Geriaviator (#10404),
Well, a three - tier bunk is not so bad (you would be in the [best] one on top, I take it).- What an adventure for a five -year old (did you put in at Aden ? - little did you know the fun you would have there seven years later).
I was on top of a seven - tier one going out, and could touch the ceiling of what had been the First-Class Dining Saloon . Of course, you would go through the Canal, whereas I had eight weeks at sea, with a stop in Brazil, and then round the Cape to another stop in Durban and then Bombay.
...the prospect of Indian independence and ensuing Partition was still some distance away in British thinking...
No, we had long been reconciled to its inevitability, the only problem was: when - and on what terms ? The best of all solutions would have been a brown Dominion, but the Hindu Congress had the bit between its teeth, and would not entertain the idea (although Jinnah might have been more favourable). But he would not trust the Congress as far as he could throw Nehru. So Partition it had to be, although both Wavell and Mountbatten had argued against it, knowing what would would be the likely result.
Their worst fears came true. In the communal massacres which followed Partition in 1947, it death roll was estimated at two million, and another 14 million were displaced. Even the "Daily Mirror" ran a leader under the heading: "THEY KNEW !" ... "Isn't it annoying when the wrong people turn out to have been right" ... "The Indians are behaving exactly as those Blimps and curry-Colonels said they would !"
Your:
...I didn't mind the heat on the footplate although the ironwork on the wagons was too hot to touch, especially if they had been parked in the afternoon sun. I still wonder if this was the extensive Wagholi Quarry which I can see on Google Earth.
How maintenance crews worked inside the aircraft in the tropics is hard to comprehend...
Extract from my Page 137, #2726:
...So now you get the picture. Your bush-jacketed, bush-hatted and khaki- slacked young man first tied this belt round his middle. Then he buckled himself into his webbing, ending with crossed shoulder straps, holster and pistol on his left hip, lanyard (on shoulder under epaulette flap, NOT round his neck), On his right hip lay the the kukri and side pack. (The webbing belt was buckled over the money belt).
Thus encumbered, he climbed up into the cockpit, scorching after hours in the tropic sun, sat down on his hot parachute seat cushion (hotter still if he hadn't folded the back over it when he last climbed out), fastened the shoulder and leg straps tight (or his chance of posterity might, after bale-out, be negligible), then clipped the four ends of the seat harness in the quick-release box and tightened that over all.
Thank Heavens, all our trips were over land, so we didn't have to wear "Mae Wests", or sit on the lumpy, abominably uncomfortable "K" dinghy pack.
By the time we'd donned flying helmet (tropical, cotton), and goggles over our fevered brows, we were damned glad to get the big fan in front working. That first long blast of air (hot as it was !) was pure bliss.
Our canopies were always left open, In the climb, temperature drops at the rate of three Fahrenheit per thousand feet, so at 10,000 it was 30 deg cooler and we shivered. But by then we'd be running in to our targets, closing our canopies, and would be down in the hot-air oven again very soon...
But it was a good life !
Tell us your experience of India (or at least Karachi and Poona) with a five-year old eyes !
What was it like coming home ?
Cheers, Danny.