Travel

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Introduction

The 1940 was a decade where more people where on the move than in any previous age. Troop ships and army lorry convoys, refugee trecks, are a memory for many. Plane travel was becoming a much more wide spread proposition. Yet in the day before the jet plane, travel in and to India was very different and a whole experience all by itself. Weeks on board ship, many days on trains often left vivid memories. Even flying in from London took almost a week with many stops on the way before one landed by flyingboat at Bally Airstation. The politics of the decade added further complication with requisitioning of rolling stock, overcrowding, detours to undisclosed destinations, torpedo and air attacks and other dangers. All this made travel a memorable part of the Calcutta experience.

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Travel

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Travel Companies in 1940

Cox & King's (Agents) Ltd. Travel and Transport Agents—5 Bankshall Street. Phone, Cal. 7100.

Indian National Airways Ltd. Agents for Imperial Airways, Ltd. and Indian Transcontinental Airways—Victoria House,Chowringhee Square. Phone, Regent 870.

Mackinnon, Mackenzie & Co. Agents for the B. I. S. N. Co., P. &. 0. S. N. Co. and other Steamship Companies—16 Strand Road.

Phone, Cal. 5100.

Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. Agents: Mackinnon Mackenzie &. Co.—16 Strand Road. Phone. Cal. 5100.

Thomas Cook & Son, Ltd. Tourist Bureau : Shipping and Forwarding Agents—4 Dalhousie Square East. Phone, Cal. 5560.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 227-236 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

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Railways

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

Maj.Rogers, Capt. Slattery, Lt. Cook (others unidentified)) At the Railroad Station

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Seymour Balkin)

F/O Walter Ramsey and Cook (Railway in Calcutta)

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Seymour Balkin)

Steam locomotive of the Bengal & Assam RR in the yards by Sealdah Station, Calcutta.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Steam locomotive, Rr003, "Steam locomotive of the Bengal & Assam RR in the yards by Sealdah Station, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Transfer of coal from wide-gauge box cars to narrow-gauge line cars for continued shipment

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Transfer of coal, Rr016, "Transfer of coal from wide-gauge box cars to narrow-gauge line cars for continued shipment. Scene is where Diamond Harbor Road crosses the railroad Just couth of today 'e R. Santosh Road. It is in Alipore and directly across the street east from the Mint building, which were our headquarters for the 40th Photo Recon. Sqdn." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Narrow gauge passenger train leaves station at the canal and Diamond Harbor road

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Narrow gauge passenger train, Rr017, Narrow gauge passenger train leaves station at the canal and Diamond Harbor road. seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Loading rail freight on tracks just upstream from Howrah Bridge, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Loading freight on tracks, Rr020, "Loading rail freight on tracks just upstream from Howrah Bridge, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Tickets to Darjeeling

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collected by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart, I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service), Calcutta, 1940s

(source: personal scrapbook kept by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart O.B.E., I.C.S. seen on 20-Dec-2005 / Reproduced by courtesy of Mrs. Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION

You want to leave us so soon? Oh, your leave expires in thirty minutes and you have 300 miles to go? In that case you need some transportation advice:

1. Any military reservation or travel warrant in the Calcutta area has to be made through the Rail Reservation Office, Ground Floor, Hindusthan Building. (A warrant is that old acquaintance the T.R. or Transportation Request).

2. Concession tickets for officers or enlisted men on leave or furlough are now available. Contact the Rail Reservation Office. In payment for a single fare one way the E.M. gets a round-trip ticket. The officer pays for a second-class accommodation both ways and receives first-class accommodations.

3. In the case of personnel travel you pick up a concession ticket plus your reservation at the Rail Reservation Office and then pay for your fare at the ticket office at the Railway Station. With the travel warrant, you present same at the ticket office at the Railway Station and receive a ticket.

4. If you know in advance that you are definitely traveling on a certain date, make reservations as soon as possible at the Rail Reservation Office.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Part Way Home

As the fast Punjab Mail train pulled out of Calcutta one evening last week, most of the passengers aboard were Punjabis returning to their home province for the Hindu marriage season and its round of celebrations. But on this trip the Punjab Mail took them only part way home. Two hundred miles northwest of Calcutta the engine lurched off a bridge. Nearly 100 passengers were killed, 150 injured.

A survivor, Abdul Qaiyum Ansari, Minister of Rehabilitation of Bihar State, inspected the track where the accident had occurred. He found that the iron fishplates used to join sections of rail had been removed in two places and that the disconnected end of one rail had been pushed slightly inward.

It was India's 92nd case of railway sabotage in six months. It was also, many Indians were convinced, part of a Communist campaign to disrupt the country's railroad system.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, May. 15, 1950)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

a very slow procedure

Leaving Bombay, we went by train right across India to Calcutta - a very slow procedure. They were like the old steam trains, only slower and went about twenty miles an hour. We kept stopping at stations for refreshments, and the tea was awful as they only had goat’s milk. We used our bedrolls on the train, as the seats had to be pulled down to put the bedrolls on, not very comfy as you can imagine? After a three day journey we arrived in Calcutta, a much hotter and more humid place than Bombay, and not so nice.

Pansie Marjorie Muriel Hepworth Norris, ENSA Entertainer, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5253518 The ENSA Years of ‘The Norris Trio’ - Part 2 - My Burma Story at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

it was fun really

The very next day, Monday 21st September 1942, we left Karachi railway station by special troop train, destination Calcutta in Bengal Province approximately 2/3000 miles across India. What an experience living on a crowded troop train for a week, six to a compartment, bully beef, biscuits and anything we could pick up en route when we stopped at a station. That's all we had, tea was mashed in a large dixie can from the hot water in the railway engine. Washing and shaving done from hand pumps when we had the time and inclination, these were usually found on the station platform. If anyone saw the film "Bowhani Junction" starring Ava Gardner then you would get a very good idea of what life was all about on the Indian Railways. Our journey took us through Lahore, Amritsa (the home of the Sikh Golden Temple), Lucknow and Cawnpore. I remember crossing the river Ganges at Benares so vividly well. This is the Holy Hindu river and city where the Hindu faithful come to wash and bathe and burn their dead in ghats on the river bank.

We reached Calcutta Sealdah station on Sunday morning at 6.00 a.m. on the 27th September. Looking back on the train journey, it was fun really and as I've already said, it's remarkable what you can do when you have to do it.

Cliiford Wood, RAF Wireles operator, Karachi to Calcutta, Sept 1942

(source: A4254059 AN RAF WIRELESS OPERATOR ON THE BURMA FRONT (Part 2 of 3) at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Maybe 250 white girls would be a distraction!

Then we were bound for Calcutta on a hospital train with air conditioned carriages and ‘through’ corridors. Our meals were served by the Indian sepoys (privates). What a treat after three weeks of being used as propaganda in the evening and working at the hospital in the day, in the tropical heat. It was a three day journey from Bombay. I didn’t ever find out why the last one and a half days were travelled with the window blinds down. Maybe 250 white girls would be a distraction!

Greta Underwood, V.A.D., Calcutta, 1944

(source: A4859814 A V.A.D. in India and Burma - Part 4 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The following morning we were on the move again

The following morning we were on the move again; we were taken to Howrah station to board the mail train bound for Sylhet in Assam, with the four pieces of luggage per person. The pandemonium began with a group of jabbering coolies arguing which team should take our luggage! The RTO sergeant escorted the four VADs to the compartment, as it was put on the train, and paid the porters. We were advised not to leave any luggage unattended in any public area, nor on public transport. So, with two members in each carriage, four escorted 40 pieces of luggage whilst two stayed with the remainder on the platform to make sure none were left on the station. All aboard and we were on our own.

Unlike the hospital train, the Indian Railway trains had no corridors and stopped at every station, which were one and a half to two hours apart with no platforms. One was always on the lookout as there were as many passengers on the roof, footplate and buffers as there were in the carriages.

The Reverend Mothers from the Convent had provided us with fruit, food and drinking water in our bottles, so we settled down to discuss our actions for the journey like washing, eating, sleeping and luggage duties.

Greta Underwood, V.A.D., Calcutta, 1944

(source: A4859814 A V.A.D. in India and Burma - Part 4 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The toy train

At Ghoom we had to leave the big train and get on what we called the "Toy Train" since it was so much smaller. We then went on to Darjeeling. There had been an avlanche so we all had to get off the train and walk about a mile while the train slowly inched its way past the danger spot and then we got back on and continued with no furthers of interest.

The Himalayas are so high that one has to see them to believe and also so breathtakingly beautiful. I have always loved mountains and rivers rather than sun and sea and sand.

The windows on the train were rather like sash windows and could be slid down so that one could lean out and look down the mountainside. The railwayline was like a thin ribbon running round the mountain and the drop when I looked out of the window was sheer and seemed bottomless. We looped the loop all the way up and the sheer size of the mountains dominated the landscape making everything else seem insignificant in comparison.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Darjeeling, 1947

(source: page 32 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

… the school badge was hung on the front of the engine

[I remember] Making elaborate labels for ourselves and Dow Hill favourites on graph paper. These were glued to our tin trunks for the journey home. Making huge signs to hang on the front of the Big Train engine as we pulled into Sealdah. These were made from up to 40 layers of exercise book pages and home made glue, topped with glossy art paper to form the school badge or the entwined letters VSK. At least one of these became the roof of a shunter’s shed in the railway yards north of Sealdah.

Legend had it that one year, before I arrived, the railways made the serious mistake of booking both Victoria and Goethals to travel home on the same day. There was an armed truce at the start of the journey and this lasted until the train reached Jalpaiguri, the station where the school badge was hung on the front of the engine. A riot ensued, and parents waiting at Sealdah watched their dear off-springs being led away under a police escort.

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

Everything was well organised

The journey to the Arakan took several days. The first leg from Bombay to Calcutta was by G.I.P. Railway, the Great Indian Peninsular, and took two days. Everything was well organised. At one station an orderly would some in to the carriage and ask what you would like for lunch. On receipt of requirements he went off the train and telephoned the next station, possibly an hour away, and when one arrived there the meal would be brought on. At the next station another orderly would appear and take the plates and cutlery away. All very civilised.

William (Bill) Knight, Army, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5825054 Parachute training at R.A.F. Chaklala at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Hard Seats to Calcutta

Then from Trinconialee we set off to India. We landed in the very south of India and entrained there and we went right up through the plains of southern India. It was a horrific journey. We were three or four days, I think, in the train—though I wonder if it was ten days? It probably felt like ten days! It was a terrible journey because it was wooden seats. It was purely a troop train but natives have a habit of jumpin' on any trains arid gettin' a free lift. They hang on the outside of the thing and get on the roof They do the same wi' their buses actually. We were all heartily sick of the hard seats and the cramped compartments by the time we got to Calcutta.

Eddie Mathieson, Marines’ commando soldier on the Burma Front. Calcutta, 1944/45

(source: page 234 of MacDougall, Ian: Voices from War and some Labour Struggles; Personal Recollections of War in our Century by Scottish Men and Women. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1995)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ian MacDougall)

Traveling in Purdah

We went to Calcutta for Christmas. Mother came too. We travelled in a special train for a thousand miles or so from the palace siding at Gwalior. On the Calcutta station an antheap of palace servants waited for us with a tent-wall, which closed round the Maharani as she left her carriage and shielded her from profane male eyes, including mine. For a widow no longer in her first youth it was an odd custom. I saw her once, when the curtain in the train blew aside.

Humphrey Trevelyan. ICS with responsibility for the ruling family of Gwalior. Calcutta, 1935

(source page 183 of Humphrey Trevelyan, (Baron Trevelyan): “The India we left : Charles Trevelyan, 1826-65, Humphrey Trevelyan, 1929-47.” London : Macmillan, 1972. Monsoon Morning. London: Ernest Benn, 1966)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Lord Trevelyan 1972)

human beings clinging to the sides of the carriages

“Every time a train left the station there were human beings clinging to the sides of the carriages and sitting on the roofs. The railway staff made valiant and unsuccessful attempts to knock off the surplus bodies but they were like a colony of bees around a nest. Every time one was dislodged another took his place.”

Harold P. Lees, RAF, Calcutta, early 1940s

(source: A2808632 Harold P. Lees war part 3 The sights and sounds of Calcutta at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

a huge block of ice for coolness

I was sent to Calcutta, a three day journey on the train, and was the only woman on it. I had a carriage to myself, which included bunks, a fan and a huge block of ice for coolness, which eventually melted and wet everything. I bought food from the platforms, when it stopped in the stations. I was quite lonely, but had books to read. In Calcutta I was working in Zenana House, which was on loan from a maharajah. It was a big hostel, taking over 100 women.

Rene Thompson (nee Laird), YWCA Welfare worker, Calcutta, 1944

(source: A8456952 Life running YWCA hostels in Bombay, Calcutta and Bangalore at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

To Bombay by cattle truck

A few weeks after returning to Dum Dum I was given my travel documents to go to Bombay. I was on my way Home! Six of us were due for repatriation, but things rarely work out as expected in the R.A.F. It was fine to start with. A truck appeared on time to take us to Calcutta and deliver us to the Railway Station and there was the Train already crowded with Army personnel. But there was no carriage reserved for us.

An M.P. tried to tell us we could not travel but he really was wasting his time trying to tell us we could not travel to Bombay. We eventually found a cattle truck with sliding doors but with no cattle, so we established ourselves in it. Food was no problem, we just inserted ourselves in the army food queue.

Ken Armstrong, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, late 1945

(source: A4499508 An Airman in South East Asia Command Part Three at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

To Bombay by special favours

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Jeff Parkes in RAF Gunner's Uniform c1943

I spent about two years in India working as a butcher / cook before I finally received the news I had been waiting for, - a posting to Aircrew for training. I was posted in Calcutta at that time and my orders stated that I was to be in Bombay within two days. Now the trains in India were often full then, and the express train to Bombay from Calcutta took 36 hours, while the slow train took five days. The Railway Transport Office (RTO) told me all the trains booked up, so I had a real dilemma.

Somehow during my stay in India I had become friendly with the General Manager of the Bengal-Nazpur Railway, and I told him of my predicament. He said “Be at the station at 8.00 am tomorrow.” I duly arrived at 8.00 am, and he was there to see me off. He had arranged for an extra carriage on the express which was labelled “Reserved for L.A.C. Parkes” Special treatment indeed, he was a very good friend!

Charles Jeffrey PARKES, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1943

(source: A5916512 Reflections of an RAF Gunner at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

…ask for a railway ticket Poona to Bombay via Calcutta

After that battle we got sent back to India for a rest, to Poona, which is right down in Southern India. Poona is a long way; it’s a 5 day train journey from Calcutta to Bombay. On the way into Burma, all the officers had left their big boxes of kit — you couldn’t carry those in the jungle — we left them at Cox and King’s depot Calcutta in store. When we came back down to Poona they decided we really could do with our kit. There wasn’t any argument about that. The only thing was, at that time Calcutta was out of bounds because of Indian Independence disturbances. You could go on holiday to Bombay and those places, so the adjutant decided — I don’t know who thought it up or whether he did, but they picked the two youngest most naïve officers — that was me and one other chap. He said, ‘We want you to go to Calcutta to get the officers’ kit, but I must tell you it’s out of bounds. I want you to go to the railway station, and ask for a railway ticket to Bombay via Calcutta.’

From Poona, Bombay was about like going to Shrewsbury from North Wales and Calcutta was like going to the south of France. It was a thousand miles or more. It took five days and we had just come from there.

‘Under no circumstances whatsoever must you have a ticket to Calcutta from Bombay.’

It took us about 20 minutes or more to persuade the ticket bloke in the office at Poona to give us a ticket like this, and he only did it then, I think, because people were queuing up at the back, but eventually he wrote it that way. Every time the ticket was checked on the route, they said, ‘This is nonsense, he should have written Calcutta via Bombay.’

