The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [100]
We arrived at the port of Manila on 25 September 1945. Trucks ferried us to a military hospital, which was run by Americans but we were cared for by Filipino nurses who treated us very well. The eyes of the nurses welled up and many were reduced to tears when they saw the state of us. Seeing so many pitiful walking skeletons and so many men robbed of their youth was too much for the nurses to bear. They were more openly disturbed by our appearance than the Americans had been and their unconcealed emotion brought home just how malnourished and ill we were.
For two weeks we lay confined to our hospital beds. Occasionally I would get up and walk around the ward but it was not encouraged. The one upside for many of us was that the Filipino nurses were extremely beautiful, as well as dutiful and kind. One about my age took a particular shine to me, which cheered me up no end. She was very attractive, with flowing black hair that glistened like coal, and asked for my home address, vowing to write to me. I was wary that she wanted a Western husband but maybe I was too harsh on her, for when I arrived home there was indeed a very sweet letter waiting, wishing me well and saying how much of a pleasure it was meeting me.
We bade farewell to the lovely nurses of Manila and clambered back on board the USS Tryon. Ten days later on 19 October we arrived at Honolulu, the capital of the far-flung US state of Hawaii. As the ship berthed in the now rebuilt Pearl Harbor, a tannoy announced that any men who wished to could go on deck, where on the starboard side a traditional welcoming ceremony would be performed for us.
I raced upstairs, bounding two at a time, elbowing others out of my way. This sounded too good to miss. It was a balmy evening bathed in moonlight that shimmered off the calm water in the harbour. We waited in an expectant silence that was broken by a jaunty ukulele tune that got louder and louder. As a fleet of small wooden canoes came into sight from the bow the sky filled with glorious female voices singing strange songs that I took for indigenous classics. As the occupants of the guitar-playing and angel-voiced canoes came into the light the men erupted into cheers and clapping. Buxom Hawaiian lassies with bright flowers around their necks and grass skirts wiggling were waving, smiling and still performing, putting on a real show. Seeing the women perform the hula-hula dance and hearing the upbeat music brought tears to many a hardened eye. We felt like returning heroes yet it would be the first and last time that I would have that feeling. I didn’t realise it at the time but this was the best homecoming I would receive.
We stayed overnight to refuel and I cabled home. I wrote in longhand, ‘Am well. Hope to be home soon. Safe in Hawaii. Love Alistair’, and gave the message to the ship’s purser who arranged for it to be wired.
Six days later on 26 October we arrived at San Francisco, sailing under the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge, completed just eight years before in a Herculean engineering feat. Setting foot on American soil was nearly as emotional as the Hawaiian welcoming party, just without the fanfare. The sensation of being safe was more tangible – being in a Western country where people looked and dressed the same, had much the same sensibilities and ate the same food just felt right. It was probably an unwarranted sensation but even so it was how I felt.
A lorry took us to another military hospital on the suburban outskirts of the hilly city. Now feeling slightly better with every day, the thought of lying in a hospital bed for another period of weeks sucked a lot of energy from me. I was becoming more and more frustrated that it was taking so long to get home. At first I had imagined that we would be taken to an air-base and flown home immediately, possibly first-class after what we had endured.
A British Red Cross telegram from my parents sat waiting for me at the San Francisco hospital. It read, ‘Cables