Tom Hickeys India 1945 1946 A Soldiers Diary

He has exhibited such pluck time and again, even as a five foot, six inch Army private in the 1940s. He and his barracks mates were still in their skivvies when a captain walked in, spotted the slim Tom Hickey and asked: "What do you weigh, soldier?" "One hundred and twelve pounds sir." (pause)"ALL MUSCLE!"
As taken from Toms story at www.thejourneyof.net
Copyright 2013 by Thomas Hickey Send inquiries to: 5024 Saul Street Piladelphia, PA 19124-2636

INTRODUCTION It is hard for me to believe that almost 70 years have passed since I served in India. No matter, the vivid memories of the people, living in their enlightened and fascinating culture, combined with my own military presence, are embedded in my memory and spirit. I was fortunate to have been designated by the US Army to the Detached Enlisted Mens List (DEML) branch, available for assignment to nearly anywhere, as an individual soldier. That gave me, on lucky assignments such as India itself, then Ordnance in New Delhi, and JAG in Calcutta, the unforgettable opportunity to see and experience the bustling, often inscrutable lives of Indians in countryside villages and in crowded, sometimes chaotic center of the countrys largest city. Learning mostly about people. I wanted to keep the memories alive, and for years I gathered newspaper and magazine accounts, and occasional books, relating to an India evolving through the years. Ultimately, and I suppose inevitably, I was persuaded to put the memories in writing. So hopefully these pages will preserve a piece of the history of the people, some in extreme poverty, yet everywhere with life pulsing with activity, and with an apparent spirit within themselves, holding a sense of endurance, struggling daily in their own space, barely concerned of the change (Independence!) about to happen. They did endure, and in a good many respects, thrived. I continue to have an expansive respect for Indian people and their culture, and I certainly hope that you as the reader and my kids and grandkids, will enjoy what I have written.

TOM HICKEYS INDIA 1945 - 1946 A SOLDIERS DIARY

PASSAGE TO INDIA
All I ever knew about India I learned in the second grade. The Sister at Our Lady of the Rosary School had passed around a newspaper photo of a man - bald, skin and bones, toothless-

covered partially with a sheet, lying on a cot. He was, Sister said, letting himself starve. He was doing this, Sister said, as penance for people in his country who were fighting each other, and he didn't want them to be doing that. He wanted them to act peacefully. Sister asked us to say a prayer for him when we said our prayers at bedtime that night, because he was a good man. This was happening in India, she told us, which was far across the ocean in Asia, which we would learn about later. I dont remember learning whether the fighting had stopped, or whether the man got well, and I don't remember whether I said a prayer for him that night. Now here I was, twenty years later, getting off the troop ship, changing to a flat craft capable of maneuvering the shallow bay, herding into a railroad car on the bank, and in the semi-dark an Army sergeant handing us a small bottle of something, telling us to button up closely, to the wrist, and from the bottle, put on the "repellicant" to ward off mosquitos. We were in India.

Tom Hickey (center) with his buddies (Toms collection)

KANSHAPARA
The train took us slowly in the dark to an Army camp in a village named Kanshapara, and there we stayed for two weeks or so while the Army sorted out where each of us would be assigned, some place in the India-Burma Theater. I hadn't expected to be in India at all. A couple months before, about sixty GIs with stenographic skills were sent to Indiantown Gap, near Harrisburg, PA for ten days of dictation (routine and difficult), at varying speeds of transcribing and typing. The purpose was to select

the ten most qualified male GIs for transfer to China to man the expanding central headquarters office there. I was good. I benefitted from years of service at hearings with the State of Pennsylvania, and with the Army JAG (Judge Advocate General) office at Fort Eustis, Virginia. And I was one of the ten. I was really happy, and I wrote to my folks back home and told them of the testing. I said the next letter they would receive from me would be from China. Actually, the next letter I sent home was from a desolate Army camp in Louisiana, where I was in training to be an engineer, building a wooden bridge over a dry river bed. Later on it overflowed during a heavy thunder storm and completely demolished the bridge. One other time we all had to give up the right-of-way to a wild razorback hog that was snorting randomly through the Company HQ tent. Not China, Louisiana. I had been bumped. By whom and why, I knew not, and was sent back to the camp I had come from

I was not happy. But as a maxim I said to myself: "When in the Army, you go where they send you and do what they tell you. Happily though, a couple weeks later, my friend Ray, now in the personnel office, called me in. Ray, a fellow LaSalle College alumnus, had met me over a basin of pots and pans on KP during our basic training at Fort Eustis many months before, and we stayed close friends during the many transfers since. Now in personnel, he had some control over my fate. "Tom," he said, "Theres a requisition on the wire for a steno clerk in India. I'm going to assign you there." That sounded interesting to me. I was happy to be leaving Louisiana. I was delighted. Ray had cut the orders shipping me to the West Coast, and there I got the shots and the uniforms appropriate to the destination climate. I was off.

PASS TO CALCUTTA
It was a thirty-day trip across the vast Pacific and tumultuous for three days at the edge of a tornado, during which the only food I could hold down was two rolls of peppermint Life Savers, courtesy of Reds, another LaSalle man, serving with the Coast Guard manning the troop ship.

Moving on, we had a day re-discovering our land legs at Perth, on the western tip of Australia, another few days through the Indian Ocean surprisingly and gratefully placid, then into the Bay of Bengal and finally, Kanshapara.

Typical village scene (Toms collection) We had been given two pamphlets orienting us into India's customs, languages, and some history. They were helpful and handy, as I would soon learn.

Basic information from the Department of State 1942

Kanshapara was an interesting introduction to India. We got to know the natives - smiling, pleasant, and helpful, at the village stands. I bought two presumably silk handkerchief-like pieces, heavily dyed red and green, expecting to send them home. Unfortunately they were shredded to bits by red ants at the foot of my rope cot the next night.

