Roll on the Boat

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Nadine from the People’s War Team on behalf of Desrenée Irvine and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Note:- The expression “On The Boat” applied to travel overseas — a hazardous prospect in war time when U-Boats everywhere lurked to destroy British and Allied Shipping.
Once overseas the expression “Roll on the Boat” was every service man and woman’s fervent prayer; a frequently used expression, a shortened way of saying “Roll on the day when I’m on the boat talking me back to the UK”.

This article is based on extracts from letters written by a young member of the Royal Air Force, during the period from September 1945 to 27 March 1946, after the dropping of the Atomic bombs, and reflects the service life and opinions in South East Asia Command. There was still a long time before demob. for many serving individuals.

The correspondence took place between Scottish-born Leading Aircraftmen (later Corporal) James P Irvine, stationed at that time in Bengal (India), then in Saigon (Indo-China) and Leading Aircraftwoman (later Corporal) Desrenée E G North, who was also serving overseas, in Algiers and latterly moved to Heliopolis (Egypt) in March 1946.

In early 1942 they had both worked together at R.A.F. station East Fortune, then an operational training unit, and now the Museum of Flight, in East Lothian….. now the resting place of a grounded Concorde.

ROLL ON, THE BOAT

Jim Irvine didn’t take kindly to R.A.F. discipline. He had been conscripted in 1941 and four years later still smarted under a system which was, as he saw it, “in it’s structure, the negation of democracy”, whose aim was to deny him his freedom and individuality. He was appalled at the eagerness of some others and the lengths to which they would go, to gain minor powers over their fellow men, and “the rapidity and malice with which these powers were then perverted to the malpractices of petty tyranny”.

From July 1943, for two long years he had endured, along with countless others, the miseries of service life in Bengal (India), an area where the temperature and humidity were particularly high. For months on end, day or night, the sweat did not dry off the body. The prevalence of disease was high too. Malaria and dysentery were the main enemies: they recurred frequently. Jim had managed, so far to avoid them. But there were also minor complaints to which everyone fell victim; dhobi’s itch, prickly heat, jungle sores and others. These could keep a body in misery for long periods on end. Then of course there were the rats and the bugs….. Some men — many men — developed suicidal tendencies. But the ‘disease’ that drove more blokes ‘round the bend’ than any other was ‘lack of mail fever’. This caused the highest temperatures of all.

9th September 1945

“It took four and a half months for your letter to arrive from Algiers. Must be a record. I do NOT like India. I don’t know if anyone who does, I don’t know anyone who could. Even the Indians complain of the heat”.

With the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, momentary hope of return to civilian life in the near future had been given to all service men and women. Any elation soon disappeared; the R.A.F. in South East Asia Command perceived an injustice. The Army and Navy were being discharged more quickly than they. This led to great dissatisfaction and frustration. By September ’45 the whole of the RAF in South East Asia Command was literally seething on the edge of mutiny. Meanwhile Jim and his mates were ‘on the boat’ again: they sailed from the Hooghly River on 25th September.

25TH September 1945

“The boat was dilapidated with a permanent list to port, probably owing to the presence of a very fat nurse who had a cabin on the port side. There were no hammocks and we had a hellava time sleeping on deck. It rained for short periods at approximately three hourly intervals and we and the bedrolls were thoroughly soaked”.

They were not on the way to Blighty but heading in the direction of Indo-China. The round up of Japanese troops would leave a vacuum needing to be filled, and the land would have to be held by the Allies until such time as the French colonial power could resume its control. And so it was that via a transit camp at Rangoon, (Burma) and a further boat trip through the Malayan archipelago and the South China Sea, they reached Saigon.

3rd October 1945

“We threaded our way to Saigon up a broad winding river (the Mekong) studded with the hulks of many ships…..”.

And later….

