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Winifred (Winnie) BURDETT was born on 9 Feb 1912 in Denby
Dale, Yorkshire. She was baptized on 25 Mar 1912 in Skelmanthorpe,
Yorkshire. She was baptised at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in
Skelmanthorpe. Between Feb 1926 and Nov 1929 she was a worker at Zacchaeus Hinchliffe's
Mill in Denby Dale, Yorkshire. Between 1929 and 1937 she was a Housekeeper
for the Burdett family in Denby Dale, Yorkshire. Between 1943 and
1945 she was a Weaver in Spring Grove, Huddersfield. This was part
of the War Effort and she was sent out to work as a 'childless wife' She died
of old age and mild dementia with hypertension on 4 Jul 2003 in Newsome Nursing
Home, Huddersfield, Yorkshire. She was cremated on 18 Jul 2003 in
Huddersfield, Yorkshire. She was described as having curly hair.
Winifred
(Winnie) BURDETT and Ronald (Ronnie) WALSHAW were married on 23 Oct 1937 in Denby,
Yorkshire. Ronnie met Winnie when they were 14. His mother, Norah,
was very keen to help him to save for his wedding and she opened a separate Coop
Divi Number. One week she used her number for the family shopping and the alternate
week she used the one for Ronnie. They lived in a rented terrace cottage in
Bank Bottom, Shelley, Huddersfield, Yorkshire in 1937/38. They lived
in 60 Heymoor Common, Shepley, Huddersfield, Yorkshire between 1938 and 1961.
Within a year they had saved enough to buy their own home. Winnie’s father,
who always rented his homes, told them that it would be “a millstone round
your necks”. However, they paid cash in full for their terraced home at
Heymoor Common, Shepley, Yorkshire (Later the address was 60, Heymoor Common
and now 60, Abbey Road). The row was split into two sets of three houses because
of the slope of the land. Access was through the front gardens and front doors
or via two communal walkways (one at each end) to the back doors of each set
of three properties. Their house was on the left of the lower set of three houses.
The house had three bedrooms upstairs and it was altered to include an upstairs
bathroom. Downstairs was a lounge and a kitchen with a Rayburn stove, a cellar
and a scullery. Outside were a coal shed and a tool shed (which had been the
outside toilet). (There was still an “ash pit” for rubbish into which
the contents of the right hand house’s toilet went.) They lived a 3 bedroom
detached house with orchard in 28 Far Bank, Shelley, Huddersfield, Yorkshire
between 1961 and 1985. They lived a bungalow in 6 Grampian Close,
Shelley, Huddersfield, Yorkshire between 1985 and 2002.
Ronald (Ronnie)
WALSHAW (son of John Edward WALSHAW and Norah HEPPLESTONE) was born on 24
Mar 1912 in Ingbirchworth, Yorkshire. He was educated between 1917
and 1926 in Denby, Yorkshire. The Headmaster was Mr Abel Jelfs.
He was very strict and the curriculum was very limited as many lessons were taken
up by the local Vicar teaching scripture. Mr Jelfs organised gardening classes
and the children were sent to collect leaf mould from Swift Wood to fertilise
the ground. The striking floral displays were across the road from the church
gates. Between 1926 and 1937 he was a Woollen Sprinner at Hinchcliffe's Mill
in Denby Dale, Yorkshire. Between 1937 and 1942 he was a Night Woollen
Spinner at Firth's Mill in Shepley, Yorkshire. He earned a higher
than average wage of £2 4s per week. He served in the military between
21 May 1942 and Jan 1946 in Burma. Ronnie was called up on 21st May
1942, sent to Harrogate to train with the 238th LAA (Light All Arms) Training
Regiment.
He then fired the massive guns across the English Channel at Dover. One of the
guns was called Winnie. Finally he went with the 122nd LAA Regiment Royal Artillery
onboard ship to India and served in Burma from 10th March 1943 to 3rd December
1945. Ronnie had to choose three numbers to give his news on arrival “overseas”
and even then the message had to be passed by the censor.
Sometimes Winnie did not get post for months and then several letters would come
together. Sometimes if Ronnie had written about what he was doing she would have
all the middle cut out of the letter by the censor and merely receive “Dear
Winnie…all my love Ronnie”. Winnie always called them the “wasted
years of our young lives”. But she sent regular photographs and letters
to Ronnie. They missed four wedding anniversaries together (1942-1945). General
Slim, who commanded the 14th Army in 1944, is quoted as having said, when addressing
the troops, “When you go home don’t worry about what you tell your
loved ones and friends about service in Asia. No-one will know where you were,
or where it is if you do. You are, and will remain ‘The Forgotten Army’.”
