My father, Cyril Tomalin (known as Bud or Tom) served for 10 years with the 1st Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in India before the 2nd World War and in Burma during the War. He was involved in the retreat from Prome back to India via the Chindwin River in 1942. He was a PT instructor with the Battalion.
He would not talk about his dreadful experiences to us children and I have only lately been able to piece together part of his story from my Mother, his Army records and other records on the internet. He did not claim his War medals and it was only after he died that my Mother sent for them.
What I have discovered is that he joined the Regiment in London on the 13th Nov 1935 with his friend Lawrence William Viner 3245258 and served until 30th of May 1945. He spent most of his service life stationed with the Regiment in India. He did not altogether enjoy Army life and on telling his father this his father offered to buy him out. Tom would not accept this though and said he had made his bed so must lie in it.
He and his Battalion were amongst the first troops to be sent into Burma to deal with the invading Japanese but found them a more formidable enemy than expected. On the 28th of Feb 1942, he was threatened with court-martial, his crime being to use wood from the side of an Army lorry for a make-shift cross for his best friend Laurie, who had died beside him.
Although there are several references to the Retreat from Burma, I get the impression it was not so well organised as it sounded. Certainly, my father was separated from the main body and had to make his own way back from Prome to the Indian border, using his skill and the stars to guide him. He was leading a small group of Cameronians and, at one point, one of their number, Charles Connor 10602700, said he thought they were going the wrong way and left to make his own way. Unfortunately, he was captured by the Japanese and ended up on the Burma Railway where he died on the 8th of Apr 1944. When he reached the Chindwin River it was heavily swollen with the rains. The Japanese were firing on them from the jungle and many soldiers lay dead on the banks or drowned in the river. My father had the foresight to collect as many water bottles as he could from the bodies strewn on the bank and emptied them out before tying them around his waist. Entering the river upstream and with the aid of the empty bottles, he managed to cross the river on the current and then had to scale the far bank with the aid of ropes sent down by friendly forces.
When he reached India, he was immediately hospitalised. He weighed half his normal body weight and had Malaria, Dysentery and was physically and mentally scarred and exhausted. He was then evacuated back to London and spent some time in Hammersmith Hospital, where my Mother was one of the nurses who cared for him. The rest, as they say, is history.
He was, however, to suffer from recurring bouts of Malaria and nightmares from the mental scars for the rest of his life. He died in 1984 from lung cancer from heavy smoking, which was the only thing that kept him sane but was to kill him in the end.
The 1st Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) was based in India on the outbreak of war on 3rd of September 1939. When it re-entered India on 26th of May 1942, the battalion had been reduced to 14 officers and 120 other ranks. The Cameronians lost a total of 1,222 men during World War II.
From Lieutenant General Sir William Slim KCB, CBE, DSO, MC
Commanding 14th Army:
"The retreat from Burma in 1942 was as severe an ordeal as any army could be called to endure, but the British and Indian Units of the Burma Corps, fighting and falling back and turning to fight again and again, lived up to the great traditions of their Services. Unsurpassed among them in that unquenchable spirit, which lifts men above fatigue and disaster and is the essence of a Regiment was the 1st Battalion The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles).
Battered, exhausted, hungry, reduced by casualties to a fraction of their strength, they never lost their fighting spirit or their indomitable cheerfulness. Whether they were six hundred or one hundred they were always the 1st Battalion The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)."
(Signed) WJ Slim Lieutenant General.
