10th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment

Hello, new to the forum. My grandfather Major Anthony C Steadman of the 10th Glosters, was killed in Burma 22 November 1944. Would be very grateful for any materials on him or the fighting at that time.

 

Hello Bristol Grandchild

Welcome to the forum.

I have a copy of the regimental history and I will send you a copy of the relevant pages. The fighting in which your grandfather was killed is covered in some detail.

Steve

 

Hello again,

In fact I found that a version of the history has already been transcribed and available on this forum here: War Diary, 10th Bn., Gloucestershire Regiment.

That thread also gives details of the war diaries held at The National Archives.

I'll still send the extract from "Cap of Honour, The Story of the Gloucestershire Regiment".

Steve

 

Welcome. As the links Rothy has posted show, the 10th Glosters were on the approach to Pinwe at the end of November, and were engaged in the fiercest fighting that 36 Division had yet encountered during the 'Railway Corridor' campaign in Northern Burma. At Gyobin Chaung and Pinwe Village & Railway Station the retreating Japanese forces made a determined stand and inflicted heavy casualties, particularly on 72 Brigade which was leading the Division at that point.

The journalist Roy McKelvie, who was in South-East Asia 'engaged on propaganda' at the time, describes the terrain around Pinwe through which 36 Division was fighting in his book The War in Burma (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1948)

“It became a war of nerves. The Japanese planted snipers in trees as outposts. In what
was possibly the thickest jungle in Burma they were unseen and it was certain death for
anyone who came within their vision.
Where the winding, narrow track crossed the stream to enter the jungled mass of Pinwe,
one Japanese sniper, ‘Little Willie’ he was called, lived for three weeks in a hole dug
into the bottom of a tree. All manner of ruses were tried to persuade ‘Little Willie’ to
show himself but none succeeded.
A mass assault on Pinwe was impossible. It would have been suicide. Platoons of men
did creep over the stream by night, but when daylight came they found themselves
ringed by fire and pinned to the holes they had scraped out of the ground. Once over
3,000 shells were poured into the woods in half an hour – a record barrage for north
Burma at that time.”​

This is a page from the 36 Division HQ 'G' Branch War Diary which covers the day's fighting:

 

Also, Wigjohn scanned a copy of the divisional history - 36th Division North Burma 1944-45 by Geoffry Foster - that will give you some more background to your grandfather's journey from Shillong to Pinwe. Link here:

36 Div. | WW2Talk

 

The 9th Royal Sussex also fought at Pinwe and gained a battle honour there. Oddly enough, they never entered the place and another unit marched in unopposed. They too lost many men in the area. A stone taken from the bed of Stourbridge Chaung was brought back to UK a few years ago and used to make a memorial to the 9th. It is situated in Eastbourne in the Redoubt Gardens.