INDIA
Thus began a new chapter in my life. A chapter so full of contrasts, of beauty and desolation, of luxury beyond one's wildest dreams and of poverty so dire as to make one weep.
Bombay, the Gateway to the East and what remains with me about Bombay more than anything else was the sight of starving children foraging in the waste bins for the leftovers that we threw away. We were encamped in a huge transit camp, Worli, awaiting orders to move to our next destination. Whilst there we were kitted out with tropical kit, khaki shorts, shirts and so on, and in the few hours we had free we saw something of this huge Port/City with a population of around 5 million.
Before long we were on the move again, this time by train, a journey that was to take us seven days to cross the sub-continent and ended in the State of Tripura. We encamped at RAF Singarbil.
Seven days on a train, eating, sleeping, washing when you could. The sights and smells of India impressing themselves on my mind and again what stays with me is the children. Scavenging for whatever might be of use, dressed in rags and staring at us with those huge eyes as if to say why have you so much and we have so little. One place we stopped at for some unknown reason was a railway marshalling yard. Alongside our train was a line of tankers carrying fuel oil. And there were the children, mopping up the spills of oil with rags and squeezing it into a container so as to be able to have oil for cooking or lighting. Can anyone who has lived in the comfort of a western home, however poor, imagine what life must be like in this "Jewel in the Crown"? We who have lived off the spoils of imperialism, who have feasted off the crumbs from the rich man's table, crumbs that would be a banquet to the poor of India.
Arrival at the village of Singarbil in the State of Tripura to set up camp. What idiocy of bureaucracy sent us all that way across India to await orders that eventually took us back across the sub-continent to Karachi and once again back to the East coast to Madras? We covered thousands of miles criss-crossing India three times to no apparent purpose.
In Singarbil we had our first experience of what life was like for the white man in the colonies. Where no matter who you were, if your skin was white you were master.
The camp was in a clearing in the jungle outside the village. A tented encampment with a large marquee used as the cook-house and a bigger one that served as a "mess tent" or dining hall.
Whoever "planned" the camp had obviously not realised that we would immediately come under attack from the air. Not by enemy planes but from the local breed of Kite-Hawks. A bird with amazing eye-sight that could spot a meal from a great height. As there was a gap between the cook-house and the mess-tent, we were vulnerable to attack by these birds of prey. As we walked away from the cook- house with a meal on a tin plate, out of the sky came this winged attacker and, whoosh! you had an empty plate. So some of the lads thought, "We'll fool them, cover the plate with something". But those birds were wise to that. They worked in pairs, the first bird came down and knocked the cover off the plate and down came its partner and away went your dinner. The only way to protect ourselves was to erect a net over the passage between the two tents and even then the odd bird tried to get under the net to get at the food. After all, it must have been easier to pinch our grub than going after the live prey that was their usual source of food.
We lived in huts made of bamboo called a "basha". They were open to the outside with low walls about two to three feet high. A roof made from leaves supported on long bamboo poles, very basic. Our beds consisted of a wooden frame with a type of strong rope criss-crossed to form a base on which we spread what I can only describe as a rug made of some very strong material. This contraption was called a "charpoy".
It was whilst we were at Singarbil that I received the news of the birth of my first child. Linda was born on April 16th 1945 in Crumpsall Hospital in Manchester.
On the 20th of April the telegram giving me the news arrived at the camp in the middle of a football match. I have never been interested in sport of any kind but I had been pressed into taking part in this game. Chasing a ball around a field was not my idea of fun and it was obvious to all watching my antics on the field that I had two left feet. Then someone shouted the news that my wife had given birth, and immediately the cry went up around the field, "Come on Kaiserman, anyone would think you had the bloody baby". I was to say the least, over the moon at the news that she had arrived and, as the saying goes, both mother and daughter were doing well.
I felt that I must record how I felt at the news of Linda's birth, so I sat down and wrote her this letter.
"My dear Daughter,
I have just received a cable telling me that you have just been born. Well this might seem a little silly writing to a new born babe, who naturally can't read what I've got to say. Nevertheless I feel that I should like to put in writing my thoughts on this occasion.
You have been born at a time when the whole world is engaged in a conflict to ensure that you and your generation will not have to undergo the hardship and tribulations that I, and thousands of others have had to go through. Your generation will see a new world, a world in which man will live at peace with his neighbour and will go forward to greater and better things than man had yet known. Your world will be one of Comradeship and communal effort where each will work for the benefit of the whole community and not for his own personal gain. I am as sure of this as I am that the forces of progress will overcome the forces of reaction in the present struggle. The reasons I have are many, I have listened to many men talking of what they want when this horrible war is over and by their determination and courage they will achieve this time what their fathers lost at the last war. All over the world men are showing by their actions that they mean to have that Heaven on Earth and the Homes fit for Heroes to live in.
