Kandy, Australia, and Home
Airborne once more after a pleasant week in Delhi, we had a smooth flight to Bombay where a halt was made to refuel. It was 9.15 a.m. when we resumed the journey, and by that time the weather had deteriorated; there was a thick drizzle, and a very low ceiling of cloud. For a few moments we saw a pretty residential suburb, and then thick cloud engulfed us as we climbed higher and higher, until at last our plane broke out into a lonely, strange white world, 14,000 feet above the earth. It was very cold at that altitude, and we shivered, even though wrapped in rugs.
The weather grew worse, with huge clouds towering thousands of feet above, and we were ordered to return to Bombay. There was no break in that ocean of cloud below, and after retracing our previous course the pilot kept on flying until at last a hole appeared, and we could see water down below. Round and round we circled down through that welcome gap, until the surface of the sea was scarcely one hundred feet below, when a course was set for the coast. It was anxious going, for at times the mist was right down on the sea, and when the city came into view the tops of the buildings were buried in fog. Rising to a safe height the plane circled, seeking an approach to the airstrip, but visibility was nil. Finally we headed out to sea again, and then made a perfect landing at the small airport at Juhu, a few miles along the coast. We were all very thankful to be safely down, and when they stepped out of their plane the crew showed obvious signs of the strain through which they had been.
Of course there had to be the inevitable fool on board, a Brigadier who was so thankful to be safe, after shaking in his shoes for the past two hours, that he began to shout insults at the Air Force in general, and at our crew in particular. They had no right to discontinue their trip; it was imperative that he should reach his destination that day; the Air Force was manned by a gang of incompetents and cowards; blah; blah; blah. It was one of the most disgusting exhibitions of bad manners that it has ever been my misfortune to witness, and it was painful to see the emotions working in our pilot’s face. He listened to as much as he could stand, and then, without uttering a word, he turned his back and walked away while the Brigadier continued his tirade. Anyone would have thought that the whole progress of the war depended on that nitwit, but I am quite certain that had he been lost in transit no one but the office boy would have noticed that he was missing.
Next day the weather improved rapidly, and we flew south over a great plain, where innumerable rivers, streams, lakes and swamps alternated on the landscape. At 11 a.m. we saw Bangalore, a sea of red roofs spread out among dark-green trees. It was a perfect day, the sky almost cloudless, yet it was pleasantly cool on the ground, and officers who had been stationed there said that the climate was very good. It seemed to be a most attractive place, and the dry air was crystal clear.
At 1.30 p.m., flying very high again, we crossed the coast and sailed along above a beautifully blue sea. Conditions could not have been better, but the altitude was affecting me, and I did not feel at all well. It must have been the rarity of the air that made me want to breathe quickly through my mouth, and caused a feeling of faintness that had no particular origin. Islands were seen to seaward, and then the flat jungles of Ceylon were below. Many tidal streams interlaced the jungle, and there were flat islands, large expanses of shallows, swamps, and huge coconut plantations. Villages with roofs of red tiles made bright splashes of colour in the sombre green.
Lieutenant-Commander Brotchie, RNVR, met me at the airport at Colombo, and then I had one of the greatest surprises of my life, when Lieutenant Tommy Parsons, RNVR, came along to take charge of me. Parsons had been in the 2nd MTB Flotilla at Hong Kong, in command of No.27, and in company with the other four surviving boats he had made a successful escape from the Colony on the night of the surrender. The sound of those motors warming up on Christmas night, 1942, is still with me whenever my thoughts drift back, just as I heard it at that time, from my hospital bed. My feelings were confused and violent. Pleasure that some of the boats were still afloat and would yet cheat the enemy; anger at my own helpless impotence; despair when the low roar faded into distance, and the feeling that the last link with freedom had gone.
At a later date, during our captivity at Argyle Street Camp, Mr. Parsons, senior, received a letter which informed him that Tommy was in hospital in England, after being wounded in an action in the English Channel. That was the last news received of him prior to my escape from Shamsuipo, and it gave me a great surprise to learn, when at Kukong in northern Kwang-tung, that Tommy was then in Foochow as a naval intelligence officer. From that place I sent a note by a runner and forgot all about him, so I could scarcely believe my eyes when he walked out to greet me at Colombo. It transpired that he had followed me closely out of East China, had flown past while I was at Kunming, and was then stationed temporarily in Colombo. We had three years’ news to catch up with, and we talked late into the night.
