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MY JOURNEY TO INDIA

I joined the Army in 1941 and went to Merryhill Barracks, Glasgow. It was quite a shock to the system. The life was very basic. We were accommodated in barrack rooms, and met all types of people. The bad language surprised me, much of which I didn’t understand!

After a couple of days, four hundred of us were paraded on the ‘square’. The Regimental Sergeant Major said he was going to sort us out into different denominations. He told people to move here, there and everywhere; Roman Catholics, Church of England, Non-Conformists etc, leaving one man standing alone, which I can always remember. He was asked his name and he replied, ‘Lancaster’ and he informed the Sergeant Major that he was a ‘Sun Worshipper’. I think that it was the only time that I saw a Sergeant Major lost for words!

Three or four days later, at four o’clock in the morning, I was woken up by the noise of the barrack room door being opened. I then heard the R.S.M. shouting “Come on Lancaster, I’ve got something to show you”. By now everyone was awake and saw the R.S.M. take Lancaster outside to the middle of the ‘square’, where he stood and showed Lancaster the sun-rise! The following Sunday, Lancaster joined the C of E Church parade!

I completed the basic training of six weeks, and then was posted to Weaverdown Camp. We were posted there to be trained to join what was known as ‘Movement Control’.

It so happened that I played part-time professional football for ‘Bolton Wanderers’, and there was a Captain on the staff of the battalion who was very keen on football. He decided that I should train a football team in the hope that we would win the ‘Aldershot District Command Cup’. I asked, “What about my military training, sir?” to which he replied that he would look after that!

From there, I went on to the Officers Training School, in Kent. Whilst there, on parade one day, the company Commander addressed my particular squad and asked if there were any volunteers to go to India. I and one other cadet volunteered, and were sent off for fourteen days embarkation leave, and told to report to the Grosvenor Hotel, London, at the end of it.

When I reported to the Grosvenor Hotel, I discovered that the rest of the squad had been detailed to go to India as well. We all waited in the Grosvenor Hotel, for at least two weeks to be sent to India.

The first time I discovered we were moving was when I took a film from my camera to be developed at the nearby chemist shop, only to be told by the lady behind the counter that they couldn’t do it because it wouldn’t be ready before I left for India. She knew I was going before I did!

We travelled to Fishguard and boarded a converted Argentinean Merchant Ship, and sailed up to Glasgow, where we joined the rest of the convoy.

The ship was very crowded. I was given a bed four bunks high, and being a small man had to be helped up into it!

When we set sail, we realised we were in a convoy of twenty other ships, of all shapes and sizes. The convoy travelled at only eight knots per hour. Information was passed around the ships saying that if we wished to write a letter home, a destroyer would come around the convoy collecting the mail to take it back to the U.K. We all watched with great interest at the destroyer collecting the mail. She was an impressive sight.

The destroyer had started on her homeward journey when we saw her torpedoed, and ship, crew and mail were lost. On our journey we lost several other ships. We were not afraid, but one went to bed at night apprehensive and wondering whether we would wake to hear the ships engines, and to see the following day.

Eventually we reached Durban and disembarked. It was very obvious from the start how hospitable the South Africans were. They treated us as members of the family.

The family that looked after me had an eighteen year old daughter. She would come home some evenings and just say “We are going out to dinner tonight and you are coming with me”. She hired a dinner suit for me, when it was necessary. Her Father lent me the key to his golf club locker and I was allowed to use his golf clubs to play golf.

Five days later, we were all told that we were sailing to Bombay and embarked on a very large liner of 32,000 tonnage. After we had been on board for twelve hours, waiting to sail, an order came over the tannoy system, instructing the Cadet Force, of which I was a member, to disembark as the ship was overloaded. I felt a terrible disappointment to miss the opportunity to sail on such a ship.

Two days later, we discovered that the ship had been torpedoed just five miles off Durban, and all lives on board had been lost. Naturally, I felt that I had had an amazing escape, and how lucky I was.

We had to spend the next five weeks in Durban, until eventually we set sail on another ‘Castle Line’ ship and sailed direct from Durban to Bombay without any further incident.

We had all been issued with pith helmets and when we were in sight of Bombay these helmets were withdrawn and we were given the Indian Army helmets. We were told to discard the original ones and I have a vivid memory of the sea being awash with old pith helmets, which had been thrown overboard.

Eventually we reached Bombay and disembarked, and my first impression on seeing the local Indian civilians was that they had all been to the dentist, because their mouths were vivid red, as if bleeding. This was caused, I learnt later, by chewing ‘beetle nuts’.

We boarded a train and went down to Bangalore, where there was an Officer’s Training School. Normally, it would have been a six month training course, and I would have been commissioned, but due to the special circumstances I was commissioned after three months, and was taken on to the staff of the Officers’ Training School. Eventually, I was part of the staff that closed the School down in 1946.

During this time we had our own men being released from the Japanese Prisoner of War Camps. We were able to visit them in hospital and even write letters home on their behalf. Invariably their message was how pleased they were to be released and how they were looking forward to coming home. In quite a number of cases we were writing the letter knowing that the released prisoner would not be going home, as he was far too ill, and would die within a week or two.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by June Woodhouse of the CSV Action Desk at ��ѿ��ý Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Major Leo Oddie and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

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