all looking at me. I thought it was a bit odd. A few hours later, the corporal came and said ā€˜Youā€¦ out of thereā€™, and as a result of that I got the worst bed, all the springs had gone, behind the door where you get all the draughts. Life was normal from then. I wasonly there a couple of months and when I was leaving, the corporal came along to me, and he said, ā€˜Before you go, I feel I really ought to ask you, do you remember when you first came here?ā€™ He went through all the palaver, ā€˜I asked your occupationā€¦ What would you have said?ā€™
I thought for a moment and said, ā€˜I suppose Iā€™d have said ā€œart studentā€ā€™.
ā€˜You probably did, but I thought you said ā€œArchdukeā€. I went down the company office and said ā€œIā€™ve got an Archduke up there, what do I do with him? And they said ā€œput him in a room on his ownā€ā€™ and it wasnā€™t till the papers came through that they found my mistake. ā€˜Iā€™ve been trying to live this down ever since.ā€™

When I went on to Officer Cadet Training Unit (OTCU) in the Isle of Man ā€” they always pick at a student ā€” some cadets were what I call war-ridden. They came back from the Middle East and various places like that. A few of us were quite young, and I was very naĆÆve ā€” well, naĆÆve for 18 anyway. It was normal for the cadets to take turns in being company commander for the week. They looked down the list to appoint the company commander for the first week. Everyone had to do it sooner or later. But they wanted a good impression on the first week. We were all rookies as far as the system was concerned. It was to be church parade the next day, all through Douglas Isle of Man with the band and all this sort of thing. I could see him look along the line at all these tall parachute chaps, and he said, ā€˜Cave-Browne-Caveā€™. I could see him looking up at the tall guys and there was little me sitting down at the front. I could see him look ā€” somewhat in horror ā€” thinking ā€˜God, Iā€™ve picked the wrong one.ā€™ I had to do it and managed it well but do not think I would have been his first choice.
When you left OCTU, you were asked what regiment youā€™d like to go into. They didnā€™t commission you into the regiment youā€™d been in before to avoid embarrassment. I was asked when I went into the Army which regiment I wanted to go into, I had no skills, and I thought the only thing I could go in was the infantry, Iā€™d been born in Gloucester, so I said Iā€™d like to go in the Gloucesters, they promptly put me in the South Wales Borderers. After being commissioned I thought Iā€™d go in the Gloucesters and they promptly put me back into the South Wales Borderers. When I reported to this regiment, I was given chaps to command Iā€™d been with as a private, which was quite difficult. The sergeant was looking at me, thinking, ā€˜I taught you everything you knewā€¦ ā€œSirā€.ā€™ But we got past that, and eventually we were given the same draft to go overseas. Dunkirk had taken place then. We thought weā€™d go to Europe, but we were sent to India to go to Burma. Fortunately, the Suez Canal had been opened again. Previously to that, anybody going out to India had to go to South America and then to Colombo, Ceylon and then to India, they couldnā€™t go through the Mediterranean because Germany had North Africa and they couldnā€™t go straight down south as the German U-Boats controlled the whole of the South Atlantic in those days. So it was a hell of a long way to go round, but I didnā€™t have to go through that. I just got on this boat and off we went.
We got to Bombay and we were supposed to be going for jungle training, but my name gets called out on the Tannoy system, I was to go leaving my draft. They gave me my papers and said ā€˜Youā€™re going to Burmaā€™. It was exactly 10 days later, I can always remember ā€” you had to be kitted out then - it takes you 5 days by train to get from Bombay to Calcutta ā€” I was flown in to an airstrip in the Burma jungle by the Americans. Then to a unit in the 36th division in north Burma on the Chinese border and we came under the control of the American general, Vinegar Joe Stillwell. There were certain American troops which we never actually saw, we had Chinese gunners. I didnā€™t know any of this until later of course. I just got dumped. There were two Dakotas with no doors on. The first flew out and someone shouted ā€˜Thereā€™s things dropping out of the other plane over there. Tell the pilotā€™.
But the message came back, ā€˜Oh yes, the silly so-and-sos, theyā€™ve obviously put too much weight on, theyā€™ve got to throw some things out to get over the hill. If I yell to you ā€œThrow something outā€, throw something out, throw the nearest thing to you.ā€™ So we all started edging away from the doorway and clinging on to our kit. Fortunately, we were okay.
We landedā€¦ canā€™t tell you where it was.
I was collected by jeep and taken to report to the colonel ā€” a very tall man named Cresswell. The first thing he said to me was, ā€˜What do we call you?ā€™
ā€˜Ohā€¦ Cave.ā€™ So I got over that quickly.
He said, ā€˜What position do you play?ā€™
I was a bit astounded, because we were in the middle of this jungle, I thought heā€™d tell me something about what Iā€™d got to do, but I said, ā€˜sometimes I play in goal, sometimes I play left back.ā€™
His expression changed, ā€˜Are you talking about soccer? Rugby, man, rugby.ā€™
Of course, I was in a Welsh regiment ā€” everybody played rugby. I said, ā€˜Oh, Iā€™m sorry sir, Iā€™ve never played rugby.ā€™
He just said, ā€˜Report to ā€œAā€ company.ā€™ That was the first time I was to be in an ā€˜Aā€™ coy. Nothing more was said of the fact that I didnā€™t play rugby, but Iā€™m sure it went as a black mark.
I reported to ā€˜Aā€™ company to a chap called Dennis Lord who became a good friend. Sadly he has just recently died. We went through the whole of our war there together. Heā€™d been there longer, he was a Captain, later a Major. We had some hairy moments. Months later I had the honour to win a DSO, at 19 and was considered the youngest in the army at that time. Iā€™ve still got my bayonet which has a dent from a bullet , my helmet was pierced and my equipment ā€” side belts and things ā€” were shot through, but I didnā€™t have a scratch. I suppose itā€™s an odd thing to say, but although I just landed in the middle of this jungle, absolutely raw, I never had any fear about surviving, I always had a sense of knowing that I would survive, no doubt the feeling of all 19 year olds on those days. I didnā€™t do foolish things ā€” other people may think otherwise. I always knew I wouldnā€™t have any real difficulty. I had a certain amount of luck, I suppose. On one occasion we actually slept next door to the Japanese. We went out on a patrol and it got very dark so I decided to stay the night in this little hamlet. When I say ā€˜Iā€™ that was my platoon. A full complement would be about 30 ā€” I canā€™t remember now how many I had, but probably only about 20. We just stayed there behind a hedge. There was a good view in daylight down a slope. During the night, there was a lot of clanking going on. In Burma, the bullocks had clanking bells on their necks. At dawn we always used to stand to, because that was the most likely time for an attack. We must have made some noise, although we were trying to be as quiet as possible. I can remember this chap yelling, ā€˜My God!ā€™ Heā€™d opened the hedge a bit to put his rifle through, and there was a Japanese the other side looking at him. Of course, it was a bit of a commotion from then on. We shot one and the others ran away through the scrub down the hill. It appeared theyā€™d been sleeping the other side, but they all wore bell things on their belts, so we assumed it was bullocks.

