大象传媒

The discipline was such that I鈥檝e never suffered such appalling stress, pain, you name it, punishments than I did in the Indian Army. The British Services were a piece of cake. And, because I was very tall for my age at that time, I was the right hand mark for my platoon which I think was E Platoon. The Duke of Gloucester, Prince Henry came to visit us about March 1943. And the training was very little education as I remember, it was mainly all weaponry and parades and things. We used to do inspections and, on this day, they decided to pull me out of the rank. You take one step backwards, and they tell you what they want you to do. They wanted me to take my jacket off. Strip my jacket off. Then they proceeded to inspect my jacket, we had buttons, pockets and stuff down the front. And it came to doing the shoulders last. I took off my left shoulder strap and on the button underneath there was a trace of Brasso on the thread. Number, rank and name, Orderly Room, Friday, after lunch. All your charge sheets were read out and they decided how many times they鈥檇 hit you. They鈥檇 administer these massive great canes right across our tailbones. So we had these great, purple and bleeding wheals right across our backbones. And it hurt. Thank you Sgt Major Collins of the Queen鈥檚 Regiment!

And we had to go into the 3rd position of the 鈥減resent arms鈥� where you push a rifle/carbine to person adjacent, and I keeled over, I fainted, I got some mysterious bug. And I remember walking off the parade ground with everything circling around my head. I didn鈥檛 know what I was doing, holding my gun by the end of the barrel and just dragging it across the parade ground on my own, completely messing my life up, and collapsing in a heap at the other side! And the stretcher bearers picked me up and I was in hospital for a week when I contracted measles, and was in for another 3 weeks, I was in for a month. I came out for a week, then I went back into hospital for 4 months because I had a contretemps with one of the 17 year olds, and it became a fight, and he fell on top of me and broke my leg. And I was in hospital for about 3 months and then one month convalescent back in the school. And then I actually finished at the beginning of December.

Travelling home I got within a day out of Calcutta and I got my bloody feeling about air raids again. (I developed a 6th sense where I could almost get these attacks before a raid even came in.) Now we had had a major air raid at the end of December 1942, it was a really bad one, in the night again. And travelling home round about the 3rd of December 1943 I鈥檓 getting this same bloody sensation, approaching Calcutta. The nearer we got, the worse it got and I was quite ill. And I remember seeing my mother on the station and my sister, because my father was already in Quetta and I asked her 鈥淗ave there been many air raids while I鈥檝e been away?.鈥� She said 鈥淣o, there haven鈥檛 been. You remember the December one?鈥� I said 鈥淭he bastards are coming!鈥� She said 鈥淒on鈥檛 use language like that.鈥� I said, 鈥淭hey鈥檙e coming.鈥� I was petrified because this was the afternoon of December the 4th.

Now we were were staying with our friend who was the curator of the Botanical Gardens. This wretched feeling persisted when we got to the curator鈥檚 house and that night I couldn鈥檛 sleep, I was so ill. I was throwing up, was beside myself with terror. A guest stayed up all night with me, because she was a nurse, and I finally probably got to sleep about half past five in the morning and I woke up round about half past eight. And they used to served breakfast about seven till about quarter to eight and of course I woke up about half past eight. And I was so weak, I鈥檇 thrown up, I was ill as hell. I kept telling people, I said 鈥淭hey鈥檙e coming, they鈥檙e going to hit us tomorrow.鈥� I went down to breakfast and they kept breakfast for me, I went down to breakfast at about quarter past nine, bloody cornflakes, I couldn鈥檛 cope with it, I felt sick and drained, I was white as a sheet. And everyone was talking and saying 鈥淭his boy must be mentally ill, he鈥檚 been in the Army, he鈥檚 suffered badly, he鈥檚 not very well.鈥�

I thought, 鈥淚鈥檓 going to have a bit of a walk outside.鈥� About half past nine I put my shoes on in the corridor and just went outside down the steps. And then I heard it 鈥淲um Wum, Wum Wum, Wum, Wum鈥� That was the sound of Japanese motors. I looked behind me and the sky was black and there must have been about 850 of them coming at about 7000 feet, right above by head like that. I ran and I said 鈥淭hey鈥檙e coming! They鈥檙e coming!鈥�
鈥淪top being so mad, you鈥檒l go into hospital and they won鈥檛 let you out!鈥�
I said, 鈥淔or Christ鈥檚 sake, they are above your head now, get out of the house now!鈥�
And then it came 鈥淲hee- Boom!鈥�
And they bloody shifted, did they not!

The planes looked almost static but just moving in a complete box formation. There were camouflaged ones, silver ones, just moving, this great huge square blanket. So, the house is here, the docks are there, I鈥檓 here, the Japs are above and we had the slit trenches at the side of the house, it鈥檚 a big ornamental house and everything. And, while this is going on, my mother and sister, I managed to get them to go in the shelter. Then my mother said, 鈥淥h I left my handbag there鈥� She goes upstairs, down comes another bloody bomb and she鈥檚 blown up the bloody stairs, bashed up her elbows and knees and everything else.

