J. O. M. Roberts - Military Career

Military Career

Serving with the 1st Gurkhas, Captain J.O.M.Roberts won the Military Cross in North Africa. Then he returned to India, and joined the 153 (Gurkha) Indian Para Battalion.He was dropped into North Burma on July 3, 1942 at the head of a small force to recce the Myitkyina area and then march 150 miles North to Fort Hertz. Roberts's party reached Fort Hertz in early August and discovered it was still in British hands. On August 13 a party led by Capt.G.E.C. Newlands of 153 Para dropped in on Fort Hertz with engineering supplies, and the hitherto-unusable airfield at Fort Hertz was made operational by August 20. Roberts and his men were extracted around that date.

As Major commanding 'A' Company of the 153 (Gurkha) Para Battalion, he took part in the 50th Para Brigade defense of Sangshak in 1944 against the Japanese thrust towards Kohima. The defense of Sangshak was portrayed by some in the Army High Command as not having been exemplary and Brigadier Hope-Thompson, in local command, took the punishment for that. However Slim, the 14th Army Commander personally sent a dispatch praising the bravery of those involved in the six days and nights of hand-to-hand fighting by a force outnumbered by 18 to 1. In fact the action is noted for the highest number of awards for gallantry issued by the Indian Army for a single action. Roberts fought well. The book about the battle by Harry Seaman has a photograph of him.

He led the first combat paratrooper jump in Southeast Asia on 1 May 1945, dropping with a battalion-sized force at Elephant Point, South of Rangoon as part of the operation to capture that city, and was mentioned in Despatches.

After the war he was posted in Malaya until 1954. He went to Kathmandu in 1958 as military attaché. He left the Army in 1962 as a Lieutenant-Colonel.