Description
Object description
Photocopy of an incomplete ms account (16pp), written in March 1942, together with a similar ts account (15pp), written later in a more formal style, both compiled by the carrier platoon commander in the 4/9th Jat Regiment (45th Indian Infantry Brigade, 17th Indian Division) and covering the Battalion's voyage from India to Singapore in late December 1941, their deployment to Malacca and succession of withdrawals in the face of the Japanese advance down Malaya until the Brigade was overrun at the Battle of the Muar River (January 1942), his escape with a few other men from behind the Japanese lines and temporary attachment to British units at Batu Pahat that were also rapidly put to flight and his eventual evacuation from the Malayan mainland by a gunboat, with many references to the confusion throughout the fighting, the exhaustion and hunger of the Allied troops and the very harsh conditions experienced during his escapes; together with his ts notes (4pp), written in 1990, describing how he joined a newly constituted Jat Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel A E Cumming VC in Singapore in February 1942 and how, after they were cut off but not captured prior to capitulation, a party of them under Cumming escaped by small boat to Sumatra in late February 1942 and were then evacuated on the coastal steamer PALOPO from Padang to Ceylon (March 1942); ts transcripts (1p and 3pp) of two letters written to his parents from India in March and September 1942 giving more details of these events; a ts transcript (1p) of a letter written by his cousin, an officer in the 6th Battalion Norfolk Regiment, from Singapore in early February 1942 hoping that it 'won't be another Crete'; photocopies of other Second World War correspondence and documents principally relating to the fates of some of Mileham's fellow officers in the Malayan campaign and his service as an intelligence officer at GHQ, India (1942 - 1943) and as a junior officer in the RINVR (1943 - 1947); and photocopies of five ms and ts letters, ca 1955 - 1957, from Lieutenant Colonel W L Hailes concerning the compilation of the 9th Jat Regimental History.
Content description
Photocopy of an incomplete ms account (16pp), written in March 1942, together with a similar ts account (15pp), written later in a more formal style, both compiled by the carrier platoon commander in the 4/9th Jat Regiment (45th Indian Infantry Brigade, 17th Indian Division) and covering the Battalion's voyage from India to Singapore in late December 1941, their deployment to Malacca and succession of withdrawals in the face of the Japanese advance down Malaya until the Brigade was overrun at the Battle of the Muar River (January 1942), his escape with a few other men from behind the Japanese lines and temporary attachment to British units at Batu Pahat that were also rapidly put to flight and his eventual evacuation from the Malayan mainland by a gunboat, with many references to the confusion throughout the fighting, the exhaustion and hunger of the Allied troops and the very harsh conditions experienced during his escapes; together with his ts notes (4pp), written in 1990, describing how he joined a newly constituted Jat Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel A E Cumming VC in Singapore in February 1942 and how, after they were cut off but not captured prior to capitulation, a party of them under Cumming escaped by small boat to Sumatra in late February 1942 and were then evacuated on the coastal steamer PALOPO from Padang to Ceylon (March 1942); ts transcripts (1p and 3pp) of two letters written to his parents from India in March and September 1942 giving more details of these events; a ts transcript (1p) of a letter written by his cousin, an officer in the 6th Battalion Norfolk Regiment, from Singapore in early February 1942 hoping that it 'won't be another Crete'; photocopies of other Second World War correspondence and documents principally relating to the fates of some of Mileham's fellow officers in the Malayan campaign and his service as an intelligence officer at GHQ, India (1942 - 1943) and as a junior officer in the RINVR (1943 - 1947); and photocopies of five ms and ts letters, ca 1955 - 1957, from Lieutenant Colonel W L Hailes concerning the compilation of the 9th Jat Regimental History.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS
History note
Catalogue date 2004-11