大象传媒

This story is taken from an interview with William McMaster at the Ballymena Servicemen鈥檚 Association, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was Matt Morrow, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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Our war didn鈥檛 end until 15th August.
No celebrations, because we didn鈥檛 have any means of celebrating. We did have bottles of beer, something like that. The biggest part was, some of these ships, you had to change. When we left Bombay, our next port of call was Durban. You got to Durban from Cape Town. And that was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. The people couldn鈥檛 do enough for us. There was a queue of cars from here to way down the street, waiting to take us to their homes. Brilliant! But then all that ended when we were going away home again. This time we were able to use the canal. So we left Cape Town, thru the Red Sea. Into the canal at Port Chusik. And they dropped us off there, in the desert. About 100 yards from the canal they had this camp. And the weird thing was, if you looked out across the desert you saw a ship鈥檚 funnel going up the middle, it was a ship going up the Suez canal. That was one of the things happened. And shortly after we were there they had a sandstorm at night. We couldn鈥檛 get out of the tent the next day. It was all built up, completely covered. So the Egyptian cleaners, they came along with the brushes and shovels and things, and opened it up. That鈥檚 how we got out. I have photos of all this. No photos of Burma, because you weren鈥檛 allowed a camera or anything like that at the time. On the way home we were able to take photos, so I鈥檝e quite a few of different events.

And then we were sent to, before we left there we were sent to a hospital in Johannesburg. We were cleared of any Tropical diseases. We weren鈥檛 allowed to go out anywhere until that was done.
I can鈥檛 say they were great. Malaria, mostly. And lots of stomach trouble. Owing to the food. But we had to be cleared of all that. There was other diseases that mainly affected the Indian people. Some diseases are inherent in India. They were still there in those days. And you had to be cleared from all that, before they鈥檇 let you come home at all. We boarded another ship, then, and the next stop was the other end of the canal, Port Said. And they dropped us off there. It was matter of 3 days on the canal, then they dropped us off there. Why the ship didn鈥檛 continue on, I don鈥檛 know. But we had to wait there for the ship again. To take us home. And again it was a hospital ship, through the Bay of Biscay. It was the roughest experience, in the month of December. The name of the hospital ship was the Atlantis. And the matron of the Royal hospital in Belfast was a sister on it, on the ship. And I didn鈥檛 know that until she died, and it was in the local paper. And there it was, I knew her all those years and didn鈥檛 get in touch with her.

So I came on the hospital ship. And they left us on the dock in Southampton, lying in stretches along the quay. Waiting for the ambulances to take us to Pontypish in South Wales. That鈥檚 where we finished up. We were there about 2 months. Again we had to be cleared of all diseases before they鈥檇 let us out. And strangely, that was just coming up to the month of December. There was Welsh chaps on board the ship and in the hospital, not half an hour from home. And they wouldn鈥檛 let them go home, even for Xmas, after being in Malaya all those years. When I got home it was Late January, maybe even February, 1946. We were away 3 1/2 years from when we left home til we came back again. It was a lot of experience if nothing else. Experience, if you want it, you couldn鈥檛 buy it. Money can never buy it. You鈥檇 have to go back in time, and that鈥檚 impossible. But thank god we got home. The worse for wear.

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