大象传媒

This story has been added to the People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Frederick Seaby and added to the site with his permission.

I joined the RAF when I was twenty one. I was engaged in Airfield Defence - on Ack Ack guns and small arms fire. At first I was with Bomber Command. Then in 1941 I was posted overseas, arriving in India in early 1942 and staying in the East for four years till 1946.

We had sailed from Liverpool to Scotland where we picked up the convoy and then we headed to Freetown, to Cape Town and finally to Bombay. There we transferred to a smaller boat to journey on to Karachi, where we had our first taste of India.

When we got to India our aircraft of the 110th Squadron had been used by other squadrons to replace their lost aircraft. We got as far as Palel where we were recalled to form an Ack Ack squadron. Then we were posted to Infall, Moniwa, Mekelia and down through Central Burma to Saigon, then in French Indo China .

When we arrived out in the East we had to learn and learn quick. We had to look after ourselves and the rest of our team. We had a few losses including a corporal who was killed by a shell on his twenty first birthday. He said "I'll have a drink with you when we get hold of some beer." But the next day I was burying him. I cried my eyes out. You never knew whether the next shell would have your name on it.

The best bit the War was making some good pals. You had to work togehter. When I look back now I wonder how we got through it. The main thing was to keep fit. We had a C.O who was a fitness fanatic and he'd always say, " Don't ask a man to do a thing you can't do yourself."

We fell into the ways of the local people - adopted some of their ways - especially with food and things like that.

The worst aspect of the War was the Weather - It was when you got the monsoon. The heavens would open. The roads were impassable. I recall that Lord Louis Mountbatten got to Rangoon before the monsoons broke.

I did twenty nine years in the Air Force and I 've been back to the airfields - you wouldn't recognize them now.

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