I soon learned how things got done in India. For example, how did the wide lawn at the front of the one-story HQ building get cut? Simple. A row of men and boys, crouching down and close together along a line, working in tandem moved along using small clippers. Later, in Calcutta, we watched as a man moved his goats along the grass walkway, grazing as they went, keeping the lawn trimmed. One night I was given guard duty at eleven PM. I was taken by an MP in a Jeep to a wire-fence-enclosed power station or water tower. I didn't inquire which. "You'll be here til daybreak, said the MP, as he drove away. Dutifully, I patrolled around the enclosure, and suddenly, at a short distance between my post and the natives' huts, there was an ominous figure crouching. Could it possibly be a Bengal tiger resting? This was Bengal, after all. Here I was, a born and bred city kid many miles from the civilized world as he knew it. Now I was a soldier guarding US Army property of some value, and watching some predator waiting to pounce. I snapped a clip into my carbine, concerned that the click might alert whatever it was out there and I was ready, watchful. Dawn was approaching when a native man emerged from one of the homes, walked in back of the predator, then emptied a pail

into a nearby ditch, and casually went back into his home. No movement from the predator. Daybreak finally came. I now saw the fierce Bengal tiger was actually a lump of laundry laid there for the people to be washing it that day. I had a lot to learn. The MP came on schedule, left another GI for patrol, and took me back to camp. With a one-day pass, I jumped at the chance to visit Calcutta. In an open truck, we barreled through village after village, horn blasting nearly continuously, scattering people and animals as we went. There seemed to be no designated roads for much of the thirty or so miles, but the driver apparently knew the route, and the people routinely got themselves out of the way. At one point we could see we were heading into a storm the monsoon season, June through September, was upon us. When it came, I sat watching what the experienced guys were doing. They sat immobile, getting completely drenched, and I did also. When we passed through the storm I watched as the other GIs stood, pressed creases into their pants and shirts, stretched out their arms and in a few minutes the sun and heat did what those GIs had known about. They and I were completely dried.

FIRST VIEW OF CALCUTTA

As we neared Calcutta, I didn't want to breathe in because the odor was so rancid. The others weren't bothered, they were used to it. Later I learned why the area outside Calcutta smelled so bad: The Indians had cut down all the trees available, using the wood for fuel, and not planting new trees, for future years. Now there was scarcely little wood. In its place, women were gathering dung from the protected, ubiquitous cows, drying it by pasting it on walls or laying it out flat, in the sun, thereby hardening it. This was valuable fuel for all its various uses. That was the smell in the air signaling nearness to Calcutta.

Woman drying dung in the street. Dung is used for fuel. (Toms collection)

After pulling into the motor pool of the US Headquarters building near one of the main intersections of the city, I became, what could be best described, a wild -eyed tourist. First I wandered into the HQ building, met a friend, Howard, from my Fort Eustis days, who showed me around, introduced me to the people in JAG. They all seemed like nice fellows and were glad to meet me. Outside, the center of Calcutta took on a face almost unbelievable in contrast to any major city in the States. I saw barefooted Indians pulling rickshaws and turban-topped Indians driving taxis through the clogged streets. There were Indian women in colorful, beautiful saris and men in western clothes. Other people were hurrying or lounging in white tee shirts and dhotis (wrap), some with sandals, some without.

Street scene (Toms collection) Also, a chalk-white woman, obviously not Indian, walking shaded by an umbrella avoiding the sun. Young men stood at a stand smoking cigarettes.

Young men smoking cigarettes (Toms collection)

Brick walls were fronting the glass windows of department stores, protecting the plate glass from possible bombing in event of a Japanese attack. And a blind beggar stood by with a staff covered with coins and emblems from all around the world.

Sikhs riding on the side of a taxi (Toms collection) All this moving, alive with humanity, in a country I never imagined before. It was much more exciting than the Sister at Our Lady of the Rosary ever described. It was fascinating, too much to hold in memory, as I took the motor pool back to Kanshapara and wait for orders.

Street scene (Toms collection)

ORDERS TO NEW DELHI

The orders came. I am assigned to Ordnance, New Delhi. Well, that's the way it goes: From draft pick, to steno clerk, to German prisoners of war guard, to engineer, to Ordnance. As has been said: "When in the Army, you go ...etc." That's survival. Or as an infantryman said one time: "Survive, then advance. So I guess I'm advancing. But, I was fortunate to have been in war times for two years and haven't been shot at yet. Quickly I was on my way to Calcutta. My first stop was a rail station and I began inching my way through a multitude of humanity to a tiny booth in a corner where GIs took a look at my orders, confirmed them, and handed me a ticket, pointing to my platform.

Rail station (Toms collection)

If I said "inched my way" even that would be an understatement. That station was the size of a vast airport-hanger and was packed with moving, seeming directionless humanity. (Later, under less hectic moments I would learn that this huge building was also sleeping-quarters for hundreds and hundreds of people. It was a roof over their heads at nights or in rotten weather. Where else? Trains on several tracks were being boarded; mine was on the right, directly ahead. An Indian grabbed at my large duffle bag as soon as I had been given a ticket. He was what we would call a Red Cap. As he took the bag he said "Sahib," wanting me to let him have control of it. I gave in and he rushed ahead through the crowd toward the train. He turned once and looked back for me, urging me to follow. I was concerned about never seeing my bag again so I held a coin aloft for him to see and acknowledge. Thankfully, he boarded the train; burst into a compartment meant for two passengers, dropped my bag and smiled proudly. He was obviously happy to have gotten for me such a good spot. He then took the coin and left. Within a few minutes, another GI, a PFC named Larry, rushed in. Seeing me, he closed the compartment door, took off his GI tie,

and tied it around the door knobs, securing us in. I had the immediate impression Larry had been on this trip before. A well-dressed Indian man being escorted by his Red Cap, tried to open the now sealed door and saw American soldiers; swore, and moved away. He apparently had a reservation for a compartment. There was a lot of scurrying outside the train while it pulled away. It was a local train, scheduled to make the roughly 800 mile trip to Delhi in three days, two nights. The line ran mostly parallel with the Ganges River, though we saw little of it, and ran, interestingly for me, through the very heart of mid-northeastern India. The train was packed. Non-ticketed passengers rode on the roofs, dropping off and climbing on at each local stop. They slept on the roofs during the night, managing not falling off. Watching all this I thought of the hoboes in the US. These were the poor souls hopping freights, hoping to avoid the rail police and hoping to reach a Promised Land during our Great Depression.

People rode everywhere (Google Images) But in India the situation is different. They werent hoboes. Watching riders get off the roofs at different local stops I realized they had specific destinations, but were penniless, and so rode the roofs to get wherever they needed to be. The "rest-room" on the train was in the far corner of the car, with a kind of half-door, and just a hole in the floor, surrounded with a metal flooring, used obviously only when the train was moving. We accidently dropped some C-rations on the floor of our compartment. Within minutes the leavings were swarmed by vermin of all conceivable colors and sizes, emerging from the very seats we

were going to sleep on that night. Gingerly, we swabbed it . . . cleaned it up.

RURAL INDIA
The view out the window that first day was a capsule view of rural India. Springing into view were villages of small huts set back from the tracks. Now and then wed see workers reaping what was probably rice. Once we had a view of some Indian women washing clothes and animals in a pond. And at every stop, kids hollered "bahksheesh" and "bahksheesh soldier" as we stuck our heads out the window. For us bahksheesh became the most used word heard in all India. It was "charity" in Hindi. The kids were frolicking, kidding with us, and yet asking plainly for hand-outs. One time Larry tossed a half-eaten tin of rations to them. A boy picked it up, smelled it, threw it aside, turned and threw up. Another time an older girl grabbed her breast, and I swear, squirted some fluid from it. Ill never forget that sight.

