Fear of German Invasion

We used to listen to the BBC news every night at 9 o’clock and the BBC used to tell normally the progress of the war, Second World War. There was news that the Germans had advanced so much, they captured such, so and so place and all that. There was all good news about Germans and we all used to be scared. I said, “What’s going to happen? ” and people starting thinking that the day is not too far off when the Germans are going to actually come to India so we all got scared of that. So then I decided, look there’s the case, this is the time for all of us to go and do something for our country. Then the British, I was seventeen when I joined the army and I went to the, without telling my parents, I went to the recruiting station and I told them I wanted to get enlisted in the Corps of Signals, Communications. They asked me, “Which place do your family come from.” I said, “Jalandhar, Punjab.” This fellow said, “We don’t recruit people from Punjab, Jalandhar. You’ve got to get yourself enlisted there.” He said, “We only treat people from. So,” he said, “you better go back to Jalandhar and get yourself enlisted because we got vacancies in all areas.” I said, “Do you want me to go there and come back in case I’m not enlisted? ” “Yes, we have to have everything.” This fellow was kind to me. He said, “I’ll give you a suggestion. You can write on an application to the recruiting office in Jalandhar, tell him what your education is, and tell him you are very keen to join the England Corps of Signals and that you came to us. We told you that we can’t recruit you unless they transfer a vacancy for the corps of signals from their corps to us and if they do that we’ll recruit you.” So I sent an application, and in a few days time and got a reply. They were very kind to me. They asked me to go and report to the Delhi recruiting office. They wrote, gave them a copy, I went there, got myself enlisted. I was then seventeen.