Alan Allport's website

Wednesday, 13th March, 1946

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.

Sentence was promulgated yesterday (reports the Times) on Aircraftman Norris Cymbalist, a radio operator at RAF base headquarters in Singapore, for his alleged role in inciting the outbreaks of mutiny and insubordination that swept through air force stations in the Far East at the beginning of the year. Evidence was given at the court martial that the accused had called on 300 men at Kallang to 'strike' in sympathy with airmen who had already refused to oobery orders at nearby RAF Seletar, and that he had used insubordinate language to a Squadron Leader at the base. Cymbalist was sentenced to ten years penal service for his actions [in fact, he will serve only a fraction of his sentence after his conviction is quashed following a public-led protest movement].

Monday, 4th March, 1946

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.

A writer from the lower deck to the Manchester Guardian comments on the "fantastic nonsense" that has been suggested about the recent incident when a group of naval ratings in New York refused to sail on RMS Queen Mary until decent accommodation and adequate toilet facilities were provided. "There was no violence nor threat of violence" during the demonstration, he insists: "no man left the pier, and there was no necessity to send out patrols to round up stragglers on Broadway or anywhere else. The men did not engage in undignified boasting. They returned to the ship not simply because an officer told them "not to be silly" but only because their demands were met ...

The demonstration would not have been necessary if several hundred written requests for interviews with commanding officers to state complaints had not been ignored.

Saturday, 2nd March, 1946

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.

Rioters at Northallerton military prison detention barracks in North Yorkshire yesterday forced their way into one of the stores and set if on fire, reports the Times. Prisoners then climbed onto the roof and threw slates and bricks at guards. Armed soldiers were rushed from nearby Catterick to cordon off the prison. The fire is the climax to a series of increasingly disruptive events at Northallerton, to which prisoners from British occupied Germany have recently been transferred (and who have apparently been the ringleaders). On February 3, 16 men escaped from their barracks after morning church parade; a week later a further 16 men took the opportunity to escape through a damaged gate while comrades staged a disturbance elsewhere. Northallerton is not the only military detention barracks to experience trouble this year: on February 23, the famous Aldershot glasshouse was destroyed in a fire started by inmates, while seven men are still missing from Fort Darland military detention camp, near Chatham.

Friday, 1st February, 1946

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.

Leek MP Harold Davies, who has been on a lecturing tour of air force stations in the tropics, discusses the RAF disturbances in the Far East with the Times' correspondent. The strikes, according to Davies, are the outcome of a sense of frustration resulting from the men's uncertainty about when they are to get home. He thinks that if the British government were in a position to give definite deadline dates for the release of specific groups the men would be more satisfied. What the men apparently want is, firstly, an assurance that their grievances will be gone into; and secondly, that whatever the government ultimately decides to do is clearly explained and justified:

Mr. Davies confirmed the opinion that the 'strikes' have not been against commanding officers of any rank, but have been in criticism of the government's demobilisation policy ... an unfortunate aspect of the RAF demonstrations is that other ranks of the Royal Indian Air Force who are intermingled with the RAF at various stations have to some extent become infected ...

Thursday, 31st January, 1946

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.

According to the Daily Mail, the commanding officer of the RAF recruit training center at Rattlesden in Suffolk yesterday telegraphed the Air Ministry to report on a self-styled 'underground movement' which has been organised by airmen unhappy about "foul oppression and despotic tyranny." This is the first incident in which men stationed in the UK appear to have been copying the tactics of the RAF strikers in the Far East. A typewritten newsheet circulated at the base, written by the 'Rattlesden underground movement,' complains of "restrictions, unecessary supervision, petty regulations, and a host of parades" making life "intolerable." Between 2-3,000 air force recruits are currently based at Rattlesden.

End of month accounting: on June 30, 1945, there were 4,653,000 men and 437,200 women in His Majesty's armed and auxiliary forces.

During January, 1946, 381,100 men and 28,635 women were released under the Class A scheme; 25,843 men and 583 women were released under the Class B scheme; with 422,135 men and 30,869 women being released in total (including miscellaneous discharges on compassionate and medical grounds).

Overall, since the start of demobilisation, 1,764,242 men and 197,103 women have been discharged from HM Forces.

Data from Fighting With Figures: A Statistical Digest of the Second World War (HMSO, 1995).

Wednesday, 30th January, 1946

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.

Garry Allighan reports on the recent disciplinary problems in the RAF in the Far East for the Daily Mail. "Britain's airmen are not on strike for nothing," he claims: "these men do not approach the boundary of mutiny without what appears to them to be good cause ...

They are dissatisfied with the way the Air Ministry is operating the release scheme in the RAF. Airmen are frankly sceptical when the Air Ministry state that lack of transport is the cause of delayed demobilisation. They have become thoroughly convinced that in the RAF the age-plus-service principles of the release scheme have been betrayed. Air Ministry clumsiness in dealing with the effects of the exceptional release system in the RAF have been a basic trouble.

A Manchester Guardian leader excoriates the RAF strike leaders as having “soiled the good name and imperiled the discipline” of the service. But, the paper adds: “A scheme which is simple on paper and just in its application has become complicated and sometimes apparently unjust by the need for differential treatment of specialists” – hence the misperceptions that fuel discontent.

