AFVOA Newletters of Year 2002

Page 43 of 84 mother, was a University student in England and had volunteered for service with the British Army…. He was delicate, polite, mellow, simple, and well liked. After the operation, he participated in various demolition activities (in Greece). He liked the Greeks and had learned Greek quickly…a year later, he returned to Cairo and on to Italy for similar operations with local resistance groups. After the war, he transferred to the Indian Army and was eventually appointed commander of the armed forces of Western India. In the rank of Lieutenant General”….September 27, 1942 was the team’s last night in Cairo, and “we decided to live it up” remembers Marinos, going on to describe what “might be the last evening of our lives and in fact, very nearly was”… “Inder & I rented a car and went around from bar to bar. intent on spending all our money. Around midnight we landed up in the deluxe Shepherd’s <Illegible> mixing up our drinks…it was after one in the morning that we staggered out for the drive <Illegible> Inder wanted to drive, and after a small argument about who was more drunk. I let him day. We set off at a slow pace, but the road was spinning and just as I realized that the car was <Illegible> the pavement the right front type hit something and burst…a few local urchins changed it in no <Illegible> and it was now my turn to drive. We were driving parallel to a railway track, separated from it by tall bushes. Suddenly, I felt the car going over barriers, and we were no longer on the road, but driving on the railway track with a train coming from up in front. I turned the wheel over sharply, and brought the car back over the bushes to the road. The train passed us at a speed that would have crushed us to pieces. The next morning, Inder and I woke with a terrible hangover and went straight to Shepherd’s Hotel where the barman gave us something with raw egg in it to drink, which strangely enough, cured us....... That morning, we received our final briefing.” When the expected ground marker flares failed them, and their team had to return to Cairo to await another drop date, Marinos and Gill became temporary members of the Ismailia French Yacht Club and tried their sailing skills without much success. They also found that the leader of their group, Major John Cook, a commando, less than inspiring, being arrogant and uncivil to his subordinates. The position of Inder, and especially of Doug (one of the team) was very difficult, as any reactionary attitude on their part could well lead them into a court-martial….Inder, despite his mild and easy going manner, could not accept the situation…. After a “blind drop” on Oct 27 in which the team lost everything they had except the clothes that they wore, Marinos and Gill found themselves under fire, but eluded the Italians, and after a long trek, joined up in mid-November with the other two teams who had found sanctuary in a cave and awaited them not far from the target. The SOE group and the andartes divided themselves into seven groups for the raid on the bridge. Inder Gill was in the sixth group, the actual demolition squad. One of the three sappers in it. They brought down one towering pillar and two complete bridge spans. It took the Germans six weeks to resume traffic on it. Denys Hamson, who led the cover for the demolition squad, was the first to write about “Operation Harling”. In his book, he writes “Inder, the sapper, was the baby of the party, not yet 21 in those days.” He goes on “His Indian father and Scottish mother had certainly produced a queer mixture. His shyness was probably due to this and to youth, but I never knew him to be afraid of saying what he thought; and when it came to action, he always seemed to be cool and without nerves.” Hamson also recalls a day in the cave. “Inder was in good form. He was almost beardless, and his bare, sallow face accentuated his youth. As usual, he was slouching with his two hands in his trouser pockets, this with the piece of string he tied around his waist, being the normal means of keeping his trousers up. He was untidier than ever and wore his service dress hat carelessly on the back of his head. He began his favourite song, “Boogie Woogie”… to mark my entrance. Bey (one of the guerrillas) was delighted. He had taken a great fancy to ‘Eenda’, as he called him, or ‘the Benjamin’, as he later christened him.