Danny loses an Elephant.
(I thought you'd better have the second half of the air raid story before you forgot the first).
There were no bomb craters worthy of the name. The Jap had used a lot of small (50lb) anti-personnel bombs. They did the same in their night raids on Calcutta, and this puzzled us. They didn't use large bombs. I suppose one reason might be that ten 50lb bombs can easily be manhandled, but one 500lb can't, and they were short of lifting gear, but had plenty of labour.
(On second thoughts now, maybe there was some sense in it. You only need big bombs to bring down proper buildings or destroy something solid. Against people and aircraft well spaced out in the open, with no protection from above ("soft targets"), ten small bombs give you a much wider "spread", and a better chance of hitting something or somebody, than one big one. And to be sure of a chap in a slit trench, you need almost to put the bomb in beside him, and then a 50 will do just as well as a 500).
Our aircraft looked all right at first glance, but several of the tyres had been shot out by low flying fragments (the strike was "off" !) Other than that, one had been terminally damaged by a piece of bomb casing which had cut an engine bearer (beyond our capacity to repair). On its way to do its worst, the fragment had punched through the artwork on an engine panel. Poor "Butch" (a Disney "Silly Symphony" cartoon dog with Stetson and cowboy "chaps") had got it straight through the eye.
Two other losses were significant. The Flight 30-cwt truck, our only transport, was blazing merrily, we couldn't save it. This was serious. Until we could get another "gharry", we should have to walk between our Messes and the Flights. This was no hardship in the cool mornings, walking down the path through the tea gardens, but a bit of a pain climbing up again at the end of a long, hot day.
The other loss was a valuable item of Government property. I've said that new concrete tracks were being laid. Before you pour concrete, you have to put in hardcore and ram it down. They had no steamrollers, but a Works and Bricks elephant made a very good substitute. Jumbo "marked time" ponderously, helping himself to any edible vegetation within trunk reach. His "mahout" (keeper) moved him a few feet from time to time as the job required.
All was calm and content. Jumbo much preferred this to hauling heavy logs in the forest, and his mahout had nothing to do except smoke his malodorous "bidi" (this was the local "roll-your-own"; the filling was a matter of conjecture: obviously vegetable in origin, but "processed" by some animal - camel seemed the most likely).
By the way, it might interest you to know that there's a standard elephant "language" of commands, just as with sheepdogs. If you learn it, so that you can "drive" one trained elephant, then you can "drive" any other. The mahout backed up his orders with an "ankh", a very unpleasant looking iron rod some two feet long, curved at the end, with a nasty spike at the tip (there is no point - no pun intended - in whacking an elephant with a stick). It sounds barbarous, but I suppose it was no worse than the rowels on a spur.........(just thought you'd like to know!)
Then the air raid warning came. The mahout ran for it, leaving Jumbo to his own devices. In all fairness, there wasn't much he could do (imagine digging a slit trench to hold an elephant, and then persuading him into it). The bombs came down and Jumbo vanished. We found no bloodstains and concluded that he had been stung by a piece of hot shrapnel. Whatever had hit him did not impede his locomotion. He was seen by "B" Flight (untouched by the raid on the far side of the runway), galloping along it with trunk, ears and tail outstretched, and roaring with indignation. He went trumpeting off the end into the hills and was never seen again. A tracker party found no body and assumed that he had decided to give civilisation a miss. And who could blame him?
But that wan't the end of it. This was no common or garden elephant. He was Government property, registered and on inventory. His loss must be investigated; there was an endless Court of Enquiry in which we were involved as witnesses. Indian bureaucracy is a wondrous thing. It rather seemed that they regarded the loss of their precious elephant as our fault, and thought that the RAF should pay for it. What became of it in the end, I do not know, for shortly afterwards Stew and I, with three other crews, were posted to "beef-up" No. 8 Sqdn, IAF. They had recently been equipped with the Vengeance, and were somewhere back over on the other side of the Bay.
But before I leave K and the delicious, all pervading scent of tea which would stay long in my memory, here are two little vignettes to lighten what has been a sombre tale so far. "Topper" had got hold of a miniature dachshund (or at least, I think it was "Topper"), Over at "B" Flight (why would he be there - was he acting C.O.? ), among the trees, he had this dog with him. Jumbo had occasion to visit the Flight, to pull a tree down to make more room, or something like that.
The tiny dog took exception to this, and valiantly tried to defend his master's property by barking and nipping at this monster's toes. Jumbo looked indulgently down on the angry little animal, and gently shooed him away with his trunk, although he could have stamped him flat in a moment, or used his trunk as Tiger Woods uses a driver - and the dog wouldn't have touched down for 200 yards or so. We marvelled at his forebearance - truly the patience of an elephant!. Of course he was a great favoutite of all,
And for a day or two during our time there, the bread ration was "off"; we had to make do with ship's biscuits (same as the ones Dr. Pete Latcham had found for us on the first morning at Chittagong). Now it so happened that our tables in the (ex-planter's bungalow) Mess were graced with spotless linen cloths. The woven-in embroidery was of a Grecian rectangular design. Now you select a rectangle about 2 in square, and whack a biscuit down on it. Out came those weevils which hadn't been holding tight.
With luck you'd get three or four in the square. Now we could run a "sweep". You each put up a rupee ("chip"), and picked your weevil. First weevil to reach a boundary was the winner, his patron got the lot. You selected your weevil, it was no use picking the one nearest an edge , for he might well start to march away from it. You had to keep a sharp eye on him to maintain your ownership. Luckily they didn't move very fast; it was considered unsporting to "steer" your beast with a matchstick. (The biscuit was eaten after dunking to soften; the extra bit of protein was all to the good - the weevils ate nothing but biscuit - "man ist was man isst", - after all !)
We packed our kit, said our farewells and set out on the return trip - 500 miles back to where we'd started from a month ago. But not by air! 110 were cross enough at having been robbed of their crews, they weren't going to deliver them to the robbers as well! Our new Squadron made no attempt to come and collect us (in fact, they weren't making much of a attempt to do anything). So it was back on the train again. This would be quite an odyssey.
Next time I'll tell you about the kit we wore on ops.
That's all, folks, Goodnight,
Danny42C
It's no good, mate, you'll have to buy another.