Rural huts (Toms collection)

At one stop an AWOL GI came aboard, with GI shoes, pants and GI undershirt. He told us he had been AWOL for more than six months, pointed out the hut he was living in, with, he said, A great little Indian girl. Any worry about US MPs? None at all, he said, he was too far inland. The local people? "They are great," he said. "They know how to do things I didn't and I know how to do things they don't. We get along fine." Hows the food? "You mean rather than Crations?" Enough said. He said he was there for good, the rest of his life, not caring when the US Army - and Air Force, he said, pulled out

entirely and went home. I remember vaguely feeling sorry for him, but he seemed determined and happy. At one stop a man was bathing, using a kind of gushing pump. As the waist-high pump sprayed on him, he pulled his used loincloth off, swept his clean one on zip, zip. No motion lost. Like Gypsy Rose Lee? Similar. No one at the busy station paid any attention to him. Larry and I split shifts at night, keeping watch. He slept the first night, I the second. On my watch that night I was stretched out on the top bunk, alert, enjoying the rumble of the train going through the quiet countryside, when an Indian attempted to come crawling from the roof through our window. He was assuming, I suppose, that we were asleep. I watched, carefully braced myself, and then with both feet kicked him clear out of the window. I could hear him scream as he flew off the moving train down the embankment.

Children in a village ( Toms collection )

BENARES
It was a little after noon when we reached Benares. Most of the train's passengers got off; the roof passengers cleared entirely. This was their destination. The sight of the humanity crowding the station is hard to describe but I'll try: A man sitting there, naked, legs crossed, eyes shut; men in loose white shirts and pants; a big man, naked and other small

men with dhotis, all covered head to toe with a whitish ash. I also observed women wearing bright saris; a man sitting cross-legged reading a book, then gazing skyward; women with masks protecting their breathing. Odors of incense.

Women in a village ( Toms collection ) In all this confusion each person went about their business with total unconcern about what others were doing, seeming absorbed only in his or her own ritual. I didn't understand any of it.

Larry had been there before, and he filled me in a little: Benares is the oldest city in the world, he said (3000 years) and Hindus try to make a pilgrimage to Benares at least once in their lives, to bathe in the Ganges. The train stop would be an hour or so, he said, so that gave me a chance to wander. I bought a bottle of water - the day was hot and humid - 100 degrees or so. Knowing we had to be near the Ganges, and guessing that all that activity at the station was related to some religious rite, I wanted to see what might be going on there. I couldn't get close, but through pictures and news stories later, the drama of Benares as the holiest of India's cities, unfolded. As the saying apparently goes: Hindus go to Benares to die. Each year more than a million Hindus make the visit, especially those for whom death is near. The intention, during a pilgrimage is to dip into the holy Ganges, and should the stars and planets be in alignment, the bathing could free them from the traditional cycle of death and reincarnation. And, for many, the bathing meant washing away their sins.

People bathing in the Ganges (Google Images) All this, as I learned, spoke of the Hindu meaning of life and death. It was a religion I couldn't begin to understand. Perhaps I never would.

ALLAHABAD
After Benares the next major stop was Allahabad, a very large city and also a holy one. An Indian soldier who had served guard duty years before during one of the festivals stopped in to talk with us and told us all about Allahabad.

Allahabad structure (Google Images)

Sitting at the juncture of the holy Ganges and Jumna Rivers (Gandhi's ashes were strewn there later), and considered sacred by the Hindus, a festival was held there once about every twelve years. Many millions, the soldier stressed, came to the river banks each year. "They get there by elephant, camel, donkey, horse, bullock, by rail or car. They walk or crawl or are carried" we read later "The blind, crippled, diseased who expect cures; barren women hoping for fertility; sinners seeking salvation," all come to take a dip in the waters.

AFTERNOON ADVENTURE
After Benares and Allahabad, the late afternoon ride was peaceful and relaxing. Our short trip was filled with views of the countryside life of India. We marveled at groups of tiny huts and small villages, and observed lakeside activities. All space was occupied. And as evening came on you could feel the contrast between the day's earlier excitement with the quiet beauty now of this bewildering, intense, and sensuous country.

Life on a hillside (Toms collection)

Children in a working boat (Toms collection)

Gathering water (Toms collection)

Sunset (Toms collection)

Archway at New Delhi (Toms collection)

NEW DELH I

In the morning, as soon as we arrived in New Delhi we were whisked off and brought to the American Army

compound. It was the last I would see of Larry, but the first I would see of a comrade from the troop ship coming over. He was a staff sergeant, from Omaha as I recall, and he greeted me in the Delhi m e s s hall with "Here's my cribbage partner." He had taught me that great card game and we had spent many an afternoon hour on the ship deck coming over.

I was now to learn where Id be working. The officer commanding Ordnance was a regular Army Colonel, an older man, who greeted me kindly, then turned me over to a Defense Department secretary, a woman, who I came to enjoy and appreciate. She controlled the office and ran the department when the Colonel was away. Since the Theater had been split into India-Burma, as a support operation, and China as an active military section, the Colonel was obligated to oversee the Ordnance function in China. That meant "flying the hump, a risky flight over the Himalayas. The Colonel would be gone for nearly a week at a time. As a result I would be working on routine stuff the secretary would think up, and left spare time for me to see Delhi. That's New Delhi. There was a huge archway that separated New Delhi from entry toward "old" Delhi. "Don't go through there," I w a s t o l d b y t h e M P s . "Why?" I asked. Just dont go through there. Let those folks alone. So I didnt, and did.

Street scene (Toms collection)

RECREATION

Spare time was considered a luxury, and it was used with relish. For example, a pal Reilly and I took our requisitioned bicycles to a quiet section containing a few shops, a movie theater and a small cafe. In the cafe we met a scholar - a professional whose specialty was as an interpreter or writer of correspondence for anyone. He was most articulate and glad to speak with Americans. With his extensive knowledge of G.B. Shaw, he embarrassed me, even with my year and a half of liberal arts college, I knew little. And Reilly and I had a chance to get in nine holes of golf one time. The course, used primarily by American and British officers, was staffed by an Army GI named Johnny Goodman. In 1936 the PGA, as a courtesy, invited selective amateurs to compete. In one of their major matches Johnny won, embarrassing all the professionals. Here now in Delhi, he allotted bags and clubs and balls to us, and two caddies - one to carry the clubs, one to stand over the ball as it landed on the fairway, protecting it from crows. I well remember getting off a fine tee shot once and hearing the one caddy shout out, "Johnny Goodman shot, Sahib."

From that one time, however, the ball caddy chose to stay closer to the drive area rather than getting way out and coming back to where the balls were landing. Reilly and I wound up both playing the one ball. Any shot going into the brush lining the narrow fairway was lost. Neither caddie could find it. But if you were to offer to buy a ball from either, the question would be "How many?"

