Cannanore Days

Burnshire - Cannanore 1944-46

Burma had been taken by the Japanese, Singapore and Malaya had been lost earlier and the trepidation of invasion through the eastern frontier near Assam was paramount in quivering allied hearts. Indians were in two minds, one supporting the Azad Hind massing up in Burma with the Chalo Dilli rally, the other wondering if the British would save them from a potential attack by the Japanese. As towns and villages quaked in fear, the common man was more worried about subsistence and the British apathy at their plight. While Bengal was still in the grips of a terrible famine, Malabar was recovering from a terrible famine coupled with Cholera epidemics.

It was the summer of 1945 - The Vultee Vengeance A35 dive bomber, painted a dirty brown, a frontline aircraft made in Nashville TN USA and now being used grudgingly by the RAF, was getting ready for takeoff at the Cannanore Cantonment grounds airstrip, adjoining its parade ground. This Mark IV V-72, built to British specs, a low-wing, single-engine, triple prop monoplane, powered by an air-cooled radial Wright R-2600-13 Cyclone 14-cylinder engine rated at 1,700 hp, was now revving up. The pilot, a young man from Britain and previously trained on VV bombers in Florida, was by now used to flying this Yankee craft, which interestingly had a center of gravity that seemed a bit off. It was a great drive bomber nevertheless. If one were to look carefully, they would have seen sinister shaped tanks under the wings, and they were most certainly not bombs. The pilot had the canopy open during flight, something you rarely saw them doing with other planes.  

The black kite (Milvus migrans - chakki parunthu), actually muddy brown and not black, with a forked tail, common to the Malabar skies, was not concerned (Black kites are most often seen gliding and soaring on thermals as they search for food. The bird glides effortlessly, changing directions easily swooping down with their legs lowered to snatch small live prey, fish, household refuse and carrion, for which behavior they are known in British military slang as the shite-hawk). The kites were very good and nimble fliers, and it was rare for them to be involved in an aerial accident, as they were very quick for their size and dodged other flying objects easily. It had of late been seeing this new and noisy brown bird for some time now and considered it harmless. Like crows, kites often crossed the path of this new and thundering airplane, one which had a spinning head.

Today was not meant to be. The pilot was surging through for takeoff and just as its wheels left ground, the kite met its spinning propellers. The young pilot felt and heard the heavy thud followed by the sight of a cloud of feathers flying past his cowl gills and across the glass of the cockpit. Bits of it got between the cylinders, and the pilot who had just got airborne, came back to land and have his engine checked. The ground staff had to take all the engine panels off, they saw that the carcass was wedged between the cylinder rows. A grumpy hot and humid hour was spent by them, perched up on stepladders fishing out the blood, guts and feathers. The engine looked fine, and was restarted without any issues.

There was one less kite now in Malabar, but then nobody cared about such things, for it was a time of war. Another kite sitting on the flag pole watched lazily, waiting to peck on the scraps. For that was its life!

The pilot uttered a silent prayer, crossed his fingers for luck and reared for takeoff again, and this time there were no mishaps. The plane was quickly airborne and headed north, towards Kumbala situated a little further up the Arabian Sea coast. Some days he and his team flew to Kumbala, some days it was to Porkal.

What could this plane with the funny tanks be doing in Cannanore? And what was this new hush hush establishment titled CDRE, now teeming with foreign and Indian army scientists as well as civilians in white coats, be tasked with? What experiments were they conducting? What were a bunch of volunteers at a remote Kumbla field, wearing a poncho like overcoat, be waiting hesitantly for? Rain from the skies in the middle of a hot summer? The wait was not long, for soon enough the VV -A31 flight 1340 appeared, after having survived the bird strike.

Even today it is difficult to dredge out the answers, but I will give you some. And for that not only have you got to go to Japanese controlled Manchuria in China, but also a place called Porton Down in Wiltshire - England.

Before and during the Sino-Japanese war, Japanese Imperial Forces had produced various chemical Weapons. Among the CW agents produced were phosgene, mustard, lewisite, hydrogen cyanide, and so on. The Japanese Unit 731 had notoriously used them against the Chinese and the allies feared that faced with reverses at multiple fronts, the Japanese could now use them against the Allied forces lined up on the NE front.

As the 1925 Geneva Protocol permitted the use of chemical warfare in retaliation, the Chemical Defense Experimental Station (CDES) in Britain was authorized to develop offensive chemical warfare research as well as development and the production of chemical warfare agents. The scientists worked with chemicals, combined and separated molecules and compounds, all with one aim - to maim and kill if attacked, of course observing strict secrecy. But could that happen during the 2^nd World war? The answer may have been in the affirmative. Then there was the defensive aspect if attacked by the Japanese. So the tests also covered the effect of these chemicals on humans in case of an attack and any potential antidotes.

