Death in Calcutta
Home ● Sitemap ● Reference ● Last updated: 03-October-2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there are any technical
problems, factual inaccuracies or things you have to add,
then please contact the group
under info@calcutta1940s.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
The war, the famine, riots, crime and disease … Death held a rich harvest in the streets
of
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death in Calcutta
_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________
Preparing to kindle crematory fire at a ghat north of Howrah Bridge
Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944
(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Kindling crematory fire, Cg004, Preparing to kindle crematory fire at a ghat north of Howrah Bridge 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 12th June 2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)
_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___
THE
CENOTAPH
At the northern end of the
Maidan, to the west of the Ochterlony Monument, stands that dignified Memorial,
the Cenotaph, erected by public subscription to the memory of those who, during
the Great War (1914-1918), gave their lives for King and Country. The Memorial,
a simple and massive column of stone inscribed with the words "The
Glorious Dead", is almost a replica of the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London.
It was unveiled in 1921, by H. R. H. The Prince of Wales, afterwards King
Edward VIII.
In Memoriam
1914 - 1919
Lest
We Forget
At 11 A. M. on Armistice Day
(November 11th) each year, the Cenotaph, with its base covered with floral
tributes, is the scene of a most impressive ceremony, when the Governor and his
suite, the Military, the Navy and a large gathering of people of all
communities, stand bareheaded in reverential silence for two minutes which is
maintained throughout the British Empire.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 160 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)
THE
LASCAR WAR MEMORIAL
At the southern end of the
Maidan, within a hundred yards of Prinsep Ghat, is the Lascar Memorial, erected
by the Shipping and Mercantile Companies to the memory of the 896 lascars of
Bengal, Assam and Upper India who lost their lives on active service during the
Great War (1914-1918). It was unveiled in 1924 by Lord Lytton, then Governor of
Bengal. The Memorial, a foursided column of Oriental architecture,
appropriately designed with a prow of an ancient galley projecting from each of
its sides, is capped by four small minarets and a large gilt dome.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source page 161 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)
Facing the Calcutta
University Senate House in College Square is
THE BENGALEE WAR MEMORIAL
a simple column of
stone mounted on a white marble pedestal, inscribed with the words,
"In memory
of members of
The 45th. Bengalee Regiment
Who died in the Great War
1914-1918
To the Glory of God, King
and Country."
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source page 161 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)
PARK
STREET CEMETERIES
At the southern end of Park
Street, at its junction with Lower Circular Road, are the old Calcutta Park
Street Cemeteries where, under massive brick and plaster memorials, lie the
remains of many great personages associated with the early history of Calcutta.
Names famous in verse and legend adorn the crumbling graves and vividly
resuscitate for us the glories of Old Calcutta, of Warren Hastings, of French
Privateers and of gay mid-Victorian Cavaliers. These cemeteries are four in
number :
Tiretta or French Cemetery—Opened in 1786
for the reburial of the young wife of Edward
Tiretta, an Italian who rose to the position of
Superintendent of Streets and Buildings. In this cemetery are also buried Mark
Mutty, the Venetian, the renowned Vicomtesse Adeline de Facieu and Roman Catholics
of those early days.
Mission Cemetery—Opened in
1773. Among those buried here are Richard Burney, and the Rev. J. Z.
Kiernander, the first Protestant Missionary to Bengal, who built in 1770, at
his own expense, the Beth Tophilla (House of Prayer), now the Old Mission
Church.
North Park Street Cemetery—Opened in 1791. Here lie the remains of Thomas Henry
Graham, killed in action in an affray between the East India Company's ship
"Kent" and a French privateer in 1800 ; Richard Thackeray, the
novelist's father; and William Jones, founder of Bishop's College, now Sibpur
Engineering College.
