大象传媒

In the Summer of 1945 we were still fighting the Japanese Army in Burma we were preparing to go & invade Malaya we could not see any real future for us for the Japanese were still fighting very strongly and even if we were successful in Malaya we had heavy fighting in the rest of South East Asia to look forward to & after that the invasion of Japan. One day we were told that a big bomb had been dropped by the Amercians & we just thought this was someting that just happened in the war. Four days later the second atomic bomb was dropped and we were told Japan was susing for peace, we found it difficult to accept this wonderful news thankfully this all turned out to be true. Some fighting still went on but we could see that the worst of the slaughter was over. It was many months after that I was demobilised and was able to return to the UK in Feb 1945, after having started in the TA in early 1939. There were both good times and bad times, but these are fast fading in the distance of my memory. What many people dont realise is that whilst the British Army was involved in conflicts in many parts of the world and my experiences of its activities in India & Burma, never the less a very large porpotion of the forces in that theatre of war were Indians both Muslilms & Hindus and there were troops from Africa, Austrlia and New Zealand lets us not forget the parts played wherever the Indian Army was operating by the Gurkhas. The accepted lauguage in the Indian Army was Urdu we British Officers all had to learn that lauguage and conduct our affairs in it. Likewise, Britsh Officers with African troops had to learn there lauguage.

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