Winston Churchill cruelly opined that Britain would be stupid if they did not test chemical agents on an illiterate and lesser human race, like India. As it turned out a large number of severe causalities were demonstrated in the tests in 1942-43 up North in India, on both British and Indian subjects. In fact the final decision taken was that if the tests could produce results such as severe blisters and incapacitation (and thereby deemed too dangerous for allied or British servicemen), they should only be conducted in India!

Britain had as we saw, previously tested chemical weapons in India and the first of the test sites was in Rawalpindi, then Devlalli or Deolali near Nasik. The 67^th Chemical warfare company which was at first trained for such warfare and equipped with rocket fired gas canisters, was based in Deolali. As the high temperature was causing the MG shells to sweat, they were soon moved to the eastern front. At the same time the RAF were given the responsibility of supporting additional tests on the impact of the poison gas on English troops. Rawalpindi and Deolali were dry, Britain was cold, and the need was to find a tropical location much like the SE Asian jungles. Urgent counter measures and potential retaliation had to be planned.

Porton Down had concluded that a casualty producing dosage could be achieved with sprayed mustard gas. Male participants dressed in khakis were subjected to tests in Madras and it was soon concluded that the whites and black races showed different degrees of resistance, necessitating changes in uniform codes during combat. Thus it was in 1944, that the CDRE (I) headed by JS Anderson was set up in Cannanore where Porton scientists carried out a comprehensive program to test defensive and offensive chemical warfare technology. The war clouds were dark and rolling in, the prospect of a chemical attack was high and volunteers were lined up for tests. It was time now to test protective clothing and land areas with aerially sprayed chemical agents.

The British chemical weapons unit at the Sulur airbase in Coimbatore was deemed unsuitable for the next round of field tests. It was time to relocate the CDRE to another appropriate location and the choice finally rested on Cannanore. The two field ranges where CW tests were conducted were at Kumbala and Porkhal.

I should now divulge the first hand source for the information relating to this project and the so called flight 1340. They originate from the charming, lucid and humorous accounts provided by ‘Danny42c’ in a pilot’s forum. He was one of the pilots (the group leader) assigned to fly the VV 1340 test flights from Cannanore for a 12 month period (Danny is active and close to becoming a centenarian, I have been in correspondence with him for some days now). With due acknowledgment and gratitude to Danny, let me draw from vivid accounts of his stay in the Burnshire (Burnachery) cantonment at Cannanore, and retell his interesting account of that period.

The RAF sent out a batch of fliers to join what was called the flight 1340 (on special Duty) to Cannanore in March 1945 to duplicate a lot of tests with poison gas which had been conducted in England and western Canada. Danny who flew the VV and was involved in the bird hit states - Could this (CW agent) be produced in quantity (at reasonable cost) to spread or spray on open ground in order to deny access to troops as effectively as land mines? Our work at the C.D.R.E. in Cannanore in 1944-1946 was concerned with defenses against liquid Mustard Gas (Dichloro diethyl sulphide) used for the purpose. He continues - Curiously, at about that time (end of '45), my little unit (1340 Flight) was trying the same idea locally in Cannanore (S. India), using the underwing spray tanks that we'd previously used for spraying mustard gas for the Chemical Defense Research Establishment. We sprayed mustard on volunteer squaddies to see if their Gas Capes were any good.

The Cannanore Cantonment came into existence in the 19th century during the British Raj, providing residential facility to both military and civil population (in land which was part of the Arakkal Kingdom until 1909, from whom the British acquired it). That was where the CDRE was billeted. With the establishment of the CDRE(I), a bunch of personnel including a few Brits landed up in Cannanore. They were not the traditional colonial sort, who tarried around in estates or the ICS, they were soldiers and scientists fresh from the gloomy climes of Britain. How would they have found balmy Cannanore?

Danny goes on - Ours was a grimmer task, we were spraying mustard and phosgene gases (for the purpose of evaluating methods of defense, of course). Poison gases were used not just as vapors, but also in heavy liquid form. Droplets on the skin are highly caustic, sprayed on the ground they are persistent and can deny access to an area (for a time) almost as well as land mines. Against vapors, respirators of some sort are the only defense (in UK in the early days of the war everyone had to carry round their own "gas-mask" in its little square cardboard box) but for liquids, "Anti-Gas Capes" were Service issue kit. For those without them who might have been sprayed, RAF Stations had "Decontamination Centers", where you could strip to the buff, have a good shower to wash the stuff off ASAP.

We were allowed to continue our planned trials to completion for a few months after the war, and then we cleaned out the tanks and had a go at the anti-malaria spraying ourselves. We cleaned the tanks and sprayed DDT (think in kerosene solution) on some unsuspecting Indian villages to reduce incidence of malaria. Worked, too - until they found that DDT was toxic.

