by Mike Edwards
He continued in that vein, including how his English Principal had showed him the Hunter Commission Report all those years ago in college. He talked about the ‘Quit India campaign’, pointing out that the Allied forces must win for a future Independent India:
‘If after the war we are treated shabbily by the British, we will fight them, too, until we become a Dominion, which I believe is the next step for India.’
Expecting trouble, Harjinder was surprised when Proud got up and shook hands with him, saying:
‘You are a real and true patriot. I am glad you practise what you preach. We do not want “Yes men” who say things to please us, and yet would garland the Japanese if they landed at Calcutta. We need men with principles who can be true to us and to their own country. Your anti-British remarks are understandable. We are to blame for the introduction of the Rowlatt Act even after the Indians’ magnificent war effort in the 1914-18 war. But I assure you, it will be a different story after this war. Now I want to talk to you about this chap called Chatterji.’
Harjinder’s heart leaped into his mouth when he read the sheaf of letters handed to him. They were Chatterji’s intercepted letters to various contacts describing how he had joined the Air Force to spur other Airmen to anti-British activities. He had written about his conversation with Harjinder, reporting their discourse accurately, and about his mother’s plea for him to remain in Service. However, he did have doubts and expressed his sense of betrayal by serving in uniform. If Harjinder had not been so frank, he would have been earmarked as an imposter, and a world of trouble could have been dropped from above.
As the year reached the halfway point, it was not trouble that came Harjinder’s way, but praise from high above. In the King’s Birthday Honours List of June 1943, Harjinder found that he had been awarded the MBE for his work in the Burma campaign. Jumbo was overjoyed by the news pointing out that with his Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), they were the first two IAF officers to be decorated. A medal for distinguished flying was one thing, Harjinder, however, was being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire; an interesting concept after his conversation with Proud. Thinking back to Peshawar, Harjinder remembered how Warrant Officer Simms seemed to have reached an unattainable level with his MBE. Only two years later, he had his own MBE. His entrance into the Order of the British Empire.
Harjinder briefly teamed up again with Jumbo Majumdar, DFC, and they headed back to the North-West Frontier for the shooting of the propaganda film. At one point, Flying Officer Ranjan Dutt was supposed to zoom over the top of the two of them as they walked towards the camera, but he got a little carried away. The shot ended up with Jumbo and Harjinder face down in the dirt, with the Hurricane seemingly cutting their hair with its propeller. The finished film was taken to Sir Richard Pierse, the Air Officer Commanding, India, who promptly hit the roof. He vehemently objected to the part where Harjinder was shown leading the strike in Lahore with banners that read ‘Long Live Revolution’. ‘What madness is this? Do you want to encourage students to revolt after seeing this film?’
So that part was deleted, but the rest was passed. However, for some inexplicable reason, they kept Harjinder’s service number, but changed his name to ‘Pawar’ in the film.
Not only was Harjinder a ‘film star’, but he became a pin-up, too! The recruiting department produced a poster that was circulated throughout India. Someone in Delhi had a brainwave; Flight Sergeant Pring had shot down three Japanese aircraft over Calcutta, and his surname had a certain ring to it when combined with Harjinder’s. Pring’s name and Harjinder’s were headlined in bold print; ‘This is Pring and this is Singh!’ Both their photos appeared side by side, the text complimenting Pring for his aerial success, his coolness under pressure; Harjinder as the man who gave up an engineering degree to become the first IAF technical officer. His face was now seen around India, but many of the readers didn’t take time to read the text. For months he received letters of praise from all over congratulating him on his piloting skills and three downed Japanese aircraft!
The time running the recruiting centre was coming to an end, but the film and the MBE seemed to do some good, as later that year, Harjinder was told that he had been selected to undertake advanced technical training in the United Kingdom. He always wanted to remain as a ‘hands-on’ engineer, and this was the course that would take his skills to another level.
