 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
to view a picture of the person682.
Ronald (Ronnie) WALSHAW 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.
Ronald (Ronnie) WALSHAW and Winifred (Winnie) BURDETT
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.
Winifred
(Winnie) BURDETT (daughter of Ernest William BURDETT and Lily BARRACLOUGH)
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. Ronald (Ronnie) WALSHAW and Winifred
(Winnie) BURDETT had the following children:
+732 | i. | Lynda Maureen (Lyn) WALSHAW. |
