大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in conjunction with 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk on behalf of Leslie Pick and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In August 1945 I was stationed at Shoreham on Sea in Sussex with the 6th Regt. Royal Horse Artillery; we were told we would be going to invade Japan. After two embarkation leaves we found that this was changed and we would be going to India, of course it was the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that changed the course of this deployment.
Boarding the liner, Queen of Bermuda at Southampton on November 2nd 1945, we took 3 weeks to reach Bombay followed by a further 500 mile train journey. This found us shunted into a siding near Secunderabad in Hyderabad where apparently no one expected us so there was no accommodation available in the barracks and we had to go into tented accommodation. Eventually after 3 months we moved into the superb billets at Roberts Barracks in Trimolegherry and stayed there until 1947 when British troops were departing from India due to independence.
Moving to the Suez Canal zone we soon began to miss our comfy life in India by comparison as Qassassin was very remote and there was nothing to see except sand. I resumed my job as the regimental station NCO and made the best of my new surroundings. In July I was granted home leave and by sheer luck managed to be home for my 21st Birthday.
Alas I had to return to my duties and then travelled by road across the Sinai Peninsula to Palestine, eventually being demobilised in March 1948.

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