I didn鈥檛 tell you that when I woke up at half past eight I was calm as toast. I knew they鈥檇 arrived and, as far as I was concerned, that was it [claps hands.] It鈥檚 unbelievable. And, this happened at about twenty to ten, quarter past eleven the warble goes off, the air raid siren goes off. The alert goes up at quarter past eleven! So we sat there and sat there and thought, 鈥淥h My God鈥� you know, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 going to happen next?鈥� We didn鈥檛 know whether parachutes were going to come in, you know, it was really bad! There had been no sound of any gunfire and certainly, none of our aircraft had been flying about. Because we knew what ours sounded like and theirs
sounded like. (The Germans sounded very similar to the Japanese.)
And by half past one some of the other young men who were with me there said 鈥淟et鈥檚 go and see what鈥檚 happening.鈥� Because we thought we could see smoke above the trees, (we were enveloped in trees, you see, in this great big botanical garden.) So we did a tiger crawl, so we could actually see, and there in the dockyard, bloody two ships alight, bloody smoke. And no hurricanes, no spitfires, no barrage balloons and no gunfire.

Many years later, I met the nurse and her husband who was then a very young Major in the Service Corps, food distribution, directly in front of Government House. He said, 鈥淲ell actually, they were all pissed in the Mess!鈥� So, there were no anti-aircraft guns, no aircraft, there was nothing. Remember the baffle walls that I told you about on the Red Road? That was the Hurricane airstrip and they weren鈥檛 there. And the story got out that Chang was a German spy, who was operating with the Goanese element and with the Japanese in the Shipping Offices, which why all our ships had been torpedoed and blasted by the Japanese airforce. It was all pre-arranged, and pre-determined because he had the information about what was going on. The Americans weren鈥檛 doing anything either, we believe Americans were there, but they didn鈥檛 put anything up at all. That was it.

The all clear went off on the 5th of December, it was a Sunday, at about half past five in the evening. And the next day we left for Quetta where my father had a command in the Staff College and, as far as I was concerned, that was the end of the war for me, because we went right out of it, there!

In 1987 my wife and I moved to Hythe. They day after we moved to the area I saw a TV programme dedicated to 150 years of the Peninsular And Orient Steam Navigation Company (P AND O.) During a visit to the local butcher at Saltwood I discussed the programme with the shop owner. Another customer overheard the conversation. 鈥淓xcuse me,鈥� she said 鈥淚 happen to know the widow of the Commodore of the P AND O.鈥�
鈥淩eally?鈥� I said 鈥淭hat鈥檚 very interesting.鈥�

About 6 weeks later she rings me up, she says 鈥� I鈥檓 terribly sorry 鈥淚 got your number from the butcher and thought I鈥檇 invite you for coffee and cakes- This lady is going to visit me from the nursing home and I鈥檇 love you to meet her.鈥�
So, I arrived at the house, just up here in Saltwood, and there鈥檚 this lady sitting in a wheelchair, very old, in her nineties, very refined actions and she said to me. 鈥淚 believe you went out to India?鈥� and I said 鈥淵es I did.鈥�
She said 鈥淲hen did you Go?鈥� I said 鈥淎ctually, I went on the Strathnaver, I think it was some time at the end of November鈥�
She said 鈥淲ell it was precisely the 30th of November 1939. And I remember you, because you were that cantankerous little 7 year old who was complaining bitterly about being taken out of your school in Scotland, I believe it was George Watsons, wasn鈥檛 it? When did you come back here?鈥�
I said 鈥�1950, on July the 21st from Bombay, on the P AND O Carthage.鈥� She said
鈥淩emarkable! My husband was 1st Officer on that ship when you came back.鈥�
She was on the ship out! She was going under special Naval privilege, because of the troubles here, (in the U.K.) to meet her husband who was operating out of Ceylon with the P AND O. And when she got there, under the war restriction, he鈥檇 been sent back!

Oh, I can tell you one thing to finish. The day the Japanese war ended they decided that we would have a school sports day. And in those days there was no sort of soft landing for high jump, there were no spiked shoes. There were rubber soles, canvas shoes, plimsolls. And as I was Head Boy of junior school it became incumbent upon me to make sure that all the stuff was in position. And I got the sports people to put all the stuff up and put the high jump up, because I was in a place called Kalimpong which borders Tibet. And, got the stuff in position, it had been raining overnight so the grass was quite wet. And I thought I鈥檇 try this damn thing out for the first time. And I ran at it, slipped on the water, did a complete somersault, missed the mud pit the other side and landed on my wrist on the hard tack and broke my wrist. I had to do about a five mile march to a witch doctor to get my wrist set without any facilities of medical specialisation or anything else. They finally set my wrist when I was pretty near fully conscious, and my anaesthetist was the local lady who cleaned the commodes, (because there was no plumbing,) And she had a large sieve on my head, while they were pouring liberal quantities of ether on it, and I wouldn鈥檛 go to sleep, so he started. And that鈥檚 why my wrist is all bent; it鈥檚 never been any bloody good. And it hurt. That鈥檚 how the war ended for me!

In conclusion, there鈥檚 a painting of myself which was actually transcribed from a photograph which was done round about April 1942 whereby my father, my mother, my sister and myself were individually photographed for record purposes. Because, had the Japanese come through, we were all going to be summarily killed, so we wouldn鈥檛 come under Japanese occupation. These death pictures I have, my own, my mother and my sister, but, for some reason my father鈥檚 was taken away, (possibly for purposes of identification when he went in the army later on.) So we were going to be done away with. We went to a normal civilian photographer in Calcutta; I didn鈥檛 know what they were being done for. I didn鈥檛 think any more about it. They only came into my hands after my father died and the story emerged from that. They did a pretend set but one in particular was taken to represent us, officially, as a death document.

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