大象传媒

My Indian Army Experiences and Why I saw No Enemy Action

We left Bombay by train for the OTS at Bangalore where I was commissioned and went up to Abbottabad in North India for a 2 month RIASC school there where I had to pass the transport and supply course. After this I had a months leave which I spent in Srinagar, Kashmir. I then went to a supply depot at Meerut for a months experience before going to Rawlpindi to join a transport company which I had applied for.

I spent the next two weeks training sepoys how to drive and was then called in by the adjutant to tell me that he was moving me to a new Depot Batallion which was being formed. My record apparently showed that I had some idea of organisation and the 21 year old oficer who they had put in had none. I did all I could to stop it but to no avail. I was very disappointed as I heard that when they were trained the GT Co I was in had ended up taking supplies up through Kashmir to join the Chinese mule companies on the frontier. This company I had joined was completely new to the Indian Army. It was to deal with the movement of all transport personnel in the Army. It started slow with 3 or 4 clerks and about 40 men but later, 2 years ahead at Lucknow I had an office staff of 30 and on one day I had 2,300 men on my strength including 1,800 on my daily parade, which an elderly Indian Army Legal Colonel told me was the largest number of men he had ever heard of being in the charge of a lieutenant!

There were two Depot Bns, A & B. A dealt with Northern Indians, and B with those from the South. A became much bigger than B because there were far more troops from the North. We also had another company, C, which dealt with the criminal element and we had a prison with 120 criminals in it.

I was working very hard now as the Coy strength increases, but I had to go into hospital with an attack of hepatitis which lasted a week, then I had 2 weeks in a convalescent home at Murree, the local hill station.

By now the Battalion was growing so large that it was decided to send them both to the Records Centre in Lucknow. I was sent there 6 days before the move to see that the new camp was ready for us. Unfortunately Lucknow had not realised that out of the hundreds of men coming down 120 were criminals, including murderers who had to be confined in a prison camp with 24 hr guard.

When I arived at Lucknow there was, of course, no sign of any prison camp and the stupid colonel who apparently had received notice that criminal elements were coming had done nothing except appoint an Indian contractor to do the job! I phoned 'Pindi but was told that the move could not be stopped and I had 4 1/2 days to get the job done.

The first thing I did was to get the contract to put flood lights up so that they could work at night. Unfortunately I was not very well and I had to be there to supervise everything. On the last day I had to go round the site in a tonga and then off to hospital where they found I had a temperature of 104 and another dose of infective hepatitis.

However it all cleared up and I went back to work but after a few months I applied to the colenel for a posting to active service but it was turned down by him as he said he could not spare me as in my equivalent company in B btn which dealt with southern Indians they already had two officers who couldn't cope with the work.

I then had a chance to see the Indian Military Secretary who was visiting the area and he told me that he would put my case to GHQ Delhi. Again it ws stopped by the Colonel who told me that I was the only person who knew anything about the company but he would get permission from Delhi to promote me to Captain, which he did.

After a few more months the Colonel was posted to GHQ and promoted to Brigadier, and within two weeks my posting came through to join a transport commpany on the Manipur Road at Imphal. I found out later that a captain and a lieutenant had been posted to my old company to the job I had done.

I had spent about 2 1/2 years at Lucknow and was able to get plenty of tennis and squash at the Lucknow club. I also had 2 months long leave at Naini Tal, up in the hills.

Active Service.

In May 1945 I joined the 66 Gt Coy and my job was running convoys down the road to the Chindwin River in North Burma. After a few months no 66 Coy became the first ompany on the Manipur Road to be completely Indianised.
When 66 GT was Indianised I was posted to no 73 GT as 2 ic to take over command when the Major went home on two months leave, but on the way I met him, a friend of mine, who told me that my posting had ben cancelled as, having joined up in 1939, my release date was very near and HQ could see no point in me taking over command. I was very annoyed as this would have got my Majority and regretted that my efforts to leave Lucknow had not succeeded as I kenw that I could have run a transport company successfully without all the hard work and strain that I had at Lucknow.