So, I say that your generation will live on the fruits of your father's endeavours, because I know that all the parents and the parents to be who are taking part in this conflict mean to see to it that their Children and their Children's Children will not have to go through all the horrors of war and the world will not know again the effects of unemployment and poverty.
Your birth is coincidental with the birth of a new world, see to it that you take your part in fashioning it and moulding it to our world of Peace and Plenty.
So, I greet you into this world and hope that you will carry out your part in the fight for a better world.
All my Love Dear,
from your Loving Dad".
Reading that now, 50 years later, I feel betrayed, as must the millions of others, who, feeling as I did voted for a Labour Government in that landslide election of 1945, believing that at last we would see the new Society we believed would bring Peace and Prosperity.
When the news came that the Labour Party had won an overwhelming victory at the polls, I wrote a letter to my father in which I said, "At last we've done it", I shall never forget his reply which was to be proved so true. I can't remember the exact words he used but the essence of what he said was that we should not expect the Labour Party to establish a Socialist Society. Social Democracy has never brought about a social revolution. How right he was.
Ever since we have seen time and again, Labour elected to government and the people had high hopes that under this leader we would see a fundamental change in society, only to be betrayed once again by supposed left-wing socialists like Wilson, who once in office reverted to the old social democratic acceptance of the capitalist system.
We did not stay long in Singarbil before we were once again on the move, this time to the teeming metropolis of Calcutta. The Commanding Officer had received information that our unit along with RAFSCU 3210, had been selected for an operation and would be moving back to the Bombay area. The operation code named "Roger" was to provide air cover for "Operation Dracula", the name of the sea borne attack on Rangoon, capital of Burma. May 1st 1945, a small group was sent to Calcutta to get our equipment ready for Operation "Roger". I was on this detachment along with some 30 airmen, 4 Non-Commissioned Officers and 2 Warrant Officers. Before the operation was ready the Japanese retreated from Rangoon and the operation was cancelled. Whilst in Calcutta, a city/port on the Hooghly River some 80 miles from the Bay of Bengal, we camped on an area of parkland known locally as the Maidan and facing the Maidan is the most famous street in Calcutta, Chowringhee. A street that epitomised for me the whole of India. There on Chowringhee the appalling diversity between the rich and the poor was laid out for all to see. Chowringhee has buildings on one side only. Buildings of stone with air-conditioning, shops, a cinema, offices.
On the pavement in front of these examples of the skills of the Indian artisans who built them, examples of the opulence of those who owned them, there were the poor, the deprived the cripples, begging for a crumb. Little children who had been deliberately maimed by their parents in the hope that they may have a stronger influence on the charitable feelings of the more affluent of those who passed by. The pavement was their home where they were born lived and died.
One building on Chowringhee was occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association (the YMCA) and was used as a centre for the troops (white only) to socialise.
There were all kinds of facilities, a canteen, a bar, etc. It was very well used by the troops and became a centre of attraction for that infamous form of public transport, the rickshaw. For the uninitiated a rickshaw was a two wheeled carriage with room for two adults to sit and it was propelled by a human beast of burden. Between the two shafts where one would expect a horse to be harnessed, a man. The life expectancy of a rickshaw puller was between 18 and 24 years. That was not enough degradation and exploitation for some of the representatives of the British Empire as the two following incidents that I witnessed will show.
The first concerned two members of my Unit who decided to have a race down Chowringhee, using two rickshaws as their racehorses. Unfortunately for the man pulling one of these inhuman forms of transport, he was not going fast enough for the "White Sahib" so off came the "Sahib's" boot and he was encouraged to go faster with a thumping great whack across the back of his head. All to the great amusement of those watching on the sidelines. The other occasion was when a British policeman rode down Chowringhee in the side-car of a motor-bike wielding a whip. The road at the entrance to the YMCA was crowded with rickshaws all hoping for a customer. The policeman felt it his duty to clear the way for other traffic so he used his whip to encourage the rickshaw wallahs to move to allow the "Sahib" free passage.
There were many more examples of "man's inhumanity to man" but those two remain with me.
