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Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland
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Wartime Journey From Bloomfield To Burma For One Member Of The Order Recounted

Article 2 ~ November 2004

Among the stories which are told on the Grand Lodge 'Battles Beyond the Boyne' travelling exhibition is that of Cecil Reid of L.O.L. No. 747, Belfast.

In June 1940 Cecil Reid was 18 and living at Bramcote Street (now Grace Avenue) in the Bloomfield district of Belfast. He was a member of Young Men's Christian Total Abstinence Loyal Orange Lodge 747, having been a member of the Junior Institution prior to that.

It was not to the Orange Hall at Clifton Street that he made his way in June 1940, however, but to the Recruiting Office. He became a member of the Royal Air Force Regiment, with the ground defence role of defending airfields. In February 1942 the Belfast man was sent overseas, leaving the Clyde in a convoy which went right across the Atlantic to the American coast before cutting back across the ocean to Gibraltar.

Cecil and his comrades went down the African coast on a requisitioned dutch liner, the first stage in their journey being to Freetown. But after leaving Freetown a propeller shaft broke and the ship was unable to keep up with the rest of the convoy. While repairs were carried out the vessel was stuck in mid-Atlantic with two corvettes: "We were a sitting duck for over one and a half days," he reflects.

The voyage continued to Capetown, then Durban, and then across the Indian Ocean, where there was concern that the Japanese were trying to gain a landfall on Ceylon before striking across India to the Middle East. The 18 months in Ceylon included a period of training as wireless operators, and Cecil also remembers with affection joining the RAF water polo team; "It was just like a holiday," he says.

Other memories of Ceylon include the US Air Force landing massive Liberator bombers on one of the airfields. The planes were too heavy, however, and sank into the ground half way up to the wheels. They could not be moved and remained there for the rest of the war.

The RAF Regiment was on the move now, and onto the subcontinent of India, where jungle training took place at Hydrabad, where a marines assault course - and live ammunition - were used. After two months training, and an invitation to visit the Palace at Hydrabad, the regiment was en route towards Madras, Calcutta and Pakistan. The objective was Japanese-occupied Burma, and memories of that journey remain vivid: Cecil recalls seeing an army truck go off a narrow mountain pass and plunge all the soldiers inside to their deaths, while swamps and mosquitoes also had to be faced.

"As soon as the army took an airfield we jumped onto it and held it. The first airfield we were at a Wing Commander was shot in the middle of the runway and the Japs wouldn't let anyone get near him. He lay there for three days. It was dodgy country," Cecil says.

When they were stationed on an airfield, the Japanese continued to pressurise from the jungle around, shooting and shouting to keep the British awake at night. Pressure was being applied against the Japanese forces, however, and the aim was to separate them in Burma, which was achieved, with an Allied band running through the middle of the country and the Japanese on either side of this; those on the Pakistan side were cut off completely.

Cecil remembers the inhumanity of war. When the first freed prisoners from the Siam railway arrived in Rangoon he remembers one in particular who looked like a human skeleton and could not stand upright and the delight the unfortunate man experienced when he was sat down on the steps of a swimming pool, with its cool, clear water.

Cecil Reid recalls the Christmas of 1944, when the American Air Force brought in enough supplies for the RAF regiment to ensure a Christmas dinner like no other.

He also looks back to the happy memories of visiting a tea plantation in Ceylon where the owner was a Scotsman and very welcoming to his fellow British compatriots. For Corporal Cecil Reid, however, there are also many sad memories of those who did not return from war, and of the tough times in the jungles of Burma.

Cecil Reid is one of those many men who played their part in the defence of freedom in bygone days. Their stories should never be forgotten.

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