大象传媒

Overseas duties; India Burma and Ceylon

So when did you go abroad then Hugh?
Hugh: 1942
And where were you sent to?
Hugh: Well we went up to Scotland to start with. We went to Gairloch I think it was called. Where all the troop ships went. And I got on board a huge troop ship called Strathaird I think it was. They were White Star line kind of thing you know and they equipped us with tropical equipment and they set off. And I thought I'm going to the Middle East or Far East or somewhere. They wouldn't tell you where you were going. But anyway when they came out of Gairloch they headed straight north and we went up towards the north pole (laughter) The idea was to get out into the Atlantic and down the middle you see and away from subs.
I bet you thought you were off to Russia.
Rose: He used to say to me that you can bet your bottom dollar if you get tropical uniform you're going up north, if you get icepicks and all the rest of it you're going to India or somewhere like that.
You went straight out into the middle of the Atlantic and came down
Hugh: Came down and pulled in at Freetown for refuelling.
Did you get any attacks from submarines?
Hugh: No Freetown was the port in Africa. It was a coaling station, basically, and we picked up oil for the journey round Cape of Good Hope and went to Durban and we were billeted at Durban they took everybody off the ship. They billeted everyone in a racecourse and we slept on the stands. The weather was beautiful we had about a fortnight there living like kings. There was no rationing or anything.
Rose: Tins of fruit.
Hugh: We couldn't understand why they didn't ship this stuff to England. Ships were going back empty you see these troop ships it was crazy. But anyway, they didn't. They asked us to pay extra money towards the food, fourpence a day it was. And for this you got your huge steaks, and live like kings. But then I got on a small boat, a little one, and we sailed up the Arabian sea then past Madagascar. At that time it belonged to the free French who weren't very friendly, Vichy French. So we had to steer a big berth from there, and we got up into the Arabian Sea It was very rough and then landed at Bombay. Then at Bombay caught another boat up to Karachi and went into a camp there in Karachi and I was there for 9 months I think.
Doing what in Karachi?
Hugh: Aircraft depot.
Rose: Maintenance.
Hugh: All the stuff was being repaired you see. You couldn't get it from England so you had to repair it on route sort of thing.
Were the planes involved in fighting?
Hugh: At Karachi, they were going out to the Far East, being shipped out. And from there then I went, I must have done a good job or something, because I was sent to Lahore. There was a little aerodrome there, but it wasn't used by the military but once again I was repairing instruments and so on. The next thing I knew they decided I had done a good job there and they shipped me off to kawnpor. But that was a huge place and we were getting ready to invade Burma.
Rose: Then he came home.
Hugh: Must have had oh a couple of dozen big sheds you know.
Were you assigned to a specific squadron at this time?, or where you just being shipped to where you were needed?
Hugh: I was shipped to another squadron from Cawnpore for a very short time and we went to Assam.
Which squadron was this, 31?
Hugh: That鈥檚 what I was on. We had Liberators and Dakotas, dozens, hundreds of Dakotas. They were all troop carrying.
You should have got the Burma Star shouldn't you? Did you get one?
Hugh: During the war, I did, but I didn't wear it, but I got one.
Rose: I've never seen it.
Hugh: I never collected it, I was on my way back to England by that time.
Did you get into Burma?
Hugh: I was in Assam, classes as SE Asia.
Didn't you say once that you were in jungle near Japanese ...announcing over speakers you were going to die?
Hugh: Oh that was in Assam, yes. The japs were up there, they were at the gates to India all ready to attack.
Rose: Who was that general you admired?
Hugh: Slim.
Rose: Slim, yes, great guy. Slim had an army of part donkeys, that was his army transport.
When did you get back?
Hugh: In May, 1944.
You were in England for the rest of the war?
Hugh: Yes, I went to a unit, I don't know what the squadron number was, on the island off the coast. Walney Island. I was there for a fortnight but then they shipped me off to the Central Trade Test Board.
Rose: I remember you saying you had to do a lot of manoeuvres there.
Hugh: Oh yes, when we got home. They just looked upon us as troops.
Rose: You know this business with a rifle, you know.
They got you training again?
Hugh: Yes.
Why?
Hugh: We鈥檇 just got back from the Far East but they got some weird scheme where all the troops had to be retrained or trained for something. At one period we were marching along the coast on Walney Island and there was a huge line, a stupid idea these blokes had for training. The line started to go into the sea (ha ha much laughter). Mad it was. They used to take us on a 20 mile route marches.
Rose: Walney Island isn't that big, did you go round in circles? (ha ha laughter)
Hugh: By the time we got back from there it was very rough.. Well we had just come back from the Far East, you know, you'd expect a little bit of luxury.
Rose: Mind you, you had a cushy job in Central Trade Test Board didn't you?
Hugh: Oh yes.
Had you seen Dad by then?
Rose: Oh yes.
At your Mums.
Rose: Yes, my father had died and I looked after Gordon, but she loved it. She had never been out to work at a factory in her life and she enjoyed every minute.
Freedom, yes.
Rose And in fact she then asked to go on permanent nights.
Where was she working?
Rose: At Rootes. Well it wasn't Rootes, it had gone into Dunlop鈥檚 then, tyres and things. Packing inner tubes or something into cardboard boxes, and she had a few bob. Mind you, she had to go out to work somewhere because when my father died do you know what her pension was? She go 10/- a week for herself, and 5/- for Gordon. Her rent was 21/- per week so she had to go out to work whether she wanted to or not.
Rose: So if it hadn't been for you Gordon would not have had anywhere to be looked after?
Hugh: Unless she was a spiv!
Rose: I more or less brought up Gordon because he was three when we got married wasn't he? (he was born in) 1937 my Father died in 1943 So he was 6, well somewhere around there and I had George, I was home looking after George so it was convenient for me to live with her so I could look after both of them.
Where was your brother then at this stage?
Rose: George, he was working in Stoke-on-Trent.
