SE Asia 1945-6
Hello Danny and all other friends, here is the first part of my (immediate) post-war tale which describes the journey from UK to India; nothing remarkable in itself, but I think deserves a place here for by then Transport Command was operating a service on that long route at an intensity unknown previously, using aircraft which by modern standards would be considered hopelessly unsuitable for the job but which nevertheless got it done.
With Germany now utterly defeated, it was fairly obvious that our departure for the Far East could not be long delayed; Japan had vowed to carry on the war alone, but its increasingly shaky bamboo empire was a brutal nightmare for numerous oppressed peoples while there was very good reason to fear for the safety and well-being of our POWs. Now the entire might of the allies could now be turned against this last enemy, with every probability that my crew & I would form a (very) tiny part of the total effort.
We (myself, navigator & radio operator) had originally met and coalesced at Wymeswold (Part 6), with a co-pilot joining at Leicester and a flight engineer at Ibsley, the latter’s sole purpose being to operate the winch used for snatching gliders as described in Part 8. Our training now completed, after two weeks’ embarkation leave we reported back to the familiar surroundings of Morecambe but this time there was no lounging around, and we very soon found ourselves heading south again to Lyneham for passage east.
From mid-WW2 until 2011 one of the best-known RAF air transport bases, Lyneham was then in its early youth and little more than a collection of nondescript huts on top of a windswept plateau (the huts may have now gone, but not the wind!). For all that it was a busy place, and so in the pre-dawn chill of a damp June morning we boarded a Dakota for the 2 1/2 day flight to India. Mercifully fitted with rudimentary passenger seats, so sparing us the excruciating discomfort of those dreaded paratroop “buckets”, it was even so a fairly arduous experience. By modern standards aircraft of that period were slow, noisy, and of limited range, but despite that the service to India was operated in a thoroughly modern “round the clock” manner with only brief stops for refuelling & crew changes; thus Cagliari (Sardinia), Tripoli, & Cairo West all passed in an increasing blur of fatigue, the afternoon of the second day seeing us fetch up in the oven of Habbaniya, a long-established RAF base in the Iraqi desert. Graciously allowed a twelve-hour “rest” here, so unaccustomed were we to the tremendous heat that sleep was minimal and resumption of our onwards progress not unwelcome.
Less welcome was the uninspiring view beneath. Endless desert had already passed below as we droned slowly eastwards from Cairo but here was yet more sand, to be eventually supplanted by the grey-green waters of the Persian Gulf – which somehow looked different from any other sea, as if the blistering sun had leached its true colour away. A brief stop at Sharjah was like a descent into Hades; heat even less bearable than Habbaniya’s, exacerbated by hordes of flies, drenching humidity, a coarse, gritty desert with a few dirty, mud-walled buildings scattered around, sundry unpleasant-looking locals and various foul smells whose origins were best not thought about. After an uneatable “meal” I was never more glad to leave anywhere, and a close view of jagged, hostile mountains below as we climbed out towards Karachi simply reinforced my instant dislike of that part of the world, a dislike that remains to this day despite its incredible economic growth, towering skyscrapers and vast wealth. After several hours’ flight along the dreary Iran/Baluchistan coast, giving distant views of an even drearier desert, we finally arrived at Karachi's Mauripur airport late on the third day (a trip now easily accomplished within eight or so hours non-stop from London). First impressions were of more flies, smells and the inevitable heat but, as they were to be part of daily living for the indefinite future we tried (more or less unsuccessfully) to ignore these less pleasant aspects of our new life. Fortunately the vast transit camp that was to be home for an unknown period, a sea of large tents pitched on the inevitable dirty sand, was not far from the airfield; allocated an empty one we tumbled into it, grateful that the interminable flight was at last over.
The words “my crew” having already appeared several times, a description of our motley band might be appropriate. In common with most WW2 aircrew we were indeed a pretty mixed bunch, with myself (as Captain) at 20 years of age the youngest and so there were of course inevitable differences in outlook and temperament. But this was a familiar scenario, already encountered and accepted and we generally got along pretty well with only an odd spat, or perhaps the occasional inferred dig at my background that was best countered with indifference.
My co-pilot was not only some years older than I, he was an ex-policeman with a young family at home and thus with considerable experience of real life under his belt; I think he sometimes found my relative naïvety rather trying. In retrospect his feelings are easily understood, for he was in fact a second pilot rather than co-pilot; that is to say, in common with many others in the same position, he had received virtually no type training and was supposed to pick things up as we went along. However, since no provision was made for any further official training at squadron level such people were not very well placed, and he most likely resented having to serve under a callow, youthful and doubtless sometimes incompetent toff such as I - for which he can hardly be blamed.
The navigator was a Yorkshire lad slightly older than myself, whose quiet exterior belied a predilection to northern obstinacy, while the signaller (radio operator) was a middle-aged New Zealander and thus the Daddy of our crew - or would have been, except that for some long-forgotten reason he travelled from UK on a later aircraft and had subsequently been refused boarding at Habbaniya on account of his inebriated condition. He was to reappear some weeks later after we had arrived in Burma, by which time I had temporarily acquired a young, ginger-haired cockney as substitute. The final member of our famous five was the so-called flight engineer, a well-intentioned and earnest young man who suffered from being a member of the Salvation Army (or was it the Band of Hope?), a significant disadvantage in our rather mixed company. Supposedly he was to be the winch operator should we find ourselves performing the glider pick-up duties for which we had been trained, but of course this never happened and so he fairly soon dropped out of the picture.
Now I have always had great respect for the “Sally Ann” for, while the majority of servicemen (myself included I fear) paid little or no attention to their spiritual message, they were well known for providing reliable, hospitable canteens to be found in all sorts of out-of-the-way places that sold better (and cheaper) fare than any available elsewhere – especially so as compared to the much-derided NAAFI. But living with one of them was something else; language normally acceptable in our exclusively male company was viewed with disapproval, so that one often felt subject to constant moral assessment (probably unjustly), whilst as for having a teetotal member of crew----whatever next?
But, willy-nilly, we had to make the most of it and I recall no serious fracas or falling-out. Our main enemy at Karachi was boredom, for there was little to do except drink (when the bar was open), or savour the dubious delights of the city. A dusty, dirty place like most other Indian conurbations (this was pre-Pakistan remember, not that it would have made any difference), it had little to offer; cheap tailors, importuning shopkeepers offering tawdry goods, beggars, smells, too many people - nothing that inspired confidence in the Orient’s supposed allure. A couple of weeks of this was quite long enough, so we were not sorry when word came to move eastwards to Calcutta; one step nearer joining an operational squadron, achievement of which would justify our apparently endless years of training.
Since I have previously briefly described the subsequent flight to Calcutta (by flying boat) in #5818, the next instalment will cover onwards movement to Burma.