But we went all the way to Calcutta and collected 2 railway wagons full of kit and came all the way back.

Anthony Cave-Browne-Cave D.S.O.,Army lieutenant, Calcutta, 194

(source: A8597361 A lieutenant with two pips at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Travel by train in India is a real experience

By this time it had been confirmed that 232 was beyond redemption and postings came through splitting its members up all over the place. The majority of us were posted to 221 Group H.F. Calcutta.

My final night at Drigh Rd was spent at the camp cinema with Brian Wilson watching "Fantasia”. Bob Robinson and Jack Spencer didn't feel they could face it for the third time so settled for the limited joy of the canteen.

The following day, April 26th 1942, we began our trans India rail journey from Karachi to Calcutta. It was to take four days and it was a tiring but wonderful experience. Wooden seats in the compartments gave room to lie down to sleep. There was so much to see, hear and smell that I slept only in snatches. Travel by train in India is a real experience. I suppose the journey was about 1600 miles and took four days. Allowing daily stops totalling about 4 hours for various reasons it works out at 400 miles a day in 20 hours -i.e. an average of 20 mph. Why the four hour stops? Well, the train had to take on fuel and water as well as load and unload people and luggage and take on food. Also, it used to be the practice to phone through from one station to the next to say how many people wanted a meal, lunch or dinner. The train would then stop at the next station for an hour or so whilst supper or whatever was served in the station restaurant. The rest of us would have our food delivered from the cookhouse truck or would go for a walk around the train until time to depart. Whenever the train stopped, one of us would run up to the engine with a large iron pot containing tea leaves and fill it with hot water.

So, by and large, 20 hours travelling a day was fair enough and 20 mph gave us ample opportunity to see the details of this fascinating country as we passed along. The route was like a history lesson with its familiar place names -- Karachi -- Hyderabad -- Jodenpur -- Jaipur -- Agra -- Cawnpore -- Allahabad -- Benares -- Calcutta. Almost every type of scenery was experienced from the desert of Sind to the jungles of Bengal with such wonders as the bridge of Benares in between. Many and varied were the appearance and dress of the people we saw. All in all, one of life's high spots -- an unforgettable experience.

Our excitement and anticipation mounted as we neared Calcutta. We had no idea what our new home would be like, but feared the worst after Karachi.

At last we arrived at Howrah station and were put into buses. I found it difficult to believe that what I was seeing was real.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Train to Calcutta, April 1942

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Journey into the clouds

To revert back awhile, I must make a note of the journey up here, though I’m sure it will always remain a beautiful memory. We travelled overnight from Calcutta to Siliguri, which, being trans' Bengal, meant we did not miss much in scenery.

Siliguri being at the foot of the hills, we changed into the tiny train that was to transport us somewhat miraculously, if not hair-raisingly, to Guam, 6,500ft higher. The train carried along a little track that ran along the mountainside on a ledge, as it were, with only a foot or two between us and the ever increasing depths below.

We passed the most beautiful gorges and waterfalls one could imagine, climbing up and up above the clouds until we felt sure we could not possibly climb further, but we went on and on.

Highest station in the world

Quite speechless from the magnificence of the scenery, we reached Guam in the afternoon. This is the highest railway station in the world and quite fascinating. From here, we climbed down 500ft to Darjeeling by the same little train, arriving at about 4pm.

We were met by the CO and Mrs Harley, whom we later discovered to be our hostess, and taken by ambulance down to Lehong.

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calcutta, 13^th & 14^th August 1945

(source: A1940870 Life in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), 1945at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

First Class and ‘Kellners’

The journey to Lahore took two days and two nights on a train. In India, the trains were very comfortable if one travelled first class as of course, we did. We used to have a compartment reserved for us. There was a firm called Kellners with a chain of restaurants at every major railway station and the stewards used to come and take orders at one station and somehow these were relayed to the next stop and full meals would be served to us at the time ordered. The distances are so vast in India that it is probably difficult for people who have always lived in a small country like Britain to comprehend. It all seems like a faraway dream now. To go to Sialkot (my Uncle's home town, we changed at Lahore after travelling two days and two nights and travelled for a further day and a night).

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. On the train to Lahore mid 1940s

(source: page 20 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

Tipping the Bearers

Armed with a ticket for a place called Amingaon, the next problem was to transport a large and varied assortment of luggage to the waiting train. Fortunately a mob of eager coolies emerged from the wings and twelve of the more dynamic seized a piece of baggage each and bore it away on his head in what proved to be the right direction.

Seated at last in a comfortable first class compartment, I next had to decide how much to tip this army of baggage carriers. When I finally presented each with a rupee, then worth one shilling and sixpence, pandemonium broke loose. The correct rate was about four pence. The coolies obviously considered that anyone green enough to pay them such largesse was fool enough to part with more. Just as a not appeared inevitable, the train gathered itself together and drew out of the station.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, 1940s

(source pages 7 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

Life in First class

I found myself in sole occupation of a commodious compartment with a padded seat running along each of its outside walls, two bunks folded back above, an arm-chair and table and two electric fans. The compartment also had its own bathroom and lavatory complete with shower.

Alone in my glory I gazed out of the windows at a strange land of low, parched, red hills, through a haze of dust, which soon began to penetrate the cracks in the doors and windows and which, every so often, when the train stopped at some station, was spread around by a sweeper. This sweeper was not, of course, just anyone with a broom, but a member of the untouchable sweeper caste, the lowest form of human being.

As the sweeper could not remove the dust from my body, I decided to have a cooling and cleansing shower. Stripping, I entered the bathroom, stood under the shower, pulled the chain and, crying out in agony, shot back naked into the compartment — the water tank, situated on the roof and heated by the sun, was full of boiling water. Unable to open the windows because of the dust, or to bathe because the water was red hot, first class travel began to lose some of its promised charm.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 7 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

Rushing to Dinner

There was no corridor in the train and no restaurant car- Instead, while the engine let off steam impatiently outside, we ate at station restaurants along the route, gulping down our cold soup, tough old boiling fowls and caramel custard, fearful that we should be left stranded with the beggars on the platform. Eventually, the engine would start to whistle impatiently, we would hastily pay the bill and hurry back to the train, which would remain motionless for another thirty minutes before the whistling stopped and it moved off.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 7 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

Beggars at Trainstations

During this half hour a crowd of beggars would collect outside the compartment to display their deformities, their stumps, sores and sightless eyes and to demand baksheesh in a penetrating whine — the most nerve-racking sound on earth. If they got nothing, their whine continued; if they got what they wanted, it continued just the same. When our nerves were frayed beyond endurance, the beggars would eventually depart under a shower of abuse, leaving their victims feeling guilty, impotent and completely exhausted.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 7-8 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

Indian railway stations are bizarre places

Indian railway stations are bizarre places. At night we picked our way through the dim light over what appeared to be a sea of corpses, but which were, in reality, sleepers, tightly wrapped like cocoons in frayed blankets, waiting for their trains. The air was filled with the beggars' whining and the more cheerful signature tune of the tea and betel nut vendors — 'guram char, pan, cigarettes. 'A red-turbanned policeman watched from the shadows.

Suddenly, as if roused by some railway Gabriel, the sleepers would rise as one man and make for the bare and uncomfortable third-class coaches of a newly-arrived train.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 8 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

a rather lonely period of isolation

Had I realised it, this enforced and rather lonely period of isolation in a first class compartment was no bad introduction to the India of the Raj. The microcosmic, but not always so comfortable, life of the sahibs in their small Anglo-Indian world was one from which we sometimes ventured but inhibited by social convention, were seldom able to make any real contact with the people of the country.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 8 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

Into the Bengal countryside

It took our train nearly three days to reach Calcutta and, as we travelled further east, the countryside grew greener, damper and slightly less dusty.

Buffaloes replaced oxen in the plough teams, rice took the place of wheat in the fields, and instead of being baked in a hot oven, we sweated it out in a hothouse atmosphere- The rice being harvested and the sheaves carried home, hung on long poles borne on the shoulders of semi-naked, quick stepping villagers; the golden paddy fields stretched across the flat plain as as the eye could reach. Clusters of palms marked the sites of villages — groups of thatched mud huts with the occasional tin-rooted house of some more opulent villager- Small children naked except for a string round their tummies, rode fearlessly on the backs of fierce looking buffaloes; bullock carts creaked along dusty lanes and a solitary car would disappear along a dirt track in a cloud of dust. As night fell, the sky, for a few minutes, was splashed with glorious colour and white paddy birds flew to their roosts against a backcloth of golds and flaming reds which would have delighted Turner or Monet. The air was full of the most alluring of all scents, the smell of damp earth.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 8-9 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

Leaving on the Bengal and Assam Railway

That night I boarded the train for Assam.

The train passed through more paddy fields and more identical bustees and, as night fell, under the same blood red sky. In the middle of the night the train departed for Srinagar, leaving the Assam passengers marooned on the platform at Parbatipur Junction. Here, we eventually transferred ourselves and our luggage to the Assam-Bengal Railway, a single line affair of Victorian vintage but un-Victorian unsteadiness, and of an independent character seldom found today. Its trains have been known to halt while memsahibs picked flowers and their menfolk shot snipe and has, to my own knowledge, been stopped by wild elephants. My bunk was only just long enough for my six feet and, being situated immediately above a bogie, as my compartment appeared to have square wheels, I did not get much sleep. However, in spite of the rock-and-roll effect, it was a friendly sort of railway, which I have always remembered with affection.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 10 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

I decided to make the outward journey by inter class

I was being well-paid, but I am one of those people whose money seems to evaporate in a mysterious manner. As I had to meet the expense of the journey to and from Bombay out of my own pocket, and as by first class this was a not inconsiderable sum, I decided to make the outward journey by inter class. This was a form of transport intermediate in comfort or discomfort, whichever way you looked at it, between the luxury of the first class and the extreme austerity of the third. The seats, though harder than those of the first and second class compartments, were thinly padded and the compartments, patronised by the babu class and the less affluent Europeans were normally not too full, But when I arrived on the platform at Calcutta, I discovered that the third class coaches were full and the third class passengers had overflowed into the inter compartments. The train was about to pull out of the station and, having no alternative, I hastily joined them.

The compartment, like all the rest, was full to capacity and bursting at the seams. The upper bunks, which were meant for sleepers, were fully occupied by sitters, and I wedged myself into a small space on one of them between a woman who was nursing a baby at her breast and another nursing a baby goat on her knee. There was one babu in the compartment wearing a clean white dhoti but the rest of my fellow passengers were peasants of all creeds and castes, one or two sepoys returning from leave, an off-duty police constable and an assortment of children of varying ages.

Considering that communal riots were bedevilling India at the time, the different creeds were getting on famously, as they mostly do when not egged on by agitators, but I was a bit worried as to what kind of reception I should get. Although I had spent most of my life in India with the jungle folk, I had always been in a position of authority. Now I was just one of the crowd in a packed railway compartment, taking up some of the much-needed space.

India was also, at this time, in a state of tension waiting for the curtain to lift while the politicians argued with one another, and the British tried to preserve a united India. The riots in Bombay were a symptom of frustration and I wondered how I should be received in this microcosm of the Indian scene.

I need not have worried. The Indian people are among the friendliest and best-mannered in the world and, unless maddened by mob hysteria, vent their spleen on the system and the Government and not on the individual.

My fellow travellers couldn't have been more friendly and, apart from the discomfort, the thirty-six hour journey across India was one of the pleasantest I have made. I was offered oranges and bananas, my cigarettes were accepted and smoked in return, and I was made to feel thoroughly at home.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Calcutta to Bombay, late 1940s

(source pages 101-102 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

Naga brothers on the Down Mail

At Amingaon Namkia made a friend. As we waited for the train to start, I saw him standing in the doorway of the servants’ compartment in all his glory of scarlet blanket , golden-yellow necklaces, black kilt and well oiled cane kneerings. Ij front of him was a growing crowd whose front rank was composed of assorted vendors; gaping spectators formed the rest. In the space which remained inn front of the carriage paraded a little brown terrier of a sepoy, belonging, apparently, to some military police detachment posted at the station. Curious, I strolled past, and heard the sepoy answering the crowd’s questions . Pride and delight were in his very strut, in the tilt of his hat ; in his excitement he raised his voice, so that one heard his answers but not what the onlookers asked.

‘Yes he is an ignorant person. He is one of my caste. He, too, is a Naga. We may eat from the same dish. Seller! Bring some soda water fro my Naga brother! Oh, there! Bring some cigarettes!’

Both vendors jumped to it, and passed their wares up, with blandishment to Namkia.

‘Nothing is too good. I will pay all!’ The little man suddenly swung round to Namkia. ‘O my brother! Take please, some cigarettes as a present from me! It is so very long since I saw another Naga; and is has made me so happy!’

Namkia the old sinner – what he must have been as a buck!-posed there , so statuesque and conscious of himself, in the narrow doorway; the heavy scarlet drapery falling from his bare shoulders; under the bare lights and the black, barren, girded roof, he was a magnificent barbaric figure. Europeans were stopping to look now, at the back of the crowd. And how Namkia enjoyed it; and how without catching my eye openely knew that I knew he did, and enjoyed that, with his own particular humour, a puckish savouring of his own misdeeds. With polite reluctance he took a packet of cigarettes from the vendor, chose and lit one, and said, the crowd hanging on his words:

‘Yes my brother, we are both Nagas. I thank you for your presents. Though you are an Ao and I ama Zemi, yet we are both of the same caste.’

The train gave a shrill shriek and jerked forward and I fled for my carriage.

Ursula Graham Bower Anthropologist, Calcutta, 1940

(source: pages 85 Ursula Graham Bower “Naga Path” Readers Union, John Murray. London 1952)

Look Out Man Eater

This […] not merely raised his [Namkia] morale, but boosted it to well above normal level. I had to wait till Calcutta, though, to hear his subsequent adventures. These began after the change of trains at Parbatipur. There was then no servants’ compartment, and he found himself lodges, as one of sixty or so in a crowded third-class carriage. Such an exceptional figure could only arouse curiosity. Courteous, like all Zemi, he answered fully at first and most politely. But with a few the thirst for information overbore good manners. Newcomers bombarded him with the same old questions. Earlier inquirers, emboldened by his mild manner, pushed matters to prodding point-to fingering, to demands, even, for scraps of his dress as souvenirs; and his patience began to shrink. At last some innocent crowned it all by asking in a hushed voice, whether the Nagas were really, as the plainsmen all believed them to be, cannibals. Namkia took a deep breath.

‘Oh, yes!’ he said, and resettled himself at a slight space which appeared by magic, it seemed on the crowded bench.

‘I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’ve tasted human flesh.’

There was a sharp backward movement from his vicinity. He shifted a little to give himself elbow room, and went on with the air of simple veracity:

‘In the last famine, my wife and I decided we should have to eat one of the children. We could not make up our minds (we had four you know) whether to eat the eldest, wjo was about ten, because there would be more meat on him and we could smoke it down, or whether to take the youngest, which was quite a baby, because we shouldn’t miss him so much, and we could easily have another. We argued for hours. I decided at last against killing the eldest. He’d been such a trouble to rear. Unfor4tunately my wife was fond of the baby. You never heard such a scene-eventually, though, I insisted on killing it; and it really was extremely good, most tender –boiled with chillies. But my wife , poor woman was most upset. She cried the whole time and could not touch a mouthful.‘

By this time not only was the bench on which Namkia sat empty, but most of the passenger had congregated, with staring eyes, on the far side and at opposite ends of the carriage. With one final look around him and a benign smile , Namkia spread out his bedding and slept in comfort. At full length , all the way to Calcutta; and every time a fresh entrant approached him with a hint to move over, the rest of the carriage , said, as one, ‘Look out! Man-eater!’ and Namkia turned slowly over and murmured: ‘Now the last time I tasted human flesh …’

He told me the story with immense delight as soon as we arrived.

