Episode 1 Burma's Secret Jungle War with Joe Simpson

Joe Simpson is on a personal journey

deep into the heart of modern Burma - Myanmar.

Joe, an internationally-renowned mountaineer, made the headlines

when he almost died high in the Andes when his rope was cut,

a story recounted in the iconic bestseller Touching The Void.

Now, 30 years on, he's in Burma.

So, my father was here.

He was armed, he was behind enemy lines.

I'm trying to just go and see

where he fought as a young man and get some sense of it.

Accompanying Joe is ex-British Army officer and expedition leader

Ed Stafford, the first man to walk the length of the Amazon.

Together they are on the trail of an Allied special force

called the Chindits.

These guerrilla troops were dropped deep behind enemy lines

into the jungles of Burma in 1944 to attack the Imperial Japanese Army.

And the Joe's father was one of them.

I've always been immensely proud of my father.

I found it difficult to tell him. I just never did.

So that's what I regret.

For more than 30 years

Joe has dreamed of following in his dad's footsteps,

to try and see what his now deceased father,

Lieutenant Ian Simpson, experienced fighting here in World War II.

I can't even begin to think what it would have been like

to try and do this in a monsoon.

Absolutely unimaginably awful.

Both son and father confronted extreme events in their 20s -

Joe facing death in the mountains,

his father surviving battle in the guts of the enemy.

I wouldn't dream of comparing a wartime experience

with fooling around on a mountain.

Da didn't choose that, he was in a world war,

and he and all these other men were doing their duty.

But Joe and Ed's modern-day journey...

Whoa, whoa.

SHOUTING

Get out of the way!

..has its own dangers...

Whoa-ho-ho.

..when they too get caught up in a conflict -

a modern-day echo of Joe's father's time in Burma.

We seem to have walked into a war.

We have walked into a war.

Yeah, I suppose we better walk out of it.

I can't have waited all this time to come here and to finally think

it's just about to happen and we've got all the permissions,

and then to find...

we get the door slammed in our face.

That's not good news.

It's not good news at all.

Joe and Ed have arrived at Inwa,

a small village on the banks Myanmar's mighty Irrawaddy River.

-Hello. Mingalaba.

-Mingalaba!

-Mingalaba!

Ah-ha-ha. Check you out, with your language skills!

It's the start of a five-week trek

following Joe's father four months

in a forgotten army in a largely forgotten war.

Joe and Ed's plan is to camp

and carry everything they need to survive in the jungle.

The local market's their last chance to stock up.

You can buy an iPhone 5 but you can't buy a machete.

-Excuse me. Dharr shi la?

-Dharr shi la, shi la.

Yeah?

-Yeah, yeah, yes.

-Yes!

Ah, Here we go.

Bigger, better, bigger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That looks dangerous.

Oh!

Yeah.

Mate, I reckon these are as good as we're going to get, don't you?

That one feels better. It's more like a dagger.

Feeling Japanese.

-You look like you're going into battle.

-Doesn't it?!

It's somewhat ridiculous, but it'll do the job.

They're not too heavy, as well. I quite like that.

Retracing Ian Simpson's route will take Joe and Ed

through Shan and Kachin states in north-east Myanmar -

South East Asia.

The plan is to follow Joe's father's 500km route

as a Chindit in Morris Force.

Starting near the Irrawaddy River and heading east

into the foothills of the Himalayas,

before turning north and ending near the city of Myitkyina.

It will take Joe and Ed through parts of Myanmar

that are closed to tourists and are flashpoints for local rebel groups.

OK, it's day one, we're walking.

We're having a little bit of a ging gang goolie at the moment

just in terms of getting everybody ready and getting prepared

to put our packs on and literally walk out of this village.

I need to make sure that everyone's got enough water

so that they're hydrated throughout the day.

I want to make sure everyone is all right.

Especially Joe.

Joe and Ed have come to Myanmar at a crucial period

in its modern history.

We're just about to set off

and there's about 100 motorbikes coming down the street.

Hello.

-It's an election parade.

-NLD.

What does NLD stand for?

National...?

-OFF-SCREEN:

-National League for Democracy.

National League for Democracy.

