大象传媒

People in story: Kenneth Hulbert, Royal Army Medical Corps
Location of story: India (Bangladesh)

Taken from the diaries of Kenneth Hulbert (1912-2003)
Served in the Royal Army Medical Corp, World War II

This is the fifth instalment in a series of excerpts from the war diaries of my father, Kenneth Hulbert, adapted for 鈥楾he People鈥檚 War鈥� website. Kenneth Hulbert served as a lieutenant, then captain and finally a major, working for hospitals in Egypt, the Sudan and India. I edited his diaries and published them as a book 鈥業 will lift up mine eyes鈥� just after he died in May 2003

Famine on the Burmese border
March-June 1943

At the beginning of May 1943 Kenneth Hulbert received orders in Lahore to head east to what is now Bangladesh to establish a hospital at a place called Cox鈥檚 Bazaar. He boarded a train with 12 officers, 100 men and 500 tons of equipment.

The political situation was still uneasy. Since the arrests of the Congress leaders in August 1942, hundreds of railway stations, post offices and police stations had been damaged or destroyed. Hostages had been taken from villages and there were direct attacks on Europeans. By the end of 1942 over 60,000 people had been arrested. Conversation on the train inevitably came round to the future of India. The Indian officers simply wanted to rule themselves, but didn鈥檛 know how to get over the Hindu-Muslim situation and felt that the division of India would be wrong. Partition, of course, is what happened four years later.

鈥淢any of the Indian troops have never been on a train. One of them pulled the communication cord and then protested his innocence; another threw a lump of wood out of the window and knocked a signalman senseless; and another leant out and smacked a woman with a stick. At one stop the Pathans in the unit got out a drum and did a war dance. At every station we are besieged with children chanting, 鈥淣o momma, no poppa, no brother, no sister, no cousins, no uncles, no aunts. No food. Baksheesh鈥�.

Four days later they arrived at a railway junction east of Calcutta and started moving the luggage and 500 tons of hospital equipment (tents being the heaviest item) over to trucks on a narrow one-metre gauge train on the adjoining platform. This went on until the early hours of the morning, by which time they were tired, angry, irritable and hungry. The next day they set off again, this time on a narrow-gauge railway, and reached the great River Brahamputra just before nightfall, where the railway track ended. The trucks were manhandled by coolies onto barges to be towed over to the other side.

鈥淭he river was almost 15 miles wide with a swift current. When the sun went down the coolies were still loading the barges and by this time everyone was hungry, having not eaten all day. So the Indian cooks unpacked the big Primus cooking stoves and produced a splendid egg curry which we ate sitting on the banks of the Brahmaputra by the light of the full moon. Finally, we embarked on the ferry that battled its way diagonally across the current to reach the opposite bank 鈥� a journey that took an hour and a half. We eventually reached the east bank at 1am, got onto a train, climbed into the bunks and fell asleep鈥�

The next morning they awoke to find themselves at a place called Mymensingh where they ate breakfast on the platform. The train proceeded on through the same rich, fertile land. But here there was famine because of the interruptions of rice supplies from Burma and hoarding by landlords. The train reached its final destination, Chittagong, on 15th May, after a journey of 1200 miles that had taken nine days in the train. That night Kenneth had a bath and a meal and, after seeing the whole company safely billeted, he fell asleep under a mosquito net.

17th May
鈥淚 am to go on to Cox鈥檚 Bazar with the advance party. We embarked on a little river steamer at daybreak. There were two or three officers, several British troops, some Indians and one dog. Most of the Indians had never seen the sea before and I was looked on as the proud representative of a seafaring race. As soon as we were out of the estuary the little boat rocked about and I was horribly sea sick, which was all very humiliating for me as only two of the others, plus the dog, were sick. However, we were soon in sheltered water, sailing between a chain of islets and the Araken coast. This little ship is a flat-bottomed river steamer and the sheltered water is more to her liking. We arrived at Cox's Bazar in the afternoon. All we could see was trees, palms and a few bamboo huts on stilts. Some sampans came alongside and ferried us ashore where we climbed onto the jetty and found the transport officer. As usual, no one was expecting us. There were no plans for any hospital and no patients. We were told to go to the rest camp where we sorted ourselves out, had a meal , put up our mosquito nets and fell asleep.鈥�

The bamboo huts, called 鈥榖ashas鈥�, were about 200 yards from a sandy beach. The plan was to build hospital accommodation of 4000 beds on an island in the estuary, a job that would take about six weeks. All of the buildings would be a made of bamboo, built by the local people without one single nail or screw.