During the monsoon period, the Cannanore strip was waterlogged and the CDRE attempted to relocate the planes to Sulur, but it did not prove to be a good idea since the distances to Kumbala and Porkhal were just too much. Later, detailed tests were made by this unit on the application of aerial smoke-screens for use in the combined operations in the retaking of Malaya, codenamed Operation Zipper.

It will be unfair of me to paraphrase or reword what Danny wrote about the life in the Cannanore Cant.., simply because his story telling style is captivating, so whatever you read below are his own words. He recounts his days with charming honesty.

When I got there the place was a madhouse, the airfield was still under construction, half mud, half grass and the aircraft were going to be Vengeances. I was to be the CO of the unit, and so they promoted me to Flight Lieutenant and the first aircraft to come in were Mark IV’s, which differed considerably from those I had been flying up at the front. When I found out what my job was going to be, I discovered that it was going to involve a lot of low flying. In fact it had to be very accurate, flying for the most part at heights of only 30 ft. This is a far from enviable job in the Vengeance because of the high angle of attack, especially at low speeds. So as soon as I was able to fly off the airstrip, I started a program of low flying to be able to lay a screen that again was measurable from the ground in the size of the molecules that dropped. We practiced until we became quite proficient. They supplied me with three aircraft and aircrew who had never been on operations, but we succeeded in developing a pretty good unit.

Operational control was vested in the Royal Engineers, in the person of a fatherly old Colonel Philips as the C.O. He was a research scientist and the Cannanore Mess was full of them, Dr. this and Dr. that, as well as a number of medical and veterinary officers who looked after our human and animal guinea-pigs.

The Mess was the old Army Mess, properly built in the '20s on the assumption that the Empire would last forever. But there were very few officer's quarters (amply sufficient for those days, I suppose), and now the Chemical Defense Research Establishment had to accommodate not only their own Army medical, veterinary and administrative officers, but a whole gaggle of civilian experts ("Scientific Officers") as well. The RAF contingent was small, just about 5 or 6. They lived in tents.

Ours were rectangular mini-marquees with much more floor space than in a junior officer's room in an "Expansion Pattern" RAF Mess. The floor was covered with sand, with two or three Afghan rugs - this was comfort indeed. It was furnished on a lavish Indian Army scale: a "Camp Cot Newar" in place of the bedbug-infested charpoys which had served us for the last three years, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers with a mirror, a table and a chair. In any case we were only 100 yds or so from the cliff edge; the tent wall was rolled back in the middle of each (long) side to provide a doorway with a hanging rattan screen which allowed the gentle sea breeze to pass through while excluding most of the insects, inquisitive rats, goats and shite hawks. Permanent ablutions were over the road in the Army camp, but you would tell your "bearer" (when he brought you your morning tea) to bring you a bowl of hot water to shave.

There were communal showers over there too, which the service people always used (but the older, more diffident civilians preferred the privacy of a "camp kit" [folding canvas] bath in their tents). Sanitation was by "thunderbox" - there were no Deep Trench Latrines. No electricity or running water in the tent lines, of course but the permanent camp had both. Cannanore town did not offer much in the way of attractions, but there were the usual bazaars where there would be tailors, shoemakers, barbers and most necessities of life on sale - but not razor blades (or gramophone needles)!

What the town did have was a Portuguese Roman Catholic Church. I cannot remember its name (and now there seems to be a Holy Trinity Cathedral [for a Diocese of Kannur has been created], probably on the same spot). But in my time, there was just a Church with a Portuguese priest; he could speak only Portuguese and Malayalam (which was all that was needed for his flock). But we could attend Mass there on Sundays, for of course it was still the old (Latin) Tridentine Mass, then the absolute standard throughout the world, and as soon as he swung onto the altar, handed his biretta to the server and intoned the "Introibo ad altare Dei", we were off, and might as well have been in our family church back home.

Now, in British India, when two or three Englishmen were gathered together anywhere, the first thing they always did was to build a Club. Cannanore was no exception. At the top end of the (then) town, a wide laterite bluff overlooked a tiny, secluded beach to the north. If today, you look up "Cannanore (Kannur) beaches", you'll find a "Baby Beach". I am fairly certain that this was the Club Beach. Above it, on the top of the bluff, were two or three small hotels and the Cannanore Club. (European club - I think it is the Savoy these days). This was a spacious bungaloid construction with a large horseshoe shaped bar; there must have been a main lounge and several smaller rooms. Certainly there would have been a billiard room (for what Club worthy of the name would be without one), a Music Room and a Card room, though curiously I never remember these. The Club was too small to cater; and had no bedrooms, but that did not matter: both were available at the nearby "decent hotels".