The NLD is the party of world-famous political activist

and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung Suu's supposed to win by a landslide.

-Really?

-Yeah.

For 15 years she was held under house arrest

by the ruling military dictatorship

until her release in 2010.

Does that mean there is the potential

for things to kick off somewhat if they don't win?

Yeah, I think so.

Best thing we can do is get up in those hills.

I was going to say. That might actually have some effect, yeah?

Hmm. OK, let's go.

The elections are a watershed in Burmese history.

Like World War II, the impact could be profound.

Back in the spring of 1944

Lieutenant Ian Simpson and the Chindits

were deployed into Burma in an Allied mission to attack

the Japanese from behind their own lines

and slow their advance towards India - the jewel in the crown.

Joe's father left a load of maps and they all had numbers on them

which indicate exactly where he stayed.

So we've got the lats and longs of those programmed into the GPS,

so we know that we can stay in exactly the same place.

What we're trying to find is number one,

which is where he landed, which is Chowringhee airstrip.

If there's any paths I want to use them

to try and get as close to the airfield as possible.

Ian Simpson was part of one of the largest

airborne operations of World War II.

The only records of Joe's father's wartime mission -

his diaries and maps -

are now in the Imperial War Museum.

They're the key to Joe's journey.

Right. So here are Colonel Simpson's papers.

Collections like this are fantastic

for giving you an idea of exactly what it was like

to live through these events.

I remember him writing all these notes

and annotating the maps and stuff.

Ian Simpson wrote his diary in secret, against Army regulations.

If discovered, he could have been punished.

"We had intended crossing the main road quietly,

"but the encounter with the Japs made this difficult.

"Have airstrikes on traffic on the road."

So that was the 27th, so that was here.

The more I read of these things the more I started to think,

you know, I had not really appreciated

quite what my father was doing.

"Left about 9:30.

"Terrible search for water."

Then he says, "Russell's recce was caught by zeros,"

as in Japanese fighters,

"and mules ran away."

He wasn't a very demonstrative man in a sense.

You know, I sometimes look at friends and the relationship

they have with their fathers, and I'm quite jealous, in a away.

There's a sort of friendship,

and a...

a communication that simply really didn't really exist with us.

I've always been immensely proud of my father.

I found it difficult to tell him. In fact, I didn't -

just like he didn't tell me.

So, there we go.

Joe's father died in 2010.

The handwritten journal is now the only connection

with his wartime experiences.

We have a diary that lists day-to-day activities,

and we've got the map.

So without these things all we'd be doing is wandering blindly around

bits of Burma thinking,

"Well, I think he was somewhere round here."

Joe and Ed have been on the road for half a day,

trekking through the 35 degree heat and humidity.

Hello.

At the moment, I am boiling.

So far so good.

-So far so hot.

-We've made good progress this morning.

This chicken was positively obese.

I don't think chickens have that much fat, mate.

This one would have needed a mobility scooter.

Mate, you can't say that.

Are we getting close?

Right, I think we should stop.

I have to say, I think we should stop.

The airstrip, according to the GPS,

is 1.1km in this direction.

So the road is no longer taking us closer towards it,

so at some point we're going to have to break off

and go through these fields.

What we're hoping to find is a path.

Joe and Ed know the exact location of Chowringhee airstrip,

but finding the right trail to get there is proving trickier.

Is there a track there?

Of sorts.

Hold on.

I think we're better off trying to find a path that's used by humans...

-Yeah.

-..going in the right direction.

I think we need to go back to the road and head back

along the way we came and just keep looking on the left-hand side.

They trek on, but Joe's feet are now starting to play up.

I seem to be developing a blister

in a place I've never developed a blister in my life,

which is between my two toes.

It's nothing, but we're stopping it now, apparently.

I'm just double-backing -

making a home-made plaster out of duct tape, basically.

If you make sure that that bit, mate, is...

-Is on the soft bit.

-..is on the bit that's...

Cos you'll just be crippled if that turns into a proper blister.

-Wonderful stuff.

-Do you want me to do it?

I just want to catch any sort of blisters -

I want to catch them early,

because if they develop into bigger blisters,

then clearly, he needs his feet, he won't be able to walk.

