Remembering Idris Jones

I was sad to learn yesterday that Second Suffolk Burma veteran, Idris Jones, had passed away at the grand age of 102.

Born in Wales, Idris lived in East London where his father was a dairyman. He was called up in 1943 and after training at the Depot at Bury St Edmund’s, he was sent to join Second Suffolk in Burma. He had requested to join the Royal Norfolk Regiment, but the powers that be kept him with the Suffolks.

Idris served on the Arakan Front in Burma. He qualified as a carrier driver, but upon arrival in the front lines, he was told that there were ‘no carriers here!’ and that he would join ‘D’ Company in their frontal positions.

After leaving the Burma Front by air, the Battalion arrived at Imphal in late March 1944 and was sent northeast of the town to take a series of hills zigzag-zagging across the Imphal-Kohima road, before in June they fought to take the hilltop positions at ‘Isaac’.

After this, the Battalion linked up with the British forces driving south from Kohima. They met north of ‘Isaac’ with Idris being one of the first to spot them, a link-up was effected shortly afterwards to much celebration: ‘We all shouted and waved our hats but it was pointless as they were just dots in the distance and couldn’t hear us, but we were happy.’

Moving south of Imphal along the Tiddim Road, he suffered from dysentery and was invalided to a hospital in India. After his recovery, he was posted to a unit that looked after field security and the protection in the field of his former Brigade Commander, Brigadier Geoffrey Evans, who commanded 123 Brigade in 5th (Indian) Division (of which 2 Suffolk were part). He later returned briefly to Second Suffolk at Lahore before returning home in 1947 to be demobbed.

Idris was a very quiet man, who really only came to Regiment again in his retirement. He joined the Burma Star Association in the 1990s and attended just a couple of Minden Day parades at Bury St Edmund’s, but he was quite tireless in his support of remembrance of the Burma Campaign.

After the war he went to work in the Borough Surveyors office at Battersea Town Hall before joining the National Health Service in 1949 with whom he would remain all his working life.

After I had published my Burma book, I had the opportunity to meet Idris and spent just a couple of hours with him. He recalled how they watched the battle for ‘Isaac’ unfold before them, seen from their positions on ‘Harry’ - the hill immediately to the south, and how later they were called over to reinforce ‘C’ Company’s positions even though fighting was still taking place: ‘There were many dead, we had to leave them where they were as we were still under fire. I kept thinking we should get them in, but it was too dangerous.’ He also recalled the final push to dislodge the enemy from the right of the position: ‘It was very confused. They said Kohima was fought across a tennis court, this was much smaller and fire came from all directions, but we took it at great cost.’

A lovely, quiet, unassuming man, Idris was in all probability, the last survivor from Second Suffolk’s jungle war of 1943-44. It was rightfully appropriate that he should receive an obituary in today’s Daily Telegraph for not since the deaths of Jimmy Kelly and Ray Hands (both Malayan Emergency period officers) has a Suffolk solider received such a mention, and I think it’s wonderful that Idris is probably the first other rank of the Regiment to be awarded this honour.

It’s made me feel quite sad that within living memory, the men of this generation have all now left us. A door has closed and been locked to a chapter of our Regimental past and we will never find the key to reopen it, but I hope that my efforts to record their story have ensured that they and their jungle war are not forgotten.

“Stabilis”