Ursula Graham Bower Anthropologist, Calcutta, 1940

(source: pages 85-87 Ursula Graham Bower “Naga Path” Readers Union, John Murray. London 1952)

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Howarh Station

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

Howrah railroad station

Sacred cattle and coolies push and pull great carts to the loading platform of the Howrah railroad station in background, on of the city's two stations. Howrah is on the west bank of the river, and Sealdah, the other station, is in another section of Calcutta on the east side.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: webpage http://oldsite.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/? Monday, 16-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of David N. Nelson, South Asia Bibliographer, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania)

Indians in railway station

Indians seem to be great travellers. Wartime transportation priorities have forced many wary travellers to remain in stations waiting for long periods. Because of no other means, many must set up housekeeping during the long vigil, cooking their food on the spot and sleeping on the bare floor.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

Indian family at train station

An Indian family sweat out a train. Cooking vessels, clothes and bedding are surrounded by this group which is distinguished by the presence of one of India's wandering holy men, (at right with painted brow).

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

Calcutta magazine stand

The Calcutta counterpart of the American railroad magazine stand. Available are canes, suitcases, soda water, shopping bags, cigarettes and a hundred other items peculiar to the Indian taste.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

Calcutta railroad station

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Seymour Balkin)

Another view

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Seymour Balkin)

Public transportation awaits passengers arriving at Howrah Station

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Howrah Station, Rr007, "Public transportation awaits passengers arriving at Howrah Station. View from Howrah Station. Howrah bridge and nearby ghats in background." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Looking toward South Strand Road

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Looking toward South Strand Road, Rr008, "From Howrah Station, looking across toward South Strand Road's warehouse and ship mooring area. This view is downstream from the second level of the station, shows public transportation waiting for passengers.." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Public transportation waits out in front of Sealdah Station, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Sealdah Station, Rr011, "Public transportation waits out in front of Sealdah Station, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

In Howrah Station, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Howrah Station, Rr014, "In Howrah Station, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Howrah Station is the terminus of two great railways

Before we start on our tour, we would like to give a brief description of the station itself. Howrah Station is the terminus of two great railways— the East Indian and the Bengal Nagpur—and is what one might call the main gateway to the City. From early morning till late at night the station presents an animated appearance, as thousands of passengers entrain and arrive at its many platforms. To get an idea of its importance we would mention that, on a busy day as many as 10,000 platform, tickets are sold.

Built in 1906 by the East Indian Railway Company, Howrah Station is lofty and commodious and equipped in every respect for the comfort and convenience of the travelling public. No trains are received or despatched after 11 p.m., and the station is entirely closed during the night.

For the convenience of passengers arriving by the principal trains the railway authorities arrange, as far as practicable, to receive such trains at platforms Nos. 1, 6 and 7 to which vehicles have direct access from roads running; alongside. The main hall of the station is divided by a roadway into southern and northern halves, the former being intended for upper class and the latter for third class passengers.

At the end of the southern half are the public retiring rooms, and the Hindu, the Mohomedan. and the 1st and 2nd class refreshment rooms. Next, at the corner, are the ladies' and gentlemen's Inter-class waiting rooms with the booking offices within convenient reach. Nearby is the staircase leading to the first and second class waiting rooms on the upper floor. In the centre is a hair dressing saloon and .within a circular counter, are the enquiry office, the reservation office where berths for 1st. and 2nd. class and seats for Inter class passengers are reserved, and windows for the sale of stamps, platform tickets and despatch of telegrams. Crossing the roadway we gain the northern half where, immediately on the right, is an impressive memorial to the employees of the East Indian Railway who fell in the Great War (1914-18). Farther on, is another enquiry office, where seats are reserved for 3^rd class passengers. Then comes the public telephone call office, alongside which, are post boxes tor ordinary and air-mail letters and a counter for the sale of platform tickets. At the northern end is a large waiting hall for 3rd. class passengers and attached to this hall is the 3rd. class ticket office with the luggage office nearby. At about the north-east corner is an exit indicated by a hoard marked "Way Out".

Emerging from the station by this exit, we have in front a line of hackney carnages and on the right, a taxi stand:

across the road, a parking-stand for private cars, engaged taxis and hackney carriages. Farther down are the East Indian Railway Goods Sheds and Coal yard, while on our left, in Grierson Road, are the rickshaws.

There is a continuous Bus Service plying between Howrah Station and many parts of Calcutta. The out-going buses are drawn up in five parallel lines, at right angle to the Howrah Bridge. Each bus carries a board in front displaying a service number, the route and names of the thoroughfares through which it runs- The route and number arc also marked on the sides. It ia a general practice to refer to a bus by its service number.

Those connected with Howrah Station are as follows :—

No. 5. Howrah Station to Kalighat: via Strand Road, Dalhousie Square, Esplanade, Chowringhee Road, Ashutosh Mukerjee Road and Russa Road.

No. 8. Howrah Station to BalIygange Station: via Strand Road, Dalhousie Square, Esplanade, Dharamtala Street, Wellesley Street. Royd Street, Elliott Road. Lower Circular Road, Lansdowne Road, Hazra Road. Gariahat Road, Rash Behari Avenue, Ekdalia Road.

No. 8A- Howrah Station to Dhakuria Lake: Same as No. 8 up to Gariahat Road, then across Rash Behari Avenue to Dhakuria Lake.

No. 10. Howrah Station to Ballygange Railway Station: via Harrison Road, Lower Circular Eoad, New Park Street. Syed Ameer Ali Avenue, Old Ballygange Road, Gariahat Road, Rash Behari Avenue and Ekdalia Road.

No. 11. Howrah Station to Shambazar: via Harrison Road and Upper Circular Road.

No. llA. Howrah Station to Shambazar: via Strand Road (North), New Jagannath Ghat Road, Vivekenanda Road, Maniktala Spur and Upper Circular Road.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page -11 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

It was all so fascinating

Howrah? Well, I guess my only experience there was coming or going through the railway station. I remember the groups of people waiting for trains, the throngs of transport out front -- rickshaws, gharries, taxis.

Since when I travelled, it was always with military orders to go somewhere, so ticketing was no problem. I had no problems with rail travel (the only kind I did) in or out of Howrah station. Naturally, the activity, sights and sounds of the station itself were quite different from a similar station in the US, but it was all so fascinating, I enjoyed it all. I accepted it for what it was and tried to fit into it as best as I could.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

I found it difficult to believe that what I was seeing was real.

At last we arrived at Howrah station and were put into buses. I found it difficult to believe that what I was seeing was real.

April 29 1942

Let me quote C. Ross Smith ("A time in India").

"After Calcutta's Howrah Station there is little profit in being impressed by any other station, little probability, no matter what time of night, thousands upon thousands of people are there, most of them asleep on the station's immense floors. There is no telling how many children are born in Howrah station, nor how many people die on its marble floors. When you arrive, your pick your way carefully between those hundreds of prostate bodies as though you were walking through heavy brambles and when you finally come out onto Guiersen Road there is the Sikh and his taxi and you cross the Hooghly river via Howrah Bridge AND THERE IS YOUR FIRST SIGHT OF CALCUTTA., the most abominable city, yet one of the most poignantly exciting on the face of the earth.

All roads in India lead back to Calcutta. Your train jolts into Howrah station. There you are, the heat is crushing, annihilating. In the end there is only Calcutta; the rest is delusion……For three weeks the temperature ranges between 98 (night) and 118 (afternoon) without giving quarter. It was very hot. When we came out into Park Rd. the sun hit my face and chest as though I had unwittingly walked into an invisible swinging door. In the direct sunlight the temperature must have been 130; within a minute all three of us were soaked".

There is no doubt about it, Calcutta really is incredible -- a seething mass of all types and conditions of men. So from Howrah across the Hooghly.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29^th April 1942

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

A job broker approached me at the station …

I made my first trip to Calcutta from Cochin in a third-class compartment of Howrah Mail. The ticket cost Rs 13. Clad in a dhoti and shirt and clutching my belongings — a tin box and a bedroll — I got off at a neat and clean Howrah station. A job broker approached me at the station itself and gave me the address of an office and Rs 10 as advance salary.

(N.S. Mani, newly employed office worker from Kerala, Calcutta, February 1945

(source: Telegraph Thursday, October 27, 2005)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with N.S. Mani )

Every inch of space including the platforms was filled with people

“The railway complex in the big cities resembled the feeding of the five thousand. Every inch of space including the platforms was filled with people: standing, sitting, squatting, sleeping or eating. In some places meals were being cooked over a portable fire. Few of them appeared to be genuine travellers. The majority were using the station as a form of lodging because they had nowhere else to go……”

“The station was like a huge open bazaar. Vendors and wallahs were everywhere. You could buy cha, cakes, fruit, buckets of water, strange looking nuts and sweetmeats, cigarettes, newspapers and betel nuts to name but a few. Some of the items for sale – you could not even begin to guess what they were.”

Harold P. Lees, RAF, Calcutta, early 1940s

(source: A2808632 Harold P. Lees war part 3 The sights and sounds of Calcutta at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Around Howrah Station

At about ten o'clock on the morning of the eleventh of August, we reached Howrah Station in Calcutta and here we all piled out of the train, and with the help of many coolies moved our kit outside, where we waited for lorries to come and take us to another camp. Before telling you about Calcutta which is the second city of the British Empire next to London, I will give you the list of stations we passed and stopped at:

Igatpuri Asvali Nagpur Soudia

Dongargagh Raipur Bilaspur Jbarsguda

Jatanagh.

Before going on to our various stations we had to wait in another camp at Calcutta for a few days, and you left me outside Howrab. Station waiting for a lorry to get me to this camp. At last a lorry came which took away a few of us, and the same lorry went "backwards and forwards until five o'clock in the evening. Daddy had made up his mind to be among the last few people to leave, he was able to look about him and see everything that was going on.

Quite close to the station was a main road along which passed many thousands of people and vehicles — from trams and buses to rickshaws which are pulled along by coolies, and only have two wheels. The trams were quite an amusing sight as they had been in Bombay, for not only were they absolutely full inside, but many more Indians clung to the outside all looking as if they might fall off at any time. By this means of course quite a large number of them could get from place to place without paying anything as the conductor was hard put to it anyway to collect the fares from the passengers inside! Also there were a great number of clumsy carts pulled by oxen yoked to a long pole between them, and other carts pulled by coolies. All in all a very animated sight, with crowds of people chattering together like monkeys and occasionally raising their voices to a scream of anger or annoyance — when things did'nt go quite as they should — Daddy could'nt understand what they were saying then, but it sounded very rude indeed! There was also a great noise going on all the time with everyone in cars and lorries blowing their horns, whistles from the nearby trains and occasional hisses as steam was let out of the engines, excited cries from the coolies, little bells ringing which are attached to the shafts of rickshaws and sound like sheep bells, trams bumping and clattering along and occasionally the deep roar of an aeroplane passing overhead. Close by was a great new suspension bridge spanning the river and we crossed over this when at last the lorry came.

Leonard Charles Irvine, 4393843, Royal Air Force Flt Sgt Nav, Calcutta, 1945

(source: Leonard Charles Irvine "A LETTER TO MY SON" at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Traveling in Purdah

Humphrey Trevelyan. ICS with responsibility for the ruling family of Gwalior. Calcutta, 1935

(source page 183 of Humphrey Trevelyan, (Baron Trevelyan): “The India we left : Charles Trevelyan, 1826-65, Humphrey Trevelyan, 1929-47.” London : Macmillan, 1972. Monsoon Morning. London: Ernest Benn, 1966)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Lord Trevelyan 1972)

Through the Station in purdah

It was on that journey that I had my first chilling taste of purdah. When we reached the Calcutta station, our coach was surrounded by canvas screens. Then a car, with curtains separating the driver from the passenger seats and covering the windows of the rear compartment, drove up to the platform. I was ushered from the railway coach to the car, entirely protected from the view of any passer-by. Indrajit was accompanying me at Jai's request, and he asked in a whisper if Jai intended to keep me so claustrophobically guarded all the time. With one of the Jaipur retinue sitting in the front seat, I could only put my finger to my lips and shrug my shoulders. We were to stay the night at "Woodlands," and there too, as soon as we arrived, the Jaipur party firmly waved away all the male servants, even though I had known most of them all my life. The next day when Indrajit set off I felt as though my last ally was deserting me and could no longer keep back my tears. Jai merely remarked, with his usual good humour, that he had thought I wanted to marry him.

By the day after, when we left for Madras, I had recovered my spirits, even though I remained uneasily aware that my brief experience of purdah was only the first of many intimidating situations that lay ahead. I was still very much in awe of Jai and desperately anxious to do everything right, though often unsure of what etiquette demanded. For instance, when Jai's nephews came to call on us in our railway compartment, I found myself in a quandary, wondering whether speech would be considered improper or silence boorish.

Gayatri Devi, Maharani of Jaipur. Calcutta, May 1940.

(source: pp. 143-144 Gayatri Devi / Santha Rama Rau: “A Princess Remembers. The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur”. Philadelphia & New York: J.B. Lippincott Company. 1976 / Reproduced by courtesy of Santha Rama Rau).

The following morning we were on the move again

Greta Underwood, V.A.D., Calcutta, 1944

(source: A4859814 A V.A.D. in India and Burma - Part 4 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Sealdah Station

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

Steam locomotive of the Bengal & Assam RR in the yards by Sealdah Station, Calcutta.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Front of Sealdah Station

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Sealdah Station, Rr004, "Front of Sealdah Station." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Front of Sealdah Station

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Sealdah Station, Rr005, "Front of Sealdah Station." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Public transportation waits out in front of Sealdah Station, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Passenger waiting area, Sealdah Station, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Passenger waiting area, Rr010, "Passenger waiting area, Sealdah Station, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Trains ready to depart Sealdah Station, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Ready to depart, Rr012, "Trains ready to depart Sealdah Station, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Trains ready to depart Sealdah Station, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Ready to depart, Rr013, "Trains ready to depart Sealdah Station, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

The Station Restaurat at Shealdah

It is remarkable that the food in Calcutta was generally so good that even the station restaurant at Sealdah (too good to call it a buffet) required a booking for dinner because it was so well patronized. Can you imagine making a booking for dinner at Kings Cross or Euston Station?

Mike Devery, schoolboy. Calcutta, 1940s

(source: Internet communications September 2004)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Mike Devery)

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Lorries

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

I had a most interesting trip driving a lorry from Meerut across to Calcutta

I had a most interesting trip driving a lorry from Meerut across to Calcutta. Some bridges were washed away so we drove the lorries on the railway lines. We had a couple of days rest in Calcutta and then put the lorries onto flatbed railway trucks and headed northwards, travelling for 2 or 3 days. On the journey we lived on hard rations and I gave myself the job of ‘tea wallah’. I had to get the hot water from the engine, so everytime the train stopped, I would rush up and get the water for our tea. We finally reached our destination of Dimapur on the Bramputal(?) river.

Douglas Maule, Army, Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: A6486690 What a Lovely War at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

With 30 Trucks overland to Calcutta

My job was to collect thirty snub-nosed 15cwt Chevrolet trucks, manufactured in Canada but assembled in Bombay and to deliver them to Calcutta. We had no mobile phones or other talkie talkie apparatus to get in touch with each driver. I did have the support of another officer who travelled in a 3 tonner plus a regular army Lance Sergeant -allegedly a motor mechanic -whose solution to most problems was to hit it with a hammer! ! 1 myself had a jeep and driver.

The road across India on the map is a prominent red line -misnamed the 'Grand Trunk Road' -because after about ten miles of metalled surface out of Bombay it descended into a dirt track. Each vehicle stirred up a cloud of dust which needed 100 yards to settle; so with each vehicle needing at least 100 yards behind the other, our convoy occupied a minimum of three thousand yards or about two miles.