It's not a big drama, but we need to keep on top of things like that

because we've got a long way to go.

As an ex-mountaineer, Joe's used to injuries, small and large.

In 1985 Joe was left for dead

after a horrific climbing accident high in the Andes,

when he and fellow climber Simon Yates were caught in the storm -

a story that became the international bestseller

Touching The Void.

On the descent I broke my right leg very badly.

And Simon lowered me off an ice cliff that he couldn't see.

He was hoping I was a few feet off the ground, and cut the rope...

..and unfortunately I fell down a crevasse.

Joe survived the fall

and spent the next three and a half days

crawling back to their base camp.

He was close to death.

It was only when I got back to England

that the psychological trauma really hit me.

One night, I must've been screaming my head off,

because the next minute I found my father in my bedroom,

which is unheard of, you know, coming to comfort me.

Normally it would be your mother.

He just tapped me on the shoulder and he said,

"It's all right. I've seen this."

And I know what he was referring to.

What perhaps we'd call post-traumatic stress today,

and he just said, "Don't worry about it."

And that was it.

But I made damn sure it didn't happen in front of my father again.

Joe continued climbing until his many injuries

forced him to retire in 2009.

They often say when you have a huge experience like that

early in your life the rest of your life is a shadow of what you were.

I do often think of dying.

I mean, I was 25 and Da was 24 -

but I wouldn't dream of comparing a wartime experience

with fooling around on a mountain.

You know, in Peru, nobody died in Peru.

You know, no-one was shooting at us.

You know, any risk, we chose.

Da didn't choose that, he was in a world war,

and he and all these other men were doing their duty.

Ian Simpson remained in the Army after the war,

and Joe was sent to boarding school when he was eight

because his father was posted all over the world.

Now, only a handful of Chindits are still alive.

It didn't rain, it tipped down.

We were in mud,

the conditions and food were inadequate,

and we fought and we marched, and we fought and we marched.

They just stuck us in there proudly, and we came out prouder.

I've got children and I've got a wife,

-but being a Chindit is the most important thing in my life.

-Yeah.

It was a deadly mission,

and there was a good chance of not making it out alive.

I think in about four or five months, between disease and killed

-and wounded, we lost 800 men from the battalion.

-Right.

Just like that.

I was one of 80 men that walked out of my battalion.

There was one British soldier being carried on a stretcher.

He'd lost his arm and shoulder, fearful wound.

I knelt at the head of this stretcher,

his head was just in front of me,

and I spoke to him.

He could speak, told me where he came from and that sort of thing.

And then I shot him in the head, like that.

What I was terrified of was what the Japanese would do to him

if they came.

He was going to die anyway.

-It's perfect. This is exactly the right direction.

-Hey.

In the late afternoon of their first day

of following in the Chindits' footsteps,

finally Joe and Ed are back on track.

-Mingalaba.

-Mingalaba.

-Mingalaba.

-Mingalaba.

-300 metres away now.

-300 metres?

-1,000 feet.

-This path is a godsend.

-We are here.

-We're here.

HE PANTS

Speechless.

Joe and Ed have finally arrived at Chowringhee -

the rough, home-made airstrip

where Lieutenant Ian Simpson first stepped onto Burmese soil.

I don't think it's fanciful to think that that cleared ground

might well have been cleared by them.

But I'm not sure it really matters, to be honest.

I mean, they landed here.

And...

I always thought it was an incredible thing to do.

Ian Simpson's diary records landing in darkness.

"Thursday, 9th of March, 1944.

"Left about 20:25 to arrive Chowringhee at 21:45.

"Quite a pleasant spot,

"and had good feed on Yank rations,

"followed by sleep till 7:30.

"Everyone was hunky-dory, and no upsets occurred."

That's a pretty casual reference

to an extremely dangerous glider landing

that he's just done in the middle of the night.

28 Chindits were injured and 30 died

in the first few hours of operations.

Despite the deaths, the landings achieved their goal,

and over 20,000 highly-trained troops, 3,000 mules

and tonnes of supplies were now

deep behind Japanese lines.

