Nila
Kantan
was brought up in Andra Pradesh, and volunteered for
the Indian Army in 1940 at the age of nineteen. He saw service with transport
and supply units on a wide range of fronts - Eritrea, Syria, North Africa
(including the crucial Battle of El Alamein in 1942), Italy (where he served at
the siege of the town and monastery of Monte Cassino) and the Far East.
‘I am a Brahmin -
though I don’t believe in caste. We were living in a small village on the banks
of the Godavari river. Mud house and thatched roof: it was not pukka building.
I never came across any high-class society people; I never came across an Englishman.'‘I
was very lean, thin, puny. I was not fit, so they rejected me for the infantry.
I did not mind. Every job in the Army is useful, you see. The infantry is Queen
of the Battle, they take all the credit; but I doubt very much if the infantry
can do anything without the support of the services...
Without our
effort, all the supply units, all the British and Indian RAC drivers, the
ordnance and so forth - they could not have sustained the 8th Army.' ‘I first
set my foot in Port Sudan in October 1940, after about twenty days [at sea,
sometimes under attack]. Suddenly there was some sort of a sound and all the
fellows vanished. It was an air-raid siren. I did not know what was happening.
Then one sergeant-major came and said, ‘Come on, lad, get to the shelter!’ I
did not know where the shelter was. I just lay flat. Then what happened - one
bomb fell somewhere, one shrapnel hit my leg. They hospitalised me for a month!
This was my first introduction to war.'
'The desert was a
miserable thing. I wonder, ‘Why the hell are we fighting here?’ Godforsaken
place: no water, nothing, no place to hide. There’s no such thing as Hindus or
Christians in the desert. When we join the army we completely forgot our
religion. No possibility of purification - nothing of the sort.
We used to get a
gallon of water a day only. Out of that gallon, 70 per cent went to the
cookhouse. The rest of it was only for drinking, or washing [of clothes]. Even
the Sikhs, they suffered the most, with no washing, and all the dust and
perspiration caked in their beards. I’ve seen British soldiers shaving with the
tea...'
[Describing the
Battle of El Alamein, 23 October-8 November 1942] ‘Then came the thunder of
these armoured divisions, passing through us. I have never seen so many tanks
going in one go. Two divisions, I think, passed through. If you want to know
the size of two armoured divisions - if the head of the column was in
Bangalore, the tail would be in Madras! So many tanks, so many armoured
vehicles, so many personnel carriers. Numberless tanks passing through,
thundering. And their dust clouds - we breathed dust, we ate dust, we drank
dust.'
[At the siege of
Monte Cassino, Italy, in early 1944] ‘I was doing a porter’s job - no vehicles
could go where we were. On our shoulders we carried all the things up the hill.
The gradient was 1:3; almost on all fours we had to go. I was watching from
this hill all the bombers going in and unloading their bombs there. Then, soon
after that raid, 1400 guns blasted at that hill. The monastery was completely
ruined.' ‘I still can’t forget the Cassino ruins. There was nothing but rubble.
The bodies were still trapped, stinking - I had to cover my nose as I passed
through. I saw legs there, blown off the stomach. I have never seen such a
number of dead bodies in any battle. I counted more than 800 - then I gave it
up. They were just there in the rubble, covered with a blanket. I felt very
sorry. I didn’t know where they were born, how they came there, whether they
were enemy or our own troops - they were all mingled together. So many New
Zealanders, British, Germans, Indians... Seeing that, I felt there should never
be a war again. I abhor war. I hate war.'
‘In the war I had
very great experiences. I had most perilous moments in the sea, shipwrecked there.
Sometimes I used to be very afraid during the battles. I did have fear - I
cannot boast I was fearless or anything. I had all these experiences. And in a
way it moulded me. I have seen what perils are, what real hardships are. I have
seen how humanity can suffer.’