India
Towards the end of June, we were informed that we were to rejoin our Division in India. At the end of June, we re-embarked on HMS Karanga and sailed for Bombay. The "Karanga" was an assault landing ship and with mixing with the officers both naval and commando on that boat we supplemented a lot of the knowledge we had already learnt from the landing in Madagascar and considered ourselves pretty well up in assault landings. We arrived in Bombay towards the end of August and entrained that night for Ranchi on the east coast of India and unfortunately I was put in charge of the train party and everyone else went off to enjoy themselves in Bombay and I was left with a file of papers 6" thick to devour before the train set off. The following morning, needless to say, we did not leave at that time, but eventually we were all safely stowed away in the train which spent at least three if not four days crossing India until eventually we landed at Ranchi. Meanwhile the transport had travelled by an alternative route and did the 3,000 miles trip across India under very adverse conditions, extreme heat, dust and poor roads and all the other difficulties which we might experience in any war time movement. We eventually arrived at Ranchi and were still kept with the Brigade Group and our section of the camp was on the outskirts of the Silwai forest, interspersed with deep wadis, plentifully mixed with mica. We were allotted a meagre amount of tentage but after heavy rainfall soon learned how to build small thatched huts and other shelters to help us. Whilst at Ranchi we learnt from the C.R.E. the importance of marram and we will never forget the marram roads we built, which inevitably were washed away or torn away by the vehicles which roared up and down the few tracks that were once built. We constructed waterpoints for the Brigade and after that concentrated on unit training once more, mainly to fit ourselves for the possible advance into Burma in the near future or, in the meanwhile, the backstop preventor of the Japanese advance into India.
Whilst at Ranchi, we were asked to detail one officer to do a recce into Burma and Lieutenant Brighton was detailed for this job. Unfortunately, afterwards he went ill with Malaria and was sent to Hospital and his replacement was Lieutenant Godsell. He was accompanied by Corporal Wood and I cannot speak too highly of what they did. They reported to Eastern Army Headquarters at [?] and were given the task of recceing from Tiddom to Fort White on the Chindwin for the purpose of ascertaining whether the track could be done up to take jeeps to enable the Brigade at least to advance from India to Upper Burma. Godsell was twenty and Corp. Wood a little older and a regular soldier with the sort of background that a regular soldier has. They were given some rupees and various letters of introduction to people who should be at various places on their journey and with no knowledge of the language they set off by mail, boat and walking over 600 miles through the then unknown country: they completed the reconnaissance and brought back a valuable record of what they had seen. At arrival back at Eastern Army Headquarters, they had been away over two months and none knew of the task they had been on and no one seemed interested. They did not know where their Unit was and it was only by an extreme effort on Godsell's part that the men rejoined the Unit. They called at the Hospital at Shiva to report before rejoining the Unit.........this was typical of the men and officers of the Unit.
On rejoining the Unit in November, they found that I had been succeeded by Capt. Evans. So, the Unit was as follows: Major Abraham, Capt. Evans, Lt Godsell, Lt Brighton and one other. They reported to Divisional HQ and found that I had been appointed Adjutant.
We spent a lot of our time in route marching and learning how to live in the extremes of conditions about that area, which we were told, was one of the better parts of India. Shortly before the time came for my war temporary majority to be confirmed, I was displaced by a Major Abrams, a genial regular soul, who immediately started to find out the qualities and capabilities of his officers; the only person who would answer his many questions and work out the puzzles that he brought with him was myself. They were mainly designed to ascertain the I. Q. of the individual, and never having seen them before, I innocently took up the challenge, the other soldiers who were younger shied away from them and Heaven knows what his opinion was of the standard of the officers, when he had finished. Despite this, we got on extremely well ably assisted by the Carew�s gin and Australian whisky which had to be tasted to be believed. No sooner were we beginning to get accustomed to the countryside and the conditions when we received orders to move once more back to Bombay, with the transport going overland via Karachi, Peshawar through Beluchistan and overland to Persia. We were prevented from doing this tremendous trip by floods and excessive weather conditions in the area beyond Peshawar and were diverted to Karachi where they embarked once more M.T. Ships and we were all transported by sea to Persia.