At Bahe we had a bit of a do, then we went south to cross the river Jhweli, with the view of taking Myitsouboats; we also had to make rafts out of the bamboo. We had long knives, about 2 foot long, which we called dhas. The bamboo is soft when itā€™s green, and you cut hit it at a certain angle and cut it, but if you didnā€™t hit it at the right angle, it vibrated like nothing on Earth. We got across and some others followed us we found ourselves somewhat contained. We were ordered to withdraw.The others managed to get back over the river, but we were left there. and told to get further down the bank to join other troops. We were having some difficulty so there was a suggestion that we should go back across the river during the night. Well the river was pretty wide and it was fairly fast flowing, and although Iā€™d had to pass a swimming test on the Isle of Man to become commissioned, nobody believed me when we had to do so many lengths of this swimming pool in full equipment, I said I went to the bottom and walked, pushing up for air now and again ā€” but I did. I could not swim. I never learned to swim. I knew that if I got into that river, I probably would not survive, so I decided that weā€™d have one more try to break out, it took four goesā€¦ and they gave me a DSO. I cannot give more detail of this event. I just donā€™t talk about it. There are certain things you hear of in the Army which are heroic in the true sense, but a lot of other things are as much due to one fear being greater than the other.

'This story was submitted to the Peopleā€™s War site by Genevieve Tudor of the 91Čȱ¬ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf Anthony Cave-Browne-Cave and has been added to the site with. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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