They’d arrived at Toungoo to find the Japanese bunkers heavily fortified with roofs of logs, steel bars and corrugated iron, and only a direct hit from a shell or bomb would destroy them. But the shells burst far too high into the trees and it soon became clear that they needed air support – and the infantry were desperate for the heavy American mortars if they were to make any headway.

Jim huddled in the back of a truck with Jumbo as they took a breather from the hard and terrifying task of clearing the mines under heavy fire and even heavier rain, so the tanks could advance and get closer to the enemy. Both men were soaked to the skin with rain and sweat, their uniform shirts and shorts stiff with mud as the endless rain gleamed on the gun-barrels and tin hats of the enemy. They were too miserable and battle-weary to try and talk above the noise of the tank guns which were throwing sudden orange flashes into the dark jungle, but there was comradeship in that silence as they shared a nip of rum ration, and smoked damp roll-ups.

Jim didn’t want to look at the horrific sight just on the other side of the bridge, but despite his abhorrence, his gaze kept returning to it, making his stomach clench. The burned-out British armoured car lay on the edge of a bomb crater, the lump of charred meat and bone inside it all that remained of the driver who was still there after several days because no one had had the chance to get him out.

He turned away, looking back down the road, and nudged Jumbo as he saw the familiar jeeps with their red crosses come hurtling around the bend. There was a British tank burning in the middle of the road, with two more firing into the jungle less than fifty yards behind it. Dead Japs were strewn beside their overturned field gun, and injured colleagues of the 14th Army were trying to crawl to safety beneath the hail of enemy machine-gun bullets that ripped and whined through the trees and thudded into the earth all around them.

And through all this mayhem came the American Field Service in their specially adapted jeeps which had double-tiered steel bed structures to accommodate two or three casualties at a time. They passed the firing tanks and stopped by the burning one to leap out in their Red Cross emblazoned uniform and, with not a gun between them, lifted the wounded from the tank, scooped up those in the road, stacked them in the beds, turned the jeeps and shot off the way they’d come. The whole exercise had taken less than three minutes.