“In the final stages of the last stand, men of the Mortar Battery died fighting as Infantrymen with the Gloucesters”. For thirty-six hours from the night of April 22nd, Captain Wisbey’s mortar troop slung bombs at the assaulting Chinese until they were reduced to using small arms. All throughout, “Wisbey’s calmness and cheerfulness to the moment of his final report before attempting to break out set an example to his men which inspired them beyond normal endurance.”
This conduct, which the battery commander thoroughly detailed in a recommendation for a bar to the Military Cross, was downgraded to a Mention by the War Office who may not have fully appreciated his tenacity against the odds or simply may not have had enough corroborating details given that nearly the entire battalion was carried as missing in action after April 25th.
Frank joined the Army in 1942, straight from school after having been in the Officers’ Training Corps. He volunteered for and was accepted as an officer cadet for the Indian Army and, after a month of waiting around, went by boat for Officer Training School. At that time, the area outside of Bangalore Cantonment was mostly military in nature, but still filled with gardens and flowering trees. Though the city was nearby, the setting was primitive and lacked running water, proper drainage, or lighting. After the six-month course at Bangalore, he was commissioned into the 4th Gurkha Rifles, sent to their Himalayan depot, and posted to the 2d Battalion.
TIBER VALLEY
The Germans had withdrawn far enough north to leave a three-hundred-mile gap between them and the Gurkhas, leaving the battlefront quiet for several days at the time Frank joined the battalion in Venafro on June 7th, 1944. The Gurkhas proceeded to chase them through Cassino, Rome, Nequinum and Assisi to reach Castel Vieto on June 30th and march north into the Tiber Valley where they camped for a day among the cultivated slopes that rose up into woods and pasture land.
They were not there for a day before crossing the minefields throughout the broad flat valley toward Trestina to attack. Wisbey’s B Company was to clear and cover the start line twelve hundred yards forward of their forming-up place with the above another twelve hundred yards forward of that. At midnight, under a bright moon, B Company led the battalion forward – within half an hour they were taking fire before even reaching the start line. B Company moved out under strings of tracers lacing above their heads. The guns, five miles back and screened by a high ridge, could not support the infantry until 0130 when their communication finally reached the artillery and shells came flying overhead.
In the low ground cut by ditches and banks, it became difficult to keep direction even under the moonlight. The heavy fire coming from Trestina village houses, farm buildings, and haystacks outside quickly had C Company was pinned down. B Company watched tracers arc and ricochet through the night – they reported the fire appeared to come from the left of C Company objective “Twin”. It was the beginning of their first set battle, and one that would be remembered as a ‘notable success.’
The 10th Brigade continued to advance with 2nd/4th Gurkhas always just west of the main road. The companies leap-frogged from ridge to ridge to a point where supply via the unusable main road north forced them to reply completely on mules.
Their next major attack against Uppiano was dark under a new moon and concentrated on Monte Cedrone, a hill to the west. B Company crossed a ford through the nala to jump off at 0030 toward Cemetery Hill. After D Company reached their farmhouse objective, B Company stormed in at 0415 cheering and forced the enemy back in less than an hour. The routed Germans retaliated throughout the day with several counter attacks, most of which were aimed against Wisbey’s B Company. It became more difficult throughout the day to provide ammunition, even with the use of the mules.
The Germans attacked B Company for a fourth time around 2030 hours that night – one of two attacks that nearly overran the company – and in half an hour their situation was serious. They called for reinforcements, delivered by artillery and machine-guns of the 1st Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, and seemed to be holding until they disappeared off the air. The shooting at B Company’s position diminished as the battle eased and it became apparent they had held. The spiteful Germans continued to shell them throughout the day.
GAIANA
Before spring – before the slogging of winter had given way to hills and fields swathed in colors of blossoming flowers, grape vines growing fresh leaves, and budding fruit trees – Frank assumed command of B Company. He would hold the position through the end of the war, during which time he showed he was a ‘fearless and inspiring leader’ and his ‘utter disregard of danger so affected the men of his company that they took and held every objective ordered in spite of heavy opposition and sometimes heavy casualties.’ This ultimately led to an award of the Military Cross for the entire period with one specific reference for April 18th.
