Interview with Maurice Louis Spector

British NCO served with Royal Army Service Corps in GB, 1940-1941; officer served with Royal Indian Army Service Corps in India and Burma, 1942-1945

REEL 1 Background in Tottenham, GB, 1913-1939: family; education; memories of German Air Force raids on London; reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939. Aspects of period as NCO with Royal Army Service Corps in GB and Northern Ireland, 1940-1942: keenness to join British Army; call-up to Royal Army Service Corps, 8/1940; destruction of family home in Tottenham; posting to Belfast, Northern Ireland; ceremony of 'wetting the stripes'; German Air Force incendiary raids on Belfast, Northern Ireland, 4/1941; relations with civilians in Belfast, Northern Ireland; radio location course at Regent Street Polytechnic, London; motorcycle accident at pre-Officer Cadet Training Unit course; reasons for volunteering for overseas service in India; issue of tropical kit; War Office's concern that he had not written to his mother. Aspects of voyage from GB to India, 1942: conditions on board ship; suicide of captured deserter on troopship. Recollections of period as officer with Royal Indian Army Service Corps, 1942-1944: treatment at Officer Training School at Mhow; commissioning into British Indian Army; move to Karkhul near Abbottabad; initial posting to field ambulance unit. REEL 2 Continues: role training Indian troops to drive; story of clash with British Army adjutant; separation of Hindus and Muslim drivers; exercises with Headquarters 41st (Indian) Beach Group on Mud Island and in Cocanada area, 1944. Recollections of operations as officer with Royal Indian Army Service Corps in Burma, 1945: voyage to Chittagong; Imperial Japanese Army Air Service fighter aircraft attack on troopship; landings on Akyab Island, Arakan; landings at Kyaukpyu, Ramee Island, Arakan; landings at Rangoon; food supply problem at Rangoon; problems using DUKWs in River Irrawaddy. Aspects of period as officer with Royal Indian Army Service Corps in Indian and Malaya, 1945: return to India for Operation Zipper, 1945; landings at Port Dickson in Malaya; story of demobilisation; separation of Hindus and Muslims in British Indian Army; learning Urdu language; story of losing his briefcase with plans for Operation Zipper.