South Park Street Cemetery—Opened in
1767. Here a mammoth obelisk marks the grave of Sir William Jones, founder and
first President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. A fluted column, inset with a
black marble slab, marks the last resting place of Rose Aylmer, immortalised in
verse by that strange genius, Walter Savage Landor (P. 88). Here are also
buried Captain Mackay, whose narrative of shipwreck inspired that of Byron's in
"Don Juan"; General Clavering; Major-General Stuart; Colonel and Lady
Monson; Colonel Kyd, founder and first President of the Botanical Gardens; Sir
Elijah Impey; Henry Vansittart, Governor of Bengal, 1760-64; Edward Wheler, and
Captain Edward Cook, son of the famous navigator. As Commandant of H.M.Ship
"La Sybille", Captain Cook engaged the heavily armed French frigate
"La Porte", and captured it on the 1st March 1799; he was
wounded in action and died on the 23rd May 1799, at the age of 26: a memorial
tablet in Westminster Abbey records his great services to the Empire.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 98-99 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)
Military
Cemetery
In Bhowanipore Road, on the
right, is Minto Park Road and the Military Cemetery, opened in 1733 ; on the
left is the Mental Observation Ward, Sambhu Nath Pundit Street, Marhatta Ditch
Road and Sankaripara Road.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 124-126 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)
the
Roman Catholic Cemetery
, and higher up Canal Street.
Facing Canal Street, is the Roman Catholic Cemetery; at No. 12 is the Entally
Police Station and adjoining it Convent Square.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 126 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)
the
newly-constructed Christian Cemetery
A
little way along Russa Road we come to Prince Golam Mohammed Charitable
Dispensary, founded in 1873, alongside which is the approach road of the
newly-constructed Christian Cemetery. This cemetery will, from 1940, replace
the present Christian Burial Grounds in Lower Circular Road, which have been in
use since 1840.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 164-66 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)
Mission
Cemetery, North Park Street Cemetery and Armenian Cemetery
On the left are Park Lane, the
Tiretta Cemetery and McLeod Street which leads to Elliott Road. Mission
Cemetery and North Park Street Cemetery on the left, and South Park Street
Cemetery on the right, bring us to the crossing of Lower Circular Road, from
where we enter Park Street (New).
Returning to Park Street (New)
and pursuing our way, we have on the left North Range. At No. 11/6 North Range
is an Armenian Cemetery and a Chapel built in 1906 and dedicated to St. Gregory
The Illuminator; services
are held here every Sunday evening, also in the mornings and evenings on
Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent; opposite North Range is the Park Circus
Post and Telegraph Office.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 87-91 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)
the
Scottish Cemetery
In Karaya Road, on the right,
is Acre Road and directly opposite it, the Scottish Cemetery.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 91 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)
Lower
Circular Road Cemetery
Crossing Park Street, we have
on the right Lower Circular Road Cemetery, opened in 1840. Just inside the
entrance is a striking marble memorial to Sir William MacNaughten, Bart.,
Governor-Designate of Bombay, assassinated at Kabul in 1841. Lower down is
buried the Rt. Hon'ble James Wilson, Finance Member (obit 1860) and Sir John
Woodburn, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal (1898-1902). To the north of the
cemetery runs Bijii Road, leading to Crematorium Street.
John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40
(source pages 124-126 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)
A Name
on a War Memorial
Private Harold
Hillary
Service No 3601798,
4th Battalion, Border Regiment
He died aged 24 on
12 August 1942. He was the son of John and Margaret Hillary; and the husband of
Agnes Hillary, of Egremont.
Remembered with
honour at Calcutta (Bhowanipore) Cemetery , India
(Grave
Reference : Plot H. Grave 49)
Private
Harold Hillary, 4th
Battalion, Border Regiment, Calcutta, 1942
(source: A5394927 Sons and daughters of Egremont, Cumbria who laid down their lives in World War Two. 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 Name
on a War Memorial
Colour Serjeant
Robert Wells Postlethwaite:
Service No 3594553,
2nd Battalion, Border Regiment.
He died aged 33 on
24 March 1940. He was the son of James and Barbara Ann Postlethwaite, of
Egremont, and the husband of Mary Jane Postlethwaite, of Workington (a town a
short distance to the north of Egremont).
Remembered with
honour at Calcutta (Bhowanipore) Cemetery
(Grave Reference:
Plot H. Grave 73).
Colour
Serjeant Robert Wells Postlethwaite, 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment Calcutta, 1940
(source: A5394927 Sons and daughters of Egremont, Cumbria who laid down their lives in World War Two. 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)
Could
that be the Dark I went to school with
[…] then came to my
quarters where I have been
reading through a swath of
Republican-Couriers. I noticed a J. Dark Moore was listed as a casualty. Could
that be the Dark I went to school with?
