| Karachi Remembered: LAST STOP KARACHI 1946 |
| By John �Dusty� Miller Forton, Somerset County, England |
| Introduction: Mr Miller, soon turning 80 years of age in Sept 2005, retired and settled in the village of Forton, county of Somerset in England established contact with me through the website of the Sarhad Conservation Network (SCN). When I made a suggestion to Mr Miller to render his remininscences about Karachi he readily agreed. As the title suggests 'Last Stop Karachi 1946' is a personal narrative of a young Englishman enlisted in RAF as a driver who enjoyed the simple pleasures in life. He found himself in India; miles away from his pastoral home. The following are his impressions from his travels. Dr Ali Jan <[email protected]> (June 2005) (Please feel free to contact me for any comments or queries about the contents on this page) |
| I had enlisted in the RAF � a raw �wet behind the ears� 18 year old recruit, never having been away from home alone previously - born into a quiet rural way of life and later working on my father�s smallholding in the country. All the signs were that this comfortable way of life was about to change �PDQ� and I was now in for a few shocks. My romantic dream of service life was not going to be quite as I had first expected when I first so light-heartedly enlisted. Over the next seven months, along with all my newfound mates we undertook the obligatory 6 weeks of training (square bashing) and went on to complete our training as drivers Motor Transport (MT). At the passing-out parade a particularly sadistic Flight Sergeant old timer reminded us all that we were about to leave the feather bed comforts of Britain�s shores and to get a taste of what life was like in the real world. So it was that I found myself in Liverpool docks England on January 2nd 1945 climbing a ship gangplank, kit bag over my shoulder together with hundreds of other Army and RAF (Royal Air Force) personnel. The ship I was boarding was the peacetime ocean going liner �Caernarvon Castle� which had recently been converted into a troop carrier in US. We were never given any indication as to where our final destination would be. It was a policy of the wartime government, for security reasons, not to divulge this information due to troop convoys leaving Britain being targeted by Hitler�s U-boats in Atlantic Ocean shipping lanes. Of course, this secrecy fostered all sorts of speculation among us lads below deck and various wild forecasts and guesses were made. As one particularly bright member said, �Well it must be the Orient we�re going to, as otherwise we wouldn�t have been issued with tropical kit� - i.e. khaki shorts, bush shirts and khaki stockings. But then another �bright spark� announced that issuing tropical kit to embarking troops was just a �blind� and designed to confuse the Hitler spy network. An older cousin of his had previously gone out on a troopship kitted out the same way and finished up landing in Alaska! Apocryphal as the story may have been, it was never the less, quite a �perishing� thought - if you really think about it. The following day Jan 3rd we set sail as the winter sun was dropping below the horizon and when we looked out the next morning we had joined five other troopships, an aircraft carrier and two corvettes, the corvettes acting as protection escorts on each flank of the convoy. Again the speculation among us lads below deck arose as to our likely destination. Some had tried to determine compass direction and said that we were definitely going west towards America and our hopes were raised that it may be Canada where lots of RAF personnel were serving on aircrew training. The mystery went on for several days and then it was reported that we were now going due south and soon after this we changed again to due east. It was only solved when 10 days after leaving Liverpool we anchored off Gibraltar. A member of the permanent crew of the ship said that it was common for troop convoys to use indirect routes to Gibraltar from Britain to avoid attack from submarines, and convoys often made big box routes west out into the Atlantic and then east into Gibraltar. Hence the reason we took 10 days getting there instead of the normal one or two. We made our way through the Mediterranean unescorted, calling at Port Said then down the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, again stopping for a few hours at Aden before leaving for Bombay, where we berthed on the 27thJan. I spent a few days at the Worli transit camp there awaiting a posting, which turned out to be Madras. Off I went by train to join a small unit repairing military vehicles in three civilian garages called Simpson�s. We employed all local labour in the repair shops and it was my job as a driver to run errands for mail etc. After three months I was again posted to an RAF station out in the wilds at Kolar, about 80 kilometers east of Bangalore and after several months there I again moved on to Vizagapatam, (now known as Vishakapatnam) a port on the East coast of India where I spent 6 months. A day after my 21st birthday in late September I got another posting come through from our Group Headquarters down at