He wasn鈥檛 in the military?
Rose: He was working in the mines.
Hugh: He was a Bevan boy. They just shoved you anywhere you know.
Instead of being conscripted, to go in the military they sent you down the mines.
Rose: He was working for Rootes, but then when they were getting short of blokes, he got deferment all the time, he had to go before a board.
Was this because he asked to, or because he wasn't fit?
Rose: He didn't get any choice. Well you don't get any choice during war. You get a letter telling you to report somewhere.
Hugh: They suddenly decide they want soldiers and they pull people in you see, but then when the war had been on for years and they wanted industry picking up you know they wanted miners to get the coal out. So he was up in Blythe in Northumberland.
How did he feel about that?
Rose: He wasn't very happy to start with but he never moaned.
But it must be quite difficult when all that is going on and you've been conscripted to go underground and dig coal?
Rose: No use to moaning you just had to get on with it, there was no alternative.
Hugh: A lot of young women went on the land, land girls.
Rose: Joan Saunders mother was in the land army, she said it was horrible. She said there were some good times, but a lot of horrible ones.
Hugh: There were a lot of girls in the services.
Rose: But Iris and Peggy, that other friend of mine who died they were in the Women's Army and had the time of their lives.
Hugh: The airforce used a lot of girls as radar operators, they were very very good but I don't know what the army did.
Rose: It was liberation for some women. You know, they had been tied to the home, you got married, you had your children. But then you see the world's our oyster sort of thing.
I suppose it had been proved in the First World War how good women were.
Rose: Peggy and I were talking about this the four of us together. Do you remember when we used to do this, this was all they were both in the Army who was it, someone was in the WAAFs. Oh Mary Roberts and she's your age (Hugh) isn't she almost? She still goes to the reunions. I was talking to her at the Christmas Party. They had a whale of a time all over England, places they'd never been before you know.
Hugh: I'd never seen a WAAF until I came home. There was a troop ship sunk, the loss of women at sea was so bad that they never sent any more out.
Rose: But I鈥檒l tell you one thing. When I went to work in Rootes, must have been about 20 blokes in the store. It must have been four or five times bigger than this house with an office in one corner. I had to keep records. What happened was all the materials came in at one end so you got all your tubing, sheet metal then you went to press shops and it worked its way until you got to the hangars. And these three fellows 鈥淢orning Rose!鈥� you know, and they'd carry me cups of tea, hot chocolate. I had a whale of a time, well in that respect. And they used to have those Kensitas cigarettes. You remember, you bought a pack and there was a little pack with four extra for your friends. I had a wire mesh round the table where they used to put the chitty to get the supplies out and they used to poke these through, bars of chocolate through the wires. They were lovely, and they bought me a lovely canteen of cutlery when I left. They were really nice.
You left to get married?
Rose: No I was married, I went back to work when I married but they got me digs. No there's some bright spots. Then you see I had two cousins taken prisoner in Crete. I went to the Grafton (ballroom in Liverpool) one night with my friend Nora Dare. My mum said 鈥淥h go on鈥�. I'd been in (work) two weeks and I was dancing with this airforce fellow. He was a warrant officer or something talking of one thing or another and he tells me his name nothing about him. I came home with Nora. She stayed the night with my mum and I. About three or four weeks later, he was wings the lot you know, there was his picture in the paper 鈥渕issing鈥�, and that was the sort of thing you thought Oh God I was only dancing with him a couple of weeks ago.
Hugh: Well they didn鈥檛 send any women overseas but they tried it as an experiment. They wanted them out east mainly for the headquarters.
Rose: They sent nurses overseas.
Hugh Yes, nurses went but they lost a troop ship with the girls on and that was it didn't try again.
Rose: A lot of nurses went out.
Hugh: In Ceylon when I went down there Mountbatten was the SE Asia commander in chief or something, he had a big staff of women and men clerks and so on, supposed to be running the war but they were all Indian girls. They all spoke English, the same with the Eurasian girls, they all spoke perfect English.
When did you end up in Ceylon?
Hugh: I only went down there for a fortnight it was about dropping equipment in to the jungle.
Was that when you were in India
Hugh: Yes I was sent down there to advise on shipping. Could we drop delicate equipment into the jungle for Slims people? What was the best thing to do? Were we going to fit tanks on the aircraft or what to do you see. I did some experiments and found that, well we had lots of jute, which is a cloth made by the Indians, a very very rough cloth. And if you wrapped enough layers of this on it would survive a free drop.
And this saved parachuting and parachutes?
Hugh: Saved parachutes yes because we hadn't any silk for parachutes.
What sort of instruments were they trying to drop?
Hugh: Aircraft instruments mainly, bombsights and stuff like this and gun laying for the army anything that would smash you know.
This was for isolated airfields in the jungle, and it was whilst you were in Ceylon that you found the Japanese bank note wasn't it?
Hugh: Yes in Trincomalee on the south coast.
Where about in Ceylon were you, which area?
Hugh: I don't know we were just put in billets so as far as I was concerned.
But Mountbatten had a huge station there?
Hugh: Yes, he had a big staff and was running the war, or so called, but he wasn't very well liked by anybody - big puffter (laughter) All dressed up. Oh I know a soldier when I see one and he wasn't.
You just found this note lying in the jungle where it had been dropped?
Hugh: Yes
The japanese had already flown over?
Hugh: No, we sent two battleships out to sort the japs out, Singapore and so on. We lost Singapore, we lost the battleships. They were dived bombed from the air by the Japanese and this was the only thing holding back the japs, Japanese aircraft carrier we realised had broken through and got through and into the Indian Ocean all set for an invasion.

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