Richard Beard, US
Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October
14, 1945
(Source: page 217 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)
The Victims of The Dum Dum Attack
AMONG FOUR BRITISH EMPLOYEES
of a Calcutta engineering works murdered on
Saturday by members of the Indian Revolutionary Communist Party, was Frederick
Gower Turnbull (28), of Middlesbrough.
The bodies of Turnbull, and Arthur Dwyer (37), of Halifax, (earlier reported of Middlesbrough), and Frederick
Charles Brennan, an Anglo-Indian, were recovered
from two pressure furnaces.
Altogether four British or Anglo-Indian employees
were killed by terrorists in Saturday night's raid on the works of Jessop and Company.
The fourth man, Felix Augier (42), died in hospital
from stab wounds.
Matthew Ewing, a British foreman at Jessops, was
struck on the head. He was rescued by loyal workers, who dragged him to safety
over a wall.
There has been considerable labour unrest at the
works, due to a reduction of over 150 workers recently.
The raiders' savage tactics suggest that they aimed
to stiffen malcontents in opposition to the Indian Government's gradually
succeeding efforts to break the general strike threat.
Indian and Pakistani police are combing the country
to round up stray batches of raiders.
Some escaped by boat and others in cars and
lorries. Fifteen rifles and several hand grenades were captured by the
police....
(source: Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, February 28,1949)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the : Middlesbrough Evening Gazette)
A
suicide
Just as I was getting started
in my morning's work, we were notified that a man from Mt. Clemens, who had
missed Wednesday's assignment and therefore listed as AWOL had been discovered
hanging in the latrine of Ward 53 which was closed a week ago. Lt. Griffin made
the grisly discovery when he was inventorying and searching for what was
presumed to be a dead rat, as several complaints had been made about the odor
emanating from that region the last day or so. As AOD, there were several
details which I had to take care of, and since he had been transferred to my
ward, that had to be considered too.
I braved the pungently sweet
odor of putrefaction and pushed into the latrine, then slowly edged open the
door behind which he hanged. I was alone and not prepared for what I saw. It
was pretty bad. Gus got pictures. I did not get sick at the stomach, as some
did, though I had to spend the next two hours outside until he was finally taken
away.
Thank goodness my talks do
someone some good. I planned to take it easy during the afternoon, as the AOD
ordinarily does not officially have much to do until after five, but it wasn't
to be today. I was called from my quarters to the phone regularly and finally
back to the Adjutant's office. It seems that the suicide's body had been
unceremoniously dumped into a grave at the American cemetary without benefit of
autopsy and without authorization and some dope said that I had authorized
it...Lt. Col Powers was beside himself until it was finally straightened out.
They decided to leave the body there, it being so far gone that Major
Blumenthal felt nothing could be learned from an examination of it...besides,
there was no question but that it was suicide.
Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, November 10, 1945.
(Source: pp. 240 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)
Milestones
Died. Sir Bijay Chand Mahtab, 59, the
Maharajadhiraja Bahadur of Burdwan, once reputed to be the British Empire's biggest taxpayer; of heart disease; in
Burdwan, India. Senior Hindu Prince of Bengal, he had an annual income
estimated at $15,000,000.
(source: TIME
Magazine, New York, Sep.
8, 1941)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Milestones
Died. Major Francis Yeats-Brown, 58, handsome
professional soldier-author (Lives of a
Bengal Lancer, Lancer at Large), distinguished poloist and pigsticker
(hunter of wild boars), practitioner of
Yoga; in London.
(source: TIME
Magazine, New York, Jan.
1, 1945)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Police Seek Indian Heiress
NEW YORK.
March 27. FBI agents, army intelligence and police today searching for
22-year-old VALSA MATTHAI, daughter of John MATTHAI, wealthy Bombay, India,
Industrialist, who disappeared from her residence here a week ago. Police said
the girl, who came here last September to attend the business school at
Columbia university, was last seen about a. m.,...
(source: Reno Evening Gazette,
Reno Nevada, Monday, March 27, 1944)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Reno Evening Gazette)
The Invisible Girl
All night
the snow fell heavily. Before dawn it lay eight inches deep on the streets of
sleeping Manhattan.