MAHATMA GANDHI
With a couple hours to spare one afternoon, I took a walk in a quiet, relatively secluded street of New Delhi. Alone, I walked along the pavement of the wide, noiseless street, trees bordering the road and high rough-stone walls protecting the mansion grounds inside. There was the occasional sweet tinkle of bells signaling the approach of a tonga - a more sedate rickshaw drawn by a pony, with the tonga wallah seated in front, similar, I thought to the driver in harness racing at the Allentown Fair.

Mahatma Gandhi (Google Images) I was in no hurry, the walk was too pleasant. I eventually came to a driveway of a mansion with open iron gates and I watched as an Indian-type limousine was emerging. Two Indian chauffeurs were in the open front, with a man seated in the enclosed rear section. I stopped at the curb of the driveway to let the car pass. They stopped, checking traffic before entering the street. As the limousine stopped, its passenger window was directly at the level of my chest, within inches near my face. I found myself looking directly at the man inside; he was looking directly at me. The car moved on, and crossing the driveway, I realized who was inside. He was Mahatma Gandhi.

Under the Indian concept darshan, a large part of it unconscious, no blessing or other act on the part of the great soul is required. Merely to catch a glimpse of the great soul is enough to enrich or strengthen the small soul. The mansion Gandhi's limo was leaving was the home of C.D. Birla, a wealthy Indian industrialist whose financial and commercial interests spread throughout India, and whose family's influence and benefactions in the forms of schools, temples, etc. made the name Birla one of the premier names in India, even to today. C.D. Birla had been a follower of Gandhi for many years. Whenever in Delhi, Gandhi lived in two rooms at the end of the mansion, with easy access to a large garden area, where he conducted, on a raised platform, his evening prayer services, accommodating usually 150 devotees, and, sometimes up to 500. It was at one of those prayer meetings that Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by an agitated Hindu opposed to Gandhi's sympathetic concern for Moslems. Gandhi's body lay in state at the Birla House for several days before removal for a formal funeral. The mansion has since become a museum dedicated to Gandhi.

All this I learned months later, after that one unbelievable event, seeing Gandhi, alone, face to face, in the cab of a limo pausing for a few seconds.

Gandhi with daughter Indira in 1924 (Google Images)

AGRA
Every so often we had the opportunity to take a sightseeing visit to Agra or Kashmir. I chose Agra, and with two

other GIs, a camera, and rationed film, we took off one spare morning. Agra is about 100 miles south of Delhi. Within just a few miles of the Taj Mahal, Agra was a peaceful area of nicely built single homes, and not surprisingly, a US Army Air Force base, and a nearby Indian Army base. Ill never forget seeing the magnificent Taj Mahal for the first time. Its undoubtedly one of civilizations most inspiring sights. Mark Twain called it "That soaring bubble of marble." We just looked at it in awe: a beautifully clear white marble edifice with an elegant white dome. Someone described the dome as "a giant pearl floating above the building." There was a water-filled canal bordering the grounds with flower beds, now dormant, but adding symmetry, stretching in front. We learned from the young Indian ladies who volunteered as tour guides, that there were four canals, each having some religious significance.

Our tour guides at the Taj Mahal (Toms collection)

We also learned from them, and other readings, that the Taj Mahal was "The center of Moghul culture when Shah Jehan built it in 1653. It took two decades to complete and was built as a monument to his favorite wife, who had given him 14 children but died twenty years before its construction. One disturbing sight was the evidence of semi-precious stones that once festooned the front walls, having been chipped away. This was done apparently by some of the tribal hordes ransacking India earlier.

I visited Agra twice, and later viewed the TAJ from the air, flying home. I could never get enough.

TRANSFER TO CALCUTTA
I was surprised one afternoon with a call to report to the Colonel's office. They gave me the orders re-assigning me to the Army JAG office, Calcutta, effective immediately. Wow! The Colonel's secretary told me I would be on a flight from New Delhi to Calcutta the next morning. I suspected the secretary told the Colonel to personally see me off, and that friendly old gentleman shook my hand rather than accept my final salute. In no time my bag was packed. I was happy about a plane trip - no three days, two nights on a train. The next morning slightly hung over from the farewell party by buddies, I jumped aboard. Taking a check of my orders and observing the emergency nature of the trip, the GI boarding me said something about how important a man I must be. I felt more like "bewildered."

Cows at rail station, Calcutta (Toms collection)

Lt. Col Charles Richardson, JAG, (seated center) and his office staff. Standing, at far right in this photo, is Tom Hickey (Toms collection) It took about two hours to reach Calcutta. We landed at an Air Force base I believe they called Dum Dum. Then I was taken to the HQ building and from there to the compound, about a quarter mile away, on a main city avenue. There was a jeep making constant trips between the barracks and HQ so I arrived late that morning. I was anxious to get to know the JAG group. Reporting there, I remembered the two sergeants I had met a few weeks before on my one-day visit from Kanshapara, realizing

now what a lucky day that had been for me. They now needed a court steno and asked for me. I was to report for duty the next morning although I hadn't met the boss of the outfit yet. I was put right to work the next morning, after meeting Lt. Col. Richardson, the JAG leader, and about the best military officer and nicest gentleman I ever had the good fortune of meeting in my years of service. Smart, tough, human, counseling, he was all of those. I was given notebooks and pens and sat down the next morning to record an interview by a JAG officer of one of the defendants in an upcoming general court martial case that as I learned quickly, was of serious consequence. I worked steadily for two weeks transcribing statements and depositions of defendants. This required putting in a lot of extra time so I would be familiar with the technical words and phrases that I would be transcribing at high speed. Then one day one of the fellows I had gotten to know came in and said, "Two of us are going to see some Sisters who are keeping a kind of hospice in the slums for homeless people who are sick or dying in the streets , and orphan kids needing food. We thought we would see them, and when we got home we could

raise some money for them. Can you come along?" I couldn't. I had to be ready for the interviews the next morning. But I'll be with you next time you go." I was aware that as many as half the city's four million people at this time were destitute so the work of the Sisters they mentioned was enormous. Two days later I saw the sergeant and asked him how it went. He mentioned some Sisters' names, and if one of them had been "Teresa" I would have remembered - my Aunt Theresa is my godmother. But it is possible the Mother Teresa we all know about could have been there. Mother Teresa was teaching at that time in an exclusive school for Indian girls run by the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish based order. The school overlooked some of the pitiful slums of that area, and certainly she knew and became familiar with the plight of the poorest of the poor, for which she would devote the rest of her life, with kindness.

