Chris Twells

Fabulous I really enjoyed it
I found the maps really helpful and appreciate they are difficult to find or produce

Lichfield Cathedral or “The Ladies of the Vale”
Is I think very beautiful and deserves praise and perhaps a little more publicity.
So it was great to read your comments

I’m in Lichfield for their literary festival. My first visit to the Cathedral. Wow!

The Deputy Commissioner at Kohima was Charles Pawsey, it was his bungalow (the official residence for the DC) stayed in Kohima during the siege and battle to offer his support. The local Naga were fiercely loyal to him.
He had been awarded the MC on the Western Front in 1916, & was knighted in 1947.

Pre-orders have opened for Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945! Out in June, this is the greatest battle you’v never heard of!

An armoured thrust 80 miles behind the lines, and a siege that broke the back of the Japanese in Burma! Pre-order now for £3 discount👇
www.chiselbury.co.uk/coming-soon/...

In Walsall just across the road from the Manor Hospital I noticed this WW1 Roll of Honour
It marks the site of the men’s peacetime workplace - The Cyclops Ironworks
I found this memorial very moving
Perhaps because it was so unexpected in this post industrial landscape
It has a quite dignity

First class new pod from Rob Lyman, @historybowsh.bsky.social and @forgottenwarpod.bsky.social. I think Jack and Rob mentioned these books on the pod. All top books. #histbookchat.

Not long now until we get started - Series 1 begins on Monday 3rd February.

In the link is a teaser where Rob describes Japanese leadership ... errr ... arrangements ... at the Battle of Imphal.

youtu.be/bA9i2az2BKM

Japanese Tactical Methods. Characteristics of Japanese Operations.

South West Pacific Command AT0002.6.182 19420401

Here's an early pamphlet on how we viewed Japanese tactics at the start of the Pacific war. @forgottenwarpod.bsky.social

Unfortunately I think this may well be the case

5/5: Fg Off Verma was awarded a DFC, one of about 25 awarded to IAF personnel during WW2, and the first for an air-to-air kill since Lt Indra Lal Roy in 1918 (citation via @vayusena):

play a kind of Shrovetide on the sandy banks of a backwater.Those men who were near the ball,skylark in the air, & roll in the sand, with a cheerful carelessness, that is one of the most attractive characteristic of Gurkhas
I call the leaping about,for no reason other that it’s a fine day – whimsy

It’s A a very sensible Bird with the bill curved upwards, and instead of diddling like other waiters, do it runs along & scoops stuff up as it goes, which looks very funny but is really sensible.
After Doing the boating and swimming,the men (Gurkhas)

Christmas But not as they knew it.

Captain John Twells, 1st Gurkha Rifles
1945, Jan, 21st

Written at Saharanpur India Command

At Haridwar I saw an avocet for the first time & fulfilled an ambition, which possessed me first, when I saw a cigarette card of the bird, perhaps a dozen years ago.

There, one sees fakirs & Sadhus – “holy man” who roll all the way from southern India to attend & take two years about it : men who hold their arms in unnatural positions until they wither & men who lie on a bed of nails & suchlike

In the next few weeks, Haridwar is due for one of its great “Mela” (Kumbh) or religious festival, to which anything from 2 to 6,million Hindus will come.

The hills to the north were snow-covered, and two temples, stood on rock pinnacles , a mile east & west of the Ganges
It was a picturesque setting. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to walk through the bazaar which is I believe , interesting.

The Ganges flows fast & clear green here, it is not far from the hills & great timber rafts with a steers – man at the bow & stern swirling down the river. It looks a clean river – not so big as the Thames at the Embankment– but it is, of course the main sewer of northern India.

As you probably know, it’s one of the holy of holies, where the Hindu folk at certain seasons, like to bathe in the Ganges
There are many,holy men in saffron robes, & that evening, as we lay on the island in midstream, the air was filled with the chanting of psalms & the tonking of temple bells.

Christmas But not as they knew it.

CaptJohn Twells,1st Gurkha Rifles

1945, Jan 10th

Written that Saharanpur

During this last week, I managed to get away for 2 days down to the watermanship training, which some of our people are doing on the Ganges at ( “Haridwar“originally censored )

Nor have I had any fever – an ailment, which one expects in the cold weather in India

getting warm

The smoke is all over the room.
I must go and wash.

Sorry to hear from your letters that you have both been plagued with coughs & colds. I have been lucky – I’ve just had a fruity sniffling cold, but not one of those miserable,wet grown nose things.

I have a fireplace made of mud & bricks and there’s a very pleasant fire of bamboo strips burning. I have a very comfortable quarters here with good Nepali thatch on the roof.

I only wish I had the time to decorate it and live in it.
My Orderly is squatting on his hunkers, smoking the fire and

Tibet from the Great Plains of Central Asia. Apparently the weather all over the world is bad at present.

Christmas is certainly spoilt without children. We all failed to catch the Christmas spirit here despite decorations and good food.

Couldn’t even hear the carols on the wireless.

of the Siwaliks a mile or two away, & they block the view to the Himalayas. They have had about 3 ft of snow at Dharamsala, & that is a lot for them although the place is nearly 6000 ft up. But in the high passes of the Himalayas It will be lying 100 feet deep And there will be no roads into

Christmas but not as they knew it.

Capt John Twells

1945 Jan 10th

Written at Saharanpur India Command
The winter rains are upon us & it is very cold.

The snow has come down to a record low level just above Dhara Dun but we are in the plains here & do not see it because there is the low range

He Was was also surprised at the Red Cross was supported by voluntary contributions, disliked the Americans lack of this disciplined, lighted beer

The police were very friendly and helpful, & the fact that they went to the lengths of making telephone calls for him when he was lost in London, astonished him.
Indian police of course are tyrants.

The The things he liked best, were the Metropolitan police, the Red Cross, food parcels, the beer pumps in pubs, the “excellent” arrangements made for returning prisoners and the tubes

A Gurkha, & the friendly London, Bobbys

Capt J Twells 1st G/R India Command

1945, October 7 Saharanpur

Last night, I had a long talk with a Subedar of the 2/4th Gurkhas, who was captured in Tobruk , escaped twice in Italy,was finally freed in Brunswick and flown to England