The question of control was something of a problem; and I finally resolved it- or attempted to resolve it- by requiring that the relief driver (two drivers per truck) should keep the vehicle behind in his sights, and if he could not see it he was to stop'.

Inevitably, one of the dopey relief drivers would nod off or forget to check; and sometimes instead of two miles, we occupied nearer 20 before we could get the convoy together again.

One day I let the L/Sgt lead the convoy, which after a while came to a stop in the middle of a village with the leaves of the 'Bashas' - straw houses - scraping the sides of the trucks. I forced my way to the front and found a bar across the road where the surface had just been rebuilt with mud and water and was drying out.

I demanded from the foreman that the bar be removed and ordered our convoy to go over- amid loud protestations from the foreman.

Soon after it became clear that the road was almost none existent; I then saw a charabang grinding its way towards us with the inevitable people on the roof, on the bonnet, or hanging outside.

I asked if anyone spoke English and was this the road to Calcutta? 'Oh Sahib you have come the wrong way -the proper road is about ten mlles back'.

There was nothing for it but to turn the convoy round, make sure all engines were firing, blow the whistle and back we went. We got there just as the road building gang had repaired the damage caused when we first had driven over it.

I reckon to this day that that Foreman has neyer either forgotten or forgiven us!

We averaged about 100 miles per day and finally reached our destination after about 13 days on the road.

Frank L. Ffoulkes, Army, Calcutta, 1942

(source: A3699778 War Service' An Unusual Experience' Part 1 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Riverboats

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

Hooghly River

Hooghly River and part of Calcutta's east bank. But for this giant stream Calcutta would likely never have been built---and for that matter, many of us would just as soon it hadn't. Nevertheless the river affords many spectacles and has accommodated millions of tons of supplies necessary to the war effort.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

Hooghly River, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Hooghly ferry, Rf005, "Hooghly River, Calcutta area." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Cooking a meal on small, Hooghly River work boat, moored on Calcutta side of the river not far upstream from the Botanical Garden

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Work boat, Rf007, "Cooking a meal on small, Hooghly River work boat, moored on Calcutta side of the river not far upstream from the Botanical Garden." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

River activity near Calcutta Botanical Garden

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: River activity, Rf010, "River activity near Calcutta Botanical Garden." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Steam-powered, side-wheel ferry loads on Calcutta side of Hooghly River not far upstream from the Botanical Garden

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Side-wheel ferry, Rf014, "Steam-powered, side-wheel ferry loads on Calcutta side of Hooghly River not far upstream from the Botanical Garden" seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Barge loading upstream from Hooghly Bridge, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Barge loading upstream, Rf017, "Barge loading upstream from Hooghly Bridge, Calcutta." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

River shipping activity, Calcutta. Activity on west bank of river

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: River shipping activity, Rf027, "River shipping activity, Calcutta. Activity on west bank of river." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Smaller river craft near the Kali Temple

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: River craft, B009, Smaller river craft near the Kali Temple. seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Water traffic in the vicinity of Kalighat, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Water traffic, B018, " Water traffic in the vicinity of Kalighat, Calcutta [sic]" seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Water traffic in the vicinity of Kalighat, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Water traffic, B019, " Water traffic in the vicinity of Kalighat, Calcutta [sic]" seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

Launches on the Hooghly

My father worked for the Calcutta Steam Navigation Company, managed by Hoare, Miller & Company whose office was at 5 Fairlie Place, across the river from Howrah Station. They operated a fleet of launches which towed several barges, known as lighters, which had no power of their own and were therefore totally dependent upon their towing launches for speed and direction. Most of the sea-going vessels entering the Port of Calcutta had their cargo off loaded in mid-stream into these lighters for delivery to the many factories that were on both sides of the Hooghly river. These ranged from petroleum at Budge Budge, 16 miles downstream from the City to jute mills, rubber factories, brick –kilns, paint & varnish makers, engineering companies etc. During the period we are talking about, of course, there was a vast amount of strategic material also coming in by river. One of the perks we were able to enjoy was having the use of a company launch at an occasional week-end to take trips up and down the river.

Mike Devery, schoolboy. Calcutta, 1940s

(source: Internet communications September 2004)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Mike Devery)

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Overseas Steamers

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

On the ship home

Bay of Bengal

March 27, 1946

Dearest Ritter;

I love you, precious, and wish that I could write more encouraging news, but we will have to take comfort in the fact that I am on my way home, even though I am stuck on a tub that is travelling only 10 miles an hour. If luck is with us, this letter should reach you by airmail from Singapore, but the mail situation is bad here, and there is a good chance that I may beat this particular message home. I am writing the folks, also, hoping that at least one letter will reach home in time to constitute news.

The way things have turned out, I have continued regularly to supply you with false information, but you must know that I believed it at the time. This ship never had a chance to get to San Francisco in 21 days. On its last trip, when its engines were functioning properly, it took twenty days to go from Singapore to Frisco. Here is the trouble. A bearing has been overheating, and they have cut out one engine, reducing our speed almost in half, so that we make out less than ten miles an hour, or only 250 miles a day. Since this is a ten thousand mile trip, it is easy to see how much time will be required unless the repairs, which are to be made in Singapore, are successful. No matter what, I doubt if I get home before the first of May.

Life for an officer aboard the ship is easy, by comparison with the enlisted men. I share a cabin with eight officers. Our beds are comfortable, mattressed, sheeted, pillowed, and we are supplied with free towels. We share a bathroom with another group of men from an adjoining cabin. The officers have the best space on deck reserved for them, and I have been doing a lot of sunbathing. My work is light, having been assigned as a compartment officer in C-3 hold (which is similar to the one I came over in).

The meals are out of this world. We are served by civilians on table-clothed surfaces, in plenty of dishes, with three courses usually constituting the meal. The food is very good, and I should fill out my cheeks a little. So far no poker, and I doubt very much if I play at all, since the only game going is financed by the merchant marines, and is crooked.

A number of 142nd enlisted men are aboard, as well as Just, Parrish, and eleven nurses. Of the 70 women on the ship, 42 are Red Cross, 16 war brides. I haven't seen any attractive ones yet...suspect that there is only one attractive woman in the world for me anymore, and you should know her very well. It is hard waiting to hold you in my arms, but with each day my ardor grows, and darling, that will be a wonderful moment...all moments will be wonderful from then on.

Your loving husband,

Dick

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Bay of Bengal, March 27, 1946.

(Source: page 297 ff of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Whales and the Pacific

En route to ZI

Pacific Ocean

Above Wake Island

April 12, 1946

Dearest Ritter:

Excitement! Excitement! Whales and ships.

Early this morning, I must have been awakened by a flashing that came in through the porthole, for I got up to see lights answering - the flashes upon the water apparently the reflection from our own signaling lights. Ships that pass in the night. This morning we encountered another...an interesting sight out here, for the ocean is so vast that one rarely ever sees anything except this big spot of mouthwash saline solution.

This morning's ship was an American freighter.

But the most interesting sight was our encounter with literally dozens of whales. We first noticed the mammals just after breakfast, when we saw a series of spouts off the port. Occasionally the back of one of the whales could be seen, as they sported with one another. But the real revelation came when the whales came closer to our starboard side...no more than 100 feet away.

I saw as much as 15 feet of the backs of the huge animals myself. They do not swim very high in the water, but undulate like the porpoises. We passed the school about 0930. In the afternoon, while I was sleeping, we came into another school of them, striking one big fellow - according to several unreliable witnesses.

Floyd McDonald and I played a number of games of gin rummy, this time correctly, for that Rous kid didn't know what he was talking about -- with me edging over him just a trifle. I like that game, by the way.

We saw a movie in what is turning out to be rather cool weather for those of us with the watery blood of India in our veins. The movie was "Uncle Harry." Geraldine Fitzgerald has several remarkable scenes, and shame on Ellen Raines for walking (slinking) into a room that way!

We have been kidding quite a bit about our second Saturday this week, and tomorrow is the day after, you know, and that sort of thing. Incidentally, no one seems sure as to whether those are gulls, terns, or albatross following the boat. I did a little checking on our situation, and we are quite away to the east and north of Wake.

Love,

Dick

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Pacific April 12, 1946.

(Source: pp.364-65, of Elaine Pinkerton’s proposal for Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

I symbolically threw my Topie overboard

So! Eventually the call came and in November I was back in Barrackpore briefly for the formalities of repatriation. From here, another four day rail journey to Bombay. Then a week of waiting at Worli camp and then through the "Gateway to India" and on to the "MOULTAN" and farewell to India.

Two things above all I remember about the "Moultan". One of its funnels was much bigger than the other and the other thing - the bread - newly baked daily - wonderful!

Across the Arabian Sea into the Red Sea where I symbolically threw my Topie overboard, and into the Gulf of Suez.

Of course, nothing goes straight forwardly in the forces and at Port Taufiq, just before we entered the Suez Canal we had to change ships. We were now on the larger and more modern "Strathmore" but not as comfortable as the "Moultan" and with a less efficient baker.

Through the Suez Canal, with the curious illusion that we were moving through the desert without any water around, and on Christmas Eve we arrived at Port Said. Christmas Day laid up but no more shore leave. Then, on again - the roughest sea of the journey was the Med. - and New Years Day in Gibraltar. No shore leave again. Not that we really wanted it. We didn't want to risk being left behind.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section,, Barrackpore to Liverpool, Nov 1944

(source: A6666014 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 13 Pages 100-108at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

By Convoy to Glasgow

Within three weeks, news came that a ship would soom be in Bombay, so I had to pull myself together for further aarduous travel. We caught the Bombay mail train for the journey across India. Having spent forty-three hours on the train, we arrived in Bombay and word came for us to board the ship. It was war-time and we really had an unpleasant voyage. We were on a Dutch liner which had taken troops to India in readiness for attacking the Japanese in Burma and the Far East. The boat was crammed with civilian refugees ordered out of that area of Burma, India and China. It was jammed with people. Andrew was in a cabin with nine other men. I had a small two-berth cabin with Heather and Monica, two other women and four children - nine of us in all. Heather and Monica had also developed whooping cough. When the children, in distress, were coughing ,these women swore. They were so rough and unkind. The nights were dreadful and I had little sleep. The crew were solely concerned with themselves, and I was not allowed to take the children to the dining room; nor was Andrew allowed to our cabin because of the other mothers. However, a member of the crew - a young black boy from Borneo - took pity on us and each morning he parked himself outside my cabin door, and when I opened it, ran off to fetch something for the children to eat.

Our ship crossed the Indian Ocean and through the Red Sea alone, as this Dutch liner was one of the most modern, and we depended on our speed to get us out of the way of danger. Each morning we had to line up for boat drill, and all day we had to carry life jackets everywhere we went. The children were given them too - adult sized! I wondered if there was anything I could do to make them fit, but it was hopeless. From time to time the crew also had firing practice, but the one ime they let off the big gun - although we had been warned - it gave me such an enormous shock as to be almost hysterical for the only time in my life. I had survived the threatening whirlpools of the Yellow River, had the windows of my bedroom blown in by bombs, seen bomb and gunfire all around me in China, walked alongside men with plans to end my life. resisted the terror of our flight over the darkened mountain peaks - yet all that did not break my nerves in the way that the thundering bang of this long distance gun affected me. I will never forget it. (Monica adds that her parents later told her that if anyone had fallen overboard into the sea, because of the great danger from U-boats the Captain would not have turned the ship around for any search or rescue attempt)

For the final lap of our voyage we were in a large convoy, with an aircraft carrier, all the 'Empress' boats, and others of all descriptions. We zigzagged along in our crocodile line, day after day. It was reported that a U-boat was near us, but still we pressed on...when would we see England? Andrew commented that we would soon be at the North Pole if we carried on in the same direction for much longer. Everything was veiled in secrecy. Up on the deck one afternoon, as I had got the children to sleep for a few minutes, I was standing by myself rather miserable, Just the, as one of the ship's crew walked past (who must himself been feeling fairly happy to speak to me!) turned and said, "Do you see those ships there in the distance? They left Glasgow this morning". Glasgow! So we were nearly home! We had travelled steadily northwards to come in around Ireland and into the Clyde. During the night I could tell we had stopped, and then in the morning - how wonerful to see the bare hills of Scotland on a January morning! We could not send any kind of message to our folks, and had to remain quietly on on board for three days, as Glasgow was teeming with refugees. One day, a gentleman came on board to inquire if anyone needed somewhere to stay in Glasgow, and so Andrew obtained an address from him. It was fortunate, for when the CIM representative met us in Glasgow he told us they were unable to accommodate any more as people were already sleeping on the floor. As a result we went to the address given to us. What a sight we must have looked, wearing old Chinese clothes. People turned to stare. I had got a coat in India, and a pair of shoes, but they still looked extremely odd in Glasgow.

Mary Kennedy(nee Weightman), wife of a missionary China Inland Fellowship, Calcutta to Glasgow, early 1940s

(source: A7091273 Escape from Chine (Part 3) Over Enemy Lines. at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Attitudes to Travel

Hurrah! — at last the Colonel told us we were to get some pay. We were offered fifty Rupees but we said that would hardly cover our debts. So we were given one hundred Rupees, which at least enabled us to pay our debts and still left us with a bit of pocket money.

And so at long last we were on our way to join our Company. As we left Lahore to go the Calcutta to catch a boat, the Indian soldiers put large garlands of flowers around our necks, which was for our good luck. We sailed from Calcutta to Iraq where our company was still stationed just outside Basra. Once again we had our own cabin, lounge and dining room and so again travelled in comfort. The only problem was that it got so hot that a few of us again decided to sleep on the deck with a blanket and a kit bag for a pillow. There at least we got a bit of a breeze.

Most of the men on board were Indian Infantry and members of the Pioneer Corp. We hadn’t been at sea for more than a day or two when an Indian sergeant came to me and said all his men were ill. I tried to explain that they were seasick and they would be all right in another day or two. I’m certain he didn’t understand, as no doubt most of them had never been on a boat let alone a ship. A few days later I was leaning on the deck rail when the sergeant came up to me again. This time of all things he asked me how we knew the world was round! The more I tried to explain, the more complicated it became. I asked him if he was frightened that he may fall off the edge of the World. He didn’t give me an answer to that but just walked away.

Harold Wagstaff, Army, Train Lahore to Calcutta & ship from Calcutta to Basra, 1942

(source: A7514273 Harold Wagstaff's War - Chapter 2 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Leaving Japan on the S.S.Anhui

Looking through family papers, I came across some newspaper articles relating to the war in the Far East. These give an account of events shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbour, involving my father Captain Llewellyn Evans of China Navigation Company. The front page of the Japan Times dated 27.9.41.has a picture of him, and a group of passengers climbing the gangplank of his ship the S.S.Anhui.

The Foreign Office had requested the Admiralty to charter the ship to evacuate 400 foreign nationals, (mainly British and Indian) including 100 women and children. They were to be transported from Yokohama to Hong Kong, Singapore and Calcutta. The paper paints a vivid picture of the plight of these individuals, who were the last refugees able to leave Japan before the outbreak of war. Their assets had been frozen and they were virtually penniless, with only a paltry allowance, barely enough to buy food. They had endured two days of intensive pressure, involving rigorous searching — even the children were subjected to examination of their clothing, underwear and shoes. The passengers are seen boarding ship closely watched by the Japanese. Eventually, after two days delay, they were allowed to sail.