The battalion was under control of the 5th New Zealand Brigade when they marched up to the River Quaderna to help the beleaguered New Zealanders held up there. While A Company mounted tanks, the other three companies fought along the road to the New Zealanders’ right. B Company was ordered to occupy Rossa Grande and the flood bank of the Gaiana west of the Cassa. They found this area to be heavily defended, leading to a ‘stiff fight’ when they attacked at dawn. Despite help from tanks, they could not take the bank and suffered through grenades and mortar fire throughout the day. Captain Wisbey appeared to be everywhere throughout the day while he visited his men.
After dark, the Germans attacked within fifteen yards of Company Headquarters until they were repulsed, retaliating with more shell fire after they withdrew. During this barrage, Frank was wounded, but refused to leave his company until they completed their next move forward. It was the final major battle for the battalion who, as part of a vast Commonwealth effort, opened the path into the Po Valley and the Alps.
PARTITION
A sense of bewilderment accompanied the transfer of many British officers across the Indian Army as the country gained independence in 1947. When the partition came about, the 4th Gurkhas were one of six regiments to go to India, while four went to the British Army. As adjutant at the time, Frank and the Colonel were the last two to stay on for the handover.
The 4th Gurkhas being primarily Nepalese posed the biggest problems for the regiment after the war. Already slighted by the poor exchange of Indian to Nepali Rupees, there was a growing dissatisfaction with the state of Nepal itself. Having seen the benefits of road, rail, communications and medical facilities in Italy, the returning soldiers were disappointed in Nepal’s comparative lack of roads, hospitals and schools. To make matters worse, many Indians, to whom the Gurkhas had served so loyal through the war, shouted for them to “Quit India – go back to Nepal!” and the growing dissatisfaction as being treated as Mongolian mercenaries rather than equal soldiers wore at the men. The question of the future of the Gurkha soldier in his regiment warranted only a vague reply from the House of Commons that their future location and status was “under active consideration.”
By the end of 1946, the British Officers faced their own source of discontent when it was announced that all those with less than twenty-years’ service in the Indian Army would revert to British services by their election or resign. The commanding officer of the 4th Gurkhas posed the question: “Why should many of them be forced to become Gunners instead of remaining in Infantry for which they are trained in and experienced? This action gives them the impression of the unwanted new boy being given the duty which none of the more experienced had accepted, and is being received with distinct misgivings by those officers concerned.” To further this issue of transfers from Indian units, there was little information on how Gurkhas were to be handled, as they were unique in that they were commanded exclusively by British Officers. If this scheme was truly to be completed ‘shortly,’ it would leave the Gurkhas in a vacuum without experienced officers.
As 1947 unfolded, the officers of the 4th Gurkhas faced rising instability as a creeping sense of erosion set in. Orders changed frequently, often with no clear authority or plan, and transfers from India and Pakistan came with little warning. Their duties remained constant, but leadership rotated in confusion. There was an “almost complete lack of communications” between higher headquarters and regimental commands, especially during the summer months, leaving many unsure whether they were still in command or had already been replaced amidst the abrupt postings, delayed reliefs, and unclear instructions about when, or where, to report.
Discontent grew sharper in August as Partition took effect. British officers were left guessing their futures in both the Indian and British Armies. Colonel Davidson was explicit in his reports, noting the lack of clarity about British Officers’ terms of service, handover responsibilities, and their own replacement's arrival. His battalion had been whittled down to two officers for the entire battalion and he felt he might have to turn over the regiment to Indian VCOs with no proper handover due to lack of time and no incoming staff.
The handover itself was a sore point, to which he wrote: “It cannot be wondered at that all British Officers are bitterly disappointed at the totally inadequate manner in which they are being forced to hand over their units, sub-units and most of all, men with whom they have had the honour to serve.” Many had spent their careers with the Gurkhas and were now being replaced by strangers, often with just days to transfer responsibility for men they had led through war.
Meanwhile, internal unrest in the newly split nation worsened. Officers reported “utter disgust with the signs of wanton brutality and fiendish cruelty” in the riot areas. They watched in horror as communities turned on each other, comparing the mass refugee movement to the worst moments of war. In their reports, they recorded mass forced conversions and barbaric scenes which, they felt, would take years to overcome.
