Category: 1941/12
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December 30th 1941
I go over with Jerry to visit the Kohat Pass Arms Factory. A most “kachha” idea and no sanitation visible. Small boys turn sort of bicycle wheels which work lathes for boring the barrels. Other men make the various parts and then you can have ‘B.S.A.’, ‘Ishapore’ (JDW: the Birmingham Small Arms company, and the […]
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December 28th 1941
We gave a dance on 26th to which all Kohat comes. Hammerbeck brews a very good hot rum punch which is much approved. Jerry Beck very drunk. I have dinner with the Pentons first, which was really the best part of the evening as far as I was concerned. Teddy Humphries arrives last night after […]
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December 26th 1941
Yesterday (Christmas Day) with great trouble I raise an officers team to play the Sergeants Mess. They arrive drunk at 4.15pm and start playing with bottles and cigarettes in their hands, which are removed. On being knocked over, most of them stay flat out until lifted up. We get eight before half time, but then […]
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Christmas Day 1941 – Kohat
Well, we know the name of this place we are supposed to be going to but it seems to be spelled differently on the map. It’s near Laskio and Mandalay, below the start of the Burma Road of ill fame. 60 squadron with Blenheims, operating from Burma, are supposed to have just four out of […]
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December 21st 1941
We are moving to Burma next month apparently. 2 Squadron are doing our job in Karachi. Sgt Ridley takes off in coarse pitch and crashes over the ‘drome boundary without hurting himself. I fly Penton to Chaklala with 20 degree drift, and yesterday fly Mike Gilpin Thal-Bannu-Peshawar. I try to land in Thal in weak […]
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December 20th 1941
The Japs seem to be beating us. All RAF leave in India stopped and we are ordered to stand by to proceed to Burma at short notice. Complete panic and everyone flapping. Well, I don’t feel so happy about this one as the last war I went to. (Iraq). Why? Haven’t I always been a […]
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December 19th 1941
I cannot start in the morning. Scott and I and a policeman and a greaser wind for one and a half hours. Then I ring up Kohat and am told to get the IAOC to look at the batteries. Ten out of 12 cells are dry so they put in another to start it and […]
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December 18th 1941
Neil Elliot and Macmillan arrive with Wavell and we take out the three Sinnott sisters and Pamela Russell to the Saturday Club for dinner and dance and then to the 300, a low night club. All this on Burt Mann, as he is a member of both joints. I depart and am in bed by […]
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December 5th 1941
Mann left some time ago to take part in Calcutta War Weapons week with one Lysander. Having a girl in Calcutta he arranges to go on leave there afterwards and to pay my fare down to collect his a/c. I leave Kohat on the 2nd and after two days in the train arrive in Howrah […]
A Story of War 