They'd have literally flown in from the sky over there,

landed about 100 metres in front of me, and...

-And on down there.

-..gone right through us and beyond, yeah.

It was something that I always wondered - the bravery of it.

Just getting into a glider in pitch-black,

being released in darkness, landing in darkness.

Staggering.

And it's must have been a tense night, that.

It must have been a really tense night.

Just balls-out.

Mingalaba.

Mingalaba.

Joe and Ed are staying the night in a nearby Buddhist monastery.

We were going to find a place to camp,

but given that we've got hammocks, and it's very developed land,

there's a very good chance we wouldn't find any trees.

And so the abbot's kindly let us

stay in here, which is perfect.

There are those that still remember the Chindits arriving.

78-year-old U La Aung was a young boy.

Do the village ever remember

hearing the planes coming in?

I'm now following where my father travelled,

and we want to try and cross the Shweli.

Today was just classic, you know?

MUSIC PLAYS FROM PHONE

Mingalaba.

Going past with a mobile phone, playing pop music.

The true way to enlightenment(!)

Yeah, it's been a bittersweet sort of day, really.

I mean, the sweet...

..God, what a beautiful country.

And the people.

Oh, God, every time we went past families

working on the river bank, everyone smiles.

Everyone smiles.

This is Joe coming back,

reconnecting to his father, who's dead.

And that's no small thing.

And he's been dreaming about it for years, and it's actually happening.

And I think it's hit him today.

I could tell.

He wouldn't tell me - we're not close enough yet, absolutely.

But I don't think all Sheffield

climbers are hard as nails.

I think underneath that bristly surface...

..lies a soft underbelly.

And I reckon this will affect Joe quite a bit, actually.

COCKEREL CROWS

Today, Joe and Ed are pushing further east

into more forested, hilly country.

They've a ten-hour slog ahead of them.

We have quite a big day.

We've got to get down to the banks of the Shweli,

and try and make a raft and cross it.

I can hardly swim.

Ed says he's not a very good swimmer.

Which I find a bit weird, because he's crossed the Amazon

God knows how many times.

I'm a really bad swimmer.

So...

just make the raft bombproof, Ed, you know?

That's what...

That's what's in order, isn't it?

Joe and Ed face a 15km trek along a trail

that bypasses a number of Ian Simpson's wartime camps.

The Chindits of Morris Force were heading east

to attack the main Japanese supply route,

in the northeast of Myanmar.

But when it rained, the jungle trails turned into a quagmires,

and progress could be woefully slow.

It's dry today,

but Joe's gold climbing injuries are slowing him down.

HE GROANS AND PANTS

Now, where's Ed gone?

I don't think I've ever sweated so much in my life.

Within half an hour of setting off,

Your shirt's completely soaked.

It's like you've just dumped it in a bath.

The knee to be holding up, anyway.

A bit.

I caught myself getting a little bit frustrated

at the pace of things.

And I could feel the slight tension building up

in my head about the pace that

Joe was walking.

And then I just had to...

smile at myself, and go,

"Look, at the end of the day,

"his pace is his pace.

"This is his journey, and I'm facilitating it."

I'm very heavily reliant on Ed.

Which is...

HE PANTS

..a good and a bad thing, really.

It's a bad thing in the sense that I'm always used to...

..being in charge, and being in front myself.

And it feels quite strange...

..being a little chubby bloke at the back.

My job is to help him experience

what his father experienced.

It's not to get frustrated, angry or short with him.

And so...

HE PANTS

..sort of let it go. It's gone.

What I've got here is something I could never have got,

it doesn't matter how many books I read about Morris Force

or the Chindit wars.

HE SIGHS

Books tell you something, experience lends you something -

an indelible memory.

The Shweli River rises as a small stream in China,

but by the time it reaches here,

it's over half a kilometre wide.

Oh! Mate, it's quite big.

-God, it's huge.

-That's bigger than I thought it was going to be.

When Joe's father crossed the river, it was pre-monsoon,

so it was relatively low.

But Joe and Ed are here post-monsoon, and it's full.

I'm looking forward to this.

I think it'll be a bit of an adventure.

Especially with a strong swimmer like you on board(!)

I'm sure it will be fine.

