From May until August 1945, we then became the airborne life-line of Force 136. Into valleys, gorges, plateaus of Malaya's Cameron Mountains to the jungle hide-outs, we dropped in guerrilla reinforcements usually 6 or 7 in number. Sitting in line on a slide like a children's play-chute with their 'chutes attached to a static line, we slid them down and out the rear escape hatch in the floor. Gurkhas, who minutes before had been sitting preparing their kukris, Canadian Chinese, Brits, and Europeans, all with the common skill of jungle survival, and ability to walk for days between their jungle camps and their targets, exterminating Japanese and blowing up their ammunition dumps.
Before setting out on every trip, we were given the reassuring advice "Don't bother getting shot down or crash-landing, the Japanese stopped taking prisoners two years ago." We fully realised we were therefore very vulnerable as we had none of the usual back-ups such as air-sea-rescue etc.

It was all the more remarkable then, when some of the 'bods' we were about to drop into Japanese territory said "You have a very tough job bringing us here, we would prefer to jump out now, rather than spend the next ten hours flying back through that lot."

Well - each to their own, but we considered we had the best option, as several times the Japanese had discovered the 'dropping zone' and I can still picture the raging jungle fires where they had burned out guerrilla encampments. Having bailed out - what lay ahead for those guys?

My longest mission took 23 hours 25 minutes covering 3,700 miles, and it was exhilarating on the one hand, to see all the shipping and city lights going out one by one over Singapore, as presumably the air-raid sirens sounded on our behalf. On the other hand it was extremely frustrating as I knew that several close friends were Japanese prisoners being held below us, and after coming all this distance being unable to help.

On another occasion deep in a valley of the Cameron Highlands after dropping supplies in a plateau, we suddenly turned a corner and found ourselves facing an unexpected mountain peak. Slamming throttles and superchargers forward to scrape over the top, we discovered flames streaming from NO.1 & 3 engines towards our tail plane. Plans for an emergency landing were thankfully avoided, as bringing power and revs back solved the immediate problem. None of us ever mentioned those numerous incidents again, as 1600 miles from base; we had no illusions about our treatment as Japanese POWs.

Radio contact with the guerrillas we had dropped into Japanese territory became so good, that after arriving back at base to be de-briefed, we were told immediately whether it had been an accurate drop - or not.