The George Adams Interview — Part Twelve

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of George Adams, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Adams fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Other parts to this story can be found at:
INDEX: A7544630

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This is a transcript taken from audio footage made by the Department of Sound Recordings at the
Imperial War Museum,
Lambeth Road,
LONDON SE1 6H7.

It has been copied almost exactly as recorded, therefore the terminology and grammar are as spoken and have not been manipulated in any way. Where place names that could not be found in an atlas, and/or unfamiliar terminology are mentioned, phonetic spellings are used and are subject to alteration.

On some occasions, sentences were not completed; the following symbol is used to denote that: ……………………
Only repetition has been suppressed.

Bill Ross — BBC People’s War Story Editor.
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A flight of fleet air arm Fulmars from Colombo I think, came over, but they lost quite a few. There didn’t seem to be any co-ordination somehow, we couldn’t work this out. We didn’t get to know about all this until afterwards of course, and the Swordfish that we had, the lieutenant commander who took charge of those, when we handed them back to the fleet air arm, they were still on the drome, but the fleet air arm had them. It was on the Sunday of the Colombo raid that they decided that they’d fly these down to Colombo, setting off early morning. They ran slap bang into the Davios, and they knocked the Swordfish down; they lost quite a lot of men, so THEY went. Things were looking very very dodgy then, and as the book that I’ve got sez — he’s named it, the title, ‘The Most Dangerous Moment,’ because the fighter squadrons had big losses really. We’d nothing, we’d only about three fighter squadrons on the island, then a Blenheim squadron. They tried to find the Japanese fleet, and they did find some of it. They’d lost quite a few planes, and things were very very fragile, they were very very weak at the time.

Int: At the time, were you thinking there’d be another invasion like there was in Singapore?

GA: Yes, yes, certainly. We thought, if the carriers were there in that number, surely they’d be bringing up — in the rear would be transports, and that evening, we would settle down in the billets, we would do what we could, this tank was still blazing like mad and exploding, it was quite eerie, and the station warrant officer, he was due to be repatriated. He’d served his time out there, and the poor old boy wasn’t very good at all, he was going blind, and there seemed to be utter panic down the line, right the way through. He came round the billets, “Everybody out, the Japanese fleet are coming in.” Of course, we turned out, we stood around. At first, we believed him, we thought there was nothing to stop them really. There was a big panic. Why it happened, we never found out but things died down and we went back to the billets. This sort of thing was happening, especially with some of the older hands who’d been out there a long time; hadn’t been in any action in this country, in the raids or anything, and they were in a right state.

We had one flight sergeant — we’d got ground gunners attached to the squadron — they got out of Sumatra. Some had been caught by the Japanese paratroops, and strangely enough, they hadn’t executed them immediately, which very often happened, or just shot them out of hand. They’d tied them up in this slit trench, and they managed to get away. They got away from Sumatra and we got some of those lads, they came up there.

They’d got gun posts all round the drome, and at one gun post, they were there waiting for these Zeros making their approach, and this flight sergeant jumped into the gun post and said, “You’re not to fire, you’re not to fire, you’ll draw their fire if you fire at them.” Again, the gun came out and he threatened them with a gun. It wasn’t reported, I don’t know why, but they were disgusted. This sort of feeling was going right through, there was panic; not among the pilots, not among the ground crew. A lot of it was among the older ones, who had never been in anything like this before, they’d never experienced it, never experienced raids and a lot of them were just about due for repatriation, and there was a feeling of, I suppose, self protection somehow, but it spread. But things didn’t happen like that, they never came in and things quietened down and we settled down to a normal routine of repairs, and still did general reconnaissance, flying out over the bay, and things like that. In the June….

Int: Were the officers you got to replace people, better, you know, like the new group captain, did you get better officers?

GA: Yes, he was, much better, I think it was Group Captain Butler who came up Kogla, that was the Catalina Squadron base, Kogla, down in the south of the island. He came up to us; he was a good officer, excellent. He started to make China Bay into a bigger station. They laid a concrete runway when we left there in the June, because it was just a grass field.

