JIM POLLARD’S WAR.
Posted: 11 May 2026, 01:04
JIM POLLARD’S WAR.
29 December 2002
One of the things you had to learn to deal with when you were in the army was the fact that you had no control over your life. The upper classes specialised in not letting the squaddies know anything. You weren’t there to think, simply to follow orders. You always got to the stage where you knew you were going to be sent somewhere to do something you didn’t like but nobody ever told you what it was. In my case, even though the war was over we knew that there was an odds on chance we were going to be sent to Korea. I can tell you this, forget the heroics, we didn’t want to go! In the event we were sent to Berlin and had a fairly exciting but uneventful life.
Jim of course had a far higher chance of being sent somewhere dangerous and one day they got orders to pack up and get ready for a move. This was bad news because they had a fairly cushy job. In the middle of the night they were loaded on to a blacked out train and set off. It was a bit of an anti climax when, the following morning, they found themselves huddled in rough billets at Headingley, near Leeds!
They were there for about three weeks and Ivy managed to get to visit Jim a couple of times but then they were off again and this time, it was no picnic. After a night on another blacked out train, they weren’t even allowed to lift the blinds, they all piled out on the dockside at Gourock and boarded the biggest ship Jim had ever seen. They still had no idea where they were going. Offered the choice of a mattress or a hammock, Jim thought he’d try the navy way, he soon found out that this was an acquired taste and spent the rest of the voyage sleeping on a table in the mess deck!
The ship sailed and after swanning around for a day or two in the Atlantic, joined up with a convoy. Apart from a brief stop at Gibraltar to pick up an aircraft carrier they didn’t stop again until three weeks later they pulled into Durban on the East Coast of Africa where they had four days of leave on shore.
We’ve got to take a step back here and try to understand how this would feel to Jim. Here we have a young lad from Barlick who has never been further than Blackpool in his life and has just come from a small island suffering under attack, food rationing and northern weather. Durban was possibly one of the most privileged places in the world in 1941, they had a wonderful climate, a rich country and an unlimited supply of cheap black labour. The inhabitants knew about the war of course and the last thing they wanted to do was have it hit them and so they welcomed the cannon fodder that poured off the boat with open arms, nothing was too good for them. To Jim, it must have seemed like heaven!
They sailed from Durban and then one night the engines stopped. Jim and his mates weren’t naval experts but they knew that this wasn’t the safest thing to do in war time because they were like a sitting duck for any stray U-boat that was around. Eventually they got going but were on their own as they limped into Mombasa further up the coast. For whatever reason, fate had dealt them a lucky hand. Jim was to spend the rest of his war there training Askaris recruited from the Kenyan tribes for service in Burma. Jim was promoted to sergeant and he used to go up-country to Nairobi to collect the recruits or rather the conscripts. He saw the selection process in the villages and he said that they all sat round in a circle and the chief told the ‘volunteers’ they were in!
They soon found out that once they had trained the men up, all the lot of them were to be shipped out to fight the Japanese in Burma. This was seriously bad news but fate had another hand of cards to deal for Jim, he was up in Nairobi picking another bunch of Askaris up and didn’t feel very well. It slowly dawned on him that he was very ill and he managed to organise a truck to take him back to Mombasa. Six weeks later he regained consciousness in a hospital on the coast, he weighed about five stone and was told he had got a bad case of Black Water Fever and was being invalided home. He was in hospital from the 10th of May 1942 until the 13th of November before he was well enough to be repatriated. He said that it was a nurse from London called Sister Osborne who got him through this and he kept in touch with her for the rest of his life. The only thing he could remember about his treatment was that he had champagne and four bottles of Guinness each day. After a long sea journey home and about three months in hospital at Liverpool Jim arrived back in Barlick late in 1943. He weighed 5 stone 13lbs and was so weak he couldn’t carry his suitcase. He was sent to recuperate to Calderstones Hospital near Whalley and eventually was taken back into the army on light duties until he was demobbed in 1946.
So, our hero is back in Civvy Street complete with his demob suit and suitcase. He might not have seen a lot of the enemy but he’d had a rough war. The question that fascinates me is this, was the Jim Pollard that came back to Barlick in 1946 the same as the one who left in 1940? I don’t think so, he was 30 years old and had seen the world. The funny thing about being under strict discipline in the army is that it makes you more independent thinking when you come out, Jim’s eyes had been opened and he had a very clear idea about what he wanted from life from now on.
I wanted a picture of the Askaris but when I searched for an image there was no mention of them. I looked on the Burma Star Association site and under 11th East African Regiment it simply said ‘no information available’. A further search revealed that they call themselves ‘The Forgotten Army’. I leave you to work out why it is that after sixty years they seem to be invisible, that really is a sad reflection on our priorities.
