BYGONES The military secrets of the former city journalist, politician and civic society founder who rose to Gurkhas Major is finally told in book he never saw published
DURING the second half of the 20th century, journalist John Twells was among Derby’s most successful and best known citizens. The former Head Boy of Derby School was joint proprietor of the country’s biggest independent news and photographic agency; a local Conservative politician who cut the majority of future Foreign Secretary George Brown in the Belper parliamentary constituency in 1955; chairman of the Midlands Railway Trust, a role for which he was awarded the MBE; one of the founders of Derby Civic Society; a newspaper columnist; author of an award winning history of Admiral Nelson and a popular local sportsman.
Unknown, even to friends, colleagues and his four children, was that prior to launching himself into this varied and distinguished career, Twells had risen to the rank of Major with the Gurkhas, widely acknowledged as being among the world’s fiercest fighting men, during one of the British Army’s most courageous and successful campaigns of the Second World War.
Why the mystery? Because Twells simply never mentioned it.
He was wounded and mentioned in despatches in what
Lord Louis Mountbatten called: “One of the greatest battles in history” – but for all he ever said about his time in the Army, even family and friends might have imagined that he sat out the hostilities with a cushy number in the pay corps.
He never spoke of it but he did, however, chronicle every detail of that battle with the practised eye of a trained journalist and he later assembled these vivid contemporary observations into the chapters of a book that he never got round to publishing.
Had he done so, the likelihood is that it would have been under a penname.
Such was Twells’ determination to divest himself of any personal credit that he wrote what amounted to an autobiographical account in the third person, ascribing his own experiences to a character he named Sellers.
Now, however, his book “Unto the Hills” has been published posthumously and the largely forgotten triumph of what has been called “The Forgotten Army” in one of the most gruelling battles of WW2 is winning warm approval.
“This is a great book,” writes noted military historian Robert Lynam, “for anyone who wants to get under the
Derby’s John Twells was once joint proprietor of the country’s biggest independent news agency and before that was Head Boy at Derby School. Yet in between he had risen to the rank of major in the British Army during one of the most successful campaigns in the Second World War - an achievement his friends and family knew nothing about. He did, however, document the battles in a book which, thanks to the help of his son Chris, is now seeing the light of day for the first time
skin of a young British officer serving with the Gurkhas during the Burma campaign.
Twells writes beautifully and his account of Slim describing how the 14th Army would seek sanctuary in the hills when the Japanese attacked is fabulous.”
The success of massively outnumbered British and Commonwealth troops in the battles of Imphal and Kohima, on the North East frontier of India, frustrated the Japanese Imperial Army’s bid to drive a path all the way to Delhi.
This led to them being driven back out of Burma with huge losses and a blow to morale from which they never recovered.
Between March and July 1944 the 14th Army under Lieutenant General
William Slim withstood siege by a massive surrounding force of Japanese and did so with such sustained discipline and ferocity that their attackers suffered almost 54,000 casualties among the 63,000 men they committed to what they thought would be a straightforward march into India.
Twells, his fellow officers and men of the 1st King George Gurkha Rifles were right in the thick of some of the most savage and punishing fighting of World War Two but no first-hand account of their heroic part in a crucial theatre of war emerged until after his death in 2006.
Slim’s forces suffered 12,000 casualties but Twells wrote home to his parents: “Don’t worry. I have the fortune to be with Gurkhas” – a line
that now serves as the book’s subtitle.
Responsibility for its recent release by the Matador publishing house is down to his eldest son Christopher. He explains: “When my father died we found that he had written the first two and half volumes of a book along with a collection of short stories he called ‘Tales of the Raj.’
“The concern was whether they should be published and the answer came when I showed the material to a friend and former colleague of my father at Raymonds News Agency.
“He told me: ‘I know J.T. (John Twells) always regretted that he never got round to publishing what he called his damned book. “It’s an important historical document and obviously informed and well-written. It has to be published.’” The dozen or so years since that conversation have involved a massive effort of organisation and commitment by Christopher, his brother Nick and sisters Caroline Barnes and Amanda Mitchell, in conjunction with professional editors.
The result is a fascinating view of what many military historians regard as one of the finest and most pivotal of all the achievements of the British and Commonwealth forces in WW2 and a copy of “Unto the Hill” now occupies a proud place in the museum of the Gurkha Brigade in Winchester and in the National Army Museum in Chelsea.
After John’s funeral, a former comrade in that harsh and pivotal campaign at Imphal told a local journalist “The Major was the bravest man I ever knew.” “Unto the Hills” now sets that glowing testimonial in context.
No first-hand account of their heroic part in a crucial theatre of war emerged until after his death in 2006.