Part 2: February - August 1943

February - March 1943

“We sailed from Liverpool in the STRATHMORE. After two weeks in the Atlantic we arrived at the west coast of Africa on March 9th, my 21st birthday. The only ship I’d sailed on before was the Mersey ferry. The weather in the Atlantic was pretty bad, but I wasn’t sea sick as most of the troops on board were. I worked on the ship down below in the food stores. We were about the same level as the engine room, so if we’d been torpedoed we would have had no chance of getting out. We slept on F deck, which was two decks below the water line. The food stores were on K deck, a further four decks below that.

Crossing the Equator for the first time there was trouble on board. We all had to sleep below, in case of aircraft spotting anyone smoking on deck. It was so hot we couldn’t breathe. There were 5000 troops on a ship which was only intended to carry 1500 passengers in peacetime. We all came on deck for air, but the Captain ordered us below again. Some refused to go, and the Captain threatened to charge us all with mutiny on the high seas if we didn’t obey. We left about 1000 troops at Durban, so things were a bit better after that. The rest of us were allowed ashore for four hours after being on the ship for six weeks.

We left Durban and, leaving the rest of the convoy, diverted up to Aden, then continued up the Red Sea to Mitsiwa in Eritrea. When we left there we had to get to Bombay on our own.”

April 1943

“The first thing that hits you when you get off the ship in Bombay is the heat and the smell. You want to drink water all the time. We were allowed ashore for about four hours. After fighting our way past beggars outside the docks, all the street traders came at us. They knew we were just off the ship and tried to sell us all kinds of things. We were told to tell them very politely to ‘go away’ (in Army language!), which we did. We were very shocked when one of the traders pulled out a large knife and chased my mate and me around the bazaar.

We met an old soldier who had been out there quite a few years. He told us to stand still and let them catch up to us, they think you’re scared of them when you run away. So we stood there and one of the traders came up to us and stood about five feet away. The old soldier said ‘go away’. After this we got brave, and going back to the ship any trader who came near was just told to ‘go away’. It worked, and this was our first lesson on how to survive in India.

Next day we boarded a train for Ranchi in eastern India, a three day journey. The carriages had wooden seats and no window glass as it was too hot. At night we closed the openings with wooden slats. It was like sitting in front of an oven with the door open. The engine of the train was like an old American steam loco. When we stopped for about half an hour, we took a dixie with dry tea in it up to the engine, and the driver pulled a lever and boiling water came out of a spout to fill the dixie up and brew the tea.

When we arrived at Ranchi station we were loaded onto three lorries and driven over dust roads and tracks for about five miles. We finally stopped in a big paddy field and the officer-in-charge said, this is your camp, your tents are over there, put them up. It was about 110°F. There were about 500 troops in the camp and we were all going mad for water. We were told it would take about a week before we got used to being without water all the time.

When we got the tents up and all the kit in, we lined up for something to eat. We were given ‘bully beef’ and what we called ‘dog biscuits’ — dry biscuits about three inches square — and a mug of tea. We got bully beef every day, sometimes with Indian potatoes, which were very small, full of eyes and never peeled.

The Indians were bringing bacon, eggs and tomatoes round and we were all buying them. Only later did we realise that these were our own rations which, instead of being collected for us, were being cooked and sold back to us. Needless to say we weren’t impressed, so we kicked them out and threatened to report whoever was in charge of the camp to HQ.

Soon we were told to pack up and taken back to the railway station, where we boarded a train for the two day trip to Gaya. This place was even hotter than the last, about 120°F, but at least it was a proper army camp.

The Sergeant Major was a regular soldier of some 10 years standing, and had been out east for so long that we reckoned the sun had got to him, such was his behaviour. We nicknamed him CHIN STRAP as we all had a leather strap on the rim of our hats, but he had an extra one under his chin.

He had us on parade every morning, standing to attention; the heat was so bad even some of the Indians used to faint. He said we would get worse than this in the jungle. We did four days of route marches through paddy fields, 20 miles each through the heat of the day. On the first day one bloke died of sunstroke, then another on the second day. During the march on the fourth day, one bloke collapsed with sunstroke and another two said they felt ill. All three were left behind in the paddy field. By nightfall they had not returned to camp, so a search party was sent out next morning which found all of them dead.

He said we were going on a night march, and some of the blokes said they would get rid of Chin Strap down a well, as payback for the blokes who died. He found out about the threat and the march was cancelled. One bloke in the camp had his leg blown off, and was on a stretcher all the time. He wasn’t allowed to go home, they said he was still fit(!). Chin Strap even threatened to have him out on parade one day, on his stretcher.”

July 1943

“Finally after a few more weeks we were put on another train to Comilla. This was a jungle training camp, though it felt more like a concentration camp. We were now about 60 miles from the Japanese and using live ammunition. A Jap patrol was caught just outside Comilla, having infiltrated through the British and Indian lines. There was a big ammunition dump in the camp which they were probably after.

In Comilla an officer gave us a talk on what we could expect in Burma. He said if you survive the snakes (from 18” long to 30ft pythons), crocodiles (can be 25ft long), leeches, mosquitoes, flies, red ants, black panthers, jackals and hyenas, you then have to deal with the Japs. You can’t see them, but you feel they’re watching you all the time, sometimes from in front and sometimes from behind. You don’t speak unless absolutely necessary and never above a whisper. If you see a Jap at night, don’t shoot or you’ll give away your position and you won’t see daylight.

There were monkeys living in the trees nearby. Once they came down and stole our tins of bully beef and milk. They took them back into the trees and tried to bite them open, and when this failed they threw the tins back at us. At a place called Elephant Point a herd of wild elephants stampeded through the camp. We dived behind the trees and luckily no-one was killed. Another time we found our rations missing, it turned out they were being stolen during the night by some Japs who has been cut off from their main troop.

We were now being posted to our regiments in Burma. Every day on parade the RSM would call out a group of names, and after about a month my name was called. We were kitted out with an all green uniform — even down to the underwear — plus bush hats, rifles etc. We had been in India for four months, and the hard time we had endured was merely preparation for what was to come. We were so worked up we hated the Army, India and each other.”

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.