Harjinder sailed aboard the ‘Strathmore’ for England on 1 December, 1943. He left behind a country with the enemy beating at the door. Harjinder’s No. 1 Squadron had been sent back up to the North-West Frontier to continue operations against the tribes. This seemed to be their fate, until mid-December saw a visit by the Commander in Chief of the Army in India, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck. Arjan Singh so impressed the Field Marshal during his visit, with the efficient operation and the deep burning desire to be back in the thick of the fighting, that within the week, the orders were issued for the Squadron’s return to combat, and a move to Imphal on the Burma border. Harjinder’s old No. 1 Squadron was going back to war, with Arjan Singh taking on the role Jumbo had made his own.
Harjinder was accompanied by another Knight of the Realm on his sea voyage. Sir Douglas Young, the retiring Chief Justice of India, departed from the Bombay docks amid the confusion of the bowing and scraping of a million yes men, ready to serve his every need. Sir Douglas was in for a rude shock when they landed at Liverpool. Air Vice-Marshal Hind received Harjinder, looked after his disembarkation, detailing an RAF Airman to look after his kit. Meanwhile, poor Sir Douglas – he was last seen alone at the docks, dragging his cabin trunk across the deck with nobody paying him a blind bit of attention. Welcome to wartime Britain and life without servants!
Throughout Harjinder’s service life, he had pilots around him who had trained at the RAF College, Cranwell, in Lincolnshire. They had related stories, and descriptions, of the country they had trained in, so Britain was not a whole new world to Harjinder, but almost like being re-acquainted with distant memories. As always with secondhand stories, the bad bits are forgotten, and the only the best parts are told, and re-told. The England of these stories had been a land of green fields bathed in summer sunshine, but this was not the England Harjinder encountered. This was winter; and war time; so possibly not the best time to see the country at its finest! The night came at 4 o’clock in the evening, and stayed on until 8 o’clock in the morning. The sun, when it appeared, seemed to struggle into the sky, never reaching a great height. The trees were devoid of leaves, giving a much-drained look after the lush greens of Burma. Grey, more than green, seemed to be the overwhelming colour in the towns with the blacked-out windows and absence of light. Everything was rationed, and it seemed as if the majority of the population was in uniform of some description.
On 11 January 1944, Harjinder was interviewed by the grading board of the Air Ministry at Alexandra House, Kingsway, London. The Board consisted of two officers; Wing Commander Able and Squadron Leader Lancaster. The former was a very experienced officer with a long period of service in the practical field, and Lancaster was a graduate in Engineering from London University. Any Interview is supposed to be gruelling affair, but Harjinder found himself having ‘a very enjoyable afternoon’.
They started on the basics he had learnt in his first year of engineer training, more a test of memory than one of knowledge. They then proceeded through every aspect of theoretical and practical engineering. The more in-depth the men ventured, the more it spurred Harjinder to provide prompt and accurate replies. They covered repair schemes and engine overhauls. Altogether four and a half hours flew by, rather a long time for one candidate when those preceding him had each been in for an hour at the most.
The verdict was the reward for his patience with the board.
‘You do not need a (advanced training) course at Cosford. We have examined you fully. They should not have sent you all the way to us from India. There is no academic course in UK for you. You should re
turn to India.’
Harjinder had assumed that in Britain, he could attend more RAF technical courses to take his skills to a higher level, but it seemed that he had reached the end of formal instruction. The additional comments were supposed to be a compliment, but Harjinder didn’t like what he heard; ‘You have given us a very good impression of Indian Engineers. In the past, we have met some of your countrymen who claimed to know everything on earth, but on discussion we found their knowledge limited and shallow. That was one reason why I start from the beginning.’
Harjinder replied; ‘Perhaps you have not met an average Indian Engineer before. The class of people who usually come out to UK are the sons of the rich, who have plenty of money but very little brains. Real engineers have to work hard for a living.’
The next day Harjinder called on his old instructor, Newing, the man who had been such an influence on Harjinder, and whom Harjinder had made a point of seeing off on the ship before he left India all those years ago. Newing was now a Group Captain, and a senior staff officer at the Air Ministry. Harjinder was due to return to India, but Newing advised Harjinder to avail himself of the manufacturing courses run by defence companies in England.
