UNDER FIRE

Coming head-to-head with the enemy is the quintessential war experience. That’s when you find out what you’re really made of. My grandfather was a very resourceful man. And out in the wilderness of the Burmese jungle, he proved it.

  On that fateful day, having driven the whole day, at six o’clock at night, my grandfather thankfully got to base camp – only to be sent back.

“Waran! I’ve run out of petrol. You need to drive to the POL Point and get it tonight!” said the Commanding Officer. The Petrol, Oil and Lubricant Point or POL Points were the basic refueling stops for the Allied Forces in Burma, set up by the army to make sure that the all the cogs in the machinery of war moved with well-oiled precision. As the Quartermaster, all supplies were my grandfather’s responsibility. So when the petrol ran out, he was the one who had to drive back 50 miles to the last POL Point for it. They needed that petrol- they had to start driving the next morning.

He gathered a ‘working party’ - a group of men to do the heavy lifting- which consisted of four men, and set off to get the necessary fuel.

This time, however, there was another, unforeseen danger.

They had driven about 20 miles when the air was rent with the rattle of machine-gun fire. The staccato bursts came from Japanese troops who were hiding in the trees, waiting to pick off any enemies who might passing by on that road.

“Stop, stop!” said the co-driver, who was fortunately a man experienced in the ways of war. “We must stop, and hide, so that the enemy thinks we’re dead and moves on,” he said. They stopped hurriedly, scrambled out of the vehicle and dived into the shallow ditch-like trenches dug on the side of the road. At that point, my grandfather confessed, he thought it was all over for him.

Or almost.

My grandfather was never the sort of man to give up.

In tense silence, crouched in the trenches, the men waited breathlessly for a sign that it was safe to move. My grandfather had his service revolver on him which had five rounds. He fired five shots, one after another, to lure the enemy out.

Nothing.

He and his men made their way cautiously back to their vehicle. No sooner had they started the engine, than - rat-a-tat-tat! The staccato of machine guns spat fire with redoubled fury.

The truck standing conspicuously in the middle of the road presented a large and easy target to the enemy. The men in the truck scrambled out and hid in the trenches once again.

The service revolver was now empty, and there was no more ammunition left.

Then my grandfather had an idea. In one of those happy strokes of luck that came so often to my grandfather, he had held on to his haversack while making a hasty exit from the truck. Being the Quartermaster, his haversack held, among other things, matches – and Bicat Strips. Bicat Strips were used as training ammunition. Their chief feature was that they went off with a real bang. With nothing else to hand and nothing to lose, my grandfather lit them up like firecrackers and tossed them towards the enemy. The Bicat Strips made an enormous noise, and the Japanese, believing that their enemy had brought out the machine guns too, turned tail and retreated, with many shouted curses and threats.

They then went on to the POL Point at Mile No. 50, filled the steel drums in the vehicle with petrol and drove all the way back to base camp. It was 6 am by the time he returned. The CO (Commanding Officer) upon hearing what had gone down during what was meant to be a routine refueling trip, commended him warmly on his presence of mind.

That was how my grandfather won a gun-battle against the Japanese without ammunition, and came back not only alive, but unscathed.

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