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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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