Heroes of the Victoria Cross TUL BAHADUR PUN

In June 1944, as Allied forces began re-establishing dominance in Burma, a Gurkha Chindit stormed Japanese positions on a railway bridge to save his comrades, earning him the British Empire’s highest military honour

- ALEX BOWERS

The men of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Gurkha Rifles, watched in dismay as Acting Captain Michael Allmand, a respected company commander who had proven his courage in previous engagements, crawled ahead of his unit towards the Japanese machine gun nest. Wading through mud and shell holes, he seemed unstoppable – until a burst of fire struck him down, a wound that would ultimately prove fatal. The enemy bullets continued to tear into the dwindling Chindit forces from across the rail bridge in the Burmese town of Mogaung. A war hero had fallen and, unknown to those who had witnessed it, a posthumous Victoria Cross recipient had risen. But Michael Allmand VC wouldn’t be the only recipient of Britain’s highest military honour that day – 23 June 1944 – Gurkha rifleman Tul Bahadur Pun was about to showcase his bravery and fighting prowess too.

Like so many from the hill villages of Western Nepal, Tul Bahadur Pun enlisted to serve a king and country almost 8,000km away. His training took place at Abbottabad in Northern India (present-day Pakistan), whereby he became part of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Gurkha Rifles in the 77th Infantry Brigade commanded by Brigadier Mike Calvert. These servicemen would experience the horrors of the SouthEast Asian Theatre in the years to come. What had begun with a series of swift and brutal actions carried out by the Japanese, perhaps most infamously the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Hong Kong, was followed by an invasion of Burma in December 1941. The enemy advanced from Axis-occupied Thailand, captured Rangoon, cut off the Burma Road – depriving the Nationalist Chinese armies of essential supplies – and pushed some 1,600km further to place themselves at the gates of British India.