大象传媒

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I joined the OTC in Queens when I was 17. I鈥檇 always wanted to join the army and after our final exams I volunteered for an officer posting in the Indian army which was expanding very rapidly. The bulk of the troops in Burma and out East were Indian troops and officers were scarce. So I went out and did four months training in Bangalore and then was commissioned into the battalion.

I had my own bearer, somebody who waits on you like a personal butler. Mine was a civilian bearer. He dressed in a white long robe with a turban and as he started work early, say about 7am, he took a siesta in the afternoon because duties in the afternoon were virtually nil. He put my shirt on for me and rolled my sleeves up for me and put my shows on for me. Before I went to the mess he would go about fifteen minutes earlier and prepare my food for me. When I was eating he stood behind me and when I finished a course he would take my plate away and get me the next course.

Even when I went away on a course, I went on a camouflage course he came with me as well to make sure I was looked after.

I then joined a fighting battalion in 1942 because they were scared the Japanese would invade, their fleet was off the southern coast of India and Shalong. My battalion had to take a very quick race down from the north-west frontier to Madras to try to fend this off. But they never landed.

During that time there were no civilians bearers, they were only there during training. Then there was an orderly who would have tended to your personal needs such as cleaning your boots. The idea was that you were too busy looking after the men and you didn鈥檛 have time to look after yourself. It wasn鈥檛 that you weren鈥檛 capable of doing it. And he stayed with me all throughout the war.

I had to take off my pips because the Japanese snipers would have taken out anyone who they thought was an officer. My bearer carried a Thompson Machine Carbine, like a Tommy gun, or a sten gun. I also had a revolver and a rifle.

We had V-Force Guerillas were operating in Kohima then behind the Japanese lines. One of the British officers who was a V-Force officer at that time actually did penetrate the Japanese lines and stayed low and was able to pick up all lot of information regarding the amount of troops and the types of armour they had, and bring it back to British lines. It was trench warfare then, it was just like World War 1. The men had to dig trenches and they often came across the remains of WW1 soldiers. We took up the Royal West Kent鈥檚 position. The trenches had been blasted by Japanese shell fire and a lot of the bodies had never been recovered and they had been covered over and when the new trenches were being dug we came across the remains of these corpses. The men vomited when they came across this. It was very reminiscent of the 1st World War days.

In Kohima then, I went out on patrol one morning and I jumped into a trench and blackened my face before I went out with the men and who was in there but a colleague who had been with me in Queens OTC two years ago. He was in another Indian regiment and again another time I was standing by the road and we were put into the Queens Royal Regiment when we were cadets which meant that if you failed your course you were put in the ranks. There was another colleague in the Queens OTC whose father had been a brigadier but he failed his course and he was a lance Corporal for the Queens Royal Regiment. We talked for about two minutes before he had to go.

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