My day or two in Colombo stretched to a week, lazy days which drifted one into another, with little to highlight their passing. One fright was administered when Commander Holmes, RN, asked me to talk about my escape to half a dozen naval officers, and when I agreed he suddenly confronted me with an audience of some eighty officers, including a batch of WRNS. On another day I had my first swim since the night when I tried to steal a sampan at Taipo, and this one was almost equally unsuccessful, for I spent much labour in the next two hours trying to clean black fuel oil from various parts of my anatomy.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jackman, of “E Group”, Major Ford and I left Colombo for Kandy in a staff car on Monday, the 6th of November. It was a very pretty drive through most luxuriant tropical scenes filled with coconut palms, bananas, rubber trees, tea plantations, pineapples, paddy fields, and a great variety of palms. The banana season was at its height, and there were great stacks of bunches in every village. The wayside shops were loaded with a variety of fruit. Native women moving about looked very graceful and colourful in their bright saris, though very few had pleasing features.
That night the mosquitoes of Kandy heard that new blood had arrived, and they descended upon me in a musical horde, to keep me awake the night through with their vicious, stinging attacks. But before they could satisfy their lust I had enjoyed an excellent dinner with General Lamplough and Colonel Chapman, so I was fortified to some extent for the later ordeal.
Kandy was cool after the humidity of Colombo, and I enjoyed the views over mountain and valley. There were giant bamboos, eight inches in diameter, and another variety with bright yellow stems on which were painted longitudinal green stripes. There were papaias and bananas, jack fruit and areca nuts, coconuts and mangosteens. A big crowd of wild brown monkeys went swinging and racing through the trees, hurrying noisily to some fresh feeding-ground. One day I visited the “Temple of the Tooth”, a famous Buddhist shrine which was once reputed to have held an original tooth of the great teacher, but this temple is a most miserable and uninspiring shrine, and for those devoid of the requisite religious fervour it has not one attraction. Its glory is in the same tradition as that of the fabled capital of the “Kandyan Kings”, a glory that existed only in the imaginative minds of early voyagers.
Lunch with Lord Louis Mountbatten proved to be highly entertaining, for “Supremo” was in very good form with his stories of the difficulties encountered in persuading the Admiralty to accept the Oerlikon gun, and his account of certain tests of the prefabricated harbour for the Normandy landing, tests that were carried out in the Prime Minister’s bath. Negotiations with regard to the Oerlikon became rather Gilbertian. The inventor was a foreigner, who was hurried to England for discussions at the Admiralty, where there was strong opposition to the gun. Difficulties were encountered in arranging a meeting with the officials concerned, and when a time had finally been set, the inventor could not be found. An intense and urgent search located him in gaol, where police had lodged him on suspicion, pending enquiries.
I went to a meeting in the War Room at South-East Asia Command Headquarters, where members of each branch of the Service gave a detailed account of front-line events of the previous twenty-four hours. The huge maps slid into position under electric control. When the routine work was over I was introduced as the guest speaker, and there was such a gathering of weighty rank, from “Supremo” downwards, that it killed my nervousness and I just talked of Hong Kong and of incidents of my escape for twenty minutes or more. The meeting then broke up, and I was very glad to escape into the peaceful garden.
Next day I returned to Colombo, and on Friday, the 10th of November, in company with Commander Milne, RNVR, I drove to Galle, seventy miles south of Colombo, at the southwest corner of Ceylon. There we found a delightful, sleepy, peaceful little town, huddled tightly within its fortress walls, a legacy of the Dutch occupation in the seventeenth century. The Portuguese had been there a century before the Dutch, but even they found a city with a history that reached into the deepest realms of antiquity. Placed in a lovely setting of natural beauty, the Galle of today carries an air of calm assurance which is the heritage of one of the most ancient and famed of all the seaports of the world. Moors, Arabs, Romans, Greeks and Chinese have all used this port as a trading centre, and it is more than likely that beneath the present town lie the foundations of Tarshish, of the Bible. We could have enjoyed a longer stay in that Old World spot, but the modern age was moving at a faster tempo, and next morning we were off.
At 6.30 a.m. we drove to the seaplane base, situated on a lake separated from the sea by a narrow strip of sand on which coconut palms were growing. It was a calm, clear morning, too calm; for our heavily laden machine needed help to climb off the water. There were only two passengers and a crew of six, but there was a full load of mail and petrol. The plane was one of those astonishing products of the war, a “Catalina” flying boat, or as the Americans named them, a PBY2. Once in the air on a reconnaissance job they seemed loath to come down, and they made some extraordinary endurance flights. I believe the record was in the vicinity of thirty-eight hours.
With two thousand gallons of petrol in the tanks we roared away down that glassy lake, until it seemed that we would never leave the surface. The palms came rushing towards us and still the tell-tale spray flew from our keel, but suddenly, just in time, we were airborne, and skimming over the palm tops. In a moment surf made a ribbon of white on the edge of the ocean, and then we were bound for Perth, more than three thousand miles away.