I was then transfered to Imphal as Station Transport Captain where I had to produce daily the number of vehicles needed for transporting supplies. This did not last long as Manipur Transport HQ was disbanded as the Japs were in full retreart. I joined another GT company and then went home for a months leave. When I came back I joined my last Company which had 10 ton American lorries and our job was to bring back sections of the petrol pipe line laid down to supply our vehicles and tanks.

The Japanese war came to a very quick end for me. All the time I was in Assam we had no radios and knew very little about how the war was progressing. We knew the European war was over, but that was all. One day I was taking a convoy down to the Chindwin. We had been held up for 2 days because of a landslids and when we got to the border and reproted to the Military Police there they told me about the atom bomb. It took us a day and a night to do the last 25 miles to the Chindwin as the road was just loose stone and had to be repaired after each lory had gone forward. We spent the next day loading and I reported to HQ there that we would be starting at 3 am the next morning for the journey home. It was then that they told me that we had dropped another atom bomb. Because I was very tired after the last 36 hours I went to bed early but at 8 pm a havildar woke me and said that the colonel wanted to see me. I was very annoyed, but if the Colonel wants you, you go, I went to HQ and called in to the first tent with a light on - there was a chap in shorts washing himself so I said to him "The bloody colonel wants to see me, can you tell me where his tent is?" to which he replied "I'm the bloody Colonel and I wanted to tell you the news!" I said that I had heard yesterday about the atom bombs but he told me tha it had just come through on the radio that Japan was offering to surrender and he thought I would like to know. That of course called for drinks all round which lasted all night but I left at 11 pm because I had to start my journey back and the road was in a very bad condition. However, for me, the war had suddenly ended in 48 hours.

Earlier on however an Indian Army Order had come through that any officer who wanted to could extend his service for another year. As I had been home on leave and seen my firm and knew that my job was there for me when I came out I decided I would as life in Assam was more or less a motoring and shooting holiday.

I had a Ghurka subedar who was very keen on hunting so wen we were off duty we used to go after deer and wild pig for the pot. Round about the end of 1945 I think it was there was not much going on in Assam so I was posted to Ranchi in Bihar state as area transport officer doing the same job I did in Imphal. I had 6 GT companys to draw transport from and it was a very busy area. I was there for a year until I received my demob orders. I came home by boat arriving in Glasgow in January 1947 and was discharged from the Indian army on May 5 1947. 7 1/2 years siince I joined up on No 28 1939!

Apparently the British and Indian Armies both thought I was good at organisation, and because of tha the only bombs I heard were when I came home to Romford on leave.

And it all started with cutting up Butter.

I was told by a regular Indian Army Colonel in the Legal Branch that he thought I had two achievements in the Indian Army - he had never heard of a lieutenant being in command of a company with a total strength of 2,300 men, and he was certain that I was the only officer who had passed a practical sanitary course and become the company sanitary man.

Sport in the Army

At Wallingford I had some very good badminton as my workshop officer, Ian Maconachie and the Adjutant Major Goff used to play 1st pair for Ireland in the days when Ireland were very good.

In India I was able to play a lot of tennis and squash as every club and army HQ had squash courts and many had tennis courts as well. I had two month long leaves at Naini Tal where I met three very good lady players and I played with two ex Davis Cup players, Pang of China and Bobb, of India. After the war, when I was in Ranchi, they started their well known Tennis tournament and I won the men's doubles playing with Colonel Nash, I think it was, the Indian Army squash champion and was knocked out of the singles semi-final by the bloke who won it. I also played with two generals, one retired, and General Bourne who was in charge of Berlin during the air lift days, and 2 Brigadiers, one Indian, and Brigadier Daniels, a very fit Welshman at Lucknow who was the only person I could find to play with in the heat of Lucknow.

Squash I picked up very quickly and in the last three years only found two men who could beat me at times. Strangely enough the Ranchi club was the only place I stayed at that did not have a squash court and therefore had no chance of playing Colonel Nash the Army champion, to find out what my standard actually was.

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