Joe and Ed are building a raft

so they can cross the river close to where Joe's father did.

What a place to fight a war.

'Just horrendous, really, thinking about it.'

I just want to have a sense of what my father did.

'Not all the Chindits, and not everybody

'in all the campaigns and all the battles, but just what...

'he must have done.

'Very impressed with the old man.'

Then again, I always was.

Out in the open,

the Chindits were vulnerable to attack from the Japanese,

who were known to use a small road on the other side of the river.

And like Ed, many Chindits couldn't swim.

I like the inherent strength of their stuff, don't you?

That must have been one you made, mate.

Crossing the river is not as easy as we thought.

HE EXHALES

Their antics have attracted an audience.

-JOE:

-Mingalaba.

-ALL:

-Mingalaba.

-Can we have some help?

-Can you come and help?

Yeah?

Che zu ba, che zu ba.

This is all right.

I'm going to... I'm going to go...

this side.

If I just keep pushing on this side...

Whoa!

Don't do that. Don't do that.

That wasn't good.

I've just lost the pole.

-Got it.

-Got it?

-Got it, got it.

I'm not going to do that again.

You nearly capsized us.

Crikey.

Stafford, calm down.

Mate, paddle it.

-See if it works.

-You reckon?

-Yeah.

Honestly, this is a kayak.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Don't you think?

-You're right.

I'm just over the moon that this is floating.

I think the adrenaline is going quite fast, as well.

That's when laughing so much.

Rivers were a constant obstacle for Chindits' progress.

And in the monsoons, there were fatalities

as soldiers were swept away by the floodwaters.

With over 400 men in Ian Simpson's column,

it took nearly a whole day to cross this river.

Let's just get to shore.

With only two of them, it's taken

Joe and Ed just over an hour.

Can't go any further than that.

Well done, mate.

Job done, give us a hug, that was cool.

Well done. Mingalaba.

-JOE:

-I'm going to be stiff as a board tomorrow.

-That was cool, mate. We did it.

-It was, it was, it was.

-Mingalaba.

-WOMAN:

-Mingalaba.

After crossing the Shweli yesterday,

Joe and Ed are now heading

for Joe's father's tenth camp.

It's 20km deeper into the jungle.

It's 6am, and, like the Chindits before them,

they're setting off early

to try and avoid the heat of the day.

Ian Simpson's diary mentions early starts -

and, as an officer, rank brought privilege.

"Sunday, 19th of March.

"Fine morning, woken about 5:15.

"Tea, biscuits and fruit in bed,

"to leave for supply drop at 0600 hours.

"Halt from 12 till two at a quite good place with hot coffee."

We've taken his notes, we've taken his maps.

We've matched them up with satellite maps.

And we've got as accurate a plan as you can.

It's not going to be perfect,

because these trails will obviously change over the years.

HE PANTS

So...

You know...

I couldn't really...

..get any nearer to walking in my father's footsteps.

It's an immersive experience, isn't it? I mean...

I could just...

come to Burma as a tourist,

and fanny around on a riverboat looking stupid,

and drinking beer.

But it would hardly give me a sense of where Da went.

The Chindits of Morris Force marched east for four weeks,

passing through many peaceful villages

before they began to attack the Japanese.

This is the type of trail that Joe's father would have

followed in order to get through the forest that fast as possible.

It might be a hunter's trail, it might be a logger's trail,

but it's... It's certainly not a road. And...

Here comes a car!

THEY LAUGH

-"It's certainly not a road."

-JOE IMITATES ENGINES

Brilliant.

The timing couldn't be more perfect, could it?

"It's not a road. It's really not a road."

Joe and Ed are following small trails

made by farmers and bamboo harvesters.

I can see 400 men in slouch hats

coming down that track.

I'm looking forward to getting to the camp tonight.

Nice and early.

Following the GPS has been successful all morning,

but now Joe's father's route has disappeared

into a maze of dead ends.

It's thick, thick, thick.

Can we get the side there?

Is there an obvious route in?

No.

I don't think so.

Just looks as dense when you get over there as does up there.

Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

Do you think going through that vegetation

is nicer than going through this vegetation?