That night trouble started.

21st May
There was a lot of aerial activity and we were back in the old days of blackout and steel helmets. A number of planes flew over very low. I went for a walk with a fellow officer and we saw the planes returning. I thought that they were Hurricanes until they were right overhead and I saw the Japanese markings of the rising sun. We ran faster than ever in our lives and flung ourselves into a ditch. Then all hell broke loose. Everyone with a gun or rifle started firing into the air. I could not resist looking up to see one of the planes burst into flames and crash about a quarter of a mile away. Back in the camp the old sub-assistant surgeon, an Anglo-Indian, was holding up his hands saying,鈥淥h my God, whatever shall I do. I have a wife and children at home鈥�. Then the commanding officer started us off digging slit trenches.

The British Army under Lord Wavell and later, General Slim, were fighting the Japanese in Burma barely 100 miles away south down the coast. The first Burma campaign had been a disaster and, in May, the British Army was forced to retreat to a position south of Chittagong, where they had been six months earlier.

Meanwhile, the medical equipment was still lying in barges in the open. The site wasn鈥檛 ready and there was no proper accommodation (other than bamboo huts). It was chaos and on the horizon the clouds 鈥� as well as the Japanese planes 鈥� looked ominous.

25th May
鈥淭oday the monsoon broke in all its fury. For several days the clouds have been banking up from the south and driven away by the blazing sun. Today, however, the clouds came right up close. There was a deadly hush and then, suddenly, a howling wind and sandstorm descended on us and every loose thing outside was swept away. Then came torrential rain. Many roofs were stripped off, huts were blown down and one hut completely collapsed. Our commanding officer was in the latrine when the bamboo screen came down and the heavy bamboo crosspiece pinned him down. Luckily, there were two others in there similarly engaged, whose combined efforts managed to free him. Our hut shuddered but stood up all right. Then came the rain 鈥� and what rain. Great buckets of it, washing away roads and flooding open spaces. This is only the introduction to the monsoon 鈥� we shall soon have it for weeks on end without a break. They say that here we have the second heaviest monsoon in all India - 250 to 300 inches in three months. (The highest is in Assam which has 450 inches.) The frogs have now come out, some as big as your fist. They appear on the floor of your huts and just sit and look at you with their big goggly eyes. They will even let you tickle them under the chin.鈥�

26th May
鈥淟ots more rain. How are we every going to get our tents up in all this? The sanitation round here is appalling 鈥� open pits full of faeces, bad enough to start an epidemic.鈥�.

29th May
鈥淓arly this morning there was a violent thunderstorm. For two hours the storm raged and there was a continuous roar of thunder and flickering of lightning. The bamboo huts shook and swayed. Then, with a roar, half the roof went and the rain poured in. My half was all right, but the others crawled out and found another hut where I eventually joined them. When I went to the 鈥榩ost office鈥�, which is in a large hut, to send some mail home, the air raid siren went off. In a flash, the place was empty as everyone had dived into slit trenches. But it was a false alarm. The food here is not good. The meat is poor because it cannot be hung and there is little variety of vegetables. But when I see the local people looking like walking skeletons it makes me feel grateful.鈥�

31st May
鈥淭oday I went with one of the other officers over to the island to see the site of the hospital. We were rowed over in a sampan, the rower sitting up and facing the front of the boat. We had a long walk along a raised footpath that led to a village, but then diverted and walked a zigzag course along and across the banks of the paddy fields until we got to some higher ground 鈥� the site for the hospital. The plan is to build a road for ambulances from a landing site 鈥� not a very promising prospect in the monsoon.鈥�.