“Here we are becoming rapidly adapted to the environment in which there is little comfort but a wealth of novelty….. The natives of Indo-China are of the opinion that the days of French domination are drawing to a close, and are determined to accelerate the process with the aid of a large number of Japanese small arms in their possession. They also seem fairly keen to take the aerodrome. During the day intermittent machine-gun and mortar fire are heard from various parts of the ‘drome as the Ghurkas weed out Annamite snipers. By night the skirmishing is almost continuous. The night sky is illuminated by the glare of burning villages and the bonfires of various French establishments which have been sabotaged by the opposition”.

One of the novelties they had to get used to was the presence of Japanese troops policing the streets of Saigon. Jim also had Japanese wireless mechanics working to him, in the transmitter cabin near the edge of the airfield.

14th October ‘45

“These men (Japanese mechanics) are extremely competent and are willing to the nth. Degree. It is not easy to decide the correct attitude to adopt to them….. Japan certainly did not lose through inferiority of equipment or technicians….. In many respects their equipment was superior to our own”.

“Thus far I have kept them at a respectful distance as their fellow countrymen have done some unspeakable things in the last four years, but secretly I can’t help feeling friendly disposed towards these particular Nipps. There are thousands of men in H.M.S. Forces whose innate brutality has only been restricted by the British tradition of humanitarianism and the laws that enforce it. I only say restricted as I have seen things done in India which make me ashamed of my own kind”.

“Things have been fairly quiet for a week or two…… We had a single, and solitary bullet through the shack. I was awakened this morning by a series of loud explosions, mortar or howitzer fire. My first impression was that the lads of the village had made a general attack and that scores of Verey lights were being fired. It transpired a large petrol dump, about a quarter of a mile from the billet, had been sabotaged. The noise I had heard was the explosion of 50 gallon drums. It was a first-class piece of work, with smoke and flame rising several hundred feet. Three days ago the locals set fire to Dakota at tiffin time; another cheerful little blaze”.

Jim was quite settled in Saigon now. Yes it was hot but the heat was a dry heat. The food was more edible and lately they had been given bread at meal times. They now had a canteen. The rats that descended each night from the thatched roof of the native stable in which they were billeted (ninety-nine men and one broken-down horse) and danced each night on his mosquito net, were an on-going problem, but Jim and one his Jap wireless mechanics had made an extremely effective trap. The only trouble with that was the noise it made when it went off, and the frequent need to reset it.

Christmas 1945 came and went. The French troops were coming back in increasing numbers. The first thing they had done on return to Indo-China was to set up a torture chamber (interrogation centre) in the main street in Saigon. Most were Legionnaires, some of whose ways were disgusting; some were in the habit of defecating in the street.

31st January ‘46

“Speaking generally I am not too favourably impressed with the French. I dislike their ostentation and of the effeminacy of the men. Most of the local populace (French colonists) were pro-Vichy. Indo-China was handed over to the Japs as a free gift from Vichy in November in 1941. The Japs then used it as a springboard attack on Malaya”.

“Considering it was the British with the help of the Nipponese who saved Saigon from the Annamites, the French behaved abominably to us at Christmas time. General Le Clerc and co. demanded that a number of dances that had been arranged for us during the festive season should be cancelled as some of his newly arrived troops, who were desperately trying to get their ‘knees brown’ and their ‘numbers dry’, objected to the British troops dancing with French women in Saigon. The British cancelled all the dances save one”.

“On one occasion last October a French mob (company of troops) showed the white feather during a clash with the Annamites and, in so doing, they let down the Ghurkas badly. The Ghurkas on subsequent occasions always expressed a preference for their Brother Mongols, the Japs, as they don’t have the word ‘cowardice’ in their vocabulary, whatever else may be said against them”.