In an officially approved report by a passenger, G.I.C.Rawlings that appeared in the Hong Kong Telegraph dated 7.10.41., we learn what happened next. Sailing from Yokohama, the ship battled her way through one of the worst typhoons in the history of the China Seas. Winds of 140 M.P.H., with 90 ft. waves (equal to the highest waves in the world encountered in the “Roaring Forties”) threatened to engulf the ship at any moment. Furniture, fittings and baggage broke loose and crashed about the decks, and four of the eight lifeboats were ripped from their davits and washed away. Mercifully only three passengers suffered minor injuries. Mr. Rawlings said “I don’t think we had time to be seasick until the whole thing was over!” He praised the skill and dedication of my father who was on the bridge for twenty-four hours, and of the loyal support from the Officers and Staff who worked hard to keep the passengers comfortable, under appalling conditions. As a token of their appreciation, the passengers presented my father with a handsome gift in the form of a steering wheel with a clock, compass, barometer and weather gauge.

A formal letter dated 4.10.41 from A.G.Hard, the Government Representative on Board, states that a Committee of both European and Indian passengers wished to record “the admiration for the way in which the ship was handled by Captain L.Evans during the typhoon encountered between Yokohama and Hong Kong, and their gratitude for efforts made by the Captain, Officers and Staff to meet all requirements arising during a difficult voyage.” The nurse Justine Soto, was also praised for “her devotion to duty during the typhoon”.

Among the passengers was the Australian Ambassador to Japan, Sir John Latham, whose conduct throughout the nightmare was described as inspiring. He refused preferential treatment and remained in the “well deck” with the other passengers. To express his gratitude he penned a comic poem written on a China Navigation Company notepad dated 4.10.41.A brief excerpt gives a light-hearted account of the dramatic events:

“A capital ship for an ocean trip

Is the brave S.S.Anhui

She sails ahead without any dread

Of the billows of the sea.

She won’t let go in the stiffest blow

That the winds and waves can boast.

We sing this song as we travel along

Beside the China coast.”

Another tribute, also in verse, is by Marjorie Biddle, a fellow passenger on that fateful voyage. When the winds eventually calmed down and people surveyed the damage, she asked my father for a sheet of paper. In the ensuing chaos —even the ship’s log was washed away - he took a page out of the passenger list book and gave it to her. On the reverse side, she had written a witty poem on the plight of the Anhui, and dedicated it “To Captain Evans and his gallant officers and crew, as a tribute from the passengers on the S.S.Anhui.

’Twas there that we parted

By yon glory hole

Down the steep, steep hold of the Anhui,

For the Typhoon she blew

An’ I lost my curry stew

On the bonny, bonny, bunks of the Anhui”.

Her skilfully executed watercolour sketches lend a light note to this terrifying experience. Research has shown that she was an artist, who studied Fine Art at London University, and married a well-respected Japanese artist and poet. They lived in Japan but just before the onset of war, they divorced and she left the country. It is remarkable that this lady was able to put her personal problems behind her, in order to create such a colourful tribute.

Sir John Latham kept in touch, sending my father two books in memory of the typhoon. In his reply, my father relates what became of the remaining Indian passengers on the voyage from Hong Kong to Calcutta. He described them as “a splendid bunch who organised themselves well with school, games and concerts. Diwali was celebrated with a concert, with a proper stage built on the foredeck. They had purchased decorations in Singapore for the concert of music, song, dance, and magic. The ladies looked lovely in their beautiful saris and everyone was in a good mood. On reaching Calcutta they hauled me out of my ship to a reception in a hotel given by the merchants of the city. It was a grand affair with refreshments, flowers and speeches, offering formal thanks. Government representatives were present, and it was all being broadcast! They had me well to the fore, and I was feeling a bit nervous.”

These family records of those distant days say much about the human spirit in times of great danger. They vividly demonstrate the courage, resilience, and sense of humour of people from all walks of life, when confronted by overwhelming odds.

This story was submitted by Mrs Sue Schofield of Ludlow, Shropshire

Llewellyn Evans, Captain with the China Navigation Company, Calcutta, 1941

(source: A3443069 Typhoon In The China Seas at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

It was packed like sardines

But things were on the move again in South East Asia also. Once again we were posted. This time it was to Burma via Calcutta, still with our four pieces of luggage plus anything else we had accumulated — like my wind-up gramophone with warped records and thorns from the bushes as substitutes for needles.

Arriving in Calcutta we stayed overnight at the Grand Hotel for commissioned service men and women, of all three services, pending advancement. It was packed like sardines.

On board the hospital ship were MOs, RAMC, QAs and VADs. Then quite suddenly and out of the blue there was news of the Japanese surrender.

It was estimated there were 100,000 RAPWI — Retained Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) but in that vast jungle their whereabouts were unknown to Command HQ. We anchored outside Chittagong waiting further instructions, but the order was to return to Calcutta and transfer to a larger ship with more medical and nursing staff.

Because we hit a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal (which was terrifying), we arrived in the evening, and it was back to the Grand Hotel again for the night. I shared a bedroom with a QA awaiting repatriation — Lt Col Birdseye. When I said I came from Hertfordshire she asked “anywhere near Hitchin?”, and if I knew a Doctor James. When I said I did, she said “I brought him into the world”. Many years later I told him of that meeting.

Greta Underwood, V.A.D., Calcutta, 1944

(source: A4859814 A V.A.D. in India and Burma - Part 4 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Life on Board P&O

Eventually the great day dawned when I boarded a P & O liner and bade a sad farewell to my parents who were standing rather forlornly on the quay.

Being young, the sense of sadness soon wore off, and lured on by the smell of fresh paint, I penetrated to D deck where, in the bowels of the ship, I was to share a cabin with three other IFS recruits. During a service period of thirty years, members of the Secretary of State's Services were entitled to the cost of four return P & O first class passages. Most of us used the money to pay for more frequent but less expensive travel, but our first passage to India was invariably booked by P & O.

[…]

The ships of the Peninsula and Orient Line were no exception, and the Captain on his bridge was a god-like figure, almost as imposing as the Chief Purser, whose good offices were so essential to the comfort of the passengers.

But the Company had the old-fashioned idea that the ship was more important than the people who had paid to sail in her and discipline both above and below decks was of the strictest. Any unfortunate who was not out of his cabin when the Captain inspected it was in serious trouble and punctuality at meals was taken for granted. Shortly before dinner the bar closed and those who were late for the meal missed whatever course or courses had already been served. Dinner jackets were worn by the men as a matter of course, and we had to fight our way into boiled shirts even when the ship was sailing with a following wind through the Red Sea. The boat deck was out of bounds after dark and the different classes were rigorously segregated on their respective decks.

Apart from the new recruits who had no choice in the matter, those who had chosen to travel in this way were for the most part burrasahibs — soldiers who commanded regiments and battalions, civil servants who held senior posts in the secretariat, the occasional provincial governor, and, of course, their ladies, the burramems. There were also a few top business men who were there on sufferance and were referred to as boxwallahs, a somewhat derogatory term more properly applicable to itinerant tradesmen.

On board our ship there were two brothers, one an army colonel and the other the manager of a tea estate. The colonel's lady, jealous of her station, never, as far as I know, spoke to her less exalted sister-in-law. There was also some manoeuvering for position between the civilian members of the civil services and the soldiers. In India there was, and still may be, as far as I know, a document known as 'the table of precedence', an invaluable work of reference for rnemsahibs, decreeing who should sit next to whom at dinner parties.

Although the document equates both military and civilian ranks, it has never officially been decided whether the sun shines out of the military or civilian navel. As can be imagined it was a happy company who coldly eyed those chosen to sit at the captain's table.

There was a rather frightening woman at our table, who claimed to be descended from Henry VIII, and behaved as though she was. If she did not gnaw bones and throw them onto the floor, it was only because there were no dogs on board, and the ship's cats, being P & 0 cats, did not appear at meal times. She was however as domineering and grasping as the father of the first Elizabeth. At the beginning of dinner she would select the choicest fruits from the dish which adorned the centre of the table and place them firmly in front of her soup plate, to be eaten later, while we lesser mortals offered one another the left-overs. Also on board were a number of young ladies reputed to be just as acquisitive. These were the daughters of the burramems. There were no teenagers in those days. just'girls'and'gels', and if you weren't a young lady you were a young woman. The gels had for the most part just left school and were reputedly all looking for husbands, a notoriously easy task in India. They were known as the 'fishing fleet' and were cultivated or avoided, according to the disposition of the young gentlemen.

As few of us had been devoid of female company in the immediate past, they were mostly avoided. In any case, I managed to complete the voyage with a free heart, in spite of or, perhaps, because of, their mums.

The time at sea passed pleasantly if uneventfully. There was the usual ship's bore who insisted on over-organising deck sports, which would otherwise have been an enjoyable means of passing the time. There was the fancy dress ball, a slightly less restrained function than most, and a visit to a rather seamy-sided Marseilles. We were offered dirty postcards at Port Said, saw a mirage and some camels in the Canal zone and suffered from prickly heat in the Red Sea. We watched the dolphins and the flying fish, wondered how anyone could live from choice on that great slag heap known as Aden, and finally berthed in the docks at Bombay.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. On ship to Bombay, early 1940s

(source pages 4&5 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

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Flights & Airlines

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

FIRST FLIGHTS

Calcutta as an Air Centre — The conquest of the air has brought Calcutta doubled importance. Passengers, goods and merchandise, can now enter the city from the air in addition to sea and land. When aircraft became a commercial proposition, the importance of Calcutta was at once realised- A glance at the map will show that it is a stepping stone for air services to the Far East and Australasia.

Early aircraft and their intrepid pilots found the Maidan a ready made aerodrome. It was on the Maidan that ]ules Tyck and Baron de Caters gave the first demonstration of flying in Calcutta on the 24^th December 1912, just 31/2 years after the French airman Bleriot startled the world by flying across the English Channel and 3 years after Latham, another Frenchman, gave the first public demonstration of flying in his monoplane Antoinette" at Blackpool, England.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 8 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

DUM DUM AERODROME

When flying became a practical possibility and a commercial enterprise, the Dum Dum Aerodrome, about 7 miles from Calcutta, was constructed- With its huge hangars capable of housing the largest planes that fly over India, its extensive runways and its direction finding station, the Dum Dum Air Port today compares favourably with the best in the world.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 8 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

TRANS-CONTINENTAL AIRLINES

Calcutta is served by three trans-continental air-lines.

The Imperial Airways (England to Australia)

started their Air Service to Karachi in 1929 ; later in the same year the Service was extended to Delhi and in 1933 to Calcutta, In 1935 a twice weekly service was commenced, and now the service is five times a week; two by landplanes to Dum Dum Aerodrome and three by seaplanes to Willingdon Bridge Reach.

The Royal Dutch Mail K. L. M. ( Holland to Java )

started in 1930 as a fortnightly service. In 1931 it became a weekly service and in 1937 a thrice weekly service.

The Air France (France to French Indo-China)

have been running their weekly service since 1930.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 8 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

NEW WORLD STEPS FORTH

[…]

Yet shipping alone, even when it buttressed England's immense efforts, could scarcely guarantee victory. It took 850 ships, most of them British, to land the British First Army and the U.S. expeditionary force of more than 100,000 men in North Africa. Yet this—as compared with the conquest of Germany—can be looked on as a colonial campaign.

The direct transportation of aircraft to the fighting fronts has been America's part answer to the staggering logistic problem of global war. And, here, U.S. airlines (which in 1942 rang up 1.4 billion passenger-miles of flying in this country) pioneered the way for the U.S. Army. By year's end there were three huge transatlantic skyways, linking the New World with the Old; the northern route, sweeping from New York to Newfoundland, to Greenland, to Iceland and to England; the mid-Atlantic route over which Pan Am maintained its regular clipper service between Miami and Portugal; and the South Atlantic route connecting Natal, Brazil, with the West Coast of Africa and the West Coast with Khartoum and Cairo. Over this route during the summer of 1942 went critical planes and supplies to the British Eighth Army. Over it too went transports which flew on to India to bolster China National Aviation Corp. (part owned by China, and part by Pan Am) which connects Calcutta and Chungking. Crossing the Himalayas just south of the Tibetan plateau, working without beacons, without beams, usually with no more than a radio direction finder, C.N.A.C. pilots have done some of the most spectacular and useful transport flying of the

war.

[…]

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Dec. 28, 1942)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Pan Am at War

The amphibious character of Pan American Airways Corp. was well shown in its annual report last week. As a corporation, Pan Am earned $3,361,252, a new high; reported a net U.S. Government subsidy of $429,000, a new low. But the report also read like a military communique, for Pan Am is an instrument of U.S. policy and a weapon of global war. Though 38 Pan Am men are Jap prisoners, the news was mostly very good.Pan Am last year hacked out new U.S. airfields in the jungles of three continents. It created a 7,000-mile overseas airline to Africa, and then a 5,000-mile airline to the Middle East, over deserts where camels had to carry the gas. It pushed on to India, met itself coming west in China. It replaced miles of Axis airlines in Latin America, it trained 1,850 navigators at its Miami School for the U.S. Army and the R.A.F.; it ferried bombers and carried I secret military missions.

Pan Am facts and figures of 1941:

> Some 25,000 miles of new military routes were opened, bringing total Pan Am route miles up to 98,582.

> Air mail jumped from 75,000,000 ton-miles in 1940 to 110,000,000; passengers jumped from 285,095 to 375,732.

> China National Aviation Corp., 45% Pan Am-owned, still functions under Pan Am management. Its chief job: keeping Chungking in contact with Calcutta, over the world's toughest flying route.

> Latin American route mileage increased 15%, miles flown 34%. With shipping scarcer, Pan Am's 60 weekly flights south from the U.S. are more & more vital to hemisphere transport.

> Gross operating revenues reached a record $38,957,086. But U.S. revenue from stamp sales (plus Pan Am's return of certain of its collections from foreign governments for mail carried to U.S.) rose so high (to $12,322,000) that the subsidy cost to the U.S. sank to only about 1.1% of Pan Am's total revenue (see chart, p. 73).

In the tropical jungles of both hemispheres where Pan Am is pioneering, one American in three was recently down with malaria at one time. Pan Am had to bring in doctors, build sewers, set up purifiers, etc., in order to fly at all.

After the war, Pan Am will have another kind of battle on its hands. Many of its new routes tangle with British Overseas Airways' jealously guarded Empire routes. Cunard has announced that it may be forced to start air service after the war; so will many another U.S. and foreign company. But pioneering Pan Am is getting a long head start.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, May. 18, 1942)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

To the Orient

Pan American Airways, which for long was the only frog in the big Pacific puddle, may soon get fast-hopping company. Last week Civil Aeronautics Board examiners recommended that Northwest Airlines, Inc. should be given a transpacific route. The examiners, whose findings are usually followed by CAB, recommended that Northwest fly the adventurous Great Circle route from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Manila via Alaska, Paramushiro, Tokyo and Shanghai. As Northwest now flies from New York to Minneapolis (TIME, Jan. 1), it would thus have the first direct service from New York to the Orient.

But Pan Am got something too. The examiners recommended that Pan Am hold its prewar mid-Pacific service from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Hong Kong via Manila, expand to Tokyo, Bangkok, Batavia and Calcutta, where it would connect up with Pan Am's routes east from New York, thus nearly circle the globe. It would also keep its prewar route to New Zealand and add a route to Australia via Nouméa.

Flying Northwest's cold, snow and fog blanketed route to the Orient will be a new and daring experience for most civilian travelers, but old stuff to Northwest's frostbitten pilots. For Army's Air Transport Command Northwest's pilots have piled up more than 17 million miles of flying north of the U.S. border. Thanks to improved de-icing equipment, they have been able to fly 95% of all ATC's tough north Pacific schedules on time.

Along the Northwest Passage to the Orient, Northwest will have two advantages over its mid-Pacific rival: 1) most of the flying will be overland, where emergency bases can be built; 2) the route will be shorter. New York will be 9,537 air miles from Manila via Northwest's route, v. 10,588 miles via San Francisco and Honolulu.

