大象传媒

Mrs Greta Underwood, served as a 鈥榁AD鈥� (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse in India and Burma 1944 to 1946, and was awarded the Burma Star. The British Schools Museum, Hitchin is proud to enter her story, with her permission, to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War archive. Greta still works as a volunteer in our museum. The story A4859814 is provided in several parts, please read them all. This is part 4 of 4 parts. You can find Part 1 at A4859571, part 2 at A4850652 and part 3 at A4859715

A4859814 Part 4, To Burma, and repatriation at the end of the war

In May 1945 news of Victory in Europe had reached us in Bengal.

But things were on the move again in South East Asia also. Once again we were posted. This time it was to Burma via Calcutta, still with our four pieces of luggage plus anything else we had accumulated 鈥� like my wind-up gramophone with warped records and thorns from the bushes as substitutes for needles.

Arriving in Calcutta we stayed overnight at the Grand Hotel for commissioned service men and women, of all three services, pending advancement. It was packed like sardines.

On board the hospital ship were MOs, RAMC, QAs and VADs. Then quite suddenly and out of the blue there was news of the Japanese surrender.

It was estimated there were 100,000 RAPWI 鈥� Retained Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) but in that vast jungle their whereabouts were unknown to Command HQ. We anchored outside Chittagong waiting further instructions, but the order was to return to Calcutta and transfer to a larger ship with more medical and nursing staff.
Because we hit a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal (which was terrifying), we arrived in the evening, and it was back to the Grand Hotel again for the night. I shared a bedroom with a QA awaiting repatriation 鈥� Lt Col Birdseye. When I said I came from Hertfordshire she asked 鈥渁nywhere near Hitchin?鈥�, and if I knew a Doctor James. When I said I did, she said 鈥淚 brought him into the world鈥�. Many years later I told him of that meeting.

The hospital I had been posted to in Rangoon was at the university, and QAs and VADs were billeted in the masters鈥� and tutors鈥� bungalows; rooms were much larger than the cabins aboard S. S. Strathnaver! The hospital had already been established with 1,000 beds, run by three hospitals 鈥� 92 IGH(C), 14 BGH and 15 IGH(C). Air transport was at a premium. Top priority was to drop food, medical supplies and clothes, followed by release of POWs and internees.

Then beds were increased to 4,000, during the first three weeks, and staff was put on one-quarter rations. At least we had a fruit stall close by and some rupees.
We greeted the men with a smile and a cuppa, but there was never a smile or a look in return. They had been cut off from all news of the outside world and we could be the first white women they had seen in years, yet one felt their eyes taking in one鈥檚 movements.

Eventually a response came, with the need to talk. Once the conversation started it was non-stop. Questions like 鈥淲hat is happening in Britain? Was it badly bombed? What about their home town? Could they contact their family?鈥�. I knew it was essential to listen and answer their questions truthfully. One of our colleagues, a Scottish lassie, was a great tonic on the ward. She got one of the patients to help make the beds, which were full of surprises 鈥� jigsaws under drawsheets, apple pie beds, brushes, shoes, pyjama legs tied in knots. It certainly broke the ice, and spread around the wards on either side.

The episode which remains in my memory is the six nuns who were taken prisoners at the fall of Burma in 1943. Their courage and Christian love for the women and children, giving support through illness and distress. Their defiance to the camp commandant is nothing sort of amazing. When the Japanese commandant asked to see the Mother Superior, two nuns arrived. She said it was against their rules to go anywhere alone. His request was for them to make dresses for his 4-year-old daughter. An agreement was made that they would be paid, and not work on Sundays. After two weeks and no pay, which was going to pay for food, they went on strike.

A major carrying a blanket, his 鈥榩rize possession鈥� ripped it apart to reveal the Union Jack rescued from his regiment. A captain in a Scottish regiment was wearing his kilt. IT was full of termite holes but had been carefully kept for the occasion.
Finally, a soldier who had been batman (I think) to a Japanese commandant. His water bottle contained a radio receiver which he kept among the commandants personal effects. The thought of what would have happened if that soldier had been caught doesn鈥檛 bear thinking about.

Diana Cooper had been posted to a CCS 鈥� Casualty Clearing Station 鈥� which was further forward, to attend to the immediate treatments from POW camps, but I don鈥檛 know where. Maurice was posted to Java, arranging the movement of POWs out of Malaya.

Then one day Maurice flew to Rangoon to break the news to me that Diana and a VAD from Cambridge had been killed in an accident. We had been so busy that news had not reached us.

I was, and still am, saddened and shocked to learn that it was on a weekend break, after so much hard work, that two lives were lost in such tragic circumstances.
And so the war ended. The condition of the POWs and internees was restored to allow them to return home. My work was done and those eventful years came to a close. We set off for home, leaving Bombay on 19th January 1946, on the same troopship, the S. S. Strathnaver, with my husband Maurice. I slept in a cabin, still accommodating 10 bunk beds; this time it was 9 QAs and me.
The ship arrived in Southampton on 7th February 1946. With mixed feelings I remembered when I had stood on Hitchin railway station with Diana Cooper, VAD, Herts 52 Detachment. She is the only woman listed on the Hitchin War Memorial, 1939-1945.

The Kohima Epitaph. 鈥淲hen you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.鈥�

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