At 4:50
a.m. the elevator signal buzzed in International House, the massive 13-story
lodging place built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. for foreign students. The
elevator man had a blind right eye, but as he stopped the car he turned to look
at his lone passenger. She was Valsa Anna Matthai, 21, a pretty Indian girl
from Bombay, a Columbia University student. She was not wearing the Indian sari
pulled over her hair, but a bright kerchief; and as she walked out of the
empty, lighted lobby, the operator noticed she wore a tan polo coat, dark
slacks, and sport shoes. She had no bag. The street lights along Riverside
Drive made pale yellow pools on the drifted snow, but beyond, Grant's Tomb and
the park sloping down to the Hudson River were lost in gloom. That was the
morning of March 20.
Valsa
Matthai did not return. Last week her disappearance was still a mystery to the
scientifically thorough (and 99.2% successful) Missing Persons Bureau of the
New York police. It had stumped private investigators hired by the Manhattan
office of Tata Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., branch of the rich House of Tata
which controls much of India's heavy industry.
Valsa's
disappearance was big news in Bombay, where her father, Dr. John Matthai, is
managing director of a new Tata enterprise, a $5,000,000 chemical plant. Dr.
Matthai, a Christian, educated at the London School of Economics and Oxford's
Balliol College, distinguished himself as an official of the Indian Government
before joining Tata in 1940. A believer in freedom for women, he sent his only
daughter to convent schools in Calcutta and Bombay, and finally to the U.S.
At
International House Valsa was not missed for more than 24 hours. Then Pritha
Kumarappa, an Indian, and Salma Bishlawy, an Egyptian, Valsa's two closest girl
friends, went to her room. The key was in the outside lock. The bed was turned
down neatly. It had not been slept in. Her room and her clothes were in order;
even her purse was there, with lipstick, identification cards and $17 in cash.
At first
the case seemed routine to detectives from the West 100th Street station. They
got her description for the routine form which the police call
"DD-13." For the Missing Persons Bureau, which seeks 9,000 people a
year, turns up 8,900 of them, alive or dead, before twelve months are out; and
80% come back by themselves, 50% within 48 hours.
But by
week's end Captain John J. Cronin, the deceptively delicate-looking commanding
officer of the Bureau, was directing a meticulous search which had spread
across the whole U.S.
Cronin's
men quietly invaded International House. If the girl had met with foul play,
they reasoned, she might never have left the building. They drained two
9,000-gallon water tanks on the roof, another 5,000-gallon tank in a 13th-floor
engine room. They shoveled and sifted their way through 150 tons of pea coal in
basement bins. They searched the building's 550 rooms, foot by foot. They found
no trace of her: Where had Valsa been going, in the snow, before dawn? She had
only an amateur interest in Indian political affairs. If she was dead, where
was her body? If she was alive, who had seen her?
Restaurant
operators, taxi drivers, residents of the area for blocks around were
questioned. The charred ruins of a burned-out apartment were combed. Ticket
sellers at Hudson River ferry terminals were interviewed. The Hudson was
dragged.
Had Valsa
planned the disappearance? Usually the people who attempt to vanish are in
search of love or money. But Valsa had all the money she wanted: there was
$1,400 in her bank account. Love? On the afternoon before her disappearance
Valsa had met a young officer, Lieut. Elmer Rigby of the Army Medical Corps, at
the Waldorf-Astoria. The two had known each other since New Year's, had met
often. Rigby showed investigators a recent letter from the girl; it was casual,
friendly, with no hint of romance.
The
detectives on the case, attempting to understand Valsa Matthai, began to
experience an exasperated futility. Her friends said she was proud, brilliant,
interested in her studies. She smoked cigarets, and occasionally visited
nightclubs, in groups, escorted by an older Indian friend of her family. But as
the case dragged on, digging began to change this image of Valsa Matthai. She
began to sound less like a reserved visitor from an exotic land, and more like
any other glamour-dazzled girl, first seeing Manhattan's bright lights.
Her
interest in nightclubs, it turned out, was far from casual. She was an habitue.
