Food:
• Inflated ration supplies of their respective jungle platoons for approximately one year.
• Often bartered ‘ciggies ‘ n soap’ in exchange for food.
First Aid Box
• ‘The contents of our first aid kit included a roll of adhesive plaster which was used to patch the Jeep’s radiator hose’.
• Survived bout of malaria [Roy] and Dengue fever [Noel]
Navigation Maps Fuel
• Maps were not available for many of the areas – Burma, North East India etc.
• Used ‘old school wall map’ for Thailand/Singapore • Traditional British Army marching compass and protractor [no G.P.S back in 1958].
KEY POINTS – CHRONOLOGY/ THE JOURNEY
• Set off from the famous Raffles Hotel Singapore. February 1958
Burma
• Passports endorsed ‘Enter Burma at own risk’
• Flea infested brothel in Rangoon – one of the rare occasions where they were unable to sleep in the Jeep!
• Traversed the infamous Ledo Road
‘Having salvaged a couple of planks from the rotten bridge , we made a parallel track for the Jeep, …a couple of rusty oil drums where we picked up the start of The Ledo Road.’
• Run out of fuel ‘somewhere near the Indian frontier [with Burma]
• Roy packs his survival kit and starts walking to India in search of fuel;
‘In advance of running out of petrol we’d agreed I would walk to the Indian frontier , which would take about three days, then hopefully return with a full Jerry can.’