All armament had been stripped from the ship, and the space below the gun blisters had been converted to a cabin. With its plexi-glass blister covers that was an ideal place from which to view the scenery, while also in that cabin was a small electric cooker. Forward of the blisters was the main cabin, with three very comfortable seats for passengers on the starboard side, and two bunks for the crew to port.
After clearing the land a fresh following breeze arose, but by 1 p.m. that had practically died away, and down below there were glassy patches showing on the sea. We flew smoothly through a sky in which soft woolly clouds floated, and after lunch I tipped my seat back to its limit, and snoozed in great content. This was becoming quite a nice comfortable war after all. During the afternoon we flew round big tropical rainstorms from which cumulus clouds rose to a great height above us, clouds which our pilots treated with the utmost respect. Soon they were left behind, and we continued eastwards over a layer of soft trade-wind clouds, with nothing but the limitless blue above. Tiny white breakers on the sea showed that a steady south-east wind was blowing there.
The motors had been purring with a steady throb which instilled complete confidence, and the hours slipped by the while I dozed in easy relaxation. The small electric cooker was a great comfort, for we were able to enjoy hot cups of tea and coffee, but it was also responsible for giving us all a great fright. Just before dusk the port motor developed an oil leak that looked serious, and a big black patch swiftly spread across the wing. Underneath, it flowed on to the exhaust-pipe and carbonised there, forming a lumpy coating that would suddenly glow red hot. When it seemed on the point of bursting into flame, the whole glowing mass would break away and float off down to the sea.
Members of the crew spent varying periods standing in the blister watching developments with that motor, and in their anxiety they forgot that several cans of food were heating in a large container on the stove. All the water boiled away, and, with a violent explosion, a tin of meat burst. The commander of the aircraft, J.L. Grey, took half the contents in the middle of his back, while the remainder spattered over the cabin. At that time we were passing Sumatra at the point of nearest approach, and it would have been quite possible to meet Japanese patrols. I do not know whether that was at the back of my mind, but certain it is that I had a confused idea that the motor had exploded or that we had been hit by an explosive bullet. It was simply astonishing that a small tin could make such a noise in bursting.
Grey had to decide whether to take his ship down at Cocos Island or to continue to Australia with the defective motor. Arguments against stopping were that the plane would have to remain airborne until daylight since a flare-path was forbidden, and on another occasion, when a plane had landed, it had been subjected to enemy bombing. We continued on our way, and after the first two or three hours the oil loss was much reduced, though that disconcerting glow persisted round the exhaust pipe all through the night.
Dawn found us flying at 12,000 feet through a vast empty space, with the air as clear as crystal, and so smooth that no movement was perceptible. Down below was a solid layer of cloud, looking perfectly level until the sun raised its fiery rim. Then, all over the soft plain below, little pinnacles and hummocks of cloud glowed dull red as the sun’s rays struck them, while some were edged with bright gold. It was a most enchanting dawn, and we flew along, a tiny speck in the limitless space, gliding above a world of fantasy wherein dwelt elves and fairies.
Soon the clouds scattered, and we could see a friendly blue ocean far below. It was a lovely day, and after we had been in the air for twenty hours the captain said we could make the coast on one engine if necessary, though the leak by that time had almost stopped, and the faulty motor was purring steadily. A small island came into view, and then we passed over a number of low coral islands, reefs and lagoons. The whole scene made a marvellous picture with its vivid colour contrasts; deep-blue ocean, sparkling white surf, brilliant viridian-green over coral sand, brown shallows over live coral, white beaches and dark-brown coral reefs. We sighted the coast of Australia, and flew south along a flat shore, barren and uninteresting.
Shortly after noon the city of Perth lay below, very pretty with its red roofs set among a wealth of trees, and at 12.30 p.m. spray was again flying from our keel as we taxied to a mooring. The time of flight, from water to water, was twenty-seven hours and two minutes. That was a long time to be airborne, and it is unlikely that any regular flights in future will last so long.
After lunch with the commodore I thoroughly enjoyed a drive through Perth, for its clean residential suburbs overlooking the Swan River seemed most attractive after the dirt, and smells and squalor of the Orient. Here was a country where the air was clean, and where one could enjoy sitting on the grass without feeling that it was polluted with filth. Anyone who has spent any time in China will understand that feeling, a yearning one gets to be able to stretch out in clean fresh grass, and to be able to fill one’s lungs with clean sweet air.