It is, isn't it? If we go around that side...

-It's more open, that.

-Yeah, exactly.

-It's less...

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

We've come down there, and round and back.

How far are we out now?

Four.

4k through this stuff's going to take forever, isn't it?

It's just a case of re-picking up the route.

How about we go back to the track

and let's cut across a different way?

-We want to go around that way, not that way, basically.

-Yeah.

Cos this is bamboo, this is gnarly.

All right?

Trying to follow Ian Simpson's 70-year-old route

is taking them deeper and deeper into trouble.

HE GROANS

And they're dragging the film crew with them.

It was all going so well.

They're only 4km from Camp 10.

On a clear trail that would normally take 50 minutes,

but in the last hour they've only gone 500 metres.

This is...close to what your father would have experienced.

Give me the mountains any day.

Any day.

We're following a track that was made 71 years ago.

And even with the best in the world

and the satellite, maps and...

..using GPS

is quite obvious that the forest has decided that some of its tracks

are not for using any more and we've found ourselves off track.

If we lose Ed now we're screwed.

None of it looks great, to be honest.

-And 10 is in what direction?

-East.

-North? East.

-East.

OK, this way.

By late afternoon, Joe, Ed and the film crew

are still 3km from Camp 10, and now they have run out of water.

The bottom of this valley, there's a dried up riverbed

with standing water in it, which isn't ideal,

but at least standing water means we'll be able to drink.

Water out here is often disease ridden,

full of typhoid, diphtheria, and hepatitis.

Marching in stifling heat and humidity,

Joe, Ed and the Chindits before them

needed up to five litres of water a day

and had to make do with what they could find.

But contaminated water like this

accounted for huge numbers of casualties.

I've got water here.

With little chance of medical evacuation,

men unable to keep up were often left behind.

And on more than one occasion seriously ill men were shot

rather than being left for the Japanese.

Joe, Ed and the crew have no choice but to use this dirty water,

sterilising it with chlorine tablets.

It's 15:55.

It's dark in two hours. We were suppose to camp at three.

I've got a hammock and Ed's got a hammock,

so we're all right, and that makes a very happy.

You two, on the other hand...

OK, let's get a move on.

-Let's do it.

-You go ahead, Ed.

-OK, mate.

Joe, Ed and the crew have no hope of reaching Camp 10 before dark.

They'll have to overnight in the jungle.

We have about 35 minutes till last light.

It isn't just me and Joe here, we've got you filming

and we've got the sound man as well.

We've only got two hammocks, which is Joe and I,

who are meant to be camping out here, you two weren't.

Therefore we're going to have to double up in the hammocks,

put two men under each basher.

I'm going to have to sleep without a mosquito net tonight,

but we've got enough food for everyone -

but we really need to set a camp up before last light.

A bit of a cock-up in the jungle. It's not ideal, but it's OK.

It's not...no time to panic.

-How you doing, Joe?

-Nearly there.

Watch out! Tree's coming down! Get out of the way!

Whoo!

Bloody hell.

That's got to be the most disastrous hammock.

I reckon you might need to choose a new tree

to tie your hammock to, mate.

LAUGHTER

It's actually resting...

Joe's tree just fell down.

It's actually just missed my hammock.

-That's a big tree.

-It is a big tree.

I'm not that fat.

LAUGHTER

That could have killed someone.

There's certain aspects of this we've underestimated,

it's more serious than we thought.

And the only way we could find that out is by doing what we did today.

But that just means it will take a little longer, I think.

Ten years ago, it would have really riled me to be trailing behind you.

Right.

And I don't really give a toss any more.

Bobbling along in your wake, it doesn't really bother me at all.

I learned a bit about myself, actually.

Learned a bit about my da.

Not that much, but...

starting to realise what sort of man he was.

I just appreciate more than I did before.

Where I just sort of blindly admired before

I now actually really understand he was a very tough man.

Very strong man.

Joe slept really well for about the first five hours

and then has been awake for the last two.

I couldn't sleep for the first five hours

and then fell asleep about two hours ago.

The Chindits too had few comforts.

Often sleeping on the forest floor under a blanket

with just a fly sheet or rough jungle shelter to keep the rain off,

and they did that for over 17 weeks.

