Eighty years ago today Sunday 28 December 1941
Up at 6:30 a.m. and then off to Ambala. No accidents, but dust and sand was very bad. Arrived 3:00 p.m. and set about pitching camp. First convoy still there unable to draw petrol so must halt till overcome. Note: The diary ends here – the final page(s) are missing. There is a ‘postscript’ which reads, ‘Diary put in trunk [sent] to Cox and King, Calcutta. Japan invaded Burma. No diaries allowed’. Dad's war as he wrote it When war broke out in August 1939 I [Geoffrey Webb] returned to [Monmouth] school to find everyone preoccupied with OTC and I and several of my contemporaries, encouraged by staff, volunteered for army service and within days went to Cardiff University to be attested, given the King’s shilling, and told to go home and await call-up. Post Enlistment My father, after his experiences in the Royal Artillery (RA) on the Western Front in the 1914-18 war, would no doubt have opposed my joining up. Mother, as I recall, although not happy, did nothing to ...