Then we moved down to a place called Katukurunda. It was about twenty three miles south Colombo. It was only a strip, being cut out of the coconut palms — quite close to the coast. Once you’d cleared the coconut palms at the far end, you were more or less over the coast. We were in billets there in a huge house, a place called Richmond Castle. All that area round there was a big rice growing area, and as you got further up, it got a bit hillier, there was rubber, a rubber area. It was a very nice place — huge grounds. It had been the home of one of the Kandian chiefs at one time, but the only snag was, a party of Australians had been there before us, and — why they’d done it, I don’t know, but when they left, they smashed the generator that they ran for the lighting, so we had no lights, apart from oil lamps, but it was very nice there. We’d still got the Fulmars, we’d got a good CO, he was like one of the boys. He used to come and have a few jars of beer with us once a fortnight. Him and the engineering officer, he used to move all round the — we were all in different rooms, so many to a room, and he used to move all round the rooms. By the time he’d finished, he was hardly in a fit state to get back to the officers’ mess, but he was a really........

Int: What was his name, d’ya know?

GA: Constantine, Squadron Leader Constantine — and the engineer officer’s name was Penial. He was a good sort too, the two of them used to come up about once a fortnight on payday. How we got this beer, we’d no NAAFI, we’d nothing. He’d heard there was a shipment of beer in, down in Colombo, so we all had a whip round, I believe, at the time, so we put so much into the kitty, or did he provide it? Somehow — he got it anyhow. He sent down for it, and brought all this beer back, and odds and ends, things that you needed, writing pads and everything else, and we ran our own canteen. What we got from that — he was a big sportsman, Conny was, we got one or two pairs of football boots, and footballs, and we ran our own football team, and he made things much better, he really got organised. But I think, whilst we were there, they decided the Fulmars were leaving us, they were going up to India, and we were having the Hurricanes from 261 Squadron. 261 Squadron were being re-equipped with Hurricane 2 C’s, which were the Cannon Hurricane, and we were taking their Hurricanes. Our pilots flew the Fulmars up to India, and came back by train and boat, and we got these Hurricanes.

We stayed there for, I think it was about a couple of months, probably a bit more, and then we moved down to Ratmalana (??), about seven miles out of...........

Int: That’d be August, or September.

GA: Yes, about August or September when we moved down to Ratmalana. We moved down there, it was about seven miles from Colombo. It was the civilian airfield for Colombo. We had a stretch down there until Christmas.

We’d nothing to do down there, apart from service our machines and standbys, because the nearest Japanese bases were on the Azores, sorry, not the — the Andamans — so we’d no real problems there, and they never sent anything over, only on the second time. We moved back up to China Bay, after Christmas, sometime.

Int: That’d be January 43.

GA: January — February 43, we moved back to China Bay.

Int: To the same place exactly?

GA: Yes, the same billets, the same place, yes. We were only there a few months, then we moved back again to Ratmalana. It was while we were at China Bay, I think it was in this period, before we moved back, we sent a detachment up to Jafna, which was in the north of the island, where all the troubles are now. I didn’t go on that, they stayed up there for a few weeks, and then came back to us. Then Seventeen Squadron came down from India to join us. We had one flight left of 273 Squadron at China Bay then, and the other flight had gone down to Ratmalana and we stayed there until 17 Squadron had got established and everything had moved down. They’d come out of Burma in 1942. They’d had a rough passage actually, a lot of them had walked out. They’d lost quite a lot in Burma. But anyway, they came down there and our flight moved back down to Ratmalana, and it was about this time.

I think we had Christmas down there in 1943, and early 1944.................

Int: So in this whole period, life was just as you described already really.

GA: Yes, a monotony really, monotony, probably in isolated places.

Int: Did your health keep up alright.

GA: Pretty good, yes, apart from one period between 1943 up at Trincomalee. Apparently, Malaria was there all the time, you used to get a very bad attack of it, and they used to become, oh very....... a tremendous amount used to spread. About once every five years they used to get it. It seemed to build up and build up, and then the fifth year, you’d get huge numbers going down with Malaria; I got Malaria there, and quite a lot of our lads, in fact twenty five percent of the squadron or more were down with Malaria.