Towards the end of June, we were informed that we were to rejoin our Division in India. At the end of June, we re-embarked on HMS Karanga and sailed for Bombay. The "Karanga" was an assault landing ship and with mixing with the officers both naval and commando on that boat we supplemented a lot of the knowledge we had already learnt from the landing in Madagascar and considered ourselves pretty well up in assault landings. We arrived in Bombay towards the end of August and entrained that night for Ranchi on the east coast of India and unfortunately I was put in charge of the train party and everyone else went off to enjoy themselves in Bombay and I was left with a file of papers 6" thick to devour before the train set off. The following morning, needless to say, we did not leave at that time, but eventually we were all safely stowed away in the train which spent at least three if not four days crossing India until eventually we landed at Ranchi. Meanwhile the transport had travelled by an alternative route and did the 3,000 miles trip across India under very adverse conditions, extreme heat, dust and poor roads and all the other difficulties which we might experience in any war time movement. We eventually arrived at Ranchi and were still kept with the Brigade Group and our section of the camp was on the outskirts of the Silwai forest, interspersed with deep wadis, plentifully mixed with mica. We were allotted a meagre amount of tentage but after heavy rainfall soon learned how to build small thatched huts and other shelters to help us. Whilst at Ranchi we learnt from the C.R.E. the importance of marram and we will never forget the marram roads we built, which inevitably were washed away or torn away by the vehicles which roared up and down the few tracks that were once built. We constructed waterpoints for the Brigade and after that concentrated on unit training once more, mainly to fit ourselves for the possible advance into Burma in the near future or, in the meanwhile, the backstop preventor of the Japanese advance into India.
Whilst at Ranchi, we were asked to detail one officer to do a recce into Burma and Lieutenant Brighton was detailed for this job. Unfortunately, afterwards he went ill with Malaria and was sent to Hospital and his replacement was Lieutenant Godsell. He was accompanied by Corporal Wood and I cannot speak too highly of what they did. They reported to Eastern Army Headquarters at [?] and were given the task of recceing from Tiddom to Fort White on the Chindwin for the purpose of ascertaining whether the track could be done up to take jeeps to enable the Brigade at least to advance from India to Upper Burma. Godsell was twenty and Corp. Wood a little older and a regular soldier with the sort of background that a regular soldier has. They were given some rupees and various letters of introduction to people who should be at various places on their journey and with no knowledge of the language they set off by mail, boat and walking over 600 miles through the then unknown country: they completed the reconnaissance and brought back a valuable record of what they had seen. At arrival back at Eastern Army Headquarters, they had been away over two months and none knew of the task they had been on and no one seemed interested. They did not know where their Unit was and it was only by an extreme effort on Godsell's part that the men rejoined the Unit. They called at the Hospital at Shiva to report before rejoining the Unit.........this was typical of the men and officers of the Unit.
On rejoining the Unit in November, they found that I had been succeeded by Capt. Evans. So, the Unit was as follows: Major Abraham, Capt. Evans, Lt Godsell, Lt Brighton and one other. They reported to Divisional HQ and found that I had been appointed Adjutant.
We spent a lot of our time in route marching and learning how to live in the extremes of conditions about that area, which we were told, was one of the better parts of India. Shortly before the time came for my war temporary majority to be confirmed, I was displaced by a Major Abrams, a genial regular soul, who immediately started to find out the qualities and capabilities of his officers; the only person who would answer his many questions and work out the puzzles that he brought with him was myself. They were mainly designed to ascertain the I. Q. of the individual, and never having seen them before, I innocently took up the challenge, the other soldiers who were younger shied away from them and Heaven knows what his opinion was of the standard of the officers, when he had finished. Despite this, we got on extremely well ably assisted by the Carew�s gin and Australian whisky which had to be tasted to be believed. No sooner were we beginning to get accustomed to the countryside and the conditions when we received orders to move once more back to Bombay, with the transport going overland via Karachi, Peshawar through Beluchistan and overland to Persia. We were prevented from doing this tremendous trip by floods and excessive weather conditions in the area beyond Peshawar and were diverted to Karachi where they embarked once more M.T. Ships and we were all transported by sea to Persia.