Bangalore. It was to join 57 EU (Embarkation Unit) Keamari Karachi. I collected my railway warrant the next day and left Vizag with some reluctance as despite its uncomfortable sticky climate I had enjoyed my stay there and had made some very good pals in the MT and around the camp. My train route north took me first across to Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh and then further north through Nagpur, Jhansi, Agra and Delhi. The train made an extended stop in Delhi very early one morning, giving me plenty of time to get breakfast on the station in a Spencer�s restaurant � an excellent chain of eating places that covered most parts of the main line railway network in India in those days. Logically one would expect the direction of the rail journey from Delhi and on to Karachi would be to the southwest from Delhi and which would be about 1100 kilometers as the crow flies, but the story goes, that for some reason the RAF hierarchy decreed that during the summer months no RAF personnel would be allowed to travel that route due to the extreme temperatures across part of the Thar Desert. Consequently, all personnel had to go north up to Lahore and then down to Karachi, stretching the journey to a distance of approximately 1650 kilometers. I arrived on Lahore railway station and had a wait of a few hours before the train left for Karachi in the middle of the afternoon. One lasting memory of this journey was the utter desolation and remoteness of this region with just sand and cacti pushing through the dunes for hours on end. It was the most uncomfortable railway journey that I had ever made in India to date. I was in a noisy clattering carriage on my own, with just wooden slatted benches to sit on. Getting any sleep was almost impossible with sand blowing through the compartment. One indelible scar of the journey was that during one of the many stops along the way I bought a cup of chai in my mug and stood it on my posh newly purchased green tin trunk. These metal travelling trunks were an essential part of every service man�s equipment when moving from one station to another. During the night I must have dozed off despite the discomforts of the journey and when I awoke the chai had spilled all over my lovely new trunk and sand had set in it like concrete � never to be erased again. I remember pulling into Hyderabad and after a short stop arrived in Karachi later in the day. An RAF truck driver picked me up from the railway station and I was pleasantly surprised not only by the small number of personnel but the situation of the unit as well. Although my memory of the road layout after nearly 60 years is a little hazy our Keamari premises were on the right, and at the end of a tree lined straight road up from the large KPT building. Across the road from our quarters we looked out on to a piece of spare ground which was our football pitch and just to the right a clock tower and small boat basin. I quickly got the feeling that I was going to enjoy my stay in Keamari, it being a very convenient place to get into town for shopping and to the picture houses on our day off. Our living quarters were a nice surprise, modern built, two level building, with RAF personnel occupying the upper level and Army boys on the ground floor. I think the army chaps were engaged on roughly the same duties as we were around the docks with embarkation, loading and unloading freight etc. Within the compound and through a gateway behind a high wall there was a large building, which was occupied by all the clerical staff both Army and RAF. The clerical staff was not only Army and RAF personnel but also quite a number of native ladies who were employed and attached to the Services and wore smart khaki uniforms. They lived at home within the Karachi city area and it was one of my jobs several days a week to go out early with my truck and pick them up from their homes and bring them into work, then later in the afternoon return them. One of the most striking things I noticed about Karachi soon after arriving was the climate change from what I had left in the �sweatbox� at �Visag. The temperature drop at night came as a relief and also the complete lack of humidity during the day. In our MT section we had an assortment of five or six vehicles ranging from a Ford V8 station wagon, two small 15cwt Ford trucks, a couple of 3 ton Chevrolet trucks and a mobile crane for use in some of the open warehouses around the docks. One memory of those days of 1946-7 was that while working in some of the warehouses in and around the docks, to see scores of British built civilian Jowett �Bradford� vans being unloaded from the ships and stored in the sheds ready for dispatch to various parts of India. These Jowett �Bradfords� were a newly designed cheap utility van with a small twin cylinder engine and which proved to be very economical to run. Other warehouses were full of brand new Royal Enfield motorcycles. To me this was a sure sign that many of Britain�s factories had already made the switch over from military to civilian production, post war. Whether these Royal Enfields were sold in great numbers locally or not I�m not sure, but I well remember new