大象传媒

Journey to India

About 700 of us, cadets in the Indian Army arrived in Glasgow to embark on the ss Maloja, a P&O liner of 30,000 tons. Being cadets we thought we would probably have better accommodation than most of the 4,000 troops who were crammed into the ship, but to our hororwe were marched lower and lower until we reached the hold with 7 decks above us. The deck was bare with nothing in it but wooden tables seating 18 to a table.

For sleeping those who were lucky got hammocks, the next, including myself got the tables, and the unlucky ones had to sleep under the tables. We all sat down and, being Feb, there was a gale blowing and many men were feeling rather sick. Lunch, of course was beef stew and dumplings. Out of the 18 at our table only 6 sat down to it, and 2 had one look at the dumplings and hopped off to the loo. That night and the next two were the most dreadful I have ever experienced. About 60% of the men were seasick and there was vomit everywhere. There were no lavatories in the hold so we had to go up the stairs to the next deck, and the stairs were covered in it. I slept on the table with my gas cape over my head to stop the chaps in the hammocks above me being sick over me.After about thee days things sorted themselves out but it was another 3 days before we got rid of the smell.

We were a large convoy of about 40 ships and an escort of 1 cruiser and 3 destroyers.

Because we were so crowded life on board was just a matter of queuing for everything and if you could get on deck there was no room to move. I read a book called "I was a prisoner on the Altmark" a German prisoner of war boat which was captured by the British off Norway and the men liberated. The writer complained about the terrible conditions. There hammocks nearly touched one another and they had to queue for food. Even Churchill apologised on radio to us for the terrible conditions we had to endure!

However the convoy proceeded and we had to go very near to South America before we turned north east and put inot Freetown, West Africa where we stopped for three days, but were not allowed to land.

After that it was straight down to South Africa and it was off the Cape of Good Hope that we were attacked by submarine. I happened to be on deck when we heard two loud bangs and amazingly sillhouetted against the setting sun we saw one of the boats sunk. Our next stop was Durban where we spent 4 very pleasant weeks. All the people were very kind and we visited several homes. Each morning we had to parade for an hours drill by several Guards drill sergeants but the rest of the day was ours.

While I was there I was not very impressed with the standard of advertising done by the South Africans, so I thought I would visit the Durban Art School and ask for an interview with the Head, which he granted. To my amazement I found that his name was Howe and he had been a student at the West Ham Art School, which I had gone to two years after he had left. He advised me to go back there after the war and he would give me introductions to all the agencies there!

Back to the convoy. All the other tropps had left except us. The next thing we knew was that we were to embark on the 'Ile de France', a large North Atlantic Liner, and proceed to Suez. Rumours were that the 4th Indian division in North Africa had lost so many officers that we were to be commisioned in the field and join them.

The "Ile de France" was crammed with troops, about 8,000 I believe, and would sail up to Suez alone as she was armed with two 12 pounders and one 16 inch gun at the stern plus a couple of anti-aircraft guns. As 2 British batleships badly damaed by the Japs had come into harbour, we were not very pleased about this. 36 of us were selected as gun crews and I was one of them! I was very luck to be selected as the 'Ile de France' being a North Atlantic Liner was not the ideal boat to cross the equator and sail up the Red Sea. She was so crowded that troops were only allowed on deck at night once in 3 days and down below it was like an oven.

Each gun ws mounted on a platform out of bounds to everyone else except the crews and as the were3' high we always had somewhere to get out of the sun. I took the 12 - 4 watch and at night that was the most pleasant time to be sailing up the Red Sea. Conditions for the two thirds of the troops were terible for those who could not get on deck and all the corridors were full of naked bodies trying to find a spot where they might find a spot of moving air.

We ended the journey at Suez, where we spent 6 days in a desert camp living on tins of hot corned beef. We were then told we were not going to the middle east but to proceed to India.

Our next journey was in the hold of a cargo boat. There were of course no port holes and as all meals were served there we looked like a bunch of pirates with nothing on but shorts and sweat rags. One great consolation was that there was room for all of us to spend all day and all night on deck, and we finally arrived in Bombay 8 weeks after we should have been there!

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