A shell exploded and radio operator Captain Keith Halnan was knocked unconscious. When he came to, his comrade, who had been a yard or two away, was dead.

This is just one of the memories the 84-year-old retired oncologist, or cancer expert, who lives in Hampton, will never be able to forget. But thanks to lottery funding he has been able to pay his respects to fallen comrades.

Dr Halnan was given £2,100 as part of the National Lottery's New Opportunities Fund for him and his wife to return to Burma from April 3 to 15. It was his third, and, he thinks, final trip.

He fought in north India and Burma, a much-overlooked theatre of the Second World War, and many of his memories are too painful and graphic to retell.

If the 10,000ft altitude, malaria, bugs, poisonous snakes and jungle did not kill you then there were thousands of well-equipped Japanese soldiers hell-bent on expanding that country's empire.

One thing Dr Halnan vividly remembers is the smell of the battlefield in Kohima, where 1,044 British and 800 Indian soldiers died in 64 days of fighting.

He said: "We worked on a gradual advance along a ridge for two days until there was contact with a defensive Japanese area. That was the beginning of the fighting.

"It was very, very difficult and it went on for another six weeks. There were parachutes hanging from the trees and most of the foliage had been shot off. We were on half rations,which was all we could spare, and had about a pint of water a day none for washing.

"There was a dreadful smell of everything you can imagine. Anyway, we won the battle. I won't go into any more detail."

He visited the beautifully maintained Kohima war graves to mark the anniversary of the battle and met a local Naga tribesman he fought alongside this visit they found just one surviving Naga combatant.

Apart from that, things have not changed a great deal, he said. The terrain is still among the most inhospitable in the world and the Naga people are still welcoming of the veterans who fought there.

It is not the hardships or heroics Dr Hanlan recounts. Instead, his memories are of wearing gym shoes through the jungle to make less noise and soldiers' fears that malaria pills would cause impotence.

His war began in September 1939, when his boat from Canada to Britain was attacked by a German U-boat. His ship was evacuated and then sunk by the Germans, who were being attacked by planes from the HMS Ark Royal.

Three years later, after completing his studies at Cambridge University, Dr Halnan was training the Indian Army in radio operations.

Like so many soldiers of the day, he asked for a transfer to the fighting and joined the British Second Division's efforts to recapture Burma from the Japanese.

In March 1944, the division was sent to Assam, in northern India, where the Japanese were advancing.

His first major battle was one of the fiercest close-up fights of the entire war, with bitter hostilities taking place over the no-man's-land including a district commissioner's tennis court.

Kohima, including Garrison Hill, was a vital victory for the British.

It allowed the division to march on the Imphal valley, where the 17th and 5th Indian Divisions were surrounded.

Several more battles and two weeks of jungle marching later, the Japanese retreated and the Second Division joined Indian forces decimated by the 81-day siege. They were soon marching again, this time to Rangoon.

After several more battles, the division was sent back to India. Days later, America dropped two atom bombs and the war was over.

Dr Halnan said: "I decided to go into medicine after that. I studied natural sciences at Cambridge before the war. But I decided to go back and study medicine afterwards to make more of a difference, I suppose."

It was at university that he met his wife, Margaret, now 75. They have three daughters and five grandchildren.

drankin@london.newsquest.co.uk