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Bangalore and Singapore

My father spent several months at Bangalore, where preparations for an assault on Singapore were being made. He visited a cinema called the BRV (as in Bangalore Rifle Volunteers), where he recalled huge rats climbing up silk screen whilst the film was being shown. This building still exists — albeit no longer in use as a cinema and was photographed by me in 2000.

The sudden surrender of the Japanese after Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in my father leaving Bangalore quickly and being sent to Singapore. He says he was asked by Lt General Sir Philip Christison to draw up the seating plan for the formal surrender ceremony hosted by the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia (Louis Mountbatten) in the Municipal Building. My father was in the Municipal Building when the ceremony took place. By now he was a Staff Sergeant.

When the British re-took Singapore, I located Frank Redfern (a distant relative of his wife), who had been captured there and who had been a POW in Indonesia. I found him on the SS Silesia in Singapore Docks at midnight ready to sail for home, the first ship with POW’s to sail for home.

Java

Our job was to rescue POW’s and civilian internees (incl children) in the troubled (Dutch) East Indies. We were a small group of 57 soldiers, 25% British 75% Indians, under a Military Police Major. We were to form an advanced HQ in Batavia (now Jakarta) for the forces required to secure the recovery of Allied POW’s, all at risk from Indonesian armed rebels. The Japs were ordered to maintain law and order pending our arrival.

The Royal Navy destroyer (HMS Cavendish) left (Singapore) at full speed all the way with our well worn jeeps lashed down on deck. The ship had never had guests in jungle gear. As a Engineer Staff Sergeant I ‘dossed down’ with the Chief Petty Officer (Engine Room) and 2 Petty Officers (from Sheffield) in their very cramped cabin. The noise from the other side of the wall supporting the ledge I was in was simply dreadful. They said it came from the ship’s gearbox. We all had a lot to talk (or shout) about, - the North Atlantic (they had escorted the Queen Mary) and places we knew — South Africa, India, Singapore and of course Sheffield. My job was map making from air photos for amphibious operations. We mapped pleasant places like South Africa and Western Australia. The night soon passed and the rum jar got low. Nobody slept. The padre dropped in for a tot and a chat.

But I did envy them their lovely fresh baked bread. The living conditions were terrible, noisy and claustrophobic. After breakfast and knowing the CPO was on duty, I paid him a visit. I found the manhole leading to the engine room and descended the straight up and down steel ladder. This was so hot I had to keep changing hands. At the bottom I could hardly see for the steam. I eventually spotted the CPO and he beckoned me. I threaded my way to him between the whirring machinery, and I soon retraced my steps to the exit as soon as I had got my sea-legs mobile.

On arrival at the port of Batavia, we spent the night in a warehouse. The sailors gave us bread as a parting gift. As soon as it was daylight we moved on to take over the KPM shipping office held by a party of Dutch marines.

Within 8 weeks I left, for demobilisation with 2 of my British colleagues , and 3500 women and children on the Dutch liner ‘Niew Amsterdam’. I reached home (Norton) on 3 January 1946. It was my birthday 2 days later. I was a mature man of 33, getting up daily at 6 am until ‘civvy street’ claimed me back.

My father resumed his duties in the City Engineers Department of Sheffield Corporation. He studied Town and Country Planning at a special school set up for ex soldiers where the course (called a ‘Completion Course’) was greatly compressed. Later, by postal course he became a BSc in Estate Management. He became a member of the Town Planning Institute in 1947, the year the Town and Country Planning Act was passed, which effectively established the planning system in the UK. He later became a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as well.

In the late 1940’s he spent short periods working for West Riding County Council (in Barnsley) and Doncaster Municipal Borough Council, both in Town Planning. He then returned to Sheffield Corporation, eventually becoming Area Planning Officer South, and then Assistant City Planning Officer (Development Planning) from which post he retired in August 1973, having seen in, in his later years, the introduction of Structure Plans, Public Participation, Conservation Areas and the planning of the ‘new town’ of Mosborough, amongst other things. He was the Corporation’s chief witness in the public inquiry into the Compulsory Purchase of land for the Mosborough scheme. From 1974 to 1978 he was a lecturer in Town Planning and Land Administration at the former Sheffield Polytechnic.

He became a family man in the 1950’s, with a son in 1952 and a daughter in 1957. His wife, Hilda died in 1979. He lived in Norton until 1982. From 1983 to 2002 he lived at Hackenthorpe. He then lived in Whiston near Rotherham until his death in June 2003.

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