Mother Teresa in above photos (Google Images)

However, as time went on my buddies never made another visit and neither did I. If you should want to describe Calcutta in one phrase, that phrase would be "quiet chaos." With about four million people jammed together in what was India's principal industrial and commercial center, one must stand back and look at the city's makeup section by section.

It was a major port, though the harbor was poorly navigable, as we saw entering via troop ship; personal transport was rickshaw or taxi; the financial district, reportedly India' s most active; its commercial side a mix of street-side vendors, small workshops, and a few up-scale stores. Its people might live in one-room lodgings, in apartment buildings, in shanties, on selected pavement spots, or anywhere there was covered space for families, such as the cavernous rail station. And there were the cows - considered sacred - roaming at will anywhere.

Chowringhee, Calcutta (Google Images)

Our Army compound was on Chowringhee, the city's main avenue, and across the avenue from us was a collection of up-scale stores. In one direction from us was the Maidan, a very large park, with a monument to Queen Victoria set way back. It was the site of many important events. Gandhi spoke from a platform there one time, before a few hundred well-dressed Indians, while out on Chowringhee the tumult of daily life just went on as usual, respecting the Mahatma, but with no time to spare. In the other direction from our compound, Chowringhee led into the large intersection of, I believe, Chatterjee, a quarter-mile distant from us. The US Army HQ was on that street. The intersection was the center of transportation, taxis and an occasional bus, and a building providing entry to the lower beach of the Hooghly River, a tributary of the holy Ganges, where hundreds did their daily bathing, often with religious significance.

ARMY COMPOUND
Across Chowringhee from our barracks were, as I have said, higher-quality, multi-level stores, their pane-glass windows once protected by brick walls, anticipating bombing during a Japanese invasion. These walls were torn down brick by brick, with the war being over. There was a kind of nightclub in an upper level of one of the stores; you could hear the music playing on a Saturday night (the band led by an American, incidentally). On my first weekend in our barracks I watched British officers escort their ladies out of cars and enter the club. When Indian beggars picked at the legs of the officers saying "bahksheesh" the officers unhesitatingly kicked them away. That was riveted in my mind. It was my first glimpse of the English dominance of India, and I thought it was inhuman and cruel.

Another view of the Chowringhee. Army base is in the upper right (origin unknown) Unfortunately, soon afterwards I found myself kicking beggars away when they got too aggressive. Kids were different. If I had some Whitmans candies in my pocket, I would give them some, then say Jao ( go), don't bother me. During a riot of some kind, small but it seems regular occurrences, looters broke into the stores and in one instance, flung shoes and sneakers over the wire fence into our barracks area. They had no use for footwear.

Suddenly, klaxon horn blaring, a flatbed truck with a pole down its middle charged into the trouble. On the truck were Gurkhas, who sprang from the truck and rushed at the gang. No contest. Scattering everywhere for escape, the looters vanished. The riot was over. The Gurkhas were a warlike, sturdy race of Hindus who originated from Nepal, a northeast frontier, independent of India. They had volunteered for the Indian Army and served with distinction. I recall hearing of their particular heroism and initiative in the battle of Monte Cessino in Italy during that invasion. Now, with wars over, they, with their families, contracted with whoever needed their expertise -- the city of Calcutta for example. According to a booklet provided to us, the Gurkhas "maintained a spirit of close camaraderie with British soldiers"

and with their strong military background, they merged well with the City's security force. They were a highly disciplined group, and proud of their ability to perform the responsibilities they had contracted for. For example: Gurkhas guarded our US Army compound, day and night. We rarely talked with them, but knew they were there. One day one of our sergeants stopped unexpectedly in our barracks to get something, and found an Indian intruder rooting through our belongings. He caught him, pulled him out to our front gate, and said to the Gurkha guard there, "Hold this guy, would you, while I get our MPs." The Gurkha grabbed the intruder and with a lathi (heavy wooden stick), beat him over the head, killing him. On the spot.

INDIAN WORKERS
Just about all one read in the Hindustani Times or heard routinely about Calcutta was its devastation, its being the center of political turmoil, its bleak future. I heard or read no mention of the quiet, productive, remarkable work being done

by the many thousands of quiet, productive, remarkable Indian workers. As I saw it, the workforce is an integral part of the economy of the city, keeping it vital and surviving. In various corners of the city and in adjoining villages, you could visit merchants, salesmen and women, specialists, all doing their day's work, staying alive with their families, and prospering. Like the shoemaker, Lee, down the block from me at home (he's an accredited poet, also). And here most are doing the same work their fathers did before them, and work their sons will be doing when it will be their turn; maintaining and improving, through generations, the expertise, the quality and the dignity of their labor. And let's not forget the dhobi who picked up our soiled clothes and returned them fresh and clean every week. Once one of our dhobis sons was very sick so we took up a collection to insure he would get the proper medical care. A week later the smiling boy and a beaming Dad came into the barracks to thank us.

We regularly visited the shops of those Indians and bought stuff. Jim, for example, bought a handmade filigree cigarette case for his girl back home, from a most pleasant Indian craftsman in his own shop at the edge of the city.

Ivory carving (Toms collection)

Street scenes (Toms collection)

Vendors (Toms collection)

Above two photos, Indian workers (Toms collection)

And lets not forget our dhobi at work (Toms collection)

Dhobi wallahs children. On the right is Chico,the officers shoe shine wallah October 1945 (Toms collection)

Even the Indian's baby had a job. His job was to sit, holding the bamboo door open. Everybody had a function in these hard-working, rewarding businesses. And when I picture India in years ahead it will be with them in mind. For me it was a joy to have gotten to know them.

DEATH IN INDIA
Indians generally do not think of death as a final act. Hindus believe death as a stop in a journey from birth to a final merging with their universal being. Because of the heat, bodies are cremated right after death. The deceased are carried on bamboo cots down to the river bank and cremated. I visited the ghat (steps leading down to the river) in Calcutta on the Hooghly, during one of the cremations.

The above photo is of the Hooghly River (Google Images)

Two previous photos -- The body being prepared for burning, next page the vultures patiently wait for scraps (Toms collection)

I had read that body had to be washed in the river and set on the cot and placed in a hole. And as I saw, perfumed wood had been placed on top of the deceased and set afire. The relatives of the deceased just watched, and prayed as specific Indians of a lower caste took charge, keeping the fire going properly. Rather than being aghast at the sight of skin burning off the deceased's skull, I somehow felt more in communion with the relatives, sharing in merely one phase of the religious ritual. At the end of the burning, the ashes and, I am told, the preserved navels are placed into the river.

Small children aren't cremated in this way, or the very poor who can't afford the wood. They are often simply placed in the river without the burning ritual. Gandhi was cremated on the bank of the Jumna River near Delhi. His ashes were carried in an urn by train to the holy city of Allahabad and before estimates of two to four million people, his ashes were spread at the point where the Jumna joined the Ganges, flowing there as the Ganges. A memorial tomb for him is in Delhi.