But the examiners recommended for Pan Am the plushiest passenger runs from the mainland to Honolulu. And in the South Pacific Pan Am will have the air lanes to itself until the anxious British, now flying a military route from San Diego to Australia, put in a commercial service.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Sep. 10, 1945)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Round-the-World Express

The last big chunk of the world's unchartered airways—the trans-Pacific routes to the Orient—was finally portioned out last week by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Promptly approved by President Truman, the board's decision will permit air travelers for the first time to go around the world on one ticket.

On the beam of its antimonopolistic course in the North Atlantic, CAB turned down Pan American World Airways' bid to keep the whole Pacific to itself, followed the detailed advice of its examiners (TIME, Sept. 10) to split it up with Northwest Airlines, Inc. Biggest pieces:

Northwest will fly the great circle route from New York, Chicago and Seattle via Alaska to Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila and points in eastern China, and in Manchuria, Russia volente.

Pan Am will extend its present mid-Pacific routes: 1) from Manila to Saïgon, Singapore and Batavia; 2) from Midway to Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong; and 3) from Hong Kong via Saïgon, Bangkok and Rangoon to Calcutta, where it will connect with its North Atlantic route.

Pan Am, still lord of the South Pacific, will thus become the first airline to offer express service from the U.S. around the world* (probable price, around $2,000; time, four days or less). But even then it will have nothing exclusive. Reason: CAB also extended the North Atlantic route of Trans World Airline from Bombay to Shanghai. There T.W.A. will team up with Northwest to offer a joint one-ticket globe-girdling trip that is 2,000 miles shorter and more complete than Pan Am's. (Hustling to get the jump on their new rival, Northwest and T.W.A. announced that they plan to inaugurate the service within three months.)

For Pan Am, CAB included some kind words which said that passengers' fear of the cold, ice and snow of the north Pacific route and the lure of Hawaii as a way-point in the mid-Pacific route may well give Pan Am the advantage. What it mentioned scarcely at all is that the Northwest Passage will cut the flying distance from New York to the Orient by 1,000 miles. Northwest also will do most of its flying overland, where reassuring emergency bases can be built.

Considering Pan Am's big edge in established Pacific facilities, the competitive race of U.S. airlines around the world would be a close one, with no handicaps.

* The circuit will be incomplete because Pan Am has no trans-U.S. charter.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Aug. 12, 1946)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Rough Air

T.W.A. had stretched its resources thin expanding into the glamorous field of overseas air transportation. But it would have skinned by without much trouble if the 25-day pilots' strike had not knocked it flat. By last week, T.W.A.'s financial position was worrisome enough to fill the air with more rumors than Constellations.

There was no truth, said both sides, to gossip that T.W.A. was going to sell out to Pan American Airways. But it was true that T.W.A. was sounding out the RFC and private banks for a whopping loan.

The reasons why T.W.A. needed the cash were dismally plain. In the third quarter, T.W.A. reported last week, it had lost $3,235,491, bringing the net loss for the first nine months to $4,846,450. The third quarter losses, said President Jack Frye, were caused by CAA's grounding of Constellations. And the pilots' strike was likely to make the fourth quarter the worst of the year.

Disappearing Dreams. Outsiders thought that some of T.W.A.'s troubles were also due to T.W.A.'s overambitious expansion plans. T.W.A. had increased its payroll to service many foreign routes before T.W.A. had the planes to fly them. Now, the strike had caused the line to cancel orders for 25 new planes and it was shrinking its payrolls even faster than it had expanded; it planned to lay off 3,400 of its 16,000 employes by year's end. Like other transatlantic lines, it was also flying half-empty planes from the U.S. to Europe. Reason: travelers were being scared out of going for fear they could not get back on the overcrowded return runs.

By March, T.W.A. hopes that the backlog of returning travelers will be gone, that balanced travel will put their Atlantic operations into the black. Meanwhile T.W.A. still plans to follow out its globe-girdling plans, hopes to start flying to Bombay in a month, to Ceylon, Calcutta and Shanghai shortly after.

Grey Dawn. To do this, optimistic Jack Frye knew that T.W.A. needed more money—and plenty of it. T.W.A. might get a loan from RFC or private banks although it already owes the Equitable Life Assurance Society $40 million. Jack Frye also plans to ask his stockholders to authorize issuance of another 2,000,000 shares of stock (985,929 shares now outstanding).

If he sold them all at the present price of T.W.A. stock, an unlikely prospect, he could raise around $40,000,000. One T.W.A. stockholder estimated T.W.A. would need as much as $100,000,000. And with T.W.A. stock down to $21 a share from its high of $71 in January, the market for new issues looked none too good.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Dec. 9, 1946)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Double-Barreled Feat

Milton Reynolds is a shrewd salesman who will go to any lengths to publicize his ball-point pens. Last week, he went about as far as he could go—around the world, faster than anyone had ever gone before. As an advertising and promotional stunt, Milt Reynolds' record-breaking flight was well worth the $175,000 it cost. As a flying feat of luck and endurance, it was even more notable.

Last month, Reynolds decided to break Howard Hughes's round-the-world record of 91 hours, 14 minutes. He bought an A26 Douglas attack bomber, removed some 8,000 Ibs. of armor plate, crammed the plane full of gas tanks. He hired William P. Odom, a wartime transatlantic ferry pilot and China "Hump" flyer, to fly trie plane, and T. Carroll Sallee as engineer. Reynolds himself, who holds a private pilot's license, was "navigator," a euphemistic way of spelling passenger.

Working far better than Reynolds' pens, the Reynolds Bombshell took off from LaGuardia Field, stopped at Gander, then crossed the Atlantic in the record time of 5 hours and 16 minutes. It landed in Paris, roared on to Cairo and Karachi, with Reynolds passing out pens at all stops. The weather information was sketchy; at Calcutta the best an airport employee could tell them about prevailing winds came from an almanac.

At Tokyo, Reynolds grandiloquently announced that he was taking over the controls. But when the plane came into LaGuardia Field, Pilot Odom, red-eyed and dog-tired, was still in the pilot's seat. He had flown round the world in 78 hours and 55 minutes. More remarkable, the plane was forced to fly 20,000 miles, some 5,000 miles more than Hughes, because Reynolds had not been able to get permission to fly over Russia.

As they wearily climbed out of the plane, Pilot Odom said: "I'm going to sleep." Said Sallee: "I'm going to eat, sleep and get married." (He did.) Two days later, ads in Manhattan papers cried the real news: "Just arrived! 'Reynolds Bombshell' ball-point pens."

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Apr. 28, 1947)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

Calcutta was full of soldiers

Calcutta was full of soldiers and army trucks went up and down all day long.

Dum Dum airport in 1942-46 was one of the busiest airports in the world.

Katyun Randhawa, a young Indian (Parsi) girl, Calcutta, 1942-3

(source: A5756150 The bombing of Calcutta by the Japanese Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Landing at Calcutta

Eventually we were loaded onto a plane — the first time I had flown — to Calcutta. We were there for a couple of days then loaded onto another Dakota.

I remember landing very well but there was the most appalling noise that I had never heard before.

It was too dark to see where we were. As it got light, we realised we were in the jungle and had landed on steel strips — hence the noise.

Victor Blease, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5007296 The War from Beginning to End at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Flying Home

Red-letter day

Sunday, 6 December: A red-letter day — the news of my long-awaited release has come through. There has been bags of joy in the place today, matron being just as thrilled as I am.

Needless to say, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going, but I’ve spent most of the day wangling a passage, and, thanks to General Stuart, I leave for Karachi and Blighty, by air, tomorrow!

This really has been the most hectic 24 hours of my life.

Last-minute everything

Monday, 7 December: Today has been a mad rush of last-minute shopping, packing, reporting to collect my ticket and being weighed-in by BOAC.

I spent my last evening with as many friends as I could gather together at the Saturday Club, where we dined and danced. As the plane takes off at the crack of dawn, it was not worth going to bed, and so a party was held at the airport sick quarters.

Flying over India

Tuesday, 8 December: At dawn this am, our Sunderland took off from the Hooghly. I must admit that I was too excited (and tired after an all-night party!) to feel sorry at leaving Calcutta. It was a grand experience crossing India by air, especially with the awful memory of that train journey across it.

We landed on a most beautiful lake half-way across for refuelling. It seemed more like an Italian lake than part of India. We had lunch at the BOAC hotel on the shore. Later, shortly after tea-time, we glided down at Karachi, my first thought being how much more pleasant is the climate than Calcutta’s.

Karachi itself is a grand city. It seems so clean. We are installed in a very nice hotel but horrified to find that we may be here for a week before we get a plane to the UK — such an anti-climax for my elated spirits.

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calutta to Karachi, early December 1945

(source: A1940870 Life in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), 1945at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

A Flight to India

The multitude of flies was our greatest curse: the bare torsos of riggers and fitters servicing aircraft were as covered with them as if they wore bodices of jet black sequins. Fly-whisks only seemed to allure the pests, which appeared in swarms from nowhere after sunrise. Gloucester Gladiators were sitting on the runways of Almaza: these biplane fighters were highly manoeuvrable, but they were becoming obsolete on account of their lack of speed. When I was resigned to becoming obsolete for the same reason, a postagram informed me that I was to proceed to India. At last China was in sight.

Having risen from my tent at four in the morning after a sleepless night, I took off at 7.45 as one of twenty-eight passengers on a Sunderland flying boat. It was April 29, 1942, over three months since I had left England, and this was the most beautiful part of the journey, refreshed by orange juice near Jerusalem and a good night's rest at Habbanya, thence via Basra and Bahrein to Karachi. We left the Sunderland at Gwalior, where our most distinguished passenger, the Maharajah of Dewas, was loaded with necklaces of flowers and escorted to the massive castle which dominated the dried-up plain — a great cliff of yellow sandstone crowned with ornate battlements. A few bullocks, all skin and bone, were tottering about the parched landscape and I wondered where the Maharajah's flowers had come from. When the Venetian traveller Manucci was here in the seventeenth century crystal springs irrigated gardens of cypress and jasmine like the Alcazar of Seville, but of these I could see no vestige. In clotted heat I caught a train to New Delhi.

Harold Acton, RAF officer. Calcutta, 1942

(source: page 108-9 Harold Acton: More memoirs of an Aesthete. London Methuen, 1970)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Harold Acton)

Flying in form China

It was late afternoon before we started, so we had to go over the enemy lines after dark. We flew very low. At times we could make out the shapes of the hills towering above us, and it seems as if the planes's wing tips must surely be able to scrape the rocks. At times, in air pockets, we seemed to drop very sharply. At one point it was evident that we were in trouble. We were instructed to make the emergency procedure of fastening our seat-belts, with the plane behaving as though we were in distress. As I huged our wee Monica I whispered to Andrew "Safe in the arms of Jesus"

In spite of yhis the plane carried on and over Yunnan and Burma. Planes in the 1940s were not at all like they are today, and many of the misionaries from the China Inland Fellowship were killed when the plane they were travelling in went down. While we were waiting in Kumming, three of our missionaries were being evacuated ahead of the Japanese advance. The plan crashed and they all were killed. Andrew attended the funeral while I looked after the children.

We were pleased and relieved to land at Assam, and after a short stop were thankful for a smooth flight to Calcutta, with the dangers of the flight'over the hump' behind us. We had no friends in Calcutta, but a kind and thoughtful missionary had had it laid on his heart to wait all night at the airport, as he knew that all missionaries had by now been advised to leave China as swiftly as they possibly could. So, in case any assistace was needed, he was waiting there, and he was there for us. How glad we were to see him. Bundled into a lorry, we drove the eleven miles to the city. Our kind friend took us to a school where, after making some porridge on my little primus stove for the children, we went to sleep on the floor.

In the morning we wondered what we could do, and Andrew had the idea of visiting the Church of Scotland Mission. This was indeed an answer to prayer. The missionary there was Miss Robbie, a teacher from Edinburgh, and I had trained at the Royal Infirmary with her sister, Nan. She told us at once that we could stay there for as long as we needed to. We had been advised by a message from the Consul not to go to Bombay for the passage home until we had word that a boat was arriving. I had had no other news from home, and the last letter I had received was about four years previously. I did have a snall parcel from Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh about four years before...but it had taken one year to arrive!

Mary Kennedy(nee Weightman), wife of a missionary China Inland Fellowship, China to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source: A7091273 Escape from Chine (Part 3) Over Enemy Lines. at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

To Calcutta through the storm

We didn’t have to report in at Mhow for another 2 weeks anyway. However, within a couple of hours or so upon arrival in Rangoon we were once again airborne in a Dakota, bound for Calcutta. These planes had not been used for dropping supplies, therefore no seats! Halfway up the coast of Burma we ran into a storm, lightning flashing all around, buffeting around, dropping like a stone and then flying at tree top height. Indian soldiers on the plane were on there knees, praying as hard as they could. After landing at Calcutta, we were informed that a Dakota which had taken off just before us, had crashed in the jungle!

So, that very same day, from being south of Kalaw at 8.00, found us at Calcutta airport not really knowing what to do next, certainly not getting to Mhow before we were supposed! We stayed a few nights at the Salvation Army hostel and spent the days looking around Calcutta. Soon tiring of the masses, the beggars, the sick and the dying and the young, I decided we would take a circular tour of northern India by train.

Ronald Hodgson, Army, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5961170 The Black Cats: Part 3 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

in those days it took four nights to fly from Swanage to Calcutta

Then I was posted to the Far East. Again why an insignificant Lieutenant ut in fact I went out on a Royal Imperial flying boat. They needed me quickly is the answer! I spent quite an enjoyable flight - in those days it took four nights to fly from Swanage to Calcutta. The first night was in Sicily, the second night in Cairo, the third night in Habbinaya in Iraq, the fourth night in Karachi and then we landed in Calcutta on the afternoon of the fifth day. One only flew during the day, you didn’t fly at night. We stayed in hotels, except in Habbinaya where you were in the RAF base. I remember staying in the Shepherd’s Hotel in Cairo. I arrived in Calcutta, this would have been about January 1945.

Dafydd Archard Vaughan Williams, Specialist Wireless Operator, Swanage to Calcutta, January 1945

(source: A7889700 Part Two - Under cover in WW2 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

"pack your kit you're off tomorrow"

Then it all started again "pack your kit you're off tomorrow." Where ? I never knew, Kandy, Trincullee, wherever the Mosquitoes went, I went, flying once (in a two seater aircraft) with four blokes packed in, with me sat on top of the radio, the rest in the bomb bay, anywhere ! I stayed ‘attached’ to the Fleet Air Arm and then was flown back to Alipore. But no rest for me. I was given a train ticket and a week’s American K rations with free cigs (though I never smoked), unarmed and flying with unarmed aircraft. I stopped sometimes long enough to get boiling water for the soup and to brew the K ration tea. Finally at the end of the West Coast Indian Railway it was off on a ferry crossing to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). A few days then at Trincullee and the Royal Navy (I got rum ration there too).

Philip Miles, RAF photo reconnaissance unit, Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: A4144664 What did you do in the RAF, Dad? (Part 2) at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Leaving for the Cocos Islands

But soon the Mosquitoes were off again to the transit camp in Columbo where I turned up with my orders and my credentials. As usual they knew nothing about me, who I was or what I was supposed to be doing there. So I spent a nice time on the beach and in the town and no-one asked why. They just gave me a bed and plenty to eat and that was about it, the lone ranger again. After a week or two the transit camp sent a truck and told me there get all your kit ready you're posted to the Cocos Islands to replace a bloke who crash landed there. He was the only one of the crew that survived. When you get there he can go home. "Good,” I said, "never heard of the place, how do I get there." "Now there's the snag," he said, "a boat calls there with supplies once a month, so you're stuck unless something else turns up." Another week and something did turn up, an RAF Liberator Bomber was flying out to Australia and is refueling on the Cocos Islands. If I could get my travel pass signed by a ranking officer I could get on it. I would be able to nip off whilst the Lib refueled. Well I had my pass and I only need it signing.