She sat at nightspot tables with American girls and young American and British
officers night after night. A photograph made by a nightclub photographer
showed a Valsa who looked different from the girl in muddy photographs made
back in India. Valsa's hair was not primly tight around her head, but hung in a
loose wave. Valsa's smile and Valsa's eyes suggested what students at
International House reluctantly confirmed. Valsa had hangovers, and missed
classes. She was repeating first-semester subjects. Late last winter some of
her friends had remonstrated with her. They had reminded her that she
represented India to Americans. The Missing Persons Bureau checked 85 reports
that Valsa Matthai had been seen in New York City. All were erroneous. After
one careful three-day check, officers closed in on an indignant Armenian woman.
Newspaper
reporters and photographers, following a telephoned tip, burst into a Willard
Hotel dining room in Washington, D.C. They found an Indian woman, but the
embarrassed newsmen soon discovered that she was with her husband, P. A. Menon
of the India Supply Mission.
At the
end of last week Captain Cronin and his men, still toiling, still could not
answer the very first question: why did the girl leave her room at 4:50 a.m.?
J. J.
Singh, president of the India League of America (TIME, Feb. 28), guessed why:
Valsa had never seen snow, and was so fascinated that she could not resist
walking out into it. Captain Cronin, a far-from-casual student of abnormal
psychology, pondered this idea seriously: "We know that sensitive people
are sometimes driven to suicide by the depressing sight of rain, snow or bleak
landscapes."
Suicide?
Could she have been pregnant? A policewoman checked her girl friends, reported
that she was not. Amnesia? But real amnesia, despite fiction, is exceedingly
rare. And a woman with amnesia would still need food, and would probably wander
the streets.
Cronin,
baffled, pondering murder, saw only one really possible answer—his old enemy,
the river.
"If
she's in the river, maybe we'll know," he said. "We're just getting
our December bodies up now. But they come up quicker in the springtime—men face
down, women face up. If she's in the river maybe we'll know in May. If there's
a thunderstorm we'll know before that. An odd thing, the way thunder will bring
them up."
(source: TIME
Magazine, New York, Apr. 24, 1944)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Died. Valsa Anna Matthai
Died.
Valsa Anna Matthai, 21, daughter of Bombay Industrialist John Matthai, Columbia
University student whose disappearance two months ago was an unsolved mystery
(TIME, April 24); by drowning; in the Hudson River. It was believed that she
would be found in the river, that a thunderstorm might bring her to the
surface; last week, three days after a thunderstorm, her unmarked body was
found floating near Yonkers.
(source: TIME
Magazine, New York, May 29, 1944)
(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_______________________
You could be talking to someone I the
morning and see him being buried in the later afternoon
At the start of the war a bride came out and was married to one of our
head office men. She was dead two years later having caught from some unknown
source a virulent type of typhoid. Another day, when Ron and I were having
lunch at the Swimming Club, word was sent round that one of our salesmen had
died in the morning. Ron had to rush out to buy a black tie as the funeral was
taking place in the afternoon. You could be talking to someone I the morning
and see him being buried in the later afternoon. This was part of the Indian
scene.
Eugenie Fraser, wife
of a jute mill manager, Calcutta, early
1940s
(source:page 100 of Eugenie Fraser: “A home by the Hooghly. A jute Wallahs Wife” .Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing 1989)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Eugenie Fraser)
“I was at a loss to understand what was
'going on'”
Although I often recall, not
without considerable nostalgia, the
old Calcutta days, I cannot
forget the terrible toll of lives lost during the pre-independence riots in
West Bengal. I can vividly recall
witnessing, at first hand, a man
being beaten to death by a 'lathi' wielding mob-just outside our
verandah at Megna , being just a
chokra at the time, I was at a loss to understand what was
'going on' and could only listen wide-eyed to the conversations
of the 'bhuda lok' who would, at times, speak in whispers !
Protected, to a fair
degree, by the compound's walls I would lie awake at night listening to the shouting gangs, seeing the flickering tights from fires, and even the sound of gun-fire close by - all very
frightening for all concerned,
and especially so for those poor souls in the bazzars.
