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At the outbreak of WW2 Jack was recalled to the Army with the Coldstream Guards in a training role with the rank of sergeant. After Dunkirk he decided that he would rather be in a fighting unit, so was commissioned from Sandhurst in 1940 and joined the West Yorkshire Regiment.

Jack was involved in the First Burma Campaign in 1942 where he was Adjutant to Brig. P C Marindin, later to be Commander Lushai Brigade. The citation in 1944 for Jack’s Military Cross reads — ‘ During the retreat from Burma this Officer was my Adjt., he deserved the MC on several occasions and his work throughout was invaluable and of the very highest order.’

During March 1944 Jack was given the task of raising and training a new guerrilla unit which came to be known as the Lushai Scouts. As there were so few Officers he had to undertake this task single-handed, travelling into the Lushai Hills to raise 400 troops. By this stage in the War the Japanese had pushed beyond Tiddim in the Chin Hills, with heavy fighting in the Kohima and Imphal areas.

. The Lushai Hills lay to the rear of the Japanese and to the west of the Chin Hills. This remote area required specialist troops and Brig. Marindin, Commander ‘V’ force, had been very firm in his orders. He said that although the Lushai Scouts would be used as guerrillas in the rear of the enemy they had to be raised and trained as regular troops. Their speciality was to be jungle warfare with special emphasis on mobility and minimum transport.

Read More: BBC ww2 People’s War