Military & Aerospace

Burma to Japan with Azad Hind-II
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Issue Book Excerpt: Burma to Japan with Azad Hind | Date : 18 Dec , 2010

The first two months of our training were devoted to toughening us up and putting us through ground subjects such as the principles of flight, meteorology, aero-engines and some Japanese military history and literature. There were extensive classes held on the various arms and ammunition and drill with the Japanese sword which is the hallmark of an officer. We were taught kendo, the art of sword fighting and there were competitions organised among us.

The daily routine was fairly similar to that of the Preparatory School, but the going was ten times as tough. After having undergone this kind of strenuous training, the routine at the Indian Air Force Academy was honestly a piece of cake.

Ramesh Benegal, recipient of the Maha Vir Chakra, was born in Burma and was seventeen when the Japanese captured British-occupied Burma. He tells this extraordinary, first-person story of his career with the Indian National Army in Burma and Japan in the year from 1941 to 1945.

Community bathing was allowed only a once a week at the Academy baths, and was a special occasion for us. Most Indians are accustomed to daily baths and we had to get used to this change. Admittedly it was terribly cold, and we were not unduly keen to undress to have a bath. But once we relaxed in the steaming bath, we just did not want to get out of it.

We were served reasonable helpings of food, but it was the same unpolished rice with bowls of shiru. This was supplemented with boiled or fried fish or octopus meat, a few vegetables and the now favourite daicon or pickled radish. We acquired a taste for it and forgot how it smelt the first time we were served it on the ship. We had three meals a day and the menu stayed unchanged. This was also the first time that any of us had tasted octopus meat. It was awful, it tasted and felt like chewing gum. The best food was fish. Because we now had quantities of food and generous portions, we were not hungry in the way we had been at the School, but our palates had undoubtedly lost a sense of taste. Daicon was so unlike the radish we were used to in Burma and Malaya. These radishes were very large, about the size of a leg of mutton. We were told this growth was achieved because they made copious use of human manure in the farms.

By the third month of our training, things started to look up. We started learning the art of gliding. Because there was a need to conserve fuel during the war, training was initially restricted to the use of gliders to give the new recruit an introduction to learning the technique of landing an aircraft. We were required to carry out 34 landings each before graduating on to the power-driven aircraft, the Aka Tombo.

Burma_to_japan_pilot_uniforIn the initial stages, gliding was extremely hard work. The glider was held fast by a rope tied to a stake in the ground. The front end was hooked to two long elastic ropes; eight of us pulled this rope until it was stretched fully. Then the ninth let go the restraining cord at the back, and the tenth, who was in the seat of the open cockpit glider, took off and was airborne. Pressing a pedal released the hook of the elastic ropes and enabled us to execute a landing.One day our sergeant who had been watching us for months, thought that the whole thing was easy and he decided to have a go at flying a glider. He almost killed himself. He had no idea of the controls and when he got airborne he took off vertically, rose twenty-five feet and then came crashing down. He was lucky not to have sustained any serious injury, but the glider was a write-off. The man got into serious trouble for this unauthorised flight.

Air Raids Begin

It was during the final stages of our gliding course that the first of the heavy air raids started. Initially they were restricted to night raids only, which meant that we spent the major part of the night in the underground shelters. This was torture as far as we concerned. As soon as the air raid warning sounded we had to get out of our warm beds and our four-blanket covers, change into our uniforms (not forgetting to tie the puttees) grab our rifles and rush out into the bitter sub-zero cold—and all this in pitch darkness. However, when the frequency of the raids increased in the later stages, this became routine and most of us could have done it in our sleep.

Until March 1945, all American air raids were directed mainly at industrial and defence targets, and life in the cities was normal.

Strategic bombing of the Japanese mainland was a difficult proposition for the United States in the early phase of the War, mainly because of the distance from their air bases. After mid-1944, the Americans managed, step by step, to recapture the island bases of Guam, Saipan and Tinian. Distance was still a problem. Then in early 1945, the Marianas became their main airbase as the tide slowly turned in favour of the Americans, and more and more island territories were captured by them. Another factor in their favour was the amazing capability and capacity of the American aircraft industry. It was recorded after the War that nearly 2,000 B-29 aircraft were required to keep about 550 of them in the air at a time. And I am an eyewitness to the fact that they did send more than that number in raids over Japan.

The B-29 Super Fortress was a beauty to look at as it flew gracefully on its deadly missions, bristling with gun turrets in its tail, belly and topside. We were witness to many a Japanese fighter being shot out of the sky when it went closer to an intercept, but very soon the Japanese pilots must have devised new attack techniques, because we now saw the reverse. We witnessed a lone B-29 bomber being hounded by a pack of tiny-looking fighters and it went down in flames. This happened many times. It was only when the B-29s started coming en masse, escorted by large numbers of naval fighters from the US Navy aircraft carriers, that the air superiority of the Americans became an established fact. This was in the final stages of the War.

Also read: Burma to Japan with Azad Hind-I

Until March 1945, all American air raids were directed mainly at industrial and defence targets, and life in the cities was normal. But on 9 March, a night to remember with sadness, wave after wave of B-29 bombers attacked the capital Tokyo, and to their everlasting shame, dropped many thousands of incendiaries in the most densely populated areas of the city. It created intense havoc among the poor civilians. Tokyo Radio reported large-scale deaths and injuries as the people were not prepared for such attacks. Not satisfied with the gargantuan killing of innocent civilians, more such raids followed till the end of the May that year.

Between March and May, Tokyo Radio reported that over 750,000 dwellings had been destroyed (it must be remembered that most of the houses were made of wood and paper) and over 3 million people made homeless. All this in Tokyo alone. They did the same in Nagoya, Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka and other cities. There is a saying that everything is fair in love and war, but this was impossible to understand and forgive. Of course the ultimate infamy was the use of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but we will come to that later.

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