The long flight had made me very tired, but next morning I was roused at 4.45 a.m., to proceed to the airport. We were in the air at seven o’clock on the way to Melbourne, flying over a flat plain which soon gave place to low wooded hills, through which the Swan River drew a winding, silver ribbon. My chief recollection of that flight was of passing over hundreds of miles of utter desert, with the whole brown landscape buried in a sea of heat haze.
At Kalgoorlie we saw the workings of the Golden Mile, and learned that there was an assured gold supply to keep the mines operating for twenty-five years, while further surveys were expected to reveal much more extensive deposits. The next stop for fuel was made at Forrest, and it was as well that the name contained two Rs, for the fuelling-station was planted in a wide expanse of sand in which no tree grew, and nothing could have looked less like a forest. Short stops were made at Ceduna and Adelaide, and soon after leaving Adelaide we watched the sun set. Above Melbourne the night air was clear and still, and the great city made a beautiful sight, appearing as a huge magic carpet, patterned with a myriad twinkling lights. That was the first city I had seen illuminated since the war began, and it was a wonderfully cheering sight.
The Royal Navy had been doing everything possible for me, and in Melbourne the Royal Australian Navy took charge. Everything was done that could be done for my entertainment and comfort, and my especial thanks went out to Lieutenant-Commander W.J. Seymour, RAN, who was sympathetic kindness itself. I am sure that none of those who helped realised just how much their hospitality meant to me, for the pleasure of mixing with families in quiet, secure homes was deeply moving.
The flight from Melbourne to Sydney took only a little over two hours, for a strong tail wind drove us along. Sydney was buried in a pall of smoke from bush fires in the Blue Mountains, and the city was sweltering in a heat wave. My memory of the one day spent there was one of answering interminable questions, and of talking into telephones by the hour. Many wives and families of internees in Hong Kong had been evacuated to Sydney prior to the outbreak of war, and news of my arrival soon spread. At midnight I tumbled into bed feeling desperately tired, and reluctantly gave instructions for a call at 4 a.m.
In Sydney the morning of Friday the 17th of November 1944 broke fine and perfectly calm. A Navy car took me to the flying-boat base at Rose Bay, where I boarded a comfortable “Sunderland” which lifted from the sea at 6 a.m. We circled the harbour, going almost as far west as the Bridge, but the view was marred by smoke which still lay in a heavy pall over the landscape. Then the ship swung round and we headed away to the eastward, out over the Tasman Sea. Notorious for its storms, on this occasion the Tasman was perfectly calm, and we enjoyed an uneventful crossing.
Never had I thought that a sight of New Zealand could affect me so profoundly as it did then, for when I looked down on the pastures near Whenuapai intense emotion gripped me. For hundreds upon hundreds of miles over Australia the landscape was brown and scorched by drought. For hundreds upon hundreds of miles over India the landscape was dun coloured, sweltering under a burning heat. Below me, then, on the narrow peninsula that separates the Waitemata Harbour from the Tasman Sea, was a fine expanse of grazing-land, vividly green and lush after an unusually wet spring. The air was clear, and everything was washed to a sparkling freshness that stirred the deepest feelings in my heart.
At the Tasman Empire Airways Terminal at Mechanic’s Bay, Auckland, family and friends were waiting to meet me, and a few minutes later I was home. There my mother was waiting for me, and she was exactly as I had always pictured her, with her snow-white hair and her lively brown eyes in which a vivid interest shone. Her joints were stiffer with the passing of more than eighty strenuous years, but her unquenchable spirit was as bright as ever.
I was home after an amazing adventure in which luck played hand after hand in my favour, until I came to believe that the enemy could not prevail; that my ultimate escape was something inevitable and pre-ordained; that I had, in fact, an alliance with Destiny. That belief still persists. At various times before the war faint thoughts or dreams would intrude upon my consciousness, fancies in which, in some mysterious way, I found myself walking abroad in China. Why? At that time nothing could have been more remote than thoughts that I would ever visit that distant land. Again, from the moment of Hong Kong’s surrender a feeling of certainty persisted that sooner or later my escape would be effected, and so strong was that conviction that all through the worst periods of my captivity an emergency kit was kept in a state of readiness.
Two and a half years was a long time to wait, but I was certain that I would know when the right moment came. That belief was proved true by events, for when the dog-kennel was moved from the sea-wall at Shamsuipo, I knew that the time had come.
From that moment the drama ran through its varying scenes to final curtain fall, an individual drama in which it was my privilege to be granted a successful leading role. In the circumstances it was inevitable that there should be some resentment at my escape, and in closing this account I wish to tender my regrets to all those prisoners of war who suffered additional privations through my action, and to those particular friends who suffered arrest, interrogation and all that that implied. I tender my sincere thanks for the generous reception they accorded me when we met again at Hong Kong, on “Liberation Day”.