1b Clanbrassil Terrace

Clanbrassil Road

Marino

Holywood

Co. Down

N. Ireland

BT18 0AP

7th March 1979

Dear David,

As I have a strong suspicion that I’m going to ramble on a bit I’m dispensing with formality and starting this on larger paper than my proper stuff for letters.

I was quite delighted to get your letter today reporting all well with your parents. The operation explains why no letter at the turn of the year so I’ll hope for one in due course. More than one of my older contemporaries at the local golf club I frequent have had the same operation lately, and all have emerged fitter and ‘younger’ for it.

It’s not often that I have not wholeheartedly approved of your father’s actions but I must now admit that I did have serious misgivings when he sold the home near Winchester and moved, not into a smaller one, but into what at best is ‘temporary’ accommodation subject to the whims and fallibility of others, be they individuals or organisations.

Rightly or wrongly some seven years ago when at 61 I retired finally, I decided the top priority was to own the roof over my head at all costs and never to let myself be at someone else’s mercy. So far I’ve held out though this old house is rather large and I’m all alone in it. To move would cost me too much leaving nothing on which to live, so here I stay and intend to do so until carted out feet first (if I can) no matter how decrepit I have to let it become. Fate may decree otherwise!

I’m not the least surprised that you’ve heard little or nothing from your father about his past for two main reasons. Firstly in my experience he was never a very communicative man, only very rarely did he ever let go to me in absolute privacy and admit to any personal feelings. Those very few times were brief, terse and oh! so meaningful – moments to treasure and to keep quiet about as confidences not to be abused. The second one I suspect is much the same as with me – and doubtless many others who were in Jap hands. Time does not diminish one’s feelings of horror and disgust and, yes, fear of those brutal little men and any recall of those days often results in the screaming heeby-jeebys in the middle of the night. My (late) wife learned to accept them, bless her – now no-one hears.

However I feel I should give you just a few thumb-nail sketches to illustrate the sort of man I found your father to be – I’d like you to know but would prefer you didn’t tell him as I feel he would only be embarrassed and perhaps hurt; but first I must digress to put you in the picture personality-wise, and perhaps help you to see how things were in those campaign days of ‘41/2 in Malaya.

Your father then was a ‘blooded’ soldier with WWI and frontier experience and honours from it. I was just 30, raw, inexperienced and I’m sure far too cocky and know-all for the job I was called on to do. Our only other staff officer ‘Podge’ Howard was 31, a chartered accountant of some brilliance but no real military experience but the salt of the earth and worth his considerable (18 stone!) weight in gold. With this raw team your father achieved the impossible – he commanded ALL the guns in Malaya and Singapore from the front, and as a gunner force we all arrived intact as fighting units within the final Singapore perimeter. Both the 11 and 9 Ind Divs were decimated, nine times out of ten the only rearguard in retreat was RA, infantry having vanished, but we all got back and were all firing till we only had left 5 rds per gun and the last 2 were used to destroy all guns despite Jap orders to the contrary – the one and only order I gave on purely my own initiative after a broad hint from your father where my duty lay. We had no air, no radio (only telephones), no tanks, only 2 pdr A/Tk guns, and no properly trained units except our one regular Regt, 5 Fd. I as BMRA personally sited every single gun on many occasions and had to show GPOs how to do their job but despite that all Regts did a marvellous job with typical TA spirit and dedication. Have you got the picture? No Staff College luxuries but ad-hoc improvisation all the way with inadequate everything except guts and courage.

Many many times I had orders from your father to get this or that from somewhere and every time I ran into obstructionism until I uttered the magic words, “Brigadier Goodman wants it now.” I got it! His name was enough to unlock all doors, all the way back to Singapore itself.

One day I was returning from North (front) to Corps HQ when I met your father at a road junction. He briefly told me that there was trouble on the coast, he was on his way there and he wanted a Battalion. I found one and sent it and continued to Corps HQ to be attacked by a furious Brig GS (a stupid so-and-so) who tried to put me under arrest for insubordination in sending a battalion without his authority. Unluckily for him the Corps Comd, Lt-Gen ‘Piggy’ Heath overheard – pacified the BGS and took me into his office where he got the story from me and said I’d done quite right as anything Goodman wanted he got. A gentle request to go easy on the BGS, “poor chap” and a good stiff drink concluded the meeting. ‘Piggy’ Heath (whom I’d known for some years) had on his desk, framed, two newspaper headlines dated the day he arrived in Malaya. One read ‘Bottle-scarred veteran arrives from the Middle East’, the other ‘Battle-scarred ditto – ’. His own comment was “Got me taped, haven’t they?” Grand chap.