1st June
鈥淲oke early and had breakfast. Two of the officers and I went down to the jetty with about 30 of our Indian orderlies where we got on a barge, which had a motor boat lashed alongside, with some of our equipment. The launch pushed us over to the island in pouring rain which got heavier. The men took shelter under a tarpaulin but this acted as a sail and the wind nearly carried us out to sea. At last we got ashore, tied up and prospected a route across the flooded paddy fields. We were ankle deep in mud and soaked through, but, bit by bit, we manhandled the equipment ashore and over the paddy fields to the high ground. At one stage, a box of surgical instruments fell into the mud and we had to grovel for them. Eventually, we managed to erect four tents which provided shelter for ourselves and the equipment. First, I set the other men digging shallow trench latrines to be used until the engineers built us deeper ones. Next, we chose a water supply and filled a large tub. Then I got out a Horrock鈥檚 box with which I tested the water for contamination and worked out how much bleaching powder to add to chlorinate it. After the right time had elapsed the dechlorinating solution was added. I had to be the first to taste it and pronounce it fit for drinking. Finally, we got out some hospital beds and mosquito nets.鈥�

That night was one Kenneth鈥檚 most harrowing experiences of the entire war 鈥� one he spoke of to me and my brother and sister on a number of occasions. People talk of the face of poverty. This was the sound of poverty.

The diary entry reads:
鈥淎fter sunset a dull low moaning sound started up and seemed to go on all night. I asked one of the Indians what this was and he said that it was coming from the Indian village around us. He said it was the sound of people dying of hunger. What a dreadful place this is. The distressing thing is that there is nothing we can do to help them.鈥�

The next few days were spent consolidating their position and settling into a routine of sorts. It usually rained for the first half of the day and then the sun would come out and dry everything out. The equipment started to arrive bit by bit. Kenneth did a mosquito survey, noting the all pools which had to be dealt with by the anti-mosquito squad.

10th June
It is raining hard but work has started on the hospital. We are now surrounded by men cutting and shaping bamboo of all sizes and shapes, but there is no sign of an access road. This island is picturesque in a way. There are masses of a kind of mimosa 鈥� a little plant with leaves so sensitive that if you touch them they shut up in a few seconds. Then there is the Australian water hyacinth introduced as a garden ornament and now choking up all the waterways. At night the jackals set up their unearthly chorus, enough to make your hair stand up on end, but they are very timid animals and keep away from us. The rain comes pouring down the hillside behind us, carrying everything before it, rushing through our tents in torrents, but then it stops and everything dries up. All our belongings hanging up in the tents are covered in green mildew. There are leeches around here, and if you walk through the flooded paddy fields they get around your ankles and your boots fill up with blood. They will not let go until they are full, unless you touch them with a lighted cigarette. The frogs鈥� chorus, the jackals and the buzz of the insects makes the night quite interesting as you lie under your mosquito net.

13th June
It is still raining, but everything is very green and there are a lot of coloured birds, but no rice is growing in the paddy fields. There are dead bodies floating down the estuary. Last night the jackals got into my tent and this morning I found my false tooth outside. One of the officers caught a brilliant red woodpecker and sat it on his shoulder. My present tent mate is a Brahmin from South India. He keeps talking about his 鈥榖ad skin鈥�, meaning his dark colour.鈥�

Later that day Kenneth鈥檚 relief arrived and the next morning he set off to rejoin his old unit. He had mixed feelings on leaving Cox鈥檚 Bazar 鈥� excitement at seeing his old comrades again, but frustration at going just as the hospital was starting to take shape. It was probably here that India began to get 鈥榰nder his skin鈥� and his initial dislike of the country turned into a lifelong love of India and the Indian people.

鈥淭he Indian officers were all very upset when I left Cox鈥檚 Bazar and I am developing and affection for the people of India. Two of them, from Madras, asked me to send them my photograph that they would keep for ever, because they said I was a gentleman. How very nice.鈥�

The next day he received his movement orders. He was to go to Bangalore to rejoin his colleagues at Number 18 General Hospital. He took a sampan from the island to the mainland and the proceeded to movement control at Cox鈥檚 Bazar. Then, on 16th June, he caught the early morning ferry to the steamer. The sea was smooth, but it was a tiring journey and Kenneth was not well. As well as an upset tummy, he had a small sore on his ankle, resulting from an insect bite, that was to trouble him considerably over the next two months. The ship arrived back at Chittagong in the afternoon, but the train had left. So Kenneth unrolled his bedroll in the station waiting room and spent the night on the floor, sleeping soundly. The next day, the train took him to the steamer on the Brahmaputra. Then, on the other side of the river, he boarded a train bound for Calcutta.

Next instalment 鈥� Bangalore, Madras and home

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