There was an organisation set up during the war called the Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA). It was an attempt to get some discussion within the forces around the question of how we saw the outcome of the struggle against fascism and the way we saw the future developing. Run mainly by left-wing members of the services, it played an important role in the run up to the general election of 1945. An important part in this was played by what became known as "The Forces Parliament" held in Cairo. Members of the forces from many areas assembled in Cairo and stories were told of people being ferried across the world by sympathetic Air Force pilots in order to attend. There is no doubt in my mind that the tremendous upsurge of political discussion in the services due to the activities of Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA) had a great effect on the outcome of the General Election.
One particular discussion under the auspices of ABCA remains with me. The subject under discussion was how we saw the future of Europe and in particular the future for the Jews of Germany. My contribution to the discussion caused quite an argument. My stand was, and still is, that the Jews of Germany, despite all the horrors they had suffered, should not leave what after all was their homeland, to impose themselves on some other nation, the Palestinians, but should stay and fight to establish in Germany a society where all are equal and where racism, anti-Semitism and fascism would be abolished for ever. I was shouted down but I think that I was right and I saw, in the German Democratic Republic, (GDR) many years later, proof of that.
Whilst in Calcutta I experienced the other side of life in India from the point of view of the colonialist. Sir David Ezra was a representative of the British colonial regime. What his exact position was I don't know. He lived with his wife and family in a magnificent house in Calcutta. Sir David and Lady Ezra were Jews. It so happened that the Feast of Passover, when the Jewish people celebrate the escape from Egypt and the rule of the Pharoes, occurred whilst I was in Calcutta. Sir David and his wife issued an invitation to all service men and women of the Jewish faith who were in Calcutta for the time of the Passover to come and celebrate the feast with them. It is impossible to calculate how many people took advantage of that offer but it must have been in the hundreds.
Servicemen and -women from Britain and America joined in the celebration.
A huge marquee was erected in the garden, a garden by the way, that also had a private zoo within its bounds. Food was served non-stop all day and every day for the 8 days of the festival. In a small side tent sat Indian workers, preparing the food. Chickens by the hundred must have been slaughtered that week. And outside those garden walls people starved.
Just a word about the zoo. It took up a large part of the garden and contained all sorts of exotic animals but the one that sticks in my mind is a huge tortoise which we were told was over a hundred years old and was so big that I have a photograph of myself taking a ride on its back.
During my short stay in Calcutta I tried to contact the local Communist Party of India but to no avail. The history of India is such that a form of racism was evident in that a white face was not trusted. It is understandable that the independence movement had to be very careful as to who it allowed into it ranks and as I had no credentials from the Communist Party of Great Britain I was obviously suspect. Some of our people did make contact and were able to have deep discussions with some of the Indian comrades.
Our next move was from Calcutta back across India to a beach on the West Coast outside Karachi. The place was called Korangi Creek and our camp was two or three hundred yards from the beach.
That was another train journey to remember.
The unit left Calcutta in two parties on military trains headed for RAF Korangi Creek outside Karachi. We stopped in Lahore, about halfway across the sub-continent.
"B" Squadron arrived in Lahore on 3rd July and then split into two parties, one half left the next day but the other half, of which I was a member waited for what we were told was a special, air-conditioned train to take us across the Sind Desert. After a wait of four days in Lahore, where we were the guests of a local charity, the Toc H Club. Who, because no arrangements had been made to feed us, provided us with food, for which we had to pay, and the absolute luxury of being able to get a hot bath with a difference. The hot water was poured into the bath by a succession of "bearers". Imagine how I felt at this further example of the use of Indian workers as hewers of wood and bearers of water.
Eventually the "air-conditioned " train arrived, the air-conditioning consisted of the fact that there were no windows. Crossing the desert was, as you can imagine, a nightmare. Sand so fine that it got into everything, hair, eyes, clothes. So bad that we were eating it. The heat was overpowering but the motion of the train did give some relief.
Before long we arrived at Korangi Creek and the showers worked overtime. The heat was so intense that it was not uncommon for us to shower two or three times a day.
The Unit arrived at Korangi Creek over a period of five days with my Squadron, ('B' Squadron) arriving on the 5th July 1945. In order to keep the men occupied we were put to work dismantling some Catalina Flying Boats that had been written-off.
Liberty runs into Karachi were arranged so that we could have some relaxation. The monthly report compiled by Flight Lieutenant R.A. Powell for the month of July '45 says, "The amenities at Korangi Creek are naturally far greater than those at Singarbil. This fact, together with the dryer and more temperate climate and the proximity of the camp to Karachi, has made this month something of a holiday for all personnel....Swimming in the sea is very popular, despite the presence of 'Blue Devils' (jelly-fish); sailing and fishing have also found favour...."