Their daily routine would have been relatively simple.

But it's quite clear that when they had a march day they went for it,

I mean, they were having 12 hour days, day after day in this area.

"Thursday, 23rd of March.

"We moved off at 06:00.

"It started raining and rained until after harbouring at 17:20.

"Tempers very short and not getting along very well until we dossed down

"right and left of the track.

"We built big fires and I cooked a chicken for all the grade officers,

"14 of them."

It was rare for the Chindits to get fresh food.

Most of the time they lived off lightweight American field rations

that were only made to be used for up to two weeks,

not for four months.

OK, it's reconstituted egg powder.

Half of Britain is existing on this stuff in the 1940s, isn't it?

The American rations had a woefully inadequate calorie count,

and as the weeks mounted up the Chindits went malnourished...

unlike Ed.

That is really good.

I'm not joking. That is amazing.

Light and fluffy as well.

On average, each Chindit lost 3st.

The plan this morning is to hack through the forest

to another river 900 metres north.

From there it should only be a couple of kilometres to Camp 10.

In thick, claustrophobic jungle like this,

the Chindits risked bumping into Japanese patrols.

When it happened, the fighting was brutal and often hand-to-hand.

Ha! The river is beautiful.

Come here. Look at that.

Look at this.

That is a gorgeous river.

It's a relief to wash away two days of jungle sweat and grime.

Let's get in there.

Mate, this is how we travel to the next camp.

Finally, 24 hours behind schedule, Joe and Ed arrived at Camp 10.

We're here. It's good.

It's good to have actually got to a place where he stopped.

I think it's quite moving, actually.

There are some local people here.

Looks like somebody else has chosen 10 as a campsite as well.

It's quite amazing that a camp that was probably constructed in 1944

-is still been occupied.

-Yeah.

And to think, 71 years ago he was just hunkering down.

It's something else really, isn't it? That he was here.

For two days the Chindits stopped in this tiny clearing

for a resupply drop.

Joe's father was responsible for coordinating it.

It's not like their ghosts,

but I can imagine this place teeming with soldiers.

My father up there in the shade on the radio,

encrypting messages, sending them off.

He would have been a busy young officer.

It's quite a strange feeling, actually.

Sort of wish he was still alive so...I could go back and...

tell him where I'd been and show him photographs.

I bet if I gave him a photograph of this place he'd recognise it.

Tell him where we went and where we got lost,

he'd call me a, "blithering idiot."

But, anyway, that's not going to happen.

Whilst at this camp, Ian Simpson also took the opportunity

to supplement his meagre rations by fishing.

Da frequently refers to clear water and, "nice pools," is what he says.

Now, they may have finished with line, but...

they commonly fished with plastic explosives.

So what they'd do is they'd find a good pool

that they thought would hold a head of fish...

bomb it, get the fish, bring them back, feed the men.

It wasn't sport.

And clearly if he was doing what I'm doing right now

he'd have been very hungry.

LAUGHTER

At least you got one.

-If you got ten of those, that would be reasonable.

-Yeah.

But they look like they're going to taste good

when they're grown up.

Mate, I think that's promising.

That's good a good 2oz. That's food.

It looks good, mate, do you want to eat that?

-No, I give it to you.

-No, no, no.

-It's my present. You have it.

Mate, I'm not going to eat all of it. We've got to at least share it.

No, you're carrying double the load of me, you need to eat that fish.

-Do you like fish?

-No.

So it's not actually as gallant an offer as you're making it out?

LAUGHTER

It's really good. Got nice big chunks of white meat.

-Bony?

-Want a bit more?

-Go on, then, see what it tastes like.

Joe and Ed have travelled over 70km, getting more and more of an insight

into his father's wartime experience.

Forgetting all the disease and the attacks by the enemy...

this would have been just really hard grind.

And I can't even begin to think what it would have been like

to try and do this in the monsoon.

Absolutely unimaginably awful.

And that's what they did.

Very impressed.

Despite all the challenges

that Joe's father and the Chindits had already faced,

the real hardship of battle was yet to come.

That's where Joe and Ed are headed next.

