CBI related document
1942 Kunming issued military ID.
The conflict in the Far East had several important fronts and areas of battle. One important location was the region between British India and Western China, still under National Government control, and Japanese occupied Burma, which saw some of the fiercest fighting and struggles that took place in the Asian conflict.
The tireless efforts by the Allied forces to assist the Chinese in their struggle against the occupying invading Japanese, started already prior to the vents of Pearl Harbor, dating back to the Second Sino-Japanese War. During that period the British built a road that connected Southwest China with British Burma, Kunming, Yunnan and Lashio. It was used to deliver vital supplies, importantly military supplies, to the Chinese. This road is well known as “The Burma Road (滇缅公路)“. The importance of this “life line” culminated in the Japanese occupation of Burma.
The theater of operation during World War Two in the above mentioned region of China and South-East Asia or India-Burma (IBT) was termed by the United Sates military as the “China Burma India Theater” (CBI).
The following units were part of the CBI:
The set of documents in this article are connected to the vents that took place in the Chinese-Burma Theater of operations.
A.E.Nicholls, born on August 22nd 1921 at Tottenham, was a soldier in the British army who after his return to India, following his brief stay in China in 1942, became a member of the famed Special Forces unit, the Chindits.
His army career apparently was as a wireless signaler who got his training in 1942. Part of his training and war effort for that year took him to Western China, to Kunming. His Chinese airways flight tickets can attest to this fact: flying over the Himalayas, most likely over the eastern end of the mountains, were military flights took place. This part of the region was termed by the Allied pilots as “The Hump“. His first air ticket, numbered 031672, was purchased at Calcutta, and used on June 1st. His flight took him to the allied military Kunming Airfield that originally was built in 1923 and around 1941 was used by the famed US Flying Tigers (after the Communists took control in 1949, the location was changed into the civilian Kunming Wujiaba International Airport).
In China, Arthur was part of a British military unit that was sent to training at one of the Chinese military training bases. On June 24th he was issued a special British Allied ID travel permit by the “Military Training Department of the South-Western Chinese Military Committee” (军事委员会军训部西南干部训练班).
His brief stay ended in October, where he boarded on his return flight back to Calcutta on the 8th, via air ticket number 40128.
According to his personal papers from the war, Arthur was called up for service on February 15th 1940, serving with the Royal Signals with the rank of private (2574291). He was sent to India and was based at the Supply & Transport Base at Mhow.
After his return to India in October of 1942, he joined the 77th Infantry Brigade Signals Section at Jhansi on 29th December. His posting to the Burma Theater of operation was on January 19th the following year. His new unit was the 1st Brigade of the Special Forces Long Range Penetration Unit, known as the Chindits.
Arthur was lucky to survive his experience fighting the Japanese in Burma due to him getting ill with Malaria which got him transferred west back to his units HQ in India towards the end of March 1943. The end of the same year he was transferred, again, to the Middle East with the 10th Indian Division Signals unit. A year after his Malaria ordeal, he was shipped off to Italy to join the Eighth Army on the Adriatic front.
Further postings took him to British Palestine around 1947, finally with him returning back home, to his beloved England, at the beginning of 1949.
His career in serving Queen and country continued, until his retirement from the Fire brigade service, at a high rank, in the 1970’s.
The small image is of a 1945 Silver Star issued to Chinese Officer Major Liu-Shan Hun, and according to his original citation from March 15th:
“Major Shan-Hun Liu, Chinese Army in India. For gallantry in action at Namyu and Namhkam, Burma, during January 1945. Major LIU personally led his troops in the assaults against greatly superior army forces, and in four-day hand-to-hand combat annihilated the army near Hkangma. His personal courage and self-sacrifices above and beyond the call of duty vastly inspired his troops in this engagement. Again at Namhkam, Major Liu led his troops in the occupation of Mawtawn and by forced march laid siege to Namhkam which greatly aided in the capture of the paint. The great courage and leadership of Major Liu were a source of constant inspiration to his troops, and reflect great credit upon himself and the Chinese Armed Forces.”
Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.