Jim no longer had the wish to toss a couple of grenades into the guardsroom and take off. Two months previously he had been so depressed by the slow demob. rate he would have cheerfully proposed himself as a ring leader (for a mutiny) but now had another interest to think of. He was dreaming of another trip to the snows, this time to Tibet. He and another chap were to be posted to Transport Command shortly, and should be able to get air transport easily. They were very much occupied in planning the details, arranging for the bungalow and frontier passes, for guides, porters, pack-mules, rations, medical certificates, etc. One of the last formalities would be to sign the Certificate of Compensation to insure anybody employed by them:- Rupees 500 for death; Rs 400 for snow blindness, Rs 400 for both eyes, Rs 200 for one; Rs 100 for loss of a finger or toe, double if index finger, thumb, or big toe, and so on. They had been informed by the authorities that the Nathu La pass, 15000 feet, was filled with snow, that it was snowing daily up there. “However, we shall have Tibetan balaclavas, snow glasses and plenty of warm food”. Apart from that they relied on their blue R.A.F. uniforms.

Early in March 1946 he was told to report to the Adjutant.
“Just before leaving Indo-China I had a tremendously interesting trip to Angkor on the Siam-Cambodian border. I went on detachment with about 8 others, fitters, riggers, electricians etc. I never thought I would see the temples and palaces at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, especially as my Tibetan trip was in the offing. It so happened that Lord Louis Mountbatten, (Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia), wish to see Angkor; his Dakota, code named Hapgift, was calling in at the large level field which constitutes Angkor airstrip. Well, I went as i/c of R/T (in charge of Radio Telephony). And we had a great time, packed with interest. We lived in the same hotel (Grand Hotel) as Louis, also saw much of the country on the way up, two days each way in the convoy; I was in a jeep. We spent one night going up and one coming back at Pnom Penn, Capital of Cambodia. It certainly was a gay little capital”.

Mountbatten’s aircraft Hapgift flew into Sean Reap airstrip on the afternoon of 14th March ’46. After tea, the party, which included Mountbatten’s wife, Edwina and their daughter Pamela drove down to Angkor Wat.

“The ruins of Angkor are tremendous and are generally acknowledged to be the most impressive in the Far East. They extend for miles.
One of the highlights of the visit was the Cambodian ballet in the heart of the ruins, from 10 o’clock until midnight. The dancing girls gave a performance for Louis and his entourage before the inner façade of the great temple (Angkor Wat). The long causeway over the moat, through the outer façade and over the second moat, was ablaze with torches, each torch held by a small boy stark naked, of about four years of age. The moo was nearly full and to the throbbing of drums and the tinkling of dulcimers and the high-pitched whine of quaintly fashioned strings these girls danced; danced until I seemed to see the glory of another age, until I saw the wondrous pageant of Angkor Wat in the bright noon of its long story. “All things change and pass’, but here were faint echoes of voices which sang the self-same songs nine centuries ago and memories of hands and feet which had rippled here in suppleness and grace, but long since ‘hid in death’s dateless night’ are stilled forever”.

On the morning of the next day, bright and early, the party visited the great capital, Angkor Thom. At one time there would have been very many wooden dwelling houses but now only the great stone temples remain. They viewed the overwhelmingly impressive Bayon, with its four carved faces, facing the four points of the compass, and the other temples, Ta Prohm, Ne’ak Prean, Prah Khan and Rod Leprenu. Ta Prohm was left preserved with roots and branches of the jungle growing through it.

Lord Louis Mountbatten and his party returned to Saigon in his Dakota “Hapgift” in the early afternoon on 15th March. He, with his wife and daughter, were driven to meet his old friend Vice Admiral d’Argenlieu, now High Commissioner for Indo-China. There in the High Commissioner’s palace a joint conference was held, attended by other dignitaries, and Mountbatten formally handed over his remaining responsibilities for French Indo-China, including the care of the Japanese surrendered personnel.

Two days later Jim’s small contingent arrived back at Saigon airfield.

On 27th march his long-held dream, which latterly had amounted to an obsession, was realised when he set out with another N.C.O., (the third member of the proposed party having been struck down with amoebic dysentery), first by plane to Calcutta, then train to Kalimpong, and then on foot to Pharinjong, in Tibet, a trek of 210 miles. But that’s another story.

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