Deserter in Bombay

This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to the Liverpool Diocesan Care and Repair Association and James Taylor

Mr. Patrick Sullivan, who was born in 1916 was away from home for four years and fifty six days :

I was called up in 1940, I was twenty three. We went in age groups. Our first child was born in November and I was called up in the march. Sent out to the Middle East.

Did you see a lot of fighting?

Oh God yes. I was on the siege of Tobruk. We took over from the Fifth Australian Division. They were screaming about being left out there, so we were sent in to replace them, and we sailed from Alexandria to Tobruk. We were transferred then to Bombay, and I decided it was time I went home. I took a trip on my own accord. At that time there was the Empress of Asia, she’d been bombed in Bombay, where I was. She’d received a direct hit, and in the Mission where the survivors from the shi, so I got in with them because they were getting shipped out. One of them, he’d lost all his belongings on the ship, was given a suit and he didn’t like it, so I swapped what I was wearing with him. From then on I was classed as a survivor of the Empress of Asia, so they were being sent home, and I went with them. I knew some of the crew, and one chap — he knew that I’d been a steward. They were short of waiters, so he told the ship’s steward and he asked me to help out. So I got home and one night after working in the pub, I found my wife shaking from head to toe. She said “I don’t know how you missed them, I had two policemen here looking for you. One stayed downstairs and the other went upstairs, they searched all the house.” Someone had told them I was a deserter. When I saw the state my wife was in, I took the train next morning and went down to Prestatyn where I had done my training. I told them I was ‘absent without leave’. They sat me down in the guard house and the Sergeant asked me my number, and asked where my unit was. I told him that when I last saw them they were in Bombay. He dropped his pen and said “Bombay, as in Bombay — India?” I said “Yes.” So he went and brought in an office man who said “What’s this the Sergeant says about your unit being in Bombay?” “That’s right” I said “the last time I saw them they were in Bombay, India.” “Oh don’t,” he said “I don’t think I can take anymore of this!” I had a Court Martial was sentenced to twelve months, but I wasn’t under close arrest. I used to do the cooking for the chaps and the Sergeant and a couple of guards who were watching that I didn’t escape. It was running smoothly. I went to Chorley detention barracks and it was an old warehouse.

Were there many people there with you?

Oh God yes. A lot of Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were Conscientious Objectors. The staff had no time for us. I finished up with what was called an orderly’s job. I was in charge of a room, I used to make sure the room and all the beds were ready for inspection. Every man had to do his own, but I had to make sure they were all ship-made. I only did nine out of twelve months, and I was free after that, the war was over.

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