The Effect of World War II in India and the Japanese invasion of Malaya
......and A flowering romance

From Chapter 7: Nearing the Summit: 1941

The world changed forever in December.

In Khargpur, while waiting for the evening church service to begin next door and listening to the short wave service of the BBC, I heard the news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The next day, December 8th, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan, which it did.

Meanwhile a Japanese invasion of Malaya was under way. A British battleship and a battle cruiser were sunk by Japanese aircraft off the Malayan coast. Penang and Singapore were in danger. Hong Kong and the Philippines were targets. Burma and the eastern frontier of India were vulnerable. Japanese battle fleets with aircraft carriers were on the move. No one along the coast of the Bay of Bengal felt safe.

Get the whole story! Read Stan Brush's Memoir of His Boyhood in India, "Farewell the Winterline"

So the war was at our doorstep.We hung blackout curtains everywhere. W-shaped slit trenches were dug, so as to make it more difficult for enemy planes to strafe the occupants. One person in Khargpur suffered a fatal snake bite in a dark trench during an air raid practice. The street-level fronts of public buildings disappeared behind stacked-up sandbags. Photography around stations, bridges and docks was forbidden. Film, in any case, was hard to find. Censorship of all mail was now in force. At the Union Church evening service was moved to four o'clock so church members could be home by dark.

Beyond these changes was an emerging relationship with Beverly Amstutz. It began formally in late April, after she had ended things with Peter over the winter vacation and was, so to speak, available and "interested." This was communicated through the boarding school grapevine. So we were launched as a couple by walking back to the dormitories together from a Christian Endeavor meeting at Ashton Court. It happened, without our even speaking to each other directly as the result of being pushed together by eager classmates, who then melted away, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Beverly had a revolutionary effect on me. Fran, who was my love-life confidant, was delighted, but rather quickly became alarmed and disapproving when she realized that we might be moving to hand-holding and, maybe, kissing. According to Frances, some of my hostel friends were filling my head with trash. Mother agreed. Certain acquaintances could not be counted on for proper guidance. Despite their fears, over the next few months Mother and then Dad, in Landour, reported in letters to John that a miraculous transformation was taking place in his younger brother. He (Stanley) had begun paying attention to how he dressed and his manners. "You wouldn't know the boy," Mother wrote. He shaved and pressed his suit in order to escort his "dame" Beverly Amstutz, the "Singapore lady," home from a class party. I invited her home for tea and meals. Mother now thought that "Bev" was a "wholesome kid, a good spirit." I began working to match Beverly's grades. Mother really liked that! Writing to John from Khargpur in October that year, reporting on my social life, she said, "Bev seems to have the effect of stimulating Stanley's intellectual effort, too. He made 95 and 100 in the last two history tests...With his tutoring, good marks [and] assuming responsibility, he is growing up remarkably for a 16 [actually 15]-year old."

Blackouts, air raid drills and saying farewell...Chapter 8