Funeral procession for Mahatma Gandhi (Google Images)

One community of Indians, the Parsis, has a different kind of funeral. Their dead are carried to a building called "Tower Of Silence." It is a white, hollow two-story structure with a grated platform on top. No outsiders are allowed inside the compound, but a guard let me in just to have a look. The deceased is placed on the top of the tower and left on that roof for vultures to feast on. The skeleton is left to disintegrate in the sun, with the linens and remains dropping through the grate.

ARMY LIFE
One day, on the avenue, I was greeted by a GI from the old days at Fort Eustis lets call him Sergeant Rubin. Touching my stripes - I had a few then - he told me he was on R & R -rest and rehabilitation - in Calcutta and that he now had one of the most miserable assignments in the Army. The story begins many months before, at Fort Eustis, where the USO showed a movie starring Cary Grant. In this movie, Arsenic and Old Lace, two sweet old aunts were poisoning unsuspecting old gentlemen and burying them in their cellar. The aunts had a simpleminded nephew who did

the burying for them, and also imagined himself being with Teddy Roosevelt, and would rush up the stairs to his bedroom, shouting "Charge!" as he ran up San Juan Hill. Private Ray, my buddy, liked the movie, and coming back to our barracks, he kept charging up the steps yelling, of course, "Charge! This went on for a while even after the lights out. Sergeant Rubin was in control of our barracks and was not pleased. In fact he was hoppin mad. Storming upstairs, fat-bellied and bare ass naked, he switched on the lights and demanded to know who had awakened him and everybody else with all the racket. We were all in our bunks but Ray was the only one of us in bed with all his clothes on, including boots. Sergeant Rubin ordered Ray to report to HQ the next morning, and for the next two days, as punishment, he had to march around the barracks, with rifle and full pack, from reveille until lights out. Fast forward a year and a half. Ray, now Staff Sergeant Ray, was in Camp Claiborne Personnel, with the responsibility of assigning men, by specialty or purely manpower, to overseas posts me to India for example.

Sergeant Rubin was thus assigned to an organization in Myitkyina, in Burma, the rainiest spot on the globe. He was, Rubin told me, here in Calcutta on R&R, in charge of a mule pack train, moving supplies to the soldiers in deep Burma, and moving the sick and injured back out. Rain, heat, mud, malaria, identified Myitkyina, and here was Rubin telling me about it. I didnt mention the word Charge! to him; his life was tough enough. But you can connect the dots. Thats army life! Soldiers were always looking to buy unusual things from vendors. On the busy avenue you would regularly hear "Want a girl, Sahib? Nice Girl. School teacher." Or, "Want to buy a monkey, Sahib?" So one day one of the sergeants in our barracks bought a monkey. He named it "Chico." It was fun,

except one time when Chico took some of the warm beer he was offered, and that night he threw up in the sergeant's bunk. Then one day the monkey got loose in the barracks and ran free and wild, tearing down mosquito netting over cots, rooted in clothes, foot lockers, anything, looking for stray food. We gave the sergeant the word: the monkey would have to go. Jim and I volunteered to take the monkey away, and as I told my three little kids at their bedtimes years later, We put a cord around little Chico's collar and into the Jeep he went. He sat very quietly with us as we drove up a dirt road to wooded area called the Monkey Jungle. There we let him loose so he would now be with all his monkey friends. Then as we drove off down the dirt road, with dust swirling behind us, we looked back and saw Chico, perched on a tree limb over the road, watching us go. And as we moved out of sight I gave a final look and there was Chico, with a tear in his eye. Now say your prayers and get in bed, gang."

JAG OFFICE
In the JAG office a lot of things were happening. The Master Sergeant in charge went home; his second in command

moved up. The Colonel recruited two very fine GI court reporters to handle the ongoing general court martial and moved me out of the courtroom and into his office. It was a busy place, with seven lawyers including those prosecuting the general court martial and two secretaries - one English, one Burmese. With the Japanese surrendering September 2, 1945, their POW camps, spread across the Indo-Chinese area were evacuated and the American soldiers came to Calcutta for medical treatment and for JAG legal papers. These were gutsy survivors, with some ugly stories to tell of their capture and imprisonment. Some imprisoned several years. The court reporters worked in shifts, making it possible to have one available for Summary or Special Courts. One involved the trial of an AWOL GI, picked up by the MPs when he was dressed in Indian clothes, including head sashes, except for one item: he was wearing Army boots. His tootsies couldn't handle Calcutta's pavements. (Our Indian bearer one time dropped his cigarette butt on the floor, and stamped it out with his bare foot). That's the difference.

Another case: On an Army truck wending its way through the jungles of northern Bengal, a GI spotted eyes peering from the brush, in the pitch dark. Thinking it was a Bengal tiger, he shot at it, wounding an Indian peasant. There were numerous other claims needing resolution, and with others, we were keeping close watch on mass meetings of Air Force GIs calling for early orders out of India, back home. Some Communist influence was seen. At the office, the Sergeant took me under his wing and this great guy coached me fully. In a month or so he too shipped out, and I was upgraded.

EVERYDAY LIFE
With a year of college accounting on my record, I qualified, and took a job moonlighting as auditor of the Officers Mess Hall; excuse me - Officers Dining Hall. I was expected to do the audit twice a month. I went there twice a week - the food there was very good.

The Captain in charge, a sharp, very pleasant guy would go out to meet an incoming supply ship, and would manage to wheedle some specialties for his charge. Stateside butter, for example, or salad dressings, or, (Hallelujah), some ground pepper. Now India was and is a world class grower and exporter of pepper corns. But ground pepper was not an ingredient in either the Hindu or Moslem cuisine, so there wasn't any. That made ground pepper at the officers place a luxury indeed. I resolved then and there that I would never in the future have breakfast eggs without pepper. And I never have. One day I saw a GI, half gassed, I imagine, galloping full speed down the Avenue, having himself a roaring time, pulling a rickshaw, with the wallah riding in the seat, scared. Bill, a buddy from Eustis, had arrived in India late in his years of service, with his wife at home about to deliver. With me in tow for morale support, Bill tried to phone his

home, at night, Calcutta time, the day after the expected date, USA time. For over an hour the public phone operator tried and tried to reach the number in Baltimore, Maryland. He finally succeeded. "Mother and baby fine," someone abruptly answered. "Call again later for details." Bill slept well that night. Every day mostly younger men would gather at the gateway to our Army mess hall, hoping for some bread. Often they had fled their village to avoid an epidemic there, and came to the city. They had nothing.