There were other lighter moments. Your father and I alternated up front and back at Corps HQ, usually two days up, two back. One evening when I was back he phoned in that his car had been hit so he wanted another overnight. I nearly sent him a Rolls Royce commandeered from a Chinese millionaire but luckily didn’t as it was just too big and unhandy. However our boozy ranker Corps HQ Camp Comdt had nicked for himself a very nice Ford V8 saloon which I felt would do just nicely. So I plied the Camp Comdt with whisky in the Mess while my Sgt (a Southern Irishman of course) repainted the Ford, fitted RA signs and a red star and all and sent it up in a matter of hours. Next morning I had a very sore head but the Camp Comdt never found out where his pet car had gone!

One day your father, unusually apoplectic, told me that he had to ask me to accompany him on an unpleasant duty – no explanation, but I could see that he was in some distress. The A/Tk Regtl Commander was an old friend of your father’s – since Shop days I think – and it was to him we went. In my presence, and no-one else’s, your father coolly, calmly and quite brutally told his friend that his incompetence in commanding his unit was criminal and his personal behaviour so irresponsible that were there time he would be court-martialled for his sins. I’ve never heard anything so direct and realised at once how difficult it was for both of them. On the way back your father apologised to me for having to have me there but he did have to have a witness. I’ve often wondered since would I in similar circumstances have the courage to do my duty as he did that day. Think about it David, select a friend and see yourself doing that!

Somewhat earlier I think, when the situation on the ground was very, very unstable and everyone’s nerves were on edge, your father took me round the forward gun positions which he toured ever so slowly and to my amazement was being thoroughly nasty-minded, criticising rather sharply all sorts of minor faults even down to dirty boots – in the middle of a battle! I was furious as the chaps had fought hard and well and lacked proper food and sleep. Then the penny dropped and I fell behind to tie a shoelace or something and overheard a gunner who had just been ticked off for not shaving turn to his mate and say, “We’re OK chaps, the Old Man is here”. What a man! Did I mention we were being shelled at the time? Desultorily, but the odd one was near.

Perhaps my most treasured memory is of the day I went out from HQ in Fort Canning to brief my own personal best friend who had arrived as BMRA 18 Div and was then working to my own old 9 Ind Div Regts under a TA Brig. My friend was being awkward and wanted orders in writing and his Brig was even more awkward and officious so I politely (only just) asked him to put a call through to your father at Force HQ which he did. After a brief belly-ache from the TA Brig there was an uneasy silence then I was asked to pick up a second phone. Your father checked that I was on the line then quite clearly said “Brig X – I have no idea what orders my BM is giving, I don’t care what they are, you will take them verbally, there will be no confirmation in writing, you will obey them – good morning!” The look in that TA Brig’s eyes will never leave me and from then on he couldn’t have been more cooperative. I think that was the supreme moment in my Military career – I had your father’s trust!

Gen Percival came up front on several occasions to confer with Corps and Div Comds only – plus your father. He wouldn’t go unless I went too so I was the only one below Brig rank! And much to my surprise Gen Percival used to ask my views, and listened. Can you see David why I hold your father in the very highest regard – he knew well that we were a team and that to do his will I had to be fully in every picture.

He was not an easy man to serve, no doubt that rings a bell with his son! His standards are so high that mere mortals had difficulty living up to them but in action, when the chips are down, such a man is worth untold riches and I feel that in that Campaign he showed the highest qualities and achieved the impossible without proper recognition. I was hopping mad when a chair-borne gunner Brig got a CBE for failing to turn his coast guns round to fire landwards – it wasn’t till I got there (with two years’ coast defence design work behind me in India) that they were turned round, and fired under my personal direction, 15" and all. Most effective too, a 15" AP shell (there was only one HE round!) under a train burrowed its way underground and eventually came up with most of the train as well. I had the observer on a direct line to my office. One day a 6" emplacement came up on my phone and a Sgt on the gun reported the Japs were swarming all over his sunken gun pit – then suddenly he said “hold a moment” – then there was a shattering bang after which the Sgt reported: “A Nip was peering down the spout – I think he’s lost his head.” I managed to get some infantry to get the crew out.

At times, several times, your father was very difficult to manage, to get him to eat or sleep was beyond both Podge and me but we had an ally in his Batman, Gnr Swingler, who had remarkable powers over him and treated him like a naughty child. It really was funny to see Swingler sit him down and make him eat then (almost) put him to bed, protesting vainly.