I knew the HQ of South East Asia was at Columbo, there must be some high ranking officers there. So I presented myself in my still CPL Miles uniform and passed the armed guards who saluted and let me through. I went up to the desk and the bloke at the window pushed a list of officers through to me and said who do you want to see. I did a quick scan and picked a Wing Commander (I've since forgotten his name) I have to see him I said. “Yes sir. On the 3rd floor just ask up there.” So I did (good job I wasn't a spy). On the 3rd floor I met an Indian army girl, a WACC. She had a tray with cups, plates, sugar and biscuits she looked at my pass to see the Wing Commander and said, "Oh I'll save you the trip, wait here I’m just about to take him his tea. A few minutes after that she returned with a signed pass. And off I went as fast as I could, to get out of the building before anyone asked me any questions.

I turned up with my pass at the Transit camp, "Right come back on Wednesday and we'll take you to your plane, bring all your kit and don’t say where you are going." (I didn't know anyway so I couldn't tell anyone). Calcutta International Airport was (and still is) in Dum Dum; just outside the city. There was my plane parked in the lay by and I was told to go aboard and wait. When I climbed on board surprise, surprise, this was no ordinary bomber it was fitted out like a transatlantic airliner ! Complete with radio, books and magazines and a stewardess who showed me to my seat. I was all alone, no passengers just me. Then things happened , a couple of posh cars rolled up with flags on the front and out came 6 officers who were shown to their seats by the stewardess (but not next to me). And within a few minutes we were up the main runway and we were off.

Philip Miles, RAF photo reconnaissance unit, Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: A4144664 What did you do in the RAF, Dad? (Part 2) at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Getting away from Dum Dum

I was then posted back to Calcutta, and I had a nursing sister on the ward who was very ill with an amoebic infection. The treatment involved a tablet with a heavy metal salt and I had an inborn reluctance to give metallic salts. I thought, "She's not getting better, I think the tablets are making her worse, I'm not giving her any more." When the consultant came round, he said, "Continue her tablets." I said, "I'm not giving her any more, if you want her to have them, write them up yourself." He didn't write them up, but apparently, they had a little meeting and they decided to send her home and let her die at home. To get me out of the way for a bit, I was to accompany her to Bombay where arrangements had been made for her to sail back to the U.K. This suited me and we went to Dum Dum airport, spent the night there and were ready to fly the next morning. The pilot sent me a message, "We cannot take off, we're in the middle of a dust storm." So we spent the day at Dum Dum, went to bed and got up next morning. Things were all right and off we went.

We'd been flying some time (the plane was a Dakota). I looked through the porthole and noticed something like lightning on wings. I'm probably quite wrong, but I thought you couldn't be struck by lightning if you weren't touching the ground, so I didn't worry. Then the pilot sent me a message, "We have run into an electric storm. I'm going back." I said, "Don't go back, we'll miss the boat." But he'd turned round and we were back at Dum Dum. On the third day we rose again, we flew to Bombay but the boat had left. I had to leave the sister at the military hospital there.

Dr. Ivy Oates, doctor, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A3890225 A Woman Doctor (Part Three) Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

a lucky few - me amongst them - were to fly

The wheels were set in motion immediately and within days the first batch of men was en route for England. Most of them sailed home, but a lucky few - me amongst them - were to fly-1 had served for three years and nine months in India and Burma. With me were three other officers, and a few NCOs and troopers. The monsoon was ending, and it was a very hot and humid day as we boarded the plane at Dum Dum Airport in Calcutta - and discovered that, though privileged to be the first away, it was not to be a luxurious journey home.

The aircraft, a Lancaster bomber, had been converted to a troop-carrier by the simple expedient of placing benches around the equipment wherever possible. It was by no means a professional job, and had been carried out in great haste. The seats were narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate the buttocks, and the bare wood made it even more uncomfortable. We were crowded in together like the proverbial sardines in a can. Once we reached the higher altitudes, it would be bitterly cold - 'Cold enough,' as Smudger would have said, 'to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.' And I thought the area where I was seated - the bomb bays - was infinitely more suitable for its original intended purpose of bomb storage. There were about a hundred of us crammed into that dark, confined space; at times it was almost impossible to be seated, and if you stood, then your head was in constant conflict with the roof If you manoeuvred carefully, it was just possible to peer out of a port-hole – although vision was limited, you could just about get a glimpse of the outside world.

But Gallows, who was also on board, had the right attitude: he said monkey's shit as long as he got back home to the Sheilas, and the booze, and his Granny's farm on the eastern cliffs of Scotland. He wasn't sure if he wanted them in that order, but was quite prepared to take things as they came - as long as he got them all.

The first leg of the Journey, about a thousand miles, was to Karachi for refuelling, then on to Lydda in Palestine, where we had a three-day break.

William Pennington, Captain 134 Field Regiment Royal Artillery, Calcutta, Summer 1945

(source: page 383-384 of William Pennington: Pick up you Parrots and Monkeys and fall in facing the boat. The life of a boy soldier in India. London: Cassell, 2003)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with William Pennington)

“ Len said they were making history”

Selected along with 81 Squadron to collect Spitfire MkV111’s from Cairo West airport, Len’s third c/o S/Ldr. Bruce Ingram DFC led them in thirteen hops to India and across that continent to Baigachi near Calcutta. “ Len said they were making history”

Leonard Alfred Smith, Royal Air Force, Cairo to Calcutta, 1943

(source: A1087779 Smithy 152 Sqdn. at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Chittagong to Calcutta in 45 minutes

I was in Chittagong in Bengal (now Bangladesh) and needed to get to Calcutta to collect props and perform a dance routine for an entertainment for the troops. Travel was normally by Dakota aircraft but I was offered a ride by an American pilot in his single-seater fighter plane. The flight took 45 minutes and was very uncomfortable as the canopy had to be open the whole time. I was able to fix my face before landing! Both I and the pilot would have been in deep water if anyone had found out about it — he took off immediately after I got out.

Olwen E Kramer (nee' 'Bobbie' Roberts), Red Cross V.A.D., Chittagong to Calcutta, 1944

(source: A2829864 A VAD in SouthEast Asia at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Collecting a Very Important Person

The Squadron was normally engaged on clandestine operations over Burma, Siam, Indo-China and Northern Malaya. This entailed night flying, during the moonlight period of each month, descending to 700 feet - usually into steep valleys - to drop agents and supplies behind the Japanese lines.

On the 14th of February 1945 pilot Wally Kindred and I were summoned to the Flight Office. We were briefed to fly down to Akyab - which had just been liberated - on the Burma coast to collect a Very Important Person.

We were airborne by 9 am and two hours or so later landed in Akyab, which only had a short pierced steel plating runway, and was the base for a Spitfire Squadron.

Wally landed the Dakota quite easily and taxied towards a group of Burmese, one of them being a very attractive young lady. Our dispatcher, Johnny Green - who was really a Liberator ball turret gunner - left the aircraft and, to our surprise, returned with this huge crowd of people. In total there were 41 bodies, plus a load of luggage, a goat and some chickens!

Somehow, Johnny and our wireless operator "Butch" Dalglish packed them on board, including the livestock, with perhaps 20 sitting on the long seats and the rest squatting on the floor. There was, of course, plenty of room on top!

We managed to get into the air and made an uneventful landing at Calcutta some two hours later, where our passengers disembarked.

Certainly, the attractive lady was someone of importance. It was rumoured she was a princess who had been a prisoner of the Japs since 1942.

Some years later a friend of Johnny's who had been a Spitfire pilot - and whose Squadron had landed at Akyab that same morning - told him he was surprised we had made such a successful landing on this short metal strip, and was even more surprised that had managed to get off with such a load.

Ken Williams, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, Febrary1945

(source: A4921643 Winged Chariots -Part 13: The Burmese Beauty at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

To Calcutta by Flying Boat

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My Mother and I had passages booked on a Bibby line ship due to sail for Rangoon at the end of September 1939 i.e. after the summer holidays and my brother John had returned to Malvern College. Needless to say the outbreak of war with Germany on 3rd. September knocked these plans on the head. Most of the Bibby Lines ships were requisitioned immediately for wartime duties e.g. trooping and hospital ships. Our passages were cancelled and we were eventually offered passages on one of the two remaining Bibby ships, namely M.V. Oxfordshire due to sail late in 1939, but she was sunk in the Mediterranean on her way home to the UK (during the first few weeks of the war shipping losses were announced in the news broadcasts, but that was soon stopped)

We also had another problem in that Malvern College buildings were requisitioned and the College had to move lock stock and barrel to Blenheim Palace! A lot of emergency work had to be carried out there to make it habitable for two hundred plus boys therefore their return to school was delayed until well into October.

No progress was made on the passage front until, in desperation, Thos. Cook asked if Mother and I would be prepared to fly out to Rangoon as a sea passage was virtually out of the question. We agreed what we would have to do this but the first passage we were offered was for February 1940. However this did mean that Mum, John and I were able to spend Christmas together. John came home from school with Chicken pox which he managed to pass on to me, so it was not the jolliest of times!

Now for the journey itself…..

February 11th 1940

My mother and I left the small hotel in Worthing where we had been staying since before Christmas to travel to Poole Harbour for an over night stay at The Haven Hotel preparatory to leaving next day by Imperial Airways Flying boat for the journey to Rangoon, Burma, which was to take at least four days.

The winter of 1939/40 had been very, very cold, so cold indeed that for some days the Flying Boats scheduled to leave both for Australia (our route) and South Africa had been frozen in the harbour.

One of the least pleasant preliminaries for our flight was that we all had to be weighed and as a rather self-conscious seventeen year old, this filled me with dread! However the very nice man doing the job said, “We have had people who have topped the scale” followed by, “It is all in kilos so no one knows what that means!” That comforted me!

{NB: In those days not much was measured in the metric scale}

February 12th 1940

We were up quite early and after breakfast waited around in the lounge ready for the summons to join the launch to go out to the Flying Boat (there was a jetty right outside the hotel which was used for this purpose)

However, I think it was about mid-morning, we were told that due to bad weather conditions our departure was postponed until the next day! So Mum and I took a bus into Bournemouth after lunch to have a look round and have tea in one of the big department stores (either Bobby’s or Beales, I cannot remember which) then it was back to Poole for another comfortable night in the luxurious hotel,

February 13th 1940.

We learned at breakfast or soon afterwards that we were to be away that morning. Off we set in the launch to board the aircraft. Mum and I were really very nervous as neither of us had been near an aircraft before let alone flown in one.

As far as I can remember there were only about seventeen passengers as, the Captain told us later, the plane was carrying a heavy load of Mail. Amongst the passengers was a young Maharajah, his mother, his Political Officer and his wife (Col. And Mrs. Affleck I think) and a young RAF Officer, a test pilot flying to Karachi (more of him later). Mrs. Affleck could see that Mummy and I were somewhat apprehensive and very kindly came to talk to us and reassure us that all would be well.

With a great roar the engines started up and we were off at great speed across the water and eventually a smooth take off into the air, I loved it!! Incidentally the plane was named, ”Co-ee” all the planes on the Australian route had Aboriginal names as far as I know.

The windows of the plane were ‘whited out’ until we were well clear of any Naval or Military installations, rather excessive security we thought! We flew down the Channel and across the Channel Islands and Brittany a more westerly course than usual, I think because it was wartime.

The weather became very rough, the plane rising and falling with monotonous regularity, a horrible sensation and it was not long before Mum (amongst others) began to feel ill and were ill! I felt pretty grim too. We eventually landed at Biscarosse south of Bordeaux on the lake there for refuelling. We were usually taken off the plane for this purpose but I cannot recall it happening here. Off again and none of us too happy except for our test pilot who kept walking past us saying “How are the world’s best air travellers?” He knew it was our first ever flight and we looked at him with loathing!! The route took us past Toulouse and on to the lake at Marisnane outside Marseilles.

It was getting dark when we came into land, the wind was blowing hard and the waves on the lake were quite high. We hit the water and it seemed to rush past the windows for ages before we came to a halt, it took a half to three quarters of an hour to moor the plane on to the buoy, Normally a matter of minutes and we tossed about all this time and I was eventually sea-sick!

At last the order came to disembark we went to the exit to find the launch bobbing up and down like a cork. Imperial Airways staff just shouted, “When we say jump, JUMP!” and this we bravely did. It was freezing cold, borne out by the icicles hanging from the Jetty when we went ashore and into the customs shed, a sorry looking lot we were.

We saw the Captain there (name Harrington) looking rather white and drawn and he told us later that he had only had one other landing as bad as that in the whole of his experience! So how was that for first time air travellers?

Eventually we set off by bus for the Hotel Splendide in Marseilles and were we glad to get there! We recovered in an hour or so and managed to eat some dinner before retiring to our room for an early night. I found the linen sheets rather scratchy but did sleep reasonably well!

FEBRUARY 14th 1940

After breakfast we left by bus for Marisnane to continue our journey, Mum and I felt that we would gladly not board the plane again, if there had been any other option open to us! We all sat around in a rather ordinary café for a bit and then were told that there was a problem with the re-fuelling launch and we would not be leaving until after lunch, our destination an over night stop in Rome.

We ate sparingly of lunch and eventually went out to the launch and then on to the plane, it was still freezing cold

It started to snow and we all realised that the heating system in the plane was not working. All the metal fittings inside the plane became frosted and the glass of water I had on my table turned to ice! The planes carried fur lined foot muffs and blankets for this eventuality and we all sat shrouded in blankets endeavouring to keep warm. Also these aircraft, being very wide-bodied, allowed one to get up and walk about and there was a rail down one side where you could lean and look out of the windows. You were able to see quite a lot. These aircraft were not pressurised and therefore could not fly very high.

We were much relieved to land at Lake Bracciano some miles outside Rome. Mum by this time was pretty exhausted and our RAF friend kindly bought her a whisky to put in her tea we were all served before leaving for Rome. Whisky was a most expensive item in Mussolini’s Italy at this time, so it was very generous and kind of the young man.

Rome looked lovely with all the lights on in the city, of course this was before Italy came into the war, and we had come from blacked out Britain. We were accommodated in a very grand hotel and after a short rest and a change of clothes we went down to dinner.

I forgot to mention that when we left Poole another flight took off bound for Durban and we met up with the passengers from that plane in the evenings. Amongst them were a niece with her uncle and aunt. She was a little older than me. After the meal they invited me to join them on a tour of the sights of Rome, Mum was too tired to come, So off we went and visited the Coliseum the Forum, St. Peter’s and the Victor Emmanuel Memorial all were splendidly floodlit.

We got back to the Hotel to find a very anxious Mum, after we had left she realised she didn’t really know these people very well and wondered if she would see me again!!

FEBRUARY 15th 1940

After breakfast we went back to Lake Bracciano and after some delay we went on to the plane for a short flight to Brindisi for re-fuelling. There was some technical problem here I seem to remember, and we eventually set off again but only made it as far as Corfu where we were destined to stay the night. This was another unscheduled stop over as was Rome!

Again it was dark and we were taken by bus to a small hotel in a hilly and wooded area and when we were shown to our room it had a glorious log fire burning in the grate, it was so welcoming, we were delighted. It was a very small hotel and as far as I recall there were no other guests apart from the air travellers.

Anyway, after a wash and change Mum and I went down to join the others in the bar for a drink before dinner. Mum wished to reciprocate the kindness of our RAF friend on our arrival in Rome the evening before, so we asked him what he would like and he said when he was in a foreign country he liked to taste the local beverages and as we were in Greece he would have an Ouzo. This was duly ordered and Mum wondered whether it would be very expensive but it turned out to be the equivalent of two pence (old currency of course) so she said he could have as many as he liked, which I think he did!!