After lunch, Flying Officer Harjinder Singh MBE was taken round to meet Group Captain Ardley, a face from the past. He was the first Officer to interview Harjinder back in 1931, and who had instructed his staff to escort Harjinder out of his office telling him ‘You college boys are too soft and will not be able to last the pace’. Conveniently, he seemed to have forgotten the event!
Harjinder’s first course was with Dowty, covering their hydraulics systems. It was the sort, of course, Harjinder could get his teeth into. Only four days long, but covering all the different aircraft systems, you needed to be on your toes, and work long and hard. He also got on well with Mr Hunt, the Chief Instructor. In the evening they had tea together, and talked at length about India. For Harjinder, Mr Hunt was the first Englishman he met who readily agreed that England, though the mother of democracy, did not practise it in India. When Harjinder told him how his countrymen behaved in India he replied;
‘Yes. I know the type. We call them the “Poonahs”. There is a whole colony of them here in Cheltenham, officers who have served in India. They have even forgotten basic and elementary etiquette.’
Harjinder and Jumbo had discussed setting up a wing of the Indian Air Force in UK. On 17th March 1944, he wrote to Jumbo back in India. In that letter he confessed to having come to England under the assumption that Jumbo too would come too and start the IAF Wing (not entirely true, as Harjinder was also motivated by taking part in engineering courses he wrongly thought existed for him). He wrote ‘HURRY UP’, as his new dream was to read in the newspapers about ‘Indians over Berlin’. He expanded further; ‘There is a very great bond between us, a very everlasting friendship; a unique one. We two are destined to do a lot in this war together as in years gone by, in years to come. We are lucky together, do not forget that. Anyway, what is there, a man is born and he must die, but very few die for a cause, so great as we want to fight for. Let them see that India can produce men like you.’
Germany would, indeed, see what India could produce, but it would be only in the shape of Jumbo, not Harjinder.
Harjinder didn’t stay idle whilst waiting for Jumbo to arrive from India. The next company he visited was the Rotol factory where the General Manager was keen to hear about India. The next day, he visited the Gloster aircraft factory, where the new Typhoon fighter/bomber aircraft were being built on behalf of the Hawker Company. Little did Harjinder know that Jumbo would be strapping into one of these new machines in a few months’ time. Harjinder was told he was the first foreigner allowed into the factory, a decision they started to regret when his inquisitive nature took him into areas he wasn’t supposed to see. He saw a single strange-shaped aircraft lined up along one wall of the building. Harjinder noticed there were no propellers on the 2 engines buried in the wing. He was ushered past the nameless plane. That plane would appear in the war, this propeller-less aircraft; it would be called the Gloster Meteor and it was destined to become the RAF’s first jet aircraft chasing rocket powered, flying bombs over the English Channel; the German V1 terror weapons.
Harjinder took a lot from these visits, and it helped change his opinion of the British in their own country;
‘I could not help but admire the spirit of the British people at war. Young girls entered the factory looking very smart and attractive. In a few minutes they would put on their blue workshop-soiled overalls and begin their work on lathes, or cleaning the floors or spraying dope on the fabric. I also saw an old woman of seventy working on a ball-bearing sorting machine. Previously, I had seen girls washing locomotive engines, porting luggage at railway stations, sweeping platforms, unloading cargo and driving vehicles; but the most inspiring sight I saw that day was a woman pilot, who I was told was employed in ferrying Mosquito bombers to various theatres of war. My admiration for the British at war held no bounds thereafter. The whole nation seems to be acting as one team. War work appears to be their religion and the only aim in life. How different were the British in India!’
After a brief visit to Hatfield to study the manufacture of the Mosquito ‘wooden wonder’ aircraft, he returned to London to discover that he had been promoted to the job of ‘Flight Engineer’ which involved flying in the bomber aircraft, handling all the systems for the pilot. There was a message waiting for him from Jumbo, now also in UK, asking him to be ready to join an IAF Squadron that would be trained in Canada, but return to fly in the UK. The idea bumped along for a short while, but the IAF squadron in the UK never materialised, much to the frustration of Jumbo. When there was obviously no hope left for Jumbo’s dream for the IAF, he presented himself in front of any senior officer he could find in the RAF. He pushed and pushed for a place on a fighter squadron and he finally got his wish; No. 268 RAF Squadron. So determined he was to serve, to show what Indians could do, that he took a drop in rank just to go back into combat. The Germans were going to get a taste of Jumbo’s talents.