Int: Were there any precautions, did you take quinine or anything else?

GA: No, because it was a bad thing to do actually, to take quinine because you’d got no resistance. When Malaria did strike, your body would become so used to the quinine, that it just didn’t do anything. They started doing this at one place we were at in Malaya, at that radio location station, we used to have a quinine tablet each day and one or two of the lads went down with it, and they were most annoyed, the medical authorities were, down in Singapore, because they were finding out that the quinine wasn’t working then, because the body had got used to the quinine, so we didn’t used to take that, and at that time, they hadn’t got the anti malarial prophylactics things against it.

They’d got them, but I don’t think they’d got them in any amount to dish them out, and the wards in the hospital, down in Trincomalee, they were full to overflowing, in fact, there were beds on the floor, in between beds, down the corridors and everything. It was a terrible time, that, so the M.O. decided that anyone who went down with Malaria, keep them in our own little hospital until it was absolutely full of course. They were having to turn them out at Trincomalee as fast as they could, because they were overflowing and they weren’t getting the full treatment, so the M.O. decided he’d keep them in there and we’d have the full treatment before we went on convalescent, and that’s what happened. I’d a fortnight of full treatment and went up on convalescent and I was OK, but when we got up there, there were some lads who’d only been up there a few days, and they got them on to light PT, then heavy PT, but within two or three days, the lads were just collapsing, they hadn’t had the full treatment and they were back to square one, in fact, in a worse state than before they went up. But we were all right, we got through alright up there.

Int: That was the only main health…………….

GA: We had one corporal go down in 1942, I think it was just after we got to China Bay. He went down with Typhoid, but other than that, we’d no other problems. We had cholera injections and everything there. The only snag was food at China Bay at that period, especially just before the raid and just after. It was in very short supply. I remember going four or five weeks, we never saw bread. It was all hard tack biscuits.

Int: But between 42 and 44, these problems had…………….

GA: They started to iron out a lot. I think what happened was, they got that many troops on the island that the ration problem got serious, y’know. That’s my feeling, that there was an amount of food there. I always remember the first bread we got in that bad period was from the Indian Service Corps. They used to deliver it from Trincomalee; they used to be the main rationing people. They brought this bread up and it was grey, and there were weevils in it and allsorts, but we made a real meal of it, we didn’t bother about those. We got it down and it was marvellous; we’d been on hard tack that long……………

REEL 10

A Bullfighter came down to join us. I think it was eighty seven squadron, and they hadn’t been down there long before they put another one over from the Andaman’s, the Japanese. They scrambled, I don’t know if it was one or two Bullfighters, anyhow, they shot it down. After that, there was nothing; we never got anything else over at all, so it was a very quiet period.

There was a feeling we weren’t getting anywhere, we were just stuck on the island and we thought we’d have been moving up into India, and then on to the Burma frontier.

Int: Is that what you wanted?

GA: Yes, quite a lot, especially a few of us who had been in Singapore. It was a case of, “Let’s get out own back,” but we didn’t seem to be moving. We’d had two or three different C.O.’s. Squadron Leader Constantine had left us, then we were left without a C.O. We had a flight Lieutenant acting squadron leader, who was a very nice person. He went in hospital with Malaria, he was very very ill, so we were in limbo. We didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, there was nothing happening. The person who took over whilst he was off, wasn’t a very nice person.

Int: Did the tropical conditions cause any problems with the airframes?

GA: Not with the Hurricanes, not really, they were very good. We used to have to keep the tyres covered, and everything like that, when you were out on the drome and stood.

Int: Why was that?

GA: With the heat, the pressures would build up quite a lot — those used to be kept covered.

Int: So it was more you were afraid of them bursting than melting.

GA: Yes, I think hot sun tends to perish too, gradually, otherwise, we’d no real problems.

Int: So you didn’t have much to do really.

GA: Not really; it was very very monotonous.

Pt 13: A7543352

Pr-BR

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