Kenneth Miln, son of a ‘jute wallah’. Jagatdal/Calcutta, 1945-49
(source: Letter sent to us by Mr Kenneth Miln himself, July 2006/ Reproduced by courtesy of Kenneth Miln)
I had the bad news that my Mother was dying
In September 1943 I had the bad news that my Mother was
dying. This was an awful shock for me. I never had any warning that this was a
possibility. I tried all ways I could think of to get back home. I volunteered
for the Commandoes in Europe, anything to get back home where I thought I would
have a chance of a couple of days leave to see her.
I was told this was impossible because I couldn’t be
spared #, this I thought was a lot of B/S, because I couldn’t see that we were
doing anything worthwhile. To help me over my grief my troop officer
recommended me for a fire fighting course in Calcutta. This offended me more. I
used to think what the hell am I doing here wasting my time as far as the war
effort was concerned, but the course was like a fortnight’s leave. I saw quite
a lot of Calcutta in that fortnight, but the pleasure was ruined on my return
where I had a letter to tell me that my Mother had passed away.
Stan Martin, soldier,
Calcutta, September 1943
(source: A1982955 Stan Martin's WW2 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)
My brother Jim
In 1938 my brother JAMES (Jim) RYAN joined the Royal Artillery. When
war was declared he was sent to France with the BEF. He served in Belgium and
France in the 42nd/46th Field Regiment, heavy artillery and was promoted to
Sergeant. He interpreted for the company officer and they moved from Abbeville
to Lille when the Belgians surrendered. Later the order came to retreat to
Dunkirk. He stayed to render the guns useless and then followed his company
alone. He walked through distressing sights of refugees and abandoned animals
in the field, reaching Dunkirk on 27th May 1940 where he found some of his
comrades. They remained together being continually dive-bombed by Stukas. After
4 days of failed attempts to board ships, after waiting for hours in the water,
they were eventually taken aboard a paddle-steamer to Margate. I still have the
postcard he sent from there, saying “Dear Mother, arrived at Margate today 31st
May. I might add it was my worst birthday (It was his 21st). I’m writing this
on the train. It’s good to be back in Blighty again, but I don’t know where we
are going yet. Perfect health, so will write shortly. Jim xx”
The train took them to a camp at Bury from where he telephoned a
friend of my father who took my parents and me to find him. The camp was filled
with weary men who had abandoned helmets, rifles and boots to board the boat.
However, Jim took from his battledress pocket a birthday present of a small
pearl necklace and French perfume for me, as I was 17th the day he reached
Dunkirk. He had buried a bottle of Champagne, intended for his 21st, in the
sand at Dunkirk. When I asked him why he buried it, he said, “Oh, you have to
keep it chilled!” I wonder if anyone ever found it. After three days at home he
returned to camp.
Six months later he was on a troopship bound for India. From there he
was sent to Nepal to train the Gurkhas. He totally admired the people there and
was seconded to the Indian Army. He turned down a commission and they went to
Burma to fight the Japanese. After dreadful years in the jungle he finally got
leave with some friends and they went to Calcutta where he collapsed in the
street and was taken to hospital where it was discovered that he had T.B in
both lungs. From India he was sent to Durban and then to a military hospital in
Chester, and eventually to a sanatorium at Mill Lane, Wallasey. As there was no
cure at the time and he was terminally ill he was sent home to my parents. He
died about 6 months later on 13th May 1946 and was given a military funeral and
is buried at Frankby cemetery in Wirral.
At this time I had been in the WAAF since 1942 and
was given leave for the funeral.
Footnote: When he was going to India he sent a
postcard home with a message which could be understood by anyone familiar with
Wallasey ferryboats. It said, “I though you might like to know that I saw two
old friends yesterday — Iris and Francis Storey. Tell them I was glad to see
them again, but I’m leaving in a few days. Jim.”
My sister and I got on a ferryboat to Liverpool
which passed the troopship in the river and we were able to wave goodbye to Jim
as he stood at the rail with a couple of friends.
The ‘Iris’ was the passenger ferry and the ‘Francis
Storey’ a luggage boat.
by Mrs Norah Seery
868913 Sergeant
James Ryan , Army, Calcutta, 1945
(source: A5705192 Sergeant James Ryan 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)
we
flew into a monsoon storm
On the 10th August 1944, all of our aircraft Royal Air
Force 615 (County of Surrey) Fighter Squadron were flying from Palel in Assam
to Baigachi, Bengal. We where about 80 miles east of Calcutta when we flew into
a monsoon storm.
