VJ Day 80: 'Forgotten hero' who survived deadly Burma jungles finally recognised

One of Britain’s ‘forgotten army’ heroes will finally be recognised for his extraordinary bravery this week when he meets the King and Queen.

Charlie Richards, 104, survived a “living hell” in World War IIand is one of only two men from his special forces unit still alive. Back home the Chindits were largely ignored as they carried out dangerous ambushes on the Japanese, deep in the jungles of Burma, now known as Myanmar. But on Friday his bravery will be revealed to the nation when he attends a national service of commemoration hosted by the Royal British Legion, alongside 32 other veterans including Sid Machin, 101, his only surviving comrade from the Chindits.

It marks the anniversary of VJ Day, when, after six years, the war finally ended after Japan surrendered. Charlie says he fears 'it is happening again" and urges "lunatics Trump and Putin to bash their heads together and see sense."

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Charlie was 19 when he got his call up papers on the same day as Horace ‘son’ Johnson who became his best friend. The boys from Kettering, Northants, went through training together and Charlie was best man at ‘Son’s' wedding during a couple weeks leave .

They served in the 7th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment and ended up picked for the special operations Chindit troops and were told it would be an 'adventure of a lifetime’.

Charlie told The Mirror: “Our parents had been notified by the War Office. Your son's safe, but you're not hearing from him for six months.”

It was an adventure, setting off for their assignment, it was the first time either of the teenagers had been on a plane, an American Dakota. But it was the first of many “heartstopping” moments together as they hit an air pocket, plummeting 1,500 feet in seconds.

They were relieved to finally land, but that relief was shortlived as they disembarked in the dead of night on a tiny, makeshift landing strip carved out of the dense Burmese jungle.

The “danger was everywhere”, Charlie remember how the Japanese "would try stealth at night but yell ‘Johnny, where are you’ in the day.”

Charlie survived this horrendous six-month secret mission but many fell, including newlywed Son. Out of the 400 men in his column, only 140 made it home unscathed. He tears up as he recalls how Son perished just a few feet away from him: He told how two or three Japanese soldiers came down the track they were watching. "We had people in position but you wouldn’t have a proper view of them.

“They got into firing distance and Son was on the Bren gun. He pressed the trigger and it had a misfire. The drill with a Bren gun is you knock it forward to remove the magazine, to see what happened.

“But when Son moved himself and raised his body up to get the magazine off, (they) shot him. It must have been a lucky shot. He must have been killed instantly" there was "a little hole in his forehead. “

He shakes his head, adding: “We never got a shot at them at all.” Son was buried in a shallow grave, with his body to b e collected at a later date and brought home. Charlie says: “One minute he was there, the next he was gone. It was the hardest thing I ever did was to tell his wife that he had been killed.”

Remembering the horrifying conditions, he survived. Charlie says: “ Our first close encounter with the Japanese was dead ones really. Walking in the dusty forest we saw a stream and it looked inviting, we rushed over to it and got our hands in. Then the officer shouted ‘Don't drink that bloody water'." He explained the officer had discovered three dead Japanese soldiers further up the stream.

But he was too late, the thirsty troops had already downed the toxic liquid. They had been issued water-purifying pills to use before drinking and Charlie says: “I whipped out the special tablets. It didn’t kill me - as you can see.”

Then when he thought it couldn't get any worse, they were stationed at a wired stronghold called White City, named because of all the white parachutes hanging from the trees from the supply drops. It frequently came under relentless fire from the Japanese.

There were dead bodies all over White City, he said, all attracting flies and pests “It was just like being in an electricity power station, humming continually,” he said.. The large numbers of decomposing bodies of Japanese soldiers lay outside the barbed wire perimeter fence, which was also strewn with mines, it was too dangerous to risk moving the corpses

He said “the whole place was getting so putrid that pilots of incoming planes said they had no need of maps for the last few miles, they could smell their way in.” As a result of these conditions the men started to get struck down with sickness.

“Some even resorted to throwing away their trousers and using lightweight blankets as kilts. We were a ragged, bearded, gaunt and grubby looking column. “ He said “men were pushed to the limits of endurance” with malaria rife. They even turned yellow from the anti-malaria medication.

The Chindit offensive, code named Operation Thursday, had started in earnest on March 5th 1944. Before leaving they had been issued with white nylon scarves printed with a map of Northern Burma.

“These were known as Panic maps, for use if we got separated from our units. I am glad to say that I never had to use mine, as the scale was one in two million!" he wrote in his memoirs, he'd written for his family with the help of his late wife Jean.

But he told the Mirror how their most valuable assets were the mules who flew in with them, to help carry the loads in harsh terrain. Charlie lights up when he remembers the animals, throwing his head back and chuckling: “They either made you laugh or you wanted to cry.

“We’d lift the Panniers (saddlebags) onto the harness and try and tighten the straps but the mules always got one on us. They used to extend their tummies until they were bulging, making us think it was tight. But then they went limp and panniers would end up underneath his belly and one on top.

“We were all embarrassed. Their back legs would go up in the air and the tent pegs went flying, the tents were collapsing. It was just like an American rodeo show.”

The unusual medical care they received also gives Charlie the giggles: “I had a sore leg, a boil, which had turned septic and looked very nasty. I went to the doctor and said: ‘I hope you can do something with it, Doctor. I don't want to go and have the Yanks fly me out because I shan't get back with the lads here’.

“He said, we'll have a look at it and so he got his scissors and the next thing I know is he’s pinched it together and snipped the top off it. He dressed it up nicely and said ‘tell you what Richards, to give you a bit of rest I will let you ride my pony’. ‘ Oooh lovely,’ I thought the war’s taken a good turn.

“I got rid of that 70lb pack but then I got round to thinking if there’s any snipers around and they see me on a horse, I was a sitting duck. So I told the doc I was feeling much better.”. Charlie recalls one of the biggest pests were the leeches: “One morning I woke up to find that two of them had crawled into my mouth during the night and were attached to the inside of my cheek. I got a load of salt and spat them out.”

Charlies says other than the blistering heat, he felt the lowest when the monsoons arrived and has described how death became "an everyday occurrence, with bodies to bury almost every evening.

"These bred all kinds of diseases, some of which killed in hours. After a few weeks of this it made you wonder if it would be your shoulder that death would be tapping on next. ”

Some men were even killed by “free drops" when supplies were thrown out of planes without parachutes. They were crucial supplies as during the monsoons they were left without food for ten days. One soldier was killed by a folded tarpaulin sheet.

When Charlie finally escaped the jungle he was sent for training to go on a seaborne mission called ‘Operation Downfall’. The invasion of Japan.

That all changed when Charlie was queuing outside the mess tent.

“ It was breakfast time, and we were waiting to be served. The cook, well he called himself a cook, came out and he's waving a bit of paper in his hand saying; 'Hey it's all over chaps, it's all over,' The Yanks dropped something called the amotic bomb.’ He wasn't the cleverest of people.”

The war was virtually over.

When Charlie finally returned home he admits it was “rather emotional” and, 80 years on, his eyes well with tears, as he says quietly that his mum hardly recognised him: ‘You’re not my son’, she quipped when he came home all skin and bones.

On Friday Charlie will meet fellow surviving Chindit, Sidney Machin, who landed behind enemy lines in a glider. Chindit is a name derived from Burmese for a mythical lion, which guards temples. But no lions have more courage than our Chindits.