John Winstanley
(1919-2008), Ophthalmic surgeon and lieutenant-colonelSitter in 1 portrait
by Bassano Ltd
bromide print, January 1941
NPG x85128
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Jason English
20 December 2021, 15:52
Major John Winstanley
Officer Commanding B Company, 4th Battalion, Queen's Own Royal
West Kent Regiment
The perimeter shrank and shrank until it only included the tennis court and
Garrison Hill where the final stand took place. The battle took place on the
tennis court - we shot them on the tennis court, we grenaded them on
the tennis court. We held the tennis court against desperate attacks for five
days. We held because I had constant contact by radio with the guns and the
Japs never seemed to learn how to surprise us. They used to shout in English as
they formed up, 'Give up.' So we knew when an attack was coming in. One
would judge just the right moment to call down gun and mortar fire to catch
them as they were launching the attack, and by the time they were
approaching us they were decimated. They were not acting intelligently and
did the same old stupid thing again and again.
We had experienced fighting the Japs in the Arakan, bayoneting the
wounded and prisoners. So whereas we respected the Afrika Korps, not so the
Japanese. They had renounced any right to be regarded as human, and we
thought of them as vermin to be exterminated. That was important - we are
pacific in our nature, but when aroused we fight quite well. Our backs were to
the wall, and we were going to sell our lives as expensively as we could.
Although we wondered how long we could hang on, we had no other option.
We had not thought of surrender at any level; we were too-seasoned soldiers
for that. We couldn't taunt the Japanese back as we couldn't speak Japanese,
but there were some JIFs on the other side and we taunted them in English.