MEETING WITH THE BRITS

Every so often we had a chance to mix with some British NCOs and really enjoyed listening to their stories about their service, not only in India, but in the European

war and their brutal struggles in the early 1940s along the western coast of Burma routing Japanese. "We can't believe," we would say, "that as soon as the Hitler war was over, in July 1945 you voted Churchill out of office. Winston Churchill - after all he had done for you, and vote in some guy (Atlee) nobody ever heard of." No comment from them. "At least our President died in office," we said, "he didn't get voted out." Their ration was one fifth of scotch. Ours was a case of beer packed in sawdust. The tradeoff with them evolved into two cases of ours for one bottle of theirs. Acceptable. They were unhappy about how generous we were with paying, for example, the rickshaw wallahs, and for paying the merchants the price they asked instead of bargaining with them. "You blokes will be leaving," they said, "but we will still be here and they (Indians) will be expecting more than we always give them." We joined them one evening at the race track for a show. They had built a stage in the grandstand area and the stands were packed - it was a big event. The show headliner was - I believe, if I'm remembering right - a

woman named Gracie Fields. She was obviously well known to them, and they enjoyed her. She told them a story: "It was during a Nazi blitz of London. Bombs dropping everywhere. People huddled in underground shelters. A sweet little lady, very hard of hearing, was in her flat having a spot to tea, knitting. Suddenly a bomb dropped on a flat very close. The noise was deafening. The little lady cupped her ear, listening intently, and then said "Come in, pussy cat." They loved it. The indestructability of the English spirit.

THE INDIAN ARMY

The Indian Army, the world's largest volunteer army, put on a victory parade down Chowringhee to the Hooghly entrance intersection in Calcutta.

Indian Army (Google Images) Indian Army veterans and soldiers always enjoyed talking to us, and we learned a lot about them. Some had been captured and put in POW camps by Germans in that campaign; some had wound up in Japanese POW camps in Burma and Indonesia. Some had fought with US General, "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell, fighting and building roads through jungles in Burma from early 1940s on.

So now they were having a wonderful parade: Marching drummers; heroes riding in open cars; strutting troops, with everybody cheering. It was great! And one cheer especially was heard from deep in the crowd and from far back at its beginning in Chowringhee. It was a cheer that swelled through the crowds as the parade moved toward us - like a chant, intense, then bursting out, reaching its peak when the subject came near.

Mahatma Gandhi (Toms Collection) The cheer was "Mahatma Gandhiji ki Jai." Victory to the Mahatma Gandhi. Over and over. From the hundreds of thousand throats. I couldn't see him, but I knew where he was by the intensity of the cheering. Back in 1930, responding to a voiceless plea of the countrys people for leadership, Gandhi began his historic walk of 241 miles in 24 days to the sea. His country, and eventually the world, watched every step: each local village strewing flowers in his path.

At the water's edge, Gandhi dredged salt from its waves in a stroke defying a prohibition by British authority. This act was then copied by Indians along the country's sea coast, often taking beatings without resistance. Gandhi was jailed, but the spark had been lit, igniting the cause - non-violent protest of the immorality of the English Salt Tax - and central to the call for freedom from British rule. Now here in Calcutta fifteen years later, intervening wars won, Britain broke, Independence for India a near certainty, was heard in full throat, the recognition: "Mahatma Gandhiji ki Jai." word. Emphasis on the last

TOWARD INDEPENDENCE
For those of us considered firmly stationed in Calcutta, the social life was fine. The females we met and became pals with were ladies. Educated, cultured, they were a fine mixture of Anglo-Indians, Scotch, and lighthued Indians. (There was a standard long observed by

GIs: A shade no darker than that on a Philip Morris cigarette package). Horrible. They were very pretty, likeable girls. Those we met singly or in a group, constantly asked questions about life in the States: "Is it like in the movies we saw?" And we heard about their seasonal visits to Darjeeling, a Pocono-like escape from the Calcutta heat. And even when not asked, each of us talked a lot about life in the States. I guess we were anxious to get home. Jim had a special favorite. If you think of Lana Turner with a nice tan, that was Jim's favorite. A really sweet girl. The tall GI with Air Transport Command had matched perfectly with a tall beauty from Rhodesia. I didn't have a special one, but when we met in a group, I gravitated to a blonde Scotch girl. Her father was manager of a bank in the city. She was just waiting, she said, for "this thing" (the war clean-up) to be done with. An Air Force Officer she cared for deeply and her parents had liked, had been transferred to the China Theater, and told her, in their frequent notes that he would be back.

Every so often one of the girls would mention the country's political turnings, and how its direction would affect them. Their future was indeed cloudy. In an independent Hindu/Moslem India, Anglo-Indians would be shunted aside; other Nationals would be told to go back to the country they came from.

INDIAN POLITICS
Regarding the day's Indian politics, I was illiterate. But with comments occasionally by the ladies, and from a GI in the cot next to mine, an Amherst graduate with an ear for the news, I got educated. I couldn't tell a Hindu from a Moslem. In the busy streets I didn't see any antagonism, their working lives went on in peace. The distinction was in their religions. Hindus had great seasonal festivities, which we on Chowringhee enjoyed. Moslems had their private Temple services.

At the same time, however, there was news of much political jockeying going on in London and Delhi. Let me relate some of the recent history of India, in order to put into perspective the temper of the times:

Gandhi, with his Salt March to the Sea in 1930, and his "Quit India" movement begun in 1942, and even though by 1944 he spent a total of over 2000 days at various times in British jails, he nevertheless supported the British in their World War. He had shown his determination to obtain complete independence for his hundreds of millions of people - not dominion status -complete freedom to rule themselves. (Gandhi had earlier proposed non-violent peace with Hitler, but when he learned what Hitler was doing to the Jews, he withdrew any thought of nonviolence and gave his full endorsement for Indian troops in support of Britain.)

Prominent Indian leaders including Maulana Azad, Sadar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi. (from Wikipedia)

Now, in mid-1945, early 1946, with the principals in place: CLEMENT ATLEE and England's Parliament amenable to ridding itself of India, MAHATMA GANDHI, pleading and fasting for tolerance and a free, unified India, and backed by SADAR PATEL, Congress Party leader and more politically savvy, and JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, Gandhi's chosen successor, and MOHAMMED ALI

JINNAH, leading the rival Moslem League party and thumping for a divided State for Moslems, i.e. Pakistan. The stage was now set for a drama with importance surpassing any event in India's past history. That fall and winter of 45, after the monsoon season, the city came alive with demonstrations. There were gatherings of hundreds, parading through the major streets and meeting at Dalhousie Square. Their makeup was primarily male, middle- or lower-class, often students. They were not hooligans, like the ones earlier looting the better stores across Chowringhee from us -those routed by Gurkhas. In these parades were Indians with a cause - a free India, and while intent on non-violence, there was an attitude of "No fooling - we mean business" about them. And sometimes a flag with hammer and sickle appeared in their center. The parades were almost daily.