I recall many occasions when a couple of us would hire a fishing-boat and spend the day out at sea swimming from the boat whilst the Indian owner of the boat fished.
The stay at the Creek was idyllic. A huge stretch of white sand and the expanse of the Indian Ocean. Tourists pay vast sums to-day to be able to spend their time in such surroundings. We had been told that we were to be trained in the use of Landing-Craft for an assault on a beach. The rumour went round that we were destined for the coming attack on Rangoon and so we waited with some trepidation for news of what awaited us. Then came the news that none of us expected. A bomb had been dropped on a Japanese city called Hiroshima and that one bomb had wiped out the whole city. The news was greeted with very mixed feelings. How would this affect the outcome of the war in the Pacific, what would be the consequences of such a powerful weapon?? and so on. Then the news of the second bomb on Nagasaki and the speculation in the press that this would force the Japanese to surrender and we would soon be on our way home.
The immediate effect on our position was that our destination was now changed. We did not know at the time but we were now re-routed to Saigon, capital city of French Indo-China.
So it was back on the train this time heading south towards the port of Madras. Our next encampment was in a town some 400 miles north of Madras, Bobbili where we again waited for orders. Then orders came for a party of drivers to go to Madras to take delivery of a fleet of American Dodge 4-ton trucks along with some Bedford 15-cwt vans. These to be driven back to camp where all personnel and equipment was to be loaded and transported to Madras.
I was one of those chosen to go to Madras to take delivery of the vehicles. This was to prove to be a most exciting and interesting part of my time in India.
A group of 24 drivers with an officer in charge left Bobbili on the 23rd of August 1945 for the journey to Madras. The journey was to take about a week both ways. The problem of feeding the unit was given to me. I was put in charge of rations and given an amount of money each day to buy food and provide meals for the men. It was a most fascinating journey. Driving through the country stopping each night on the outskirts of a village then I would go into the village to buy food and arrange for a cook to come to the camp- site and cook a meal for us. My routine was to search for a young boy who could speak some English. He then took me to the local market and acted as my interpreter. When the supplies were loaded onto the Jeep the lad nominated a cook and back we went to camp where a meal was soon prepared and we sat under the stars enjoying some of the finest Indian cooking, prepared in true Indian tradition over an open fire.
As we were driving along one day we passed a funeral cortège by the side of a river so we stopped to watch the ceremony. The body carried by the mourners down to the riverbank and placed on the funeral pyre. Then the fire was lit by one of the men who I suspect would be the chief mourner and at the end when the body had been reduced to ashes it was thrown onto the water.
On arrival in Madras we took delivery of the vehicles and headed back to camp where the unit awaited our return full of questions as to how the journey went. The convoy of trucks arrived back at Bobbili on 1st September and on the 3rd orders were received to move to Madras to embark on two separate operations, "Zipper" and "Masterdon". The Unit was then split into two with the Commanding Officer, Squadron Leader Abbott taking 'A' Squadron for "Zipper" and the Adjutant, Flight Lieutenant Powell,'B' Squadron, for "Masterdon".
The next few days were taken up with loading the vehicles and preparing them for the return journey to Madras. Once again I acted as head cook and bottle-washer and kept the troops happy with some wonderful Indian cuisine cooked in the habitual manner of the Indian peasant.
On arrival in Madras we were loaded onto two Tank-Landing Craft in the port. Before long we were at sea heading for some unknown destination. Then the engines stopped and we heard the rattle of the anchor chain as the anchor went down. Everyone rushed up on deck to see where we were. As it was still dark we could only make out the banks of the river where we had come to a halt. There then took place a bizarre incident. Whilst we were at sea we had been given a ration of rum every day as was the custom aboard Royal Navy ships. Some of us, myself included, not being drinkers nor liking the taste of rum, quite willingly gave or sold, our ration of rum to those who had a liking for it. Well, the inevitable happened and one guy who had stored all the rum he could buy, cadge or otherwise obtain, drank it all at one go and when we arrived at anchorage in the river, he, drunk as a lord, decided to go for a swim. He stripped off to his birthday suit, climbed up onto the prow of the ship and prepared to dive in, fortunately for him we got to him before he dived.
As dawn broke we found out where we were, ahead we could just see the golden dome of the famous Shwe Dagon Pagoda. So we were in the river approaching Rangoon, but by then the war was over and there were no enemy troops waiting for us.
We disembarked at Rangoon and waited for a troopship, the Circassia which then sailed for Saigon.