大象传媒

This letter was written by Les Baker, who was later my husband, to his mother Maud. I first saw it when his mother died, she obviously treasured it, as I do now. The Tom, Les mentions, is Tom Manning, who married Les' sister shortly before they sailed. Tom was captured by the Japs in Java and died on the Burma Railwsy. They said it was dysentry but it is anybody's guess. Vera died in 1948. These tragedies reach far. Les was 19 when Singapore fell, he died in 2001. Here is the letter.

1296210, cpl Les Baker, Sec Q RAF. Ceylon.
25. 4. 43.

Dear Mum,
I'm writing this as duty NCO. I have to wait until 12 midnight to book everyone into barracks. I'm expecting Bren to bring this letter home to you so this should be a letter about all I've done and where I've been since coming overseas, being able to write this without any restriction about censorship.

Well Mum as you know already I managed to get Tom in the same cabin as I on the boat "Capetown Castle," a 29,000 tonner, a lovely luxury liner,it was really a blinking good trip out, no sign of any "U" boats, and we had pretty good grub etc. on the ship. The voyage took 2 months, reaching Singapore on 3rd August 1941. There were 5 of us in our cabin, we all decided to go in for boxing, just for the sport and of course 5/- worth of goods from the canteen for nothing, win or lose. Anyway, we all did PT in the morning for training, afterwards for a swim in the officers swimming pool to cool off. Tom decided later not to fight owing to his false teeth. I was already in it and had to fight a fellow about 6 feet tall, as thin as a matchstick, but the same weight as I,anyway, I did win the fight, but not before spit and blood was flying around. Tom was pleased as punch in me winning, we had an arrangement beforehand that if I won I needn't pay him back the 5/- that I owed him ,so it was worth 10/- for me to have a fight and win.

We could play cricket,table tennis and several other games on the ship as there was plenty of room. Our first port of call was Freetown West Africa, but we were not allowed to have any shore leave owing to the fact that it is called "the Whitemans Grave" a deadly place for malaria. We were there for 3 days taking in water etc. The next place we arrived at was Capetown South Africa a place where the blackout wasn't even heard of, a lovely place, the town being built more on the American lines, the people were marvellous asking half a dozen or so of the troops to their houses for dinner etc, most of them were at the docks waiting for us in their great big 30 hp cars. Tom and his mate and me went to some people's house for a day having a great time. The following day Tom and I went out, we were just standing on the path, waiting to cross when a blinking great Rolls Royce car pulled up, the driver asking Tom and I to his house. We went there, having a few whiskies and also big eats, afterwards he paid for us to go to the pictures. Altogether we had a marvellous time there, and when we got back to the ship nearly all the fellows felt pretty down in the dumps as we set sail next day, 2 days only in Capetown.

The next was Bombay India this being the first for us to be able to smell it from the distance. A terrible stinking place, we had 2 days there. Another weeks journey brought us to Colombo, Ceylon,
which was and still is a much cleaner place than Bombay. When we had a few days shore leave at this place, both Tom and I said we didn't expect to see it again until we were on our way back.

It took us just a week to get to Singapore from here as there were only 2 boats, "The Empress of Japan" and us, we travelled 25 knots an hour with no escort. When we docked at Singapore, a local band greeted us at the keyside, playing all the well know songs, "A Troopship just Leaving Bombay" etc. I left the ship before Tom carrying all my kit that must have weighed more than me, we all got sent to a transit camp for dispersal. Tom to go up country to Kuala Lumpur, and I had to stay in Singapore Island living at a Royal Naval barracks being a liason between RAF and RN. Everyone in the service in Malaya had marvellous 3 and 4 course meals right up till the war started, and also plenty of time off, everything being very cheap, our money lasted OK. We were all content and quite prepared to do our full overseas time there, no blackouts, no war!

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