Dedicated to Ben Parkinson

[selby]

My father had the honour of sitting in the next wheelchair place in the west stand to Ben.
This is his story that if you have some spare time Rovers fans may be interested in.
He was asked to put his memories of war action down as part of the 50yrs rememerance for the second world war.

[Chris Black come back]

Wow. Read every word of that from start to finish. What an amazing read.

Easy for folk to forget that ordinary lads were just shipped off around the globe and expected to serve as soldiers, when they had never touched a gun in their lives.

From Moss to Burma. What a journey and what bravery from your dad.

[scaley back rover]

thats an amazing bit of personal history captured in a well writen piece.

Lest we forget

[Sprotyrover]

 I have got 2 battalions history,they were mainly from South Yorks and the Ponte area.Your grandad has omitted the Sittang bridge fiasco when they and the Gurkha Brigade was caught on the wrong side of the 1100 yard wide river when the bridge was blown.
It was a railway bridge packed with sleepers to take trucks. A large fleet of Sampams  held on the safe side of the river were destroyed
The Koyli and Ghurkas were stuck few could swim,long after the war ended the brush on the East bank was cleared to build a new bridge and large numbers of Koyli skeletons were found  entwined in a death struggle with Japanese bodies!
Some 250 were lost at the Sittang!
A few years ago I met a lady whose husband was a Sergeant in 2 Koyli
When hostilities started. 5 weeks later he was a Major.!
They had lost so many officers!
He was then shot in the jaw the surgeon went round everybody and collected Florins,melted em down and used the Silver to repair his jaw.

She walked out of Burma (900 miles) with their 9 year old son!
The retreat of 2 Koyli (1375) miles is the longest fighting retreat of any British army unit.

Sgt Major Housley accordingto the history was retreatng over a clearing from pursuing JapNese 2 japs jumped a squadie and killed him Housley ran up grabbed them both by the scruffs of their Necks and smashed their skulls in whilst he was doing this a Jap officer ran up and beheaded him with a Samuari sword!

A fantastic feat of endurance by men from our area probably unsurpassed in the annals of British military history and virtually no one in the town knows about it!

[Draytonian III]

I cant download the file ,is there any way that I could read about the gentleman

[selby]

Sportyrover dad was on the last train( a hospital train ) that went over the bridge and lost many close comrades and therfore could not talk about it without welling up.
    Hope you enjoyed the article I have always been very proud of him and his friends.
    I only met two of his comrades when a boy and met them at a Rovers vBristol Rovers cup replay in the fifties in the car park before the match.
    It was completely unplanned and the resulting fuss they made caused quite a stir in thecar park before the match

[Sprotyrover]

Yes it is excellent has he had the guys see him from the Archives to record his story?

By the way when they got to their journeys end at Coxs Bazaar of the 89 of them left  83 were pronounced medically incapacitated and that was their war over! One man Corporal Jack Howson a Donny lad went back into Burma a fortnight later with 250 commandos! He won the  Military Medal.
A few bits...... They had lost their Vickers Heavy Machine guns to an A /A unit,they had no entrenching tools,No Metal helmets.
They were re equipped to fight as a mobile unit in Ethiopia as your grandad pointed out there was only one road to go up in Burma.The Japs got I front of them and built sturdy wooden road blocks which had to be stormed a la bayonet! They would retreat a mile or two further and find another and another blocking their way! Eventually they gave up their trucks and took what they could carry into the Jungle.
We lost 30,000 Dead in Burma the Japanese lost 180,000.

[roversdude]

Wish I'd got my grandfather to write down his memoirs, he saw action in navy, came home on leave and his house on Weston Rd was bombed- once recovered he was back on board
I have his medals from WW2 and my great grandfathers from WW1
Excellent read Selby and Sproty

[Hag]

Great read, thanks for sharing.

[selby]

Sporty this is a copy written for the war memories archive, unfortunatly dad died last Tuesday and had the greatest respect for Ben.
  My family and I hope that Ben has as long and happy life as dad

[roversdude]

Selby sorry to hear that thoughts are with you
Sounded quite a character

[selby]

94 downloads I hope you all enjoy the story

[Rovers Return]

Read it all. You must be very, very proud?

[keyser_soze]

Amazing stuff, cheers.