Still, despite the mounting difficulty, the officers retained professional discipline. They expressed deep respect for the Indian Army soldiers under their command, many of whom performed “exemplary obedience and loyalty” in spite of the communal pressures surrounding them. In contrast, civil police and some paramilitary formations were deemed apathetic and unreliable.
By the year’s end, the formal allocation of Gurkha regiments had been decided, and the 4th would remain with India. Frank transferred to the 10th Gurkhas to remain under the British Army in Hong Kong. This brought some closure, but without much comfort as they felt it had come nearly impossible to hand over smoothly due to the “slipshod” way in which final decisions had been implemented. Frank had not planned on staying in the Army – in fact it was nearly an accident. He only needed a ride to Bangalore and by chance found himself before the Regular Commission Board, which he passed with ease. He was destined for the Royal Artillery, to become a Gunner just as the Colonel had predicted, and it was his experience as a Gurkha infantry officer to which he, the men of his Troop, and many of the Glosters owed for their lives.
ROUTE 1
Had the Army asked for volunteers, Frank would have happily gone to Korea, but as it was, his 170 Independent Mortar Battery was selected to form up and go anyway. Fortunately, he was not yet married and had no desire to soldier in England. The majority of men in the battery were older reservists with Second World War service who had accepted their recall to active service without complaint. None of them were familiar with the battery’s 4.2-inch mortar, but learning to fire, move and aim it was not difficult for the seasoned gunners, though they soon found the limitations of accuracy of the smooth bore tubes.
When they made it overseas, the Korean winter had closed in with a cruelty that caught even the most seasoned men off guard. They were met in Pusan by swaths of Koreans waving little flags for them, though imposing looking American Marines behind them made for a rather forced atmosphere. Their early movement north had been uneventful.
Without official lines of supply, the Battery was truly independent. They relied on a rotating watch to keep the engines running – one man starting and warming each truck in sequence, hour after hour, to stop them from freezing solid. Eventually, some bartered some Scotch whiskey for antifreeze from American units which helped alleviate the truck situation. The Battery moved up with 29th Brigade, rolling behind American advances in jeeps and 15-cwts until the Chinese came crashing down across the border and everything reversed.
The long, winding roads south were filled with retreating civilians. Refugees moved in desperate columns carrying what they could on their backs or on makeshift carts, trudging south under skies as grey as their faces. At one point during that withdrawal, the Troop encountered an old man hunched in a cave near a village. With the help of a Korean interpreter, they learned that the villagers, who had no means of sustaining him, had decided he was no longer useful and had been left to die. The Troop gave him food - it was all they could do, but to little avail as it likely only prolonged his quiet inevitable death.
Contact with the Korean people was otherwise minimal and largely incidental. One boy attached himself to the Troop and was happy to run errands in return for scraps and safety. Beyond that, the civilians they encountered were either on the road fleeing or hollowed-out silhouettes watching silently from the ruins.
There was little true fighting until 1951 when the Battery’s troops finally found homes with the Brigade’s regiments. Wisbey’s C Troop positioned in the center of the Glosters’ lines, and soon throughout the days his gunners turned their stout barrels to send bombs across stark valleys.
On one occasion, at a range of two miles, a Chinese mortar team set up their battery to bombard the Brigade area. A Royal Artillery observer spotted them from his observation post and telephoned the range and bearing to the gunnery officer. For several minutes, the 4.2’s fell silent, waiting patiently as the Chinese clambered up to their rocky position with their own mortars. Once they had dragged up the ammunition and stacked it alongside their tubes, the observer radioed to the Battery.
“All right, they’re ready. Let it go,” crackled the voice on the telephone.
“One to six guns—fire!” bellowed the gunnery officer. The six 4.2’s loosed a volley and when the smoke cleared, nothing could be seen of the opposing mortars or their crews, only a trickle of rubble which fell from the ledge where they had once been.
IMJIN
Frank had just gotten back from Japan – not for rest and recuperation, but a day in the hospital to fix a broken nose incurred while chopping wood. He went through the American M.A.S.H. system to Pusan where they set his nose and waited for a week before proceeding to the hospital in Japan. After only twenty-four hours, he sailed back with a reinforcement group of Scots who “were great fun, basically, as long as you appreciated their sense of humour, which one can do,” traveling with them on an open train back to C Troop.