TRIAL OF OFFICERS
Then things got nasty. Demonstrators began to march chanting a slogan of some kind opposing the trial of Indian National Army officers taking place in Delhi. Background: An Indian Congressman, Subhan Chandra Bose had earlier tried to deal with the Nazis offering Indian Army officers and soldiers being held in German POW camps, to fight with them against Britain, a war he expected Germany to win. Then India would be free to become independent.

Subhan Chandra Bose (Toms collection)

That effort, of course, failed. But Bose later emerged as a dealmaker with the Japanese, allowing them to recruit POW officers and soldiers they held and putting them into the new Indian National Army, to be part of the Japanese invasion of India and drive the British out. Independence of India a goal. Now, with Japan defeated, the officers of Bose's INA were being tried in Delhi for what amounted to treason. The people, especially the students among them, were incensed about the trial, even though Bose, his officers and men had corroborated with the Japanese preparing to invade, they were seen as patriots, with the sole objective: Drive the British out. And Bose himself was being lauded as a national hero. A group demonstrating against the trials gathered in growing numbers, day after day as news of the trial wore on. A special city militia force, I believe Anglo-lndian, charged with controlling groups, was getting weary.

The militia insisted the growing group move by way of a side street to Dalhousie Square; the group insisted on massing first in the major city intersection. After days and nights of this confrontation, with no letup, one of the young militiamen, unfortunately, fired at the group leaders, wounding a boy. The newspaper the next morning headlined a picture of a man holding the limp boy in his arms. They had a martyr. Gandhian non-violence aside, the thousands, with renewed intensity, took over. The militia retreated to their barracks. This was a telling incident energizing riots and demonstrations throughout India, and especially in Calcutta.

GATHERING STORMS
As Americans, we GIs didn't feel any danger, and our officers weren't sending any warning signals. On the avenue and on Chowringhee, life went on as usual, as well as in the JAG office, in HQ, and in our barracks.

But in the crowds demonstrating, you could feel a tension and an anger - which was surprising - these are not an angry people. Indian friends were quietly hinting to us it was time for Americans to go home. One morning I hitched a ride to HQ with a buddy in his mail run Jeep. There was a considerable, anxious crowd building up in the main intersection as we passed through, and an Army MP patrol ran past. At the JAG office, three lawyer/officers were packing up some papers, getting ready to leave. One Captain, Irish and from Chicago, a really good guy, said, Don't wait too long to close up, Sergeant." And they left. But I had something or other to get done, so I stayed for another hour or so. Then a Lieutenant who was, in his own words "Tender of the Fortress" suggested that I soon get on back to the compound. On my way down to the motor pool, I saw a British jeep reeling around the corner away from the main intersection, coming at full speed past us, chunks of brick flying after them. The driver was hunched over the wheel; a

British officer in the back seat had a protective arm around a uniformed woman, seemingly hurt. There was no one in the HQ offices, and the motor pool had one vehicle left, with an Indian driver and three GIs waiting for a lift. I told them to climb aboard the truck and I got in the open cab with the driver. They piled into the back of the truck. We left the HQ building with two options: Routing around through the slum streets and winding back to the compound on Chowringhee, which would be foolish. We could also face the risk of getting through the main intersection the English jeep had just come flying out of. We went there. A couple blocks before the intersection we heard the ruckus of the crowd, as we headed into it. There were signs of trouble even before we turned the corner. The crowd was expanding deeply past the range of the intersection. As we moved slowly into the crowded intersection, we realized how immense the crowd had become.

Steadily, very slowly, we inched through the barely moving crowd, until we could go no further. We were trapped - a lone US Army truck with a star on its side, sitting there. All around us, in every direction, was a sea of slick black hair, collarless white shirts, and brown faces staring at us, with heads lifted up. And not a sound. The thousand throats we had heard coming in, now silent. It was eerie. Nothing, as we stared at each other. For how long? Seconds, minutes? Timeless. Then corporal in a the

back of the truck, nervous, barely said, heard:

"Hubba, Hubba." "Hubba, Hubba!" "Hubba Hubba!" Brown

faces pressed against the side of the truck heard it, picked

it up, yelled it out. The words were magic. Smiles spread across the faces of the crowd. A path was cleared and an Indian started waving at us to come through. The cry was everywhere. Hubba, Hubba! To GIs it was a time worn complaint - hurry up and wait. To the Indians it was something American. They had gotten to know us; they liked us. We were good to their children, were good to them, treated them as equals, talked to them, paid them well, tipped them well, we were friendly people, we were Americans. To our Indian driver, a marvelous guy through all this, I said "Jao" (i.e. Go!), as we weaved slowly through their narrow path. Then as the path widened and I could see a stretch of Chowringhee ahead, I said "Jilty Jao!" and he got moving. All the way out, and for the quarter mile back to our compound, the sound kept ringing: "Hubba Hubba!" swelling into a chant. A new sound. They enjoyed it. Pulling into the compound we all thanked the Indian driver, and then checked one soldier who had been hit with

a chunk of brick thrown at us from the periphery. He was O.K. I came into our barracks, there were a few guys standing around, talking. I asked "Anybody happen to have something to drink? I could use one."

GOING HOME
It was nearing the end of March 1946. I was stretched out on a cot, in a tent, in my shorts, at 110 degrees, waiting for the orders to get the uniform back on, grab my barracks bag and get on the truck that would take us to the pier where the troop ship taking us home was docked. I wasn't eagerly looking forward to another twenty or so seasick days sailing the great Pacific, but, as they say, you do what they tell you. Suddenly a call came out for me to report to the camp HQ. "Your name has been removed from the ship manifest," they said, "instead you will report here at 0700 tomorrow, to the Air Transport Command desk for a flight back to the US"

Life in Calcutta had been with many surprises, but none more marvelous than this. A week or so earlier, a few of us had put together a going-back-home party for ourselves, and at the same time a so-long salute to the tall, good looking guy with Air Transport Command and his tall, beautiful Rhodesian girlfriend. Theirs was a fine match from the beginning, and it had gotten very serious. For the party I had managed to scrounge two cases of beer and a trade-off bottle of scotch, with the help of a buddy from Baltimore, with Quartermasters. It was a nice party, for a nice couple. Now, without ever having said a word to me about it, our ATC soldier had scheduled me in for a flight home. TWA at that time was setting up their schedules for overseas flights and had set it up with our Air Transport Command to put essential freight and bodies - namely enlisted men -aboard.

That's how I got home. Via Delhi, Karachi (still in India), Dahran, Athens, overnight in Cairo, then Rome, Paris, the Azores, Newfoundland, and Boston. In the States I boarded a train to New York, with no passengers riding on the roof, and, finally, a troop truck to Fort Dix, New Jersey. April Fools Day, 1946. Home at Last!