so, he had to leave the gordon highlanders... yes. ..in orderto be...fficers. but patrick was not long in india. the japanese had taken neighbouring burma in 1942, and his regiment became part of the huge 14th army which fought to win it back. it was an immense force of around a million men, but it became the forgotten army as europe's focus was on itself. the men fought in the towns and jungles of burma in atrocious conditions. those back home could only imagine the horrors. my mother—in—law, jenny, still not married to patrick, wrote to him. "my darling patrick, i've been feeling for you tonight, and i'm full of sympathy for you. they're putting more and more in the papers about this 14th army campaign and i feel nothing can be too good to make up for such a hell." well, we had a very bad war in the far east. veteran john giddings was one of those men in burma living that hell. we lost quite a number of lads through night attacks. and bombing attacks, of course. we had a bad raid where we lost 50 in an air raid. terrible. i suppose, in a way, we were