大象传媒

Between 1943-46, I was in the Royal Air Force in a RAF Maintenance Unit based in India. First I was in Jodphur in Sind, a virtual desert region. It was jolly hot and hard work. We worked from first thing in the morning until midday. After lunch we put our head down as it was too hot to touch the aircraft. Approx. 20 to 30 different types of aircraft were stored with us before going to squadrons as needed. The aircraft were parked out in lines in the desert. Each line was beside a very crude road named after the type of aircraft along side it.
Once, I was sent down to the Dispersal area to cannibalise the instrument panel on a Bleinham bomber. I sat in the pilot seat and burn the back of my legs as the aircraft was so hot from the sun. Never again! It was common place to take instruments from one aircraft as spares for another as needed.
Jodhpur was a private state governed by the Maharaja acting as the Air Vic Marshall. He gave parties for us in his palace, which was virtually new and designed by a English architect. It is now a hotel. Food was scarce. We relied on the local produce grown in the region, but as it was so dry, this was limited. We used second hand K rations 3 times a week from the Americans like poor relations and tinned saugages - Soya Links. We had no bread.
D-Day happened on June 6, but we knew nothing about the Allied invasion until roughly a week later. There had been rumours about a 2nd Front. We could not believe it had actually taken place. Communications were not instant like they are now. Mail took 3 to 4 weeks to arrive from home.
Whilst in India, the V1s were dropping on London. My father sent me a drawing of one he had done from memory. I put it on the noticeboard, but I was told it was still on the sectret list! Black mark for me.
In 1945, I was transferred to Delhi. There was a great improvement in the food. There were even cinemas with air conditioning. We were preparing for the invasion of Japan. This proved unnecessary after the dropping of the atom bomb. After this it was all abit of an anticlimax and we all longed to go home.

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