It was one evening when Swingler was doing his stuff, because your father was dead-beat, that a crisis seemed to be arising – no word at all from a Bde that should have been withdrawing. With Swingler’s help we dissuaded your father from going up to see for himself and I went instead, on a solo motorbike with no maps or papers and a revolver only, just in case! At Bde HQ I found everyone dead drunk – Brig, BM, SC, staff and all! For half-an-hour I commanded a Bde, got out the withdrawal orders and called in the Gunner Lt-Col to take over, which he did. I’m not sure if I every told your father exactly what I found – I think not as there seemed no point in crying over spilt milk so to speak and he had quite enough on his plate anyway. That Brig was later relieved of his command so I must have told someone. I suppose one’s memory isn’t what it was 38 years ago.

Thinking back to those days one can’t help wondering if we’ll have to go into WW III as poorly equipped, relatively speaking, vis-à-vis our enemies, as we had to in 1939-42 – it’s a sobering thought and one which I’m sure concerns you personally more than most in your present job. Doubtless your experience over here as CO will have given you the same disrespect for politicians as we of the older generation had in our day. Perhaps ‘disrespect’ is too mild a word?

On arrival in Malaya in September 1941 one of my first tasks was to go to the NE coast at Kelantan to find a suitable range for guns. I motored to a deserted beach for a picnic lunch before calling at Bde HQ. There I learnt that the beach was undefended as ‘inaccessible’ – on paper – and also that the two battalion fronts were 7,000 yards per battalion. (Text book says 700 yards at most.) You can imagine my thoughts as I did my sums.

One final thumbnail sketch. On 8th December 1941 the Japs attacked Malaya; your father had just arrived back at Kuala Lumpur from a tour of Kelantan – KL was bombed, one landed in the back door of our office – we were safely underground. There was I, a regular soldier with nearly 13 years’ service, at war for the first time, all keyed up to fight a battle – the real thing at last. I turned to that seasoned warrior, medals and all, beside me and said, “What do we do now, Sir?” The answer brought me down to earth with a bang. “We’ve done all we can do. Let’s hope it’s enough so now we’ll go to bed and get some sleep – we’ll need it.” And so we did and how right your father was! Incidentally that evening I’d taken an hour or so off to go to the pictures and saw Target for Tonight. We were – that same night!

I hope all this hasn’t bored you, David – somehow I think it hasn’t and I hope that you’ll never have to prove yourself as your father undoubtedly did; but should the occasion arise you have a very, very high standard, the very highest, to live up to.

Another thought – as Commandant, School of Artillery you might be interested in your father’s final set-up at Singapore. We had some 400 guns in action. Our office was in Fort Canning – I and your father in one big room and a staff lieutenant, Peter Trapnell, hidden away in a small room with 1:25,000 map of the Island on which was plotted every battery with its arc of fire. Direct line from me to Peter – lines from me through our own exchange to each Div or independent Brig HQ and several others as well. Your father swanned around gathering information and feeding it to me, often before passing it to the underground Force HQ. He or I decided on targets, I called Peter and asked what guns could bear, then told him what fire to bring down, put him onto Exchange and he issued the orders. Often we had an OP reporting direct to me. It worked superbly. I still go and stay with Peter at Bideford when I go over the water – grand chap. Undertaker by trade! Tough guy, rowed in the lifeboat when young!

Yours ever,

Jim

P.S.

Just remembered a post-capture incident which perhaps you could use to lighten a lecture on fire-for-effect – to a selected audience of preferably male students. 

Our Regular Regt, 5 Fd, was commanded by a tough Regular CO, whose private life did not accord with your father’s rather strict views on morality. This Regt was at Kuantan on the mid-east coast where only token resistance could be offered to the landing Japs, so the withdrawal was smoothly effected and the Bde Gp spent the night across the wide, deep, swift river.

CO 5 Fd with Bde Comd’s help got together the Kuantan chief surveyor, medical officer and policeman who between them plotted on a 10"-mile map each of the many brothels. 5 Fd spent the night with their 24 4.5" howitzers one behind the other on the roadside, engaging each brothel in turn. CO 5 Fd argued, as no doubt he was well qualified to do, “What do thousands of Jap soldiers want after weeks and weeks at sea?” 

After capture I was sent into Singapore from Changi with a working party one day and, as was usual practice, engaged a Jap officer in conversation to distract him from what my men were not doing. He spoke good English, was a gunner, and had landed at Kuantan. He told me that they suffered only light casualties during the landing but had lost over 2,000 men that night due to shelling. Q.E.D.