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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Odilia Roberts from the Derby Action Team on behalf of Harold Davies and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

As an L.A.C with 79 Fighter Squadron, at the time flying Hawker Hurricanes, known because of their squadron crest as the ‘Salamanders’. We sailed from Liverpool on an old 1914-18 war period vessel, namely the SS ’Empress of Russia’, in a very large convoy on March 19th 1942. The only clue we had to our destination was the tropical kit that was issued. On the dockside were armed troops with fixed bayonets, whether they were to keep us on the ship or keep others off was always a bone of contention.
Leading the convoy was the old plodding SS’Louis Pasteur’ from which the convoy seemed to take its slow pace. Our arrival in Durban South Africa was greeted with songs by the ‘Lady in White’, as she became known by all British troops. The songs were sung from the dockside as each troopship arrived or departed the harbour. We spent three short pleasant weeks in Durban before boarding another ship, this time the ‘Ile de France’ set sail to India and all it held for us, the dreaded jungles, terrific heat, the smells and the dreadful illnesses and diseases of that continent.

I, like many comrades, spent my 21st birthday in this land called ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ and what a day. I ‘celebrated’ with the usual issue of a tin of bully beef, which ran from the tin due to the terrific heat. Just a few weeks later I was to suffer a bad attack of malaria and was taken to the Convent of St. Loretta in Calcutta where the nuns, now well known world wide because of Mother Teresa, attended me. The treatment for the disease was being plunged into a bath of ice and being given copious doses of quinine.

I recall going over the Imphal range in convoy on one of our squadron moves (Dimapur to Wangjing) and seeing the town of Kohima and the devastation caused by the battle. Many British and Indian lives were lost at this point and was a turning point in the campaign. This battle went down in history as the first time the Imperial Japanese army had ever been defeated since their invasion of China in the 1930’s. On this journey over the mountains toward the ‘forward areas’ as we were doing to re-engage the enemy, the mules were able to go through the dense jungles and traverse the high mountains which modern transport would not or could not attempt to go — they were invaluable.

A major concern to me was that my parents back home had no idea where I was for some time, due to mail difficulties after the Hiroshima bomb, the Japanese troops did gradually cease fighting, to end in the September. Then I sailed home on the MV. ‘Georgic’ with ‘Uncle Bill’ (General Slim, the 14th Army Commander), arriving back in Liverpool on Christmas day 1945. I had sailed away with many others on a foggy March morning in 1942, a fresh faced youth with a goodly crop of hair, returning nearly four years later, partly bald and with a stomach ulcer. I was one of the lucky ones.

Memories: Going to a dance in Poona with Seth (Cleggy) Clegg, when we were there to collect new vehicles. Luxury indeed. Also going for Chinese meals with him at the ‘Restaurant of the New Moon’.
I share the horrific memory with Brian Horsman when unfortunately Taffy Humphries bowser caught fire, with drastic results when both he and Taffy were burnt very badly. I visited Taffy in hospital and have often wondered what became of him. We moved on shortly after this incident so I never knew the outcome of his serious injuries.
I remember Donald (Jock) Summerville our despatch rider, always riding up and down our convoys, his face always solidified with dust and sweat, he was always longing for home, after his repatriation he wrote to me “I've made it at last.” It was everyone’s wish to make it safely home.
One of the lads always took his windup gramophone with him and his records by: - Rosemary Clooney, The Ink Spots, Dinah Shore and Harry James, another had his trumpet and yet another with his clarinet but all this broke the monotony. One of the ‘cooks’ dished up sardines at every opportunity, as they needed no cooking.

The famous inscription I viewed on my travels, which became the epitaph of The Burma Star Association: -
WHEN YOU GO HOME TELL THEM OF US AND SAY FOR YOUR TOMORROW WE GAVE OUR TODAY.

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