And ditto from me Wiley
Hope you don't mind, but I'm putting in Dad's experiences post the war as well. Don't worry, he gets de-mobbed in 1947! Also, there are various OCR troubles as well, apologies.
Singapore and Ceylon
The first posting on Singapore Island was to Seletar. This was a permanent station with white concrete dormitories and a parade ground. It was primarily a flying boat station. It was on the north coast, to the east of
(???) .... would take off and land in the sheltered waters between the Island and the mainland.
I cannot remember what work I did there, though my letters home said that I cut up metal frames with an oxy-acetylene torch. My memory is of standing in the bathroom on the top floor of the residential (??) and watching the (??). They came right overhead and cleared the roof of the building by about twenty feet.
By now the war had been over for five months and people were anticipating returning to the U.K. There was political unrest in Malaya, with the rise of the Communists, The British Government decided that the the most effective way to maintain a presence was to keep the RAF in place, thus the soldiers were demobbed but RAF personnel were kept on.
There was some unrest. because of this and I believe that later there was a riot at Seletar, with the airmen refusing to take orders. I have photos of the crowd on the square (unscanned I'm afraid).
It was all hushed up and order was restored. Someone told me that the ringleader was court-martialied. This incident, of course, has now become quite famous, The ringleader was shot IIRC.
It was decreed that airmen would be trained for civilian life and as I was already a trained teacher, I applied to go on a course to become an Educational arid Vocational Instructor. It was a three-week course held at
(??).
I flew there in a Sunderiand. We took off early in the morning and flew to Penang, where we landed and refuelled. We took off again and crossed the Indian Ocean to Ceylon and arrived there in the evening. We landed at Koggala, on the southern tip of the island. It was a fourteen-hour flight.
There were several of us in the rear part of the fuselage, there were no seats, we were just sat about in the framework. There was an open section in the middle of the aircraft where depth-charges were pushed out when in action. There was a bench awl. On it were two Primus stoves and some frying-pans. I helped to cook sausages for the crew and passengers.
During the evening we were transported by lorry up to Colombo. The RAF station was at Ratmalana. We stayed there for a few days and then went up to Kandy by train. It was about ninety miles and after crossing the small coastal plain, it climbed all the way.
We went up valleys with rice fields cut into the contours of the hills, We left the contoured paddy (??) ....
When the wind blew, the coconuts would fall off the trees with a great thump, so walking from the billet to the classrooms required judicious detours, or risk getting hit on the head.
We had to prepare lessons and give them to the other students. My final assessment on 10th. April 1946 was, ‘A thoroughly experienced teacher, with a humorous and pleasant approach.' That’s me folks!
Whilst there, I met another Shoreditch Training College student who had been in my year - Baumgarten. We would walk to Kandy and go down the main street, past the Temple of the Tooth (Buddha’s), to the lake. There were turtles swimming about, just below the surface of the clear water and there were nice gardens, where we took photographs.
Baumgarten was a keen photographer also. I bought some jewels in one of the shops as well as some silver spoons, decorated with palm-tree ends. The box of huge butterfly specimens that I had sent home, disintegrated many years later.
Our three-week course ended and we returned to Colombo. I had to wait at Ratmalana for transport to Singapore. The camp was just inland from Mount Lavinia, a famous tourist resort, I would walk through the rubber plantation and across the railway line and there was this beautiful palm- lined beach.
I used to swim in the surf, but had to be alert to the catamaran fishing boats that swept in on to the sandy beach and were quite dangerous. In the late afternoon I would go into the Mount Lavinia Hotel for tea. It was by there that I bought the pair of wooden elephants, made of coconut wood that have given so much pleasure to my children (I still have them! They are one of my most treasured pocessions. and grandchildren.
After a while I was put onto an aircraft carrier that was going to Singapore, it was H.M.S. Venerable. It was the carrier that was ultimately sold to Argentina, renamed, ‘Veinticinco de Mayo’, (25th.May) and it was involved in the Falklands War (or rather it wasn't as such!!).
We sailed fom Colombo in the afternoon and as soon as we were at sea, all the aircraft were flown off. I remember the deafening noise that the Supermarine Walrus made. The Walrus was an interesting amphibian and was used for picking up ditched airmen from their rescue-dinghies. It was designed by RJ Mitchell, the genius who designed the Spitfire.
During the night, we sailed round the south of Ceylon. The sea was rough and the Venerable pitched and rolled, so that the deck almost touched the sea, side to side. We slept on camp-beds that were put in the now vacated aircraft hangar deck.
The next day we put into Trincomalee, this was a great natural harbour on the east side of the Island, Poles with ropes dangling from them were pushed out from the sides of the ship and on the Tannoy it said, ‘Hands to bathe on the starboard side'.
All the crew piled out on to the poles and went down the ropes into the sea and after a swim, climbed up the ropes to get back.
The voyage back to Singapore was quite peaceful. The food on board was particularly good. I was peeved to discover that engine fitters in the Fleet Air Arm had the rank of Petty Officer, that was equivalent to a sergeant.
The carrier stopped off Singapore and we were put down in a motorboat to land at Colyer Quay.