The main attractions of the Club were outdoors. They had one (or two?) hard tennis courts on the landward side, and then there was always the Club Beach. Reached down a rather rough and dangerous flight of narrow steps cut into the rock, it gave us safe swimming (I don't remember any history of shark attacks - but then ignorance is bliss). The Club kept, in the changing rooms, a selection of surf boards for the free use of members. These were nothing like the boards you see in Hawaii or New quay today. They were thin, strong wooden planks only four or five feet long by about fifteen inches wide , but adequate for the surfing on offer. It was a good idea to be on a towel, for in their burrows in the sand there were thousands of minute crabs (from memory, about ¼” across) which would pop out and give you a tiny nip before popping down again.

Now who were the Club Members who were the beneficiaries of all this? I would say that there were very few Europeans permanently resident in Cannanore. A Police Officer, I suppose, maybe a Magistrate or two, a Forestry officer or a high-level railway official. All these would be ipso facto members of the Club. And in the "cool" season (say November - February), their numbers were increased by a strange reverse of the "Hill Station" summer exodus.

All this was changed by the wartime arrival of the CDRE; immediately the number of Service officers (and civilians of officer status) doubled or trebled: all would be eligible for temporary membership of the Club. Curiously, not many applied. I suppose the majority were married, older and staider men, who were quite content with a comfortable life in the Mess, enjoyed the warm sunshine, and a stroll along the Moplah beach in the cool of the evening. Surfing did not appeal.

There was another community of Britons who were, in a sense, "lesser breeds without the Law", the Anglo Indians, and so it was in Cannanore - and everywhere else in India. There is no use railing against the injustice of this; it was simply the way it was and always had been.

My people were housed in the permanent Sergeant's Mess and in the Army barrack blocks (not in tents, as the number of "other ranks" had not increased in proportion to the number of officers and civilians of officer status). They were luckier (?) in that they had slow-turning ceiling fans, which just about stirred up the hot air without producing much cooling. The food in the Army Messes was reasonable - which did not stop the eternal grumbles, but that has always been 'par for the course'.

But what amenities could I offer my people? Well, the Army had set up the "Clover Club" in what had originally been the Regimental Institute, but a piano, a billiard table and a couple of table tennis tables don't take you very far. The ORB records that we organized inter-service football and hockey matches on the airstrip. The CDRE Football team and Hockey team excelled in those days. Off the airstrip, the beach was too narrow and rocky, the only safe beaches were the Club beach (from which they were excluded) and the Moplah Bay beach (the other side of the Fort), where there were miles of sand.

Danny’s Cannanore as you read so far, was an attractive place, replete with golden sands, soft breezes, whispering palms down to the high-water mark - everything a Hollywood producer would want as a location for a 'Tropical Island' film and as the story went, Danny did have another story to tell, relating to a couple of attractive British lassies who arrived from Bangalore and a short and ill-fated romance.

Danny’s flight-1340 related reports can be located in the British archives and purchased for a substantial fee, by those interested. These tests and studies were instrumental in Allied CW plans and many M Gas bottles of British and American manufacture were prepared and stored in the NE sectors for a potential conflict with the Japanese. The British military had thus done its best, faced with the possibility of chemical warfare. The results from Cannanore and Porton helped develop special clothing and masks for the military as well as the public in Britain.

But well, there is a sad aspect to this story. While gas masks were designed and supplied in Britain to the population, and even to British subjects at far flung Singapore to ward off or protect against potential chemical attacks, none were available for the teeming masses in NE India. As one journalist wrote succinctly - “The great masters cowering in well protected bunkers preferred that the children of the Raj, the jewel of their crown, be exposed and perish, if it came to a chemical attack”. Fortunately, no chemical attacks took place and the war came to an end with a Japanese surrender closely following the dropping of atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (a subject I had covered elsewhere).

Danny returned to a dank Britain, did other things in life but still remembers and writes fondly of his warm days from Cannanore.

He replied me wistfully, when I mentioned that I was from Calicut – ‘Never visited Calicut, but flew past it every fortnight on my trips to Cochin (RAF Willingdon Island) from Cannanore (to draw cash to pay my troops). I used to follow the coastline at 1,000’ - 1,500’ so as to get a good look at all the towns on the way.  Always looked an "old-worldly" place to me, with the dhows with their lateen sails in port.  Of course, it had been (and I suppose still is) for hundreds of years the port for the spice traders of Kerala. Memories, memories! Of course, it'll have all been changed from the sleepy backwaters I knew 73 years ago.’

Never go back!

References

A load of thanks to the honest renderings of Danny42c who recorded his days at Cannanore  

Secret Science: A Century of Poison Warfare and Human Experiments - By Ulf Schmidt

An imperial world at war – ed. Ashley Jackson (Protecting which spaces and bodies? -Susan R Grayzel)

Chemical Warfare - Edward M. Spiers

Photos -

Cannaore cant map Courtesy Kallivalli 

Dannys VV bomber

Special Note – This is a personal account of Danny 42c, in most parts. Not to be copied, rephrased, re-quoted or disseminated, without his written permission