They had not moved from their position with battalion Headquarters since the onset of the battle on April 23rd, with the mortars situated around the base of the hill with Frank moving between there and the top. It was terribly difficult to accurately range and actually hit the precise hilltop targets as plenty of shells landed behind a feature and their strike unseen. It became a matter of luck, especially at nighttime.
The Belgians, across the river on the right flank of the Brigade, battled through the 23rd against masses of Chinese passing across their front and infiltrating behind to their rear and the river. Farther west, thousands streamed across to attack the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, advancing through the undefended valleys on their left flank towards the towering mass of Kamak-san while the 25-pounders of the 45th Field Regiment and the troops of 170 Mortar Battery fired in support.
Later in the afternoon of the 24th, Colonel Carne ordered the infantry to draw in to a tighter perimeter. In the streambed below Headquarters, C Troop remained waiting for instructions. They were joined nearby by Major Harding’s B Company which had been consolidated with C Company after both had suffered losses. Since the Chinese onslaught unleashed, the mortars had ‘shattered the peace of the area with a hail of bombs without a respite.’ They had no time to nicely pack up anything after firing and around them were great piles of empty ammunition cases.
‘The rations soon vanished for the demands for ammunition during the preceding two days had precluded the carriage of these during withdrawal to the final position. And it is to the eternal credit of the Mortar Gunners that they did not ask for a second share-out, though they had received none the first time; perhaps it was because they had subsisted for so long under their "own arrangements" that it was presumed that their Battery had supplied them by helicopter service, in secret!’
They fought until they were overrun and the mortars pulled out across the track, managing to take their mortars, sights, and wireless sets with them, to Frank’s credit. Their barrels were still searing hot from all of their recent firing and they used whatever gloves, scarves and rags they could scavenge to grab the hot tubes and drag them uphill. They reluctantly left the baseplates, rendering the whole set up useless by the time they were at the top of the hill. Their only goal was to keep them out of the hands of the Chinese. While the Troop attempted to dig new defenses on Hill 235, Frank called in artillery over wireless while the batteries lasted. The 25-pounders laid down a salvo of shells on the vehicles which were left in the valley after the supply route had been cut.
A Chinese bugler across the valley was ‘playing lark’ on the morning of the 25th, which, in the quiet after the previous nights’ battles, carried hauntingly across the hills. Soon the Glosters heard they could not be relieved and at that point Wisbey reported over the radio that he would be burying the mortars. The ground, being completely inconducive to any sort of proper digging, left them little choice and ordered his men to destroy them. They dropped a 36-grenade down each of the four barrels, satisfied at the muffled blast after a few seconds, and proceeded to break up the sights and the wireless set.
From then on, the gunners were an infantry platoon. He crawled around to each sergeant and gave them instructions to split the troop into sections to make their way south over a saddle in the hills. The five groups, who had not yet suffered any casualties, jumped and ducked over tracers streaking over their hilltop. With Sergeant Major Askew and a couple of wireless operators, Frank went down the hill.
*
His group had nearly made it to a saddle in the hills where, unfortunately, there were Chinese sitting around. When they spotted Frank leading his part of the troop, they quickly fired at him and he dove off to the side, tumbling into the undergrowth and into a ditch. He waited for some time, hoping the enemy would disappear for better prospects.
He realized there was no good way to get out of the valley and over the hill. His group of the Troop was long gone. He presumed they had tied in again with the Glosters, but would find later that most of the battalion and C Troop had already been captured in the valley. He waited patiently in his ditch as the sun arced across the sky, until the long shadows of evening melted into nightfall, and after dark, made his way over the ridge.
Frank walked all night until the first hint of dawn when he retreated into the bush again where he remained all day. As dusk approached, he decided to move about again, perhaps too impatiently as he was suddenly surrounded by Chinese jabbering excitedly. He stood up and raised his hands, hoping for the best.
His captors provided him with a little food and put him in a hut which, typical of most Korean homes, was heated by a flue under the floor. Frank was not sure if the Chinese were being kind or not by putting him in there as he was in isolation, but quite warm.
