大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Enza Stellato GMR Action Desk on behalf of Mr Norman Finchett and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands website's terms and conditions.

I was trained as an Air Gunner, but never actually used my qualification.

I went to the Far East in the middle of 1944. After landing in Bombay we went by troop train all the way to Calcutta to join my squadron (355). However, when we got to the unit and discovered that it was a Liberator squadron and the Squadron leader found out that we had done no training on 4 engine aircraft (!) we were sent back to a holding unit at Poona.

This meant travelling back to Bombay and then on to Poona; I was then posted to another Squadron (194), so back once more to Calcutta via Bombay.

When in Calcutta we were advised that 194 Squadron (a Dakota transport squadron) had gone out on rest to the North West Frontier near Rawlpindi; so once again I travelled by train across the breadth of India!

Eventually the Squadron returned to the Indian/Burma border and continued to supply the 14th Army down through the central plain on their way to recapturing Burma.
We got down to Rangoon and the war finished; because of the number of prisoners of war in Thailand we helped in the evacuation of the sick and wounded from Bangkok to Rangoon and on to hospital ships. That was the time I sw the worse face of war.

Then I was sent to Padang in Sumatra for 12 months where I stayed until December 1946 when the Indonesians started their fight for independence from the Dutch colonization. We were involved with flying Dutch personnel back to Singapore, that obviously met with objection from the locals and we were in grave danger.

During that time there were approximately over 2000 casualties among British personnel, I would say in that year I was in more danger of losing my life that at any time in the war.

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