大象传媒

India 1943-Karachi.

I had arrived in India as an importee in 1937, my first memories are of sailing through that 'stink-stream' the suez, at Port Said, on His Majesty's Troopship, 'DUNERA'. It was her maiden voyage. The stench is embedded forever in my recall of the gateway to the Suez Canal.

Life as a 'Chota Sahib'in British India was bearable. We had the services of our Bearer, Muna, who catered for all our needs. I was his 'Chota Sahib', and could do no wrong. He took me to the Bazaars, and 'other' establishments, where I was taught to be an Indian. Hindi was the language I conversed in.

The British Army School was a single room with one teacher, who taught all ages from 4 to 14years. Lessons were conducted with all pupils helping each other. Needless to say discipline was strict. Never-the-less, our educational standard was higher than that achieved back'Home', as Iwas soon to find out.

My destiny was ordained for me to join the Indian Army. At the tender age of 11, my place was booked for the induction school at the hill station of Simla.
The threatened Japanese invasion of India curtailed all this, and I found myself on a 3 day train journey to Bombay. Fortunately, as it turned, we arrived a day late and missed our ship.

The 'Mauretania, took us aboard.
'Mauretania' at that time was the third largest liner in the world. She had been converted to an armed troopship, carrying a 6" gun several Bofors, Oerlikons, and Pom-poms. There were thousands of troops and British families on board.
Being so huge and fast she travelled out of convoy. The likelyhood of a submarine being able to torpedoe her was very small. Accordingley we left Bombay with the escort of a lonelt Walruss, a pusher-prop., seaplane.

Our first port of call was Madagascar, where I remember seeing the extraordinary sight of dozens of masts and funnels of ships just above the water in the harbour. These were the visible remains of the French fleet sunk by the Royal Navy when the Vichy government refused to join the Allied cause.
We had been diverted to Madagascar to pick up survivors from the troopship we had missed at Bombay,which had been torpedoed ahead of us.

Cape town was our next stop, where Table Mountain was an impressive sight. Leaving Cape Town we had a different aircraft as our escort, a Catalina flying boat

Onwards to Freetown, sierre Leone, where we picked up prisoners of war, and British servicemen.
All was peaceful until our Catalina had to leave us. She did not have the range, and we were still out of range of the Sunderland flying boats from England.

Within hours the alarm was sounded, and we, the evacuees, were herded below the water line, and locked in.
The huge liner steamed at full speed, and ther were violent changes of course. All ant-aircraft guns opened up, the noise was deafening. then we heard the bombs exploding around us. The Luftwaffe had found us, they had been waiting for the opportunity to attack as soon as our escort had left. It seemed hours later when the noise slackened off, and the ship's routine became normal.
Later, on deck, we could see our saviours, a Sunderland, was close by.
This was a very substantial seaplane, a comforting sight.

Liverpool was finally reached, after surviving a great storm in the Irish Sea, where for the first time I saw, and felt white rain (Snow).
As a boy I was fascinated by the houses I saw, and finally I had to ask,"What are those things on the top of the houses?"
I was told, "Chimneys".

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