Royal Enfields being on sale in Elphinstone Street from one of the shops there. Later on of course, Royal Enfields were built and produced in India, and in fact they are still made near Madras today. The Bullet model being one of several very successful machines. As an MT driver I made many trips around Karachi during my nine months stay. Regular trips were made up to the large RAF station at Mauripur, a main stopping and refuelling place for aircraft in-transit and also journeys to the RAF station at Drigh Road. Another daily run was to deliver and collect mail for our office. I remember this mainly because the building was such an architecturally impressive large Victorian style house standing in its own grounds and set back at the end of a drive from the main gateway. I think it was used as a hospital for service personnel but two or three small rooms had been allocated for service mail operations. I have since wondered what the name of the house was and what it is used for now, but all I can remember of the route to get there is that I used to drive straight down the long road from our unit and the boat basin, turn right somewhere near the KPT building and close to where a poor policeman stood on his box in the blazing sun most of the day directing traffic. It was an anti-clockwise 4 or 5 kilometers from there. The policeman that I have mentioned who stood on his box at the cross roads was always good for a bit of entertainment. One day coming back from Mauripur in my truck and waiting for him to give me the signal to turn right up the Keamari road, four flat bed camel carts appeared out of the dock gates loaded with packages. The leading driver, followed by the others, ignored the policeman�s signal to stop and in 10 seconds the whole crossroads was in chaos. The policeman jumped down from his box and tried to remonstrate with the drivers of the wagon-train of camels and the language between the two factions I could guess, was not the sort that would be heard in the Karachi Polo Club, even I could sense that! A similar thing happened a month or two later when again I was waiting for the signal by the policeman to proceed and a camel cart came out of the same dock gates piled high with boxes of Palmolive soap. The camel, frightened by a noise panicked and jumped forward and shot the load of Palmolive cases off the flatbed cart and right across the intersection. The entertainment at these crossroads could be better than a night out at the theatre. I also made one trip round the coast eastwards to a place called Korangi Creek where the Imperial Airways flying boats and later BOAC (British Overseas Air Corporation) used to call in for refuelling on their way to Singapore and Australia. I had taken one of our RAF marine engineers with me, who normally worked at West Wharf on the RAF. HSLs (High Speed Launches) and Pinnaces. The RAF kept a small boat at Korangi which was experiencing engine trouble. The engineer managed to repair the engine and he decided to bring it back himself round the coast to West Wharf by sea. I returned in the truck alone and got caught in a violent blinding sand storm, quite the worst I had experienced on the way back between Korangi and Karachi forcing me to stop for some time to allow it to blow over. One other incident that could have had much more serious consequences was in the yard where our mechanic did the servicing of our trucks. He had two large wooden sheds, one as a store for oils and tins of petrol etc. and the other as his workshop. We had an old local Muslim man there, who was employed in the MT yard to do lots of odd jobs such as greasing, tyre changing, and generally to help out on anything that needed to be done. He was a very nice old man of probably 60, spoke very good English and all the young lads liked and respected him and used to call him Pop as they looked on him as a sort of father figure. He was a most conscientious worker and totally loyal to our unit. I remember once while talking to him it came up about his very red beard. As a young 21 year old I was quite ignorant of the reason for this red beard. He was so very proud to tell me that it indicated he had made the journey to Mecca and had gone by Dhow from Karachi on a pilgrimage. One boiling hot day the wooden shed in which the cans of petrol were kept, suddenly burst into flames due to the high temperature in the locked shed, and Pop, being the sort of man he was, tried to rescue some of the equipment when the flames were belching out. In doing so he got burned on the hands and wrists. We took him up to the Medical officer to dress his burns and sent him home but the next day he turned up as usual and carried on. By the time we got the fire extinguished the sheds were completely destroyed and the odd thing was that the English 2 gallon petrol cans that were inside had split wide open, but the petrol in the 4-gallon American �Jerry cans� had completely evaporated and were blown up like big round balloons. Apart from the odd argument between our boys and the local tonga walla over the price of a trip back to Keamari, during the whole nine months of my stay in Karachi I never ever got the feeling that the