This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
In today's Manchester Guardian, E.H. O’Donnell, Public Relations officer for the War Office, discusses (and attempts to quash) three rumors that have been circulating in Indian stations: first, that men due for release in Group 26 are being deliberately held back; second, that no men left India between December 13-31; and lastly, that only three ships left England for India in January taking only 15,000 men. O'Donnell hopes that rumourmongers will communicate this information to any troops in India that they are in correspondence with, "and also try to convince them that ‘the authorities’ and not conspiring to keep men in the forces for some sinister reason.”
More bad publicity for the RAF, already rattled by the stories of mutiny in the Far East: two of its aircraft crashed yesterday, killing four airmen, reports the Times. A Bomber Command Avro Lancaster on a cross-country training flight crashed near Lincoln, the plane bursting into flames on impact. Three charred bodies were recovered from the wreckage, but it is believed that other crewmembers may have been able to parachute to safety and a search is underway for them. Squadron Leader E. Ball, DFC, was also killed on Friday when his Gloster Meteor jet fighter crashed in flames in open country near Exeter [he is just one of 450 pilots who will be killed flying the Meteor during its operational career; the plane's unreliable engines and lack of an ejector seat will greatly exacerbate its poor safety record.]
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