Erm, OK, my toenail is about to come off.

Got my little surgical...

It's going to peel off, open door style.

My tendency is to yank it off, but then I'm quite brutal.

Can it peel?

I don't think you're taking this very serious.

I am. A wee bit of blood and whatever, you'll be all right.

Stick a bit of Germolene in there.

It's got river shit and all sorts of jungle crap in it.

It's coming.

Do it again. 360 again.

And a hard yank. That's you.

-Do you want that?

-No, I don't.

It's starting to fall apart.

This truck is going the direction that we're going

and they've offered us a lift, so it seems to be a bit of a no brainer.

And what a relief.

I've only had about 300 calories today.

And my legs were feeling like water on the last slog up that hill.

Watch your head!

The free ride ends in a small village

where Joe and Ed hope to find a bed for the night.

We can sleep here.

We can sleep here. That's amazing. Yes, he said.

Yeah. OK.

70 years ago, the Chindits would almost certainly have been

the first western faces in remote villages like this.

I'm quite grateful, actually. I'm exhausted today.

So if we can just get our head down in this house and that will be fine.

A long day, another long day, really long day.

Just as the Chindits often bartered for or bought local food,

so Joe and Ed are buying some meat from a passing butcher.

Selling meat. Can we buy?

Shall we buy that?

How the hell are we going to cook it?

-These guys will cook it.

-OK.

-Yeah?

-Go with that.

How much?

-Six?

-Yes.

-We've managed to find a place to sleep and meat to buy...

-And steak.

And steak.

And all we've said is "che zu be" and "mingalaba".

CHILD TALKS IN BURMESE

Just some bread. It's good, is it?

We really have landed on our feet tonight.

I mean, just that drive was good enough, wasn't it?

-Mm-hm.

-I mean, that was brilliant.

Transport, food and accommodation, somewhere to sleep.

Just had supper with Joe. I think personally I've seen him...

..connect to his father in a way that I don't think he thought

he was going to while he was out here.

For all our communication failings, he was a great dad.

It was an honour to have him as my father, actually.

Very proud of him.

He could envisage his father being in certain places

and he went through what it must have been like for his father,

so that's a big thing. That's a big thing.

Actually being here, it's...

..made quite a difference.

But it's all bittersweet thing, really.

I wish I done it when Da was still alive.

With just five weeks to retrace Ian Simpson's four months in Myanmar,

Joe and Ed have decided to jump ahead

to the small town of Sikaw in Kachin state, travelling by bus.

But with the first elections for 25 years due in two days' time,

tensions between political factions are hotting up.

Joe and Ed get diverted to the village of Mansi where Jimmy,

a member of the support crew, has some bad news.

-Is the fighting happening now?

-Yes, in some areas.

-There is fighting happening now?

-Yeah.

It seems like we've walked into the wrong place at the wrong time,

doesn't it?

Local rebel forces in both Kachin and Shan states

have been fighting for independence for decades.

And with the election looming,

the fighting has flared up in several nearby hotspots.

Don't know what to say, really.

I never expected to be able to do all of it.

I understood that there would be compromises.

It seems to be a disaster at the moment,

and let's see what 24 hours shows us.

We've been told that at this stage of our route

we can't go any further.

We've actually been told we need to get out of here right now.

It's gutting, absolutely gutting.

Joe and Ed have no choice but to follow military orders...

..and escape to the nearest safe town, a place called Bhamo.

HE SIGHS

I'm just so frustrated. I'm so angry. I'm so disappointed.

I'm just...

Joe and Ed set off to follow a 70-year-old war,

but they are becoming embroiled in a new one.

For now, Joe's dream is on hold.

I can't have waited all this time to come here

and to finally think it's just about to happen

and we've got all the permissions and then to find...

..we get the door slammed in our face.

But it's not good news.

It's not good news at all.

In the next episode...

This place is literally littered in land mines.

We seem to have walked into a war, so...

-We have walked into a war.

-We certainly better walk out of it.

The modern day conflict really hits home.

Slightly ominously, we've just been called in to a meeting.

It would appear that the situation is deteriorating quite rapidly,

so we may have to move out of here.