local population resented us British airmen being there, indeed I think the local shopkeepers in Elphinstone Street welcomed us. Whether South African Europeans felt quite as secure I am not sure, as just near the boat basin at Keamari and on the corner of our football pitch a large notice had been erected by KMC warning them that �South African Europeans would not be welcome to Karachi in view of the racial discrimination made in their country and the anti-Indian legislation passed by them�. Saturday night visiting restaurants, bazaars, shops and cinemas were an enjoyable and regular part of our off-duty hours and I can still remember in some of the narrow poorly lit streets, stallholders who had only oil lamps or candles to display their goods, with the exotic sweet smell of incense issuing from small smoldering Josh Sticks in the gloom - a truly romantic vision of the East. On one of these Saturday night visits to the cinema, four of us had booked the best seats for the latest film Caesar and Cleopatra. Starring Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh. The seats we got, turned out to be upholstered soft two-seater settees and proved so comfortable that I only saw 15 minutes of the show and dropped off to sleep, missing the rest of the performance. Our boys had a very good relationship with the civilian KPT staff and we worked well together. My memories of these KPT chaps were that most of them seemed to carry a clipboard and pencil, which was understandable as they were mainly engaged in checking goods on and off the ships. It was now early June 1947 and I would have completed my obligatory 2�-year tour in India the following month. The date for the handover to self-rule was scheduled for Aug 15th and all British forces were to leave. The local population was naturally excited and looking forward to this day of Independence from British rule and the chance at last to run their own country since the days of Queen Victoria. I was told to report to the transit camp at Worli in Bombay by 15th June where I would be boarding a troopship home to the UK. This of course was going to involve another long train journey right up to Lahore and down. As it happened I had an old RAF pal who was stationed at Mauripur and who worked on flying control duties there. He pulled a few strings with an officer friend of his and arranged for me to fly down on the daily Dakota flight to Bombay. The time came to say my good-byes to all my pals and I left Keamari to go up to Mauripur the night before as take off was 7 a.m. the next morning. I remember it so clearly, it was a gorgeous warm sunny morning as I boarded the old �Dak� and as we sat at the end of the runway waiting for take-off I was of course happy to be going home after 2� years away from my family but I was also sad to be leaving a city I had so much enjoyed and of course my unit at Keamari where I had made so many friends in the last 9 months. As we climbed out of Mauripur I was able to get a last look down at Keamari and the boat basin and could actually see the roof of the living quarters I had just left and thinking that all my mates were down there, lying on their �charpoys �under their mosquito nets. Conclusion. As I mentioned at the beginning of this diary, I was brought up to the simple, uncomplicated ways of life, working on our little farm in the country in England. There are times in our lives when opportunities present themselves and we have to make decisions as to whether to take them or not. As it happens I didn�t have any option in this, other than to follow the course I did, and it is with regret that it took World War 2 to give me this opportunity. As any sane and normal person will agree, wars between nations are an abomination to mankind but inevitably out of all the �fallout� there will be some winners and some losers. I count myself as one of the winners. Had it not been for the war I would have probably spent the rest of my life in an insular and narrow existence in the village where I was born. By joining the RAF in 1944 I was catapulted into a world where I could satisfy my dreams of travel and curiosities of other cultures, and what�s more, the travel and food came free. Having whetted my appetite by these experiences I have since gone on to travel to other countries whenever funds and time off work would allow, but one of my greatest regrets is that I never made it back to Karachi. Sadly the political situation there at times made it very difficult for westerners to visit in safety. I have recently celebrated my 79th birthday and I now find I have a lot of time to just sit and think, and although I don�t have any clinical idea of the workings and complexities of the human brain, in my simple way, I have always imagined it to be a very complex organ, inside which, is a vast array of small cubicles with a small sensor light over each. Some of these lights are shining bright Green, but some are now only flickering, and some have completely gone out, but one of the lights keeps flashing RED with a notice over the top saying �MEMORY CELLS UNDER STRESS�. It�s a symptom of reaching 79. |
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