The daily battle was fought on two fronts, one against the Japanese enemy and
one against a long list of jungle ailments, skin diseases, intestinal complaints
and dysentery, typhus and malaria which, in 1943 and 1944 each day, led to 120
men evacuated sick for every 1 man evacuated with combat wounds. The men who
fought in Burma were up against one of the world’s worst climates and some
of its most forbidding terrain. They had to scale jagged mountains, hack their
way through almost impenetrable jungle, cross swiftly flowing rivers, and pass
over dusty plains where temperatures ranged as high as 130 degrees F. The character
of the Japanese enemy also greatly compounded the problem as they preferred death
to capture.
The rainy season lasted from May to September. In places it rained as much as
15 inches a day, miring soldiers up to their calves in thick mud. The effect
of the rain and mud on operations was profound. Overland travel slowed to little
more that a mile an hour on foot. After heavy rain, trees and bushes became heavily
laden with blood-sucking leeches. The really bad part came after the rain stopped.
In the sweltering jungle, the temperature rose steadily every day and the humidity
grew to be overpowering. Fungi and bacteria multiplied, breeding on rot and disease.
Bamboo groves were in places so thick units were dominated by elephant grass,
usually at least as tall as a man.
Ronnie hardly ever spoke of the long drawn out Arakan Campaign, the success of
which drove the Japanese out of Burma. He did speak of the difficulties of fighting
through the monsoon, the comradeship of the men, the fighting ability and stamina
of the Gurkhas and being supplied by air. General Slim used American air transport
planes to reinforce his 14th Army with the 5th Indian Division from the Arakan
front and continued to supply the troops during the siege of Imphal and Kohima
– arguably the most important engagement of the whole Burma war.
The Japanese advance into India was halted at Kohima in April 1944. Garrison
Hill, a long wooded spur on a high ridge west of the village, was the scene of
perhaps the most bitter fighting of the whole Burma campaign when a small Commonwealth
force of 1500 men (Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and the Assam Regiment)
held out between 5th and 18th April against repeated attacks by a Japanese Division
of 15,000 men. Ronnie recalled the selfless sacrifice of the West Kents at Kohima
Ridge just before he arrived with the relief forces of the British 2nd Division
on 18th April at the tennis court terrace of the spur. The fiercest hand to hand
fighting took place in the garden of the Deputy Commissioner’s bungalow,
around the tennis court, but the heaviest casualties occurred after relieving
forces reached the Garrison and the Japanese were driven off the ridge, so re-opening
the road to Imphal. The battle lasted 64 days and the British lost 4,000 men.
The Kohima memorial bears the inscription (The Kohima Epitaph) “When you
go home, Tell them of us and say, For their tomorrow – We gave our today.”
The fighting at Imphal lasted over 3 months and it was often confused and bitter.
Of some 85,000 Japanese soldiers who marched on Assam, 60,000 died in battle
and a further 20, 000 of malaria, dysentery and starvation on the retreat.
During this time in the jungle Ronnie ran into a wire hidden between two trees
by the retreating Japanese. It set off a detonator trap – but the main charge
did not work. He perforated both his eardrums several times and lost his sight
for a while. He was taken to a field hospital near Imphal, evacuated and eventually
went to Durban in South Africa to stay with the Johnston family for Rest and
Recuperation. (He eventually received a War Disablement Pension as the War Pensions
Directorate accepted that the bilateral noise induced sensorineural hearing loss
and the bilateral blast injury (ears) was attributable to his war service in
Burma. He suffered from Tinnitus for the rest of his life.)
On returning home, he refused to join the Burma Star Association and sold his
medals. However, in the last year of his life, he said that there had never been
a day go by since his time in Burma that he had not woken up with memories of
the many friends and comrades he had served with and of the soldiers who gave
their lives during the fighting, specially around Kohima and Imphal.
He achieved promotion and became a Corporal and then a Sergeant and ended the
war as a Regimental Sergeant Major. Between Jan 1946 and Jul 1946 he was a Night
Woollen Spinner at Firth's Mill in Shepley, Yorkshire. Between 24
Jul 1946 and 24 Mar 1977 he was a Foreman Woollen Spinner at Fred Lawton & Sons'
Firth Street Mill in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. He died of a stroke
on 8 Mar 2002 in Lindley, Huddersfield, Yorkshire. He was cremated
on 25 Mar 2002 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. He was described as having
ginger hair. Winifred (Winnie) BURDETT and Ronald (Ronnie) WALSHAW
had the following children:
+380 | i. | Lynda Maureen (Lyn) WALSHAW. |