It seems a shame that both Jumbo and Harjinder were in England on the 20th February 1944. The event they had dreamt of for so long, the goal that burnt in Jumbo’s heart, actually happened. Back in Lahore the last Indian Air Force Squadron to be raised during the World War II was formed and equipped with the Hawker Hurricane IIc fighters. It was No. 10 Squadron IAF. It has to be said that the unit was not a pure Indian one, but more a ‘Commonwealth’ formation with a fair number of British pilots, as well as Australians and New Zealanders, all serving under an Englishman, Squadron Leader Bob Doe, DSO, DFC & Bar, but it was to be the tenth IAF Squadron.
Harjinder remained in the UK for a few more months, visiting more companies and installations to soak up information wherever he could. It was clear that Southern England was filling up to the brim with troops of all nationalities. Something big was going to happen, and happen soon.
Then in May, Harjinder received orders to board a ship for his move back to India. He was keen to get back. The news from the Russian front may have been good with the Germans being beaten and pushed back, but in India the news was shocking. The Japanese were on the offensive again, and this time, they had broken through. India had been invaded! The Japanese had crossed the border into the Indian state of Manipur, 440 miles North-East of Calcutta, between the Naga and Chin Hills. In what was originally an attempt to disrupt the allied planned offensive, the Japanese offensive went so well that they decided to push on and implement the long-held goal to take India! On the far Eastern border of India, the town of Imphal had proved a stubborn nut to crack, so the Japanese encircled the area, cutting off the Indian and British troops. On the 3rd April 1944, they had captured the ridge above the town of Kohima just a few miles from Imphal. They cut the main India-Burma road, and if they succeeded in pushing along this road, it would give them access to the town of Dimapur. Beyond there, they would be into the Brahmaputra valley, w
here the Bengal-Assam railway could be cut and the airfields used to supply China in the ‘over-the-hump’ operations could be taken. Once in that valley, the door would be open to the lower lying regions of India and her ports. The Indian and British troops were told to hold their position in Imphal and Kohima at all costs. The road behind them was cut, the Japanese held the high ground, and so started the Siege of Imphal and the Battle of Kohima.
Due to Arjan’s Singh’s persistence, No. 1 Squadron IAF were in a position to take the fight to the Japanese under his leadership. They led the air battle using their Hurricanes as dive bombers, and as fighters to escort the transport planes that brought in supplies to keep the inhabitants alive, and the troops fighting. Sitting in Marshal of the IAF, Arjan Singh’s living room 70 years later, he talked very clearly about his time over Kohima. I wanted to know how many missions a day they were doing at the height of the battle, but I worded my question very badly. ‘How often did you fly in Kohima?’
There was the pause, a smile, and once again the twinkle in the eye;
‘We didn’t get Sunday off. It was war, you know!’
Through April, May and into June, the battle continued. Some of the heaviest fighting took place at the North end of Kohima Ridge, around the Deputy Commissioner’s bungalow and his tennis court. In what sounds like a hard fought match at Wimbledon, the reality of what became known as ‘the Battle of the Tennis Court’ was quite different. This tennis court became a no man’s land, with the Japanese facing the defenders of Kohima, dug in on opposite sides, so close to each other that grenades were thrown between the trenches. By this point, Kohima resembled a battlefield from the World War I, with smashed trees, ruined buildings and the ground covered in craters.
Not only were there no Sundays off, but Squadron Leader Arjan Singh actually led No. 1 Squadron into combat several times a day, while the Indian and British troops assembled for the counter attack. Harjinder left the UK, bound for India as the battle reached its peak. The England he left behind was bursting at the seams with military personnel. June 1944 was to be a turning point in England and India.