29 December 2002
29 December 2002
One of the things you had to learn to deal with when you were in the army was the fact that you had no control over your life. The upper classes specialised in not letting the squaddies know anything. You weren’t there to think, simply to follow orders. You always got to the stage where you knew you were going to be sent somewhere to do something you didn’t like but nobody ever told you what it was. In my case, even though the war was over we knew that there was an odds on chance we were going to be sent to Korea. I can tell you this, forget the heroics, we didn’t want to go! In the event we were sent to Berlin and had a fairly exciting but uneventful life.
Jim of course had a far higher chance of being sent somewhere dangerous and one day they got orders to pack up and get ready for a move. This was bad news because they had a fairly cushy job. In the middle of the night they were loaded on to a blacked out train and set off. It was a bit of an anti climax when, the following morning, they found themselves huddled in rough billets at Headingley, near Leeds!
They were there for about three weeks and Ivy managed to get to visit Jim a couple of times but then they were off again and this time, it was no picnic. After a night on another blacked out train, they weren’t even allowed to lift the blinds, they all piled out on the dockside at Gourock and boarded the biggest ship Jim had ever seen. They still had no idea where they were going. Offered the choice of a mattress or a hammock, Jim thought he’d try the navy way, he soon found out that this was an acquired taste and spent the rest of the voyage sleeping on a table in the mess deck!
The ship sailed and after swanning around for a day or two in the Atlantic, joined up with a convoy. Apart from a brief stop at Gibraltar to pick up an aircraft carrier they didn’t stop again until three weeks later they pulled into Durban on the East Coast of Africa where they had four days of leave on shore.
We’ve got to take a step back here and try to understand how this would feel to Jim. Here we have a young lad from Barlick who has never been further than Blackpool in his life and has just come from a small island suffering under attack, food rationing and northern weather. Durban was possibly one of the most privileged places in the world in 1941, they had a wonderful climate, a rich country and an unlimited supply of cheap black labour. The inhabitants knew about the war of course and the last thing they wanted to do was have it hit them and so they welcomed the cannon fodder that poured off the boat with open arms, nothing was too good for them. To Jim, it must have seemed like heaven!
They sailed from Durban and then one night the engines stopped. Jim and his mates weren’t naval experts but they knew that this wasn’t the safest thing to do in war time because they were like a sitting duck for any stray U-boat that was around. Eventually they got going but were on their own as they limped into Mombasa further up the coast. For whatever reason, fate had dealt them a lucky hand. Jim was to spend the rest of his war there training Askaris recruited from the Kenyan tribes for service in Burma. Jim was promoted to sergeant and he used to go up-country to Nairobi to collect the recruits or rather the conscripts. He saw the selection process in the villages and he said that they all sat round in a circle and the chief told the ‘volunteers’ they were in!
They soon found out that once they had trained the men up, all the lot of them were to be shipped out to fight the Japanese in Burma. This was seriously bad news but fate had another hand of cards to deal for Jim, he was up in Nairobi picking another bunch of Askaris up and didn’t feel very well. It slowly dawned on him that he was very ill and he managed to organise a truck to take him back to Mombasa. Six weeks later he regained consciousness in a hospital on the coast, he weighed about five stone and was told he had got a bad case of Black Water Fever and was being invalided home. He was in hospital from the 10th of May 1942 until the 13th of November before he was well enough to be repatriated. He said that it was a nurse from London called Sister Osborne who got him through this and he kept in touch with her for the rest of his life. The only thing he could remember about his treatment was that he had champagne and four bottles of Guinness each day. After a long sea journey home and about three months in hospital at Liverpool Jim arrived back in Barlick late in 1943. He weighed 5 stone 13lbs and was so weak he couldn’t carry his suitcase. He was sent to recuperate to Calderstones Hospital near Whalley and eventually was taken back into the army on light duties until he was demobbed in 1946.
So, our hero is back in Civvy Street complete with his demob suit and suitcase. He might not have seen a lot of the enemy but he’d had a rough war. The question that fascinates me is this, was the Jim Pollard that came back to Barlick in 1946 the same as the one who left in 1940? I don’t think so, he was 30 years old and had seen the world. The funny thing about being under strict discipline in the army is that it makes you more independent thinking when you come out, Jim’s eyes had been opened and he had a very clear idea about what he wanted from life from now on.
I wanted a picture of the Askaris but when I searched for an image there was no mention of them. I looked on the Burma Star Association site and under 11th East African Regiment it simply said ‘no information available’. A further search revealed that they call themselves ‘The Forgotten Army’. I leave you to work out why it is that after sixty years they seem to be invisible, that really is a sad reflection on our priorities.
29 December 2002