I saw the Commanding Officer's Section disappear above me
and I glanced in the cockpit, my instruments had, had it. There was no
visibility and none of the planes controls were working. I made up my mind that
it was time I parted company with the aircraft. This wasn't easy, the hook stuck
and I had a hell of a job. Finally, it came away and to the right mainplane
about three feet from the centre section. Hells teeth, I thought I had been in
a hurry up until then, but I really got going now. In fact, I jumped out helmet
and all plugged in. I must have swung like pendulum going around for few
seconds, that seemed like hours, waiting for the thud of the ground, when I
felt a jerk.
I looked up and from that moment on I have a passion for
mushrooms. There above me was the chute letting me down and the chute began to
fold in and spill air. I pulled on the rigging lines, as I had been told and
was able to control the rate of descent. It was about 20 seconds before I saw
the ground or should I say river. Yes, I landed up to my neck in water. I was
helped by natives to shelter. After an hours rest, I heard news of another
pilot who was a few villages away, who had been injured. I was able to get to
him later that day and a sampon took us to the nearest motorable road.
We arrived in Calcutta the following day. Here, we
received news that the Commanding Officer had been killed and three others.
Eight of the other machines got through safely after being sucked right out of
the cloud into brilliant sunshine. An airman at control ops was able to vector them
in safely. This airman for his wide awake action received a mention in
despaches. The Commanding Officer's body was the only body recovered, as it was
thought the others were in an area that it would not be possible to get to. So
these were posted missing believed killed.
The Commanding Officer was buried in Calcutta. He was
thought so much of by his Squadron, that a letter was sent to his mother asking
what she would like as a memorial to him. Funds were raised and a stainless
glass window is now installed in the church in his home town in Australia.
He was held responsible for the accident by a court of
enquiry, but I still wonder, if it was an error on his part. Three pilots
bailed out successfully and one force-landed.
CASUALTY LIST 10TH AUGUST 1944
Lost:
*Squadron Leader D. McCormack, Distinguished Flying Cross
and Bar, Royal Australian Air Force (Killed)
*Flying Officer W.S.Bond Royal Canadian Air Force (Killed)
*Flying Officer M.Pain Royal Australian Air Force (Missing
believed killed)
*Warrant Officer Chappell, Royal Australian Air Force,
(Missing believed killed)
BALED OUT
*Flying Officer Costain Royal Air Force (Broken leg)
*Flying Officer Armstrong Royal Canadian Air Force
(Dislocated knee cap)
*Flying Officer F.P.Fahy, Royal New Zealand Air Force
(Twisted knee)
FORCE LANDED
*Flying Officer Watson Royal Air Force (Unhurt)
8 other Squadron Aircraft and Pilots landed safely.
'LEST WE FORGET'
Flying Officer
Francis Patrick Fahy, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1944
(source: A2590634 RAF 615 FIGHTER SQUADRON IN MONSOON OVER INDIA WORLD WAR II 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 tragic death
The entire town of Cooch Behar went
into fete. All the public buildings and most of the private houses were hung
with illuminations. Triumphal arches were erected across the roads where the bridegroom
would pass. To entertain the townsfolk and the villagers who would come for the
occasion, a special fireworks display had been arranged, and two days later a
hockey match, with Jai and Bhaiya captaining the two sides.
The preparations were complete, and the
party of my relatives from Baroda arrived before the rest of the guests. We met
them in Calcutta. We were due to travel back to Cooch Behar when a frightful
accident happened. Ma's favourite brother, my Uncle Dhairyashil, fell on the
stairs and cracked his skull. That night he died in the hospital. All of us,
but Ma especially, were shattered. He had been so dearly loved by everyone that
his death cast a terrible gloom over the whole household, and we scarcely had
the spirit to go on preparing for my wedding. The Baroda party returned home
for the cremation and the mourning period. Ma did not accompany them because
Hindu women do not go to funerals. The wedding ceremony and all the
arrangements were postponed, and the pundits were called in to name the next
auspicious day for our marriage. It turned out to be the ninth of May.
Gayatri Devi, princess of Cooch Behar. Calcutta, 1940.