FEBRUARY 16th 1940

We left Corfu during the morning en route to Alexandria, which in normal peace time conditions would have been the first over-night stop. Our RAF friend definitely the worse for wear and rather sorry for himself, so we had our revenge for his taunts on the first day of our journey! I think we came down once for re-fuelling at Heraklion, Cyprus, before landing at Alexandria. We stayed in a rather grand hotel with splendidly attired Egyptian staff everywhere. Apart from going down to dinner and having a good night’s sleep I don’t remember much else about it. We arrived and left in the dark so we did not see much of the city.

FEBRUARY 17th 1940

This proved to be a rather interesting day as the first re-fuelling stop after leaving Alexandria was at the Sea of Galilee. We were taken off the plane and went ashore for a brief walk-about and a luscious glass of Jaffa orange juice then back to the plane again and another re-fuelling stop at Lake Habbaniyah (not too far from Baghdad) It was a complete desert landscape here and when we went ashore the ground was covered with small pieces of a cheap material which, we were told, was Mica used at that time in the manufacture of gramophone records I believe.

Up and away again for our overnight stop at Basra. It was beginning to feel much warmer than when we left England.

FEBRUARY 18th 1940

Up very early and took off at 4 a.m. First stop was Bahrain where we took on some more passengers and of course more fuel!

We then flew across the Arabian Sea en route to Karachi. I was standing at the rail looking out at the dun coloured coastline of Baluchistan, and following the rather nice little route map which had been issued with our travel documents, when Captain Harrington came through for a chat with the passengers saw me and said “Well Jose where do you think we are?” I pointed to a spot and said “There“ and he said, “You are not far out” and we both laughed.

We duly arrived at Karachi in the early evening and stayed at a hotel (The Carlton) which certainly had memories for Mum. (She had married Dad in Karachi on 7th November 1921 having travelled to India all by herself, she was married straight off the ship and knew no one at her wedding except Dad and she hadn’t seen him for over a year!!) Some friends from their early days in North West India (now Pakistan) happened to be stationed in Karachi so Mum gave them a ring and they came round and took us out for a look around.

It was in this hotel that I shouted in alarm when I pulled the plug out after a bath and the water swirled around the tiled area. I thought I had flooded the place but there was in fact a plinth to stop the water going all over the floor and it eventually ran out through a hole in the wall and down a pipe, I assume! This was a common system of drainage in the old fashioned parts of India, dating from the even older tin tub days, I was also to experience this again in one or two remote spots in Burma.

FEBRUARY 19th 1940.

We left fairly early this morning, in a different plane named “Coorong” This was to be the last full day of flying, there were at least two re-fuelling stops, one on Lake Udaipur where we were taken for a trip in the launch whilst the re-fuelling was done. In the middle of the lake was a vast palace belonging to a Maharajah it was indeed a spectacular sight. My recollection about the second stop is rather hazy but looking at the distances and likely areas of water it could have been Lake Waidham.

Jose Johnson ,schoolboy England to Calcutta, 1940

(source: A3335816 My Journey to Burma 1940 by Flying Boat at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Aviation fuel from the plane was everywhere

The Army was anticipating the next big move and planning for the assault and capture of Malaya was the big subject. Troops in England who had celebrated V.E. day were apparently dreading the prospect of joining us in the East, which we found rather pleasing.

Unfortunately my luck in avoiding health problems ran out, as I become involved with a rabid Burmese Village dog. My orderly and another soldier killed the dog and unfortunately I was near enough to possibly become infected.

The two riflemen, one of whom was bitten, were given injections of 10cc for 14 days in the stomach. My dose was half this, 5cc for 7 days, also in the stomach. We were so lean and fit that the injection raised a wheal under the skin and took a long time to disappear.

As I was rather unwell from all this, the doctor decided that leave in India would be a good idea so I duly boarded a Dakota with my orderly. The seating in this kind of plane was along the sides looking inwards. On the floor of the cabin, windlassed to the deck was a medium gun barrel. It was being returned to ordnance to be examined and was, we were assured, perfectly safe.

It was quite interesting to fly over the jungle through which we had so laboriously travelled all these months. We flew to an air strip at Dum-Dum, a famous name, where in the Indian Mutiny, the mutineers manufactured Dum-Dum bullets, which every soldier knows were pretty awful things.

When we landed, we burst a tyre and finished up in a drainage ditch at a nasty angle. The gun barrel broke loose from its lashings and again my luck held. It injured the legs of the people sitting opposite.

There was a hectic scramble to get the wounded off the plane and it was some time before someone realised that quite a lot of people were smoking and aviation fuel from the plane was everywhere.

Arthur Gilbert, Army, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5011336 Going to War on the Tube - Chapter 6 Mandalay to Rangoon at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

A day out at the front

[Pilot Officer Thirlwell was a photo-reconnaissance Hurricane pilot, who arrived at Magwe just after the last of his squadron's aircraft crashed. As he had no job, he was sent] to Lashio to investigate the possibility of flying out the squadron personnel by China Airways to India. I went to the orderly room Flight Sergeant for transport, and he said 'you can have this Wolseley Fourteen, but I want something in return'. So I swapped a typewriter I found in the house in which I was billeted for this car, and drove to Lashio. Having confirmed the availability of China Airways, I was flown to Calcutta, only to be sent back to Burma, where I spent most of my time rescuing the special cameras from crashed photo-recce aircraft. After getting out of Burma for a second time, I had an extraordinary period based at the Great Eastern in Calcutta, the most expensive hotel in town. I would get into my Hurricane at Dum-Dum, fly to Chittagong where I refuelled from petrol drums using a hand pump. Having spent the night with the British Consul, I would fly to photograph Rangoon, before returning for more fuel at Chittagong, and on to Dum-Dum to get the film processed as quickly as possible. After a shower in the Great Eastern I would sit down to dinner being served by bearers in white coats and gloves.

Pilot Officer Thirlwell, pilot of an RAF photo-reconnaissance Hurricane. Caclutta, mid 1940s .

(source: page 360, Julian Thompson: “The Imperial War Museum Book of the The War in Burma 1942-1945. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2002)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Julian Thompson)

A new life in postwar civil aviation

By the Eighth of October 1945 with licences in our hands we were flying the aircraft completing with a company route check The next day was my first service as a First Officer in BOAC uniform , bush jacket and shorts with a flat hat. It was quite a change from service life although we were still in the RAF. This had its advantages as our spirit ration from the NAAFI remained and rent day was no hassle. When we complained about a little insect life in the villa, the next day a man arrived with a blow lamp and did a first class job of eradication. There had been quite a break between military and civil flying which in itself was an advantage The emphasis was different but the discipline of the flight-deck was the same. At this time there was only minimal air traffic control mainly around airports and national boundaries. Look out and adherence to height and the quadrant (direction flying) was essential. Most of the passengers were still "Officials" and service personnel, but as time went on fare paying people returning home or visiting relatives started to appear. We had no catering staff on board just boxes with sandwiches and fruit and large vacuum flasks of tea and coffee, an original MacDonalds in fact. So why didn't I have the idea then? It was the First Officer's duty to see that the passengers were suitably victualed and comfortable and I remember with great pleasure an occasion when a lady and gentleman returning to Kenya congratulated me on being the best steward/ess they had had. I realised then that we were a service industry and the grandeur of being saluted as an individual had gone forever. But not the practice itself because as each aircraft left the departure bay the Station Manager, at the head of a line comprising the traffic officer and the engineering staff, would solemnly give a perfect salute.

The network from Cairo flew South as far as Nairobi and Addis Abeba, North to Athens, East along the Gulf to Karachi and Calcutta, and Southeast to Aden and the Southern Arabian coastline to Karachi. Mainly operated by Lodestars there were some Dakotas and the remaining A.W. Ensigns from pre-war Imperial Airways which operated the Calcutta service. These were remarkable aeroplanes originally powered by four 850 HP Tiger engines, re-engined with the more powerful Wright Cyclones. They continued in service, gradually being cannibalised, until the last one in a flyable condition G-AFZU positioned back to the U.K. on the Ninth of May carrying a number of us for our demobilisation from the RAF. The First Officers flew on all three types but could only do landings on the Lodestars for which they were properly Licensed. The longest away service nine days in all was on the Ensign to Calcutta. The day would start soon after dawn and at nightfall or as near as the stop would allow, everybody, passengers and crew would adjourn to the Hotel and dine and sleep. Extremely civilised it was but would have been better if air conditioning had been invented and single rooms for the crew had been in the contract of service then. A final thought on the aeroplanes, the flight decks reminded me of service aircraft painted the same dark olive green, a colour guaranteed to look dirtier and more depressing than any other. I always suspect that at the time of the big rearmament of the late thirties this disgusting colour was in such huge supply that nobody else would have considered it. On the other hand the cabins were a great improvement, especially the Ensign. It was obviously based on a Pullman railway carriage. There were four compartments sitting six people facing each other with a door to a corridor, rather grandly known as the promenade deck. In memory the ceiling was very high so I presume the baggage compartment was small. In our spare time a number of us studied for a First class Navigators Licence.

This entailed taking a number of star shots and establishing an astro fix for a position.

The corporation laid on a training flight for that purpose. The Lodestar had no astrodome so we all occupied the cabin windows with our bubble sextants and our issue of astro chronometers to get accurate timing, not to mention our air almanacs for the correct stars. Unfortunately nobody was actually navigating the aeroplane and we got lost. At first light an aerodrome was spotted and the aircraft landed safely. There were no buildings but when we stopped a fellaheen on the back of a donkey appeared and shouted up to the cockpit window " I am the Shell Representative, how much fuel do you want?" Having confirmed the necessary information he reappeared this time with the donkey pulling a cart with two barrels of petrol and set about getting us on our way with red faces all around. Back in the U K I was demobilised from the R A F and on the Thirty-first of May 1946 I signed a contract with British Overseas Airways Corporation. Having a "B" and wartime First class Navigators Licences I entered on the top scale First Officer's grade at a yearly salary of £550, Five Hundred and Fifty Pounds, it was wonderful.

Ossie Evans, Royal Air Force & BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), Cairo & Calcutta, 1945-6

(source: A2205172 My RAF Life - Chapter 6 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Foreign Consulates

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Foreign Consulates in 1940

America (U. S. A.)—9 &. 10 Esplanade Mansions. Phone, Cal.249.

Argentine—5 Fairlie Place. Phone, Cal. 4804.

Belgium—9 Pretoria Street. Phone, P.K. 772.

Bolivia—7 Old Court House Street, Phone, Cal. 770.. .

Brazil—36 Galstaun Mansions, Park Street. Phone, Cal. 5259.

China—30 Stephen Court, 18B Park Street. Phone, Cal. 1011.

Cuba—36 Galstaun Mansions, Park Street. Phone, Cal. 5259.

Denmark—4 Fairlie Place. Phone, Cal. 5500.

Dominica—104 Sova Bazar Street. Phone, B.B. 5067.

Ecuador—6 Lyons Range.

Estonia—Mercantile Buildings, 12 Lall Bazar Street. Phe., Cal. 2666.

Finland—10 Clive Street- Phone, Cal. 981.

France—15 Stephen Court, 18B Park Street- Phone, Cal. 2603.

Greece—4 Esplanade Row East. Phone, Cal. 2455.

Honduras—10 P. K. Tagore Street. Phone, B.B. 296.

Hungary—Fairlie Place. Phone, Cal. 4626.

Italy—2 Camac Street- Phone, P.K. 1608.

Japan—5 & 6 Esplanade Mansions. Phone, Cal. 4041.

25/'l Ballygunge Circular Road. Phone, P.K. 582.

Netherlands—F1 Clive Buildings. Phone. Cal. 440.

Nicaragua—10 P. K. Tagore Street. Phone, B.B. 296.

Norway—22 Canning Street. Phone, Cal. 4027.

Panama—35 Chowringhee Road.

Peru—36 Galstaun Mansions, Park Street. Phone. F.K. 3248.

Portugal—10 Old Post Office Street. Phone. Cal. 2716.

Siam—8 Clive Street. Phone, Cal. 6670.

Spain—55 Lansdowne Road. Phone, P.K. 746.

Sweden—2 Asoka Road, Alipore- Phone, South 986.

Switzerland—8 Clive Street. Phone, Cal. 1151.

Turkey— Mercantile Buildings, 12 Lall Bazar Street. Phe., Cal. 2666.

Uruguay—5 Fairlie Place. Phone, Cal. 4804.

Venezuela—7 Council House Street.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages236 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Address of the German Consulate 1939

Consulate General of Germany – 34 Park Street Phone Cal. ???? (closed sept 1939)

Consul General: Count von Podewils-Duernitz

Vice Consuls: Baron O. von Richthofen, Dr. W. Tausch

Commercial attaché C.R. Rasmuss

(source pages 231-234 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

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Travel

Introduction

Travel

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

Addresses of Travel Companies in 1940

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 227-236 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

Railways

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

Maj.Rogers, Capt. Slattery, Lt. Cook (others unidentified)) At the Railroad Station

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

F/O Walter Ramsey and Cook (Railway in Calcutta)

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

Steam locomotive of the Bengal & Assam RR in the yards by Sealdah Station, Calcutta.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

Transfer of coal from wide-gauge box cars to narrow-gauge line cars for continued shipment

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

Narrow gauge passenger train leaves station at the canal and Diamond Harbor road

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

Loading rail freight on tracks just upstream from Howrah Bridge, Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

Tickets to Darjeeling

collected by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart, I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service), Calcutta, 1940s

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION

Part Way Home

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, May. 15, 1950)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

a very slow procedure

Pansie Marjorie Muriel Hepworth Norris, ENSA Entertainer, Calcutta, 1945

it was fun really

Cliiford Wood, RAF Wireles operator, Karachi to Calcutta, Sept 1942

Maybe 250 white girls would be a distraction!

Greta Underwood, V.A.D., Calcutta, 1944

The following morning we were on the move again

Greta Underwood, V.A.D., Calcutta, 1944

The toy train

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Darjeeling, 1947

(source: page 32 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

… the school badge was hung on the front of the engine

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

Everything was well organised

William (Bill) Knight, Army, Calcutta, 1945

Hard Seats to Calcutta

Eddie Mathieson, Marines’ commando soldier on the Burma Front. Calcutta, 1944/45

(source: page 234 of MacDougall, Ian: Voices from War and some Labour Struggles; Personal Recollections of War in our Century by Scottish Men and Women. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1995)

Traveling in Purdah

Humphrey Trevelyan. ICS with responsibility for the ruling family of Gwalior. Calcutta, 1935

(source page 183 of Humphrey Trevelyan, (Baron Trevelyan): “The India we left : Charles Trevelyan, 1826-65, Humphrey Trevelyan, 1929-47.” London : Macmillan, 1972. Monsoon Morning. London: Ernest Benn, 1966)

human beings clinging to the sides of the carriages

Harold P. Lees, RAF, Calcutta, early 1940s

a huge block of ice for coolness

Rene Thompson (nee Laird), YWCA Welfare worker, Calcutta, 1944

To Bombay by cattle truck

Ken Armstrong, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, late 1945

To Bombay by special favours

Charles Jeffrey PARKES, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1943

…ask for a railway ticket Poona to Bombay via Calcutta

Anthony Cave-Browne-Cave D.S.O.,Army lieutenant, Calcutta, 194

Travel by train in India is a real experience

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Train to Calcutta, April 1942

Journey into the clouds

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calcutta, 13th & 14th August 1945

First Class and ‘Kellners’

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. On the train to Lahore mid 1940s

(source: page 20 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

Tipping the Bearers

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, 1940s

Life in First class

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

Rushing to Dinner

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

Beggars at Trainstations

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

Indian railway stations are bizarre places

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

a rather lonely period of isolation

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calcutta, 13^th & 14^th August 1945

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29^th April 1942

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________