The march continued after that night and soon Frank rejoined the rest of the Glosters. He ended up in another hut in the dark and heard voices of men recounting their journey to that point. Where they had been, what happened, and as he sat quietly he heard some voices saying something to the effect of “Oh yes, Wisbey’s killed, yes we saw him dead by the side of the road!” He thought this was funny and waited for a few moments before announcing in a small voice, “Well, actually, I’m not!” As it turned out, Farrar-Hockley had passed another gunner, face down in bloodied battledress, and assumed it was Wisbey.
For the next three or four weeks they marched north, only at night, as the American Air Force ruled the skies and forced them into holes, huts and bushes during the day. The boiled water provided by the Chinese was hardly enough to satisfy the excessive thirst throughout the ranks and many men gave in to the temptation to drink from streams. Those who did suffered from whatever bacteria or parasites then caused havoc in their systems.
CAPTIVITY
In the first camp, a mixture of all ranks and the conditions which Frank remembered as ‘diabolical’, he would often wake in the morning to find someone had died in the hut during the night. The huts were able to hold a dozen men – six to a side lying flat alternating head to toe.
Most of those who died were Americans who had been captured before the winter and had spent the cold months already as prisoners – as a result they had suffered greatly from the elements, illness, and malnutrition.
The Chinese tried to separate the officers and other ranks in this first camp as soon as they could, and then there always seemed to be a fight. The captives would argue, “Well, the senior ranking person was the senior one,” and they would always take his instructions, and the captors would try and say, “You’re now all equal, and therefore you don't take anyone's instructions except ours.” And they would, once the senior officers were identified, have a word with him, remove him from the group and place him in solitary confinement.
Lectures occurred in a small, tightly packed hut after a morning of de-licing, which set the men back as they would exit the hut crawling with lice again. The lectures were an attempt to indoctrinate the prisoners as they had done successfully with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists during the Civil War. The Communists thought they could do the same to the Allied troops with the same effect, but it was unsuccessful from the beginning.
The second camp brought much better conditions for the officers, including larger huts, though they had a system of ‘self-criticism’ with which the Chinese hoped to indoctrinate the Westerners by forcing them to admit to their wrongs. Those who were caught or suspected of poor behavior stood up to make a speech about how wrong and sorry they were, but fortunately Frank was never caught. In most cases, the ‘wrongs’ were activities men did just to amuse themselves.
The camp was ringed by barbed wire and sentries who were often eager to shoot. This made nighttime hazardous if the men needed to visit the latrines, but otherwise there was little need for the security. In autumn and winter, they were able to go outside the perimeter to gather and chop firewood – an easy moment to escape the compound, but doing so would have been futile as a white European hundreds of miles inside North Korea.
Each day began with roll call followed by physical exercises which Frank only appreciate to the full extent later on reflection. At the time, everyone resented it, but the activity was enough to keep them as fit as conditions permitted. The men did supplement with their own activities, particularly softball, which they did by fashioning a ball out of a worn-out pair of boots stitched together and bats made from bits of wood. Otherwise, the vast majority of time Frank spent playing bridge.
Eventually they received some letters – in many cases, the men were due hundreds, but only a few ever arrived. In turn, the prisoners were allowed to write once a month, ensuring that they detailed, Frank described, “how lovely life was, we were being looked after well and hope you are well, and that’s about all.” The incoming letters in the hands of the Chinese were used to discipline and interrogate. “We’re not prepared to give it to you unless you tell us the truth,” they would demand and ask about unit organizations or weapon and technology capabilities, which no one answered honestly. One American when asked how high is airplane flew answered “Oh, about six feet underground if you try hard enough.” He spent considerable time in solitary for being facetious.
Once the armistice was signed, their conditions improved, though the Chinese still claimed the prisoners were war criminals by the very fact that they were fighting on the United Nations side and therefore had no protection. It was an empty threat, however, and along with the little red cross bags of toothbrushes and toothpaste they were soon moving by train back to the 38th Parallel to a holding camp to await release.
Frank was among the last to cross back into friendly hands. He was examined, fumigated, given fresh clothes, advised not to eat too much, and sent off to Japan. He found it enjoyable enough to prolong his stay and avoid going home, which he did not tell his parents, but eventually had to go back by boat. He sailed via Hong Kong and Port Said, then was ordered to fly to Woolwich as someone caught on to how late he was in returning, and with that, his brief, self-awarded reprieve after months in captivity ended quite unceremoniously.