(source: p. 237 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 final month of Father Douglass
The doctors had said 'a month'; there was yet time and strength for
something more. He had always been a great letter writer, and his letters were
always permeated with gratefulness. He would write to absent Brethren and
friends and say 'good-bye', and for Douglass to say good-bye was to pour out
thanks. He was gratitude incarnate. 'I will always give thanks,' he said daily on
ferial days at Sext, and 'always give thanks' he did. How many of those
farewell letters of repeated 'thank-you' he wrote, perhaps his nurses knew.
Part of one of them, written in his clear hand quite unchanged, was tins: 'They
brought me here a couple of days ago; every ease and luxury, as you know. Lane,
Nairn's partner, is looking after me, young and clever, and most attractive. He
says that it's some malarial bug that they had not yet discovered how to deal
with and that it may kill me quite soon! So I wanted to send you my love and
gratitude for all the help and love of these many years ... I don't know what
the disease is, nobody could have greater care and every luxury. I do hope you
are pretty well. Ever so much love and gratitude. F.W.D.'
On Thursday the twenty-first the doctors thought that the end was
near, and all the Brethren in Calcutta saw him during the day. He appeared to
have lapsed into unconsciousness but, as often, the dying are not so
unconscious as they appear, and early on Friday morning, St. Mary Magdalene's
Day, when the Chaplain from the Cathedral was praying by his bedside, he said,
'Just give me absolution and a blessing'. Those were the last words he spoke on
earth.
Soon after the Chaplain left, Mother Edith and another Sister of the
Epiphany came to his bedside. He was then unconscious, and half an hour
afterwards he passed away.
'It was a wonderful thing,' wrote the Superior, 'that Mother Edith,
who had known him so long, before either of them came to India, should be able
to be present at his end.'
The doctors had said 'About a month'. He was taken;' ill on 21 June,
the eve of his eighty-third birthday, and he fell asleep on 22 July.
Poor Bengalis cannot afford a coffin. They wrap the body of their dead
in a mar and bury it. The .Father's body, vested in his Eucharistic vestments,
was wrapped in a mat for burial, as he had wished. At 1.30 p.m. it; was put in
Behala Church to lie in state, and all the Christians of the neighbourhood and
a great many Hindus filed past in loving reverence. Vespers of the Dead was
sung at 5 p.m. and the funeral began at 5.30, The rain poured down, but in
India it is rain and not sunshine that is counted to be propitious. As the sky
cleared, his own boys carried the body across the compound amidst a large crowd
of friends of all classes and races, and many more lined the fence along that
road up which so many had come when Behala had beckoned. It was all in his
adopted language of Bengali, with a couple of hymns in both tongues. Next
morning the Requiem at Behala was in Bengali and in the Cathedral in English.
Afterwards, one of his Brothers wrote of him: He was a great lover.
Gifts indeed he had which in combination made up a rich attractive charm, but
it was not this so much as his love for them that drew and kept all sorts and
conditions of people, both Asiatic and European. He had found and been found by
his Master, and loving Him devotedly and finding blessed happiness in that
devotion yearned to draw all into the circle of Christ's friends. The word
"numinous" has been used of the setting of Behala, it signifies that
many became conscious of the Divine Presence more easily when they were there:
"I am nearer heaven in this church than anywhere else on earth," said
the wife of a Viceroy. "We love, because He first loved us," and when
men become partakers of the Divine Nature, God's love passing through them, as
the sun's rays pass through a magnifying glass, kindles the fire of love. This
the love that rushed with outstretched arras and smiling eyes to meet every
kind of human being that came to Behala, from the footsore Hindu sanyasi who
took refuge with him for years, to Indians, sailors, soldiers, airmen,
children, women, refugees, was to many of us a token and assurance that the
Kingdom of Heaven had broken through on earth.'
Friends of Father Douglass, Missionaries and Charity workers in Behala, Calcutta, 1949.
(Source: Father Douglas of Behala. London, 1952 / Reproduced by courtesy of Oxford University Press)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home ● Sitemap ● Reference ● Last updated: 03-October-2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there are any technical
problems, factual inaccuracies or things you have to add,
then please contact the group
under info@calcutta1940s.org