MPN11 (#9634),
My arrival in the subcontinent was unexpected in the sense that 36 new Fighter Pilots from UK Spitfire and Hurricane OTUs arrived there under the fond delusion that they were to equip a Spitfire Wing and then gain undying glory by winning the Battle of India which was surely about to come.
The Scales fell from their Eyes when they found that (a) there were no Spitfires in India at the time and (b) the Jap had no aircraft to launch a Battle, and absolutely no intention of starting one if he had, as his Army was doing quite nicely without such a thing - having taken Singapore in about a week, and then kicking us out of Malaya, Burma (they took [neutral] Siam en passant) in short order, and had only stopped to draw breath before tackling the Sunderbans, taking Calcutta and moving up the Gangetic Plain to Delhi. Game, set and match.
There was little to stop them, but for reasons which have never been explained (at least, not to me), they rested on their laurels a bit too long; enough force was scratched together to hold them short of Chittagong (a deep-water port which would greatly simplify their supply chain), the First Battle of Arakan started and Bob's your Uncle.
We would have been unemployed but for the entirely fortituous fact that, coincidentally, a large batch of Vultee Vengeance arrived for no better reason than that (having paid hard cash for them in a panic), nobody else wanted the things. Needs must when the devil drives, we perforce became Dive Bomber pilots. As the RAF never had anything to do with Dive Bombers, did not want to know about them now and wished they would just disappear quietly, there was no help there, we just had to work it out and write the book ourselves.
We didn't do all that badly, one way and another.
Danny.