Meanwhile, far from being insubordinate, the News Chronicle claims that the demobbed are "bringing politeness back to London." Returning servicemen "are coming home to win a campaign against the bad manners and frostiness that have developed since they went away," claims the paper's reporter, citing the example of men like Mr. H. Peters, a former soldier of the 7th Armoured Brigade who has returned from Italy to take up his old job as conductor of a Number 35 bus. "I've been back two months," he reports, "and I like a bit of cheerfulness in life now. If I can do anything to produce it I'm going to. It all depends on how you treat other people, you know."

Friday, 25th January, 1946

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.

Picture Post this week examines the special problems of the demobbed officer. "How many of them are prepared for civilian life? The answers are disquieting. They point to the growth, as after the 1914-1918 war, of a class of ex-officers out of adjustment with civilian life and because they are dissatisfied and perhaps resentful, unable to make their full contribution to it and to get the best from it. They raise, too, the question whether ex-soldiers generally are getting the right reception and treatment from civilians.

Officers were generally drawn from the middle class, the professionals and young businessmen, so-called black-coated workers. They are now five or six years older than when they went into the Forces. Many of them have faced great dangers and hardships, and have carried the heaviest responsibility any man can carry, for the lives and well-being of other men. Under the stress of war, their minds have developed and their outlook changed. They demand much more from life now then they did before they went to war ...

James Lansdale Hodson writes in his diary: "R reports to me that the bulk of the young men she talks to who are being demobbed or shortly going to be say: 'Let's get to hell out of this country. We've had it! Austerity this and austerity that! What did we fight six years for?' Certainly a good many folk one meets are browned off."

A troubling portent of this disenchantment: the Times gives first reports of 'strike' action at RAF camps in Ceylon, Karachi, Cairo, and Palestine. This story will develop fast in the days to come.

Friday, 11th January, 1946

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.

Ex-soldier William Donovan pleaded unsuccessfully at an inquiry in Leyton, Essex yesterday to be allowed to rebuild his bomb-destroyed home on a site which the borough council wishes to develop as a community and shopping centre, reports the Times. The town clerk "expressed the council's sympathy with Mr. Donovan, but said they must refuse him ... they were determined that Leyton should be properly replanned."

The Times also reports on further protests by American servicemen overseas about their slow repatriation and demobilisation. About 5,000 GIs assembled in a public park in Calcutta on Thursday to express dissatisfaction with the pace of events. In Frankfurt, meanwhile, scene of protests earlier this week, a delegation of fifty representatives of occupation troops had a three-hour conference with senior staff officers to air their grievances. "we wish you would tell the War Department about some of our ideas on how to get us home," said one.

Thursday, 10th January, 1946

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.

Despite the bitterly cold weather, over 4,000 GIs demonstrated in front of General Joseph McNarney's headquarters in Frankfurt last night, shouting and chanting demands to meet with their theatre commander (c/o the Times). Frustrated in their attempts to enter the building by fifty military policemen, the crowd dispersed after ninety minutes. This marks just the latest demonstration to have erupted in the overseas American armed forces during the last few days as soldiers, sailors and airmen protest what they regard as the insufficiently slow demobilisation of American wartime personnel. Alarmed by the protests, President Truman has asked Army Chief of Staff General Eisenhower to personally oversee a report into the soldiers' demands. Eisenhower attributes the disturbances primarily to acute homesickness in otherwise good men, aggravated by the termination of hostilities; but he insists that however sincere their grievances, the men must accept that force levels cannot fall below minimum requirements, given the United States' imposing postwar commitments across the world.

The journalist James Lansdale Hodson comments on a report from a friend in Rangoon: "The American aircraft which form the bulk of the transport are worn out and no spares are available … I have met aircrews who refuse to fly a Dakota, on the ground that they are so worn-out they are dangerous."

Monday, 24th December, 1945

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.

One thousand men of the East Lancs Regiment, Royal Engineers, Royal Artillery, Queen's Regiment, and the Royal Corps of Signals, due to sail today for the Middle East on the 27,000-ton Orient liner RMS Orion, walked off the vessel in Liverpool last night, reports the Daily Mail. There were initial demonstrations at the quayside about the decision to sail on Christmas Eve, but when the men were eventually persuaded to go onboard complaints turned to the poor food and accomodation on the converted troopship. Soldiers protested that they were given only a single slice of bread and jam apiece and a lukewarm cup of tea; moreover, living conditions on the Orion were alleged to be disgraceful. "I come from a poor home," one soldier told a Mail reporter, "but as poor as it was it was never as dirty or insanitary as the deck I am expected to sleep on in a voyage to Port Said. I don't intend to sail. Nothing will make me sail."

This is the second time protests have broken out on the ship. On November 9 Australian and New Zealand troops walked off the Orion at Southampton. Today 1,000 Green Howards are due to embark; whether the troubled liner will sail on schedule this afternoon with her full complement of troops remains unclear, however. Feelings around the dockside are tense; Military Police have cordoned off the area.