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1 Mutiny in Karachi
1. M Edwardes, The Last Years of British India, Cassell, 1963, p. 112.
2. PRO AIR 8/790/2157
2 Political Campaigning
1. See the blurb on the back cover of Kisch, The Days of the Good Soldiers. The date is a little too early. The Parliamentary Army’s famous Putney debates took place towards the end of 1647, and discussion among the rank and file no doubt continued for some time afterwards.
2. A Sked and C Cook, Post-War Britain, Second Edition, Penguin, 1984, pp. 17-18
3. Labour Party, Let Us Face the Future, 1945, p. 6.
4. Kisch, op. cit., p. 129.
5. Hansard, 13 February 1946.
3 A Wave of Mutinies
1. D Judd, Empire, Fontana, 1996, p. 335.
2. Laurel Programme
3. PRO AIR 20/9244
4. PRO AIR 23/1986
5. Kisch, op. cit., p.133, quoting LAC Noble.
6. Statement by LAC Noble, quoted in Kisch, op. cit., p. 135.
7. Letter in the Attwood Collection.
8. PRO AIR 20/9245
9. PRO AIR 23/1986
10. PRO AIR 20/9245
11. Kisch, op. cit., p. 142.
12. PRO AIR 23/2314
13. The Times, 28 January 1946
14. Letter in the Attwood Collection.
15. Laurel Programme
16. Letter in Attwood Collection.
17. PRO AIR 23/1986
18. Quoted in The Statesman, Delhi, 27 January 1946.
19. The Times, 12 February 1946.
20. Edwardes. op. cit., pp. 112-3.
4 The Special Investigation Branch
1. In W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado.
2. The Times, 25 February 1946.
3. Hansard, 27 February 1946.
4. Hansard, 27 March 1946.
5. Copy in Attwood Collection.
6. Letter in Attwood Collection.
7. Copy in Attwood Collection.
8. Hansard, 15 May 1946.
9. Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park was Air Officer Commanding, South East Asia Command.
10. I was later posted to Air Headquarters, Delhi, where a colleague showed me a file marked, "Attwood Defence Fund".
5 Courts-Martial
1. R Miliband, Capitalist Democracy in Britain, OUP, 1984, p. 112.
2. The authorities, of course, insisted that there had been no improper interference with Attwood’s incoming mail. Indeed, he had been given specially favourable treatment! "I can assure the House," said de Freitas, the new Under Secretary of State, "that no incoming correspondence was withheld from him. In fact, because of the serious nature of the charge and because he was away from his parent unit, special steps were taken to see that letters did not go astray, and the station adjutant at Worli, the transit camp, was instructed to collect all L.A.C. Attwood’s mail for special delivery to him". Perhaps the adjutant could not read my writing! "There was delay in his outgoing mail," admitted the Under Secretary, "which was due to the fact that the detention cell was under Army control and that the Army N.C.O. in charge did not know the R.A.F. regulations. He therefore referred the matter to his superiors and they referred it to the Air Force authorities, and the Air Force, of course, gave approval for him to send letters, but a regrettable delay of some days had occurred". (Hansard, 19 June 1946). This is nonsense, of course; and does it imply that, had Attwood been a soldier, it would have quite in order to hold back his mail?
His mail, both incoming and outgoing, was not only delayed. It was also opened and copied. My letters to him, his to Pritt, even a brief note from Tom Driberg MP, were all copied and retained by the SIB, as was my telegram of 8 April, though it never reached Arthur. (PRO AIR 20/11516)
3. Letter in the Attwood Collection.
4. E Margetts in interview with the author.
5. Letter in the Attwood Collection.
6. Court-martial details are from legal papers in the Attwood Collection.
7. News Chronicle, quoted in Kisch, op. cit., p. 128.
8. PRO AIR 23/1986
9. The Times, 29 January 1946, and PRO AIR 23/2314
10. PRO AIR 20/9245
11. PRO AIR 23/1986
12. PRO AIR 18/30/5498
13. PRO AIR 19/441
14. For Cymbalist’s quite lengthy cross-examination, the official account of the proceedings omits the questions and provides only the answers. When various authorities were considering Cymbalist’s appeal, what did they make of answers like, "I am suggesting that I did not", "I may have said that at the first meeting" and "I am not a clairvoyant, I cannot say" when there was no indication whatever of what the questions were?
15. PRO AIR 23/2315
16. PRO AIR 23/2313
17. Hansard, 18 June 1946.
18. The other two men were probably charged with less serious offences. One was sentenced to 90 days’ detention, the other may have been released at the same time as Stone and Noble. See Hansard for the statement by de Freitas on 5 June 1946.
19. PRO AIR 20/11516
6 The Campaign in Britain
1. Richard Parker, leader of the Nore mutiny, hanged from the yardarm of his ship, 1797.
2. Minutes of the ETU London Area Committee, 25 May 1946.
3. Minutes of AEU North London Area Committee, 29 May 1946.
4. Resolution moved by the general secretary. Conference papers are in the Attwood Collection.
5. Minutes of ETU London Area Committee, 29 June 1946.
6. Strachey’s written reply to a question by Pritt, Hansard, 9 May 1946.
7. Hansard, 5 May 1946.
8. PRO AIR 19/441
9. Minutes of NCCL Sub-Committee on Democratic Rights for the Armed Forces, 2 May and 15 May 1947.
10. The Young Communist League paper, Challenge.
7 Views from Above
1. PRO AIR 20/9244
2. PRO AIR 23/1986
3. PRO AIR 20/9244
4. PRO AIR 23/1986
5. PRO AIR 20/9245
6. PRO AIR 23/1986
7. PRO AIR 29/1077
8. PRO AIR 23/1986
9. The Times, 30 January 1946.
10. PRO AIR 23/1986
11. PRO AIR 23/1986
12. ibid.
8 A Job Well Done
1. R. J. Spector, Freedom for the Forces, National Council for Civil Liberties (1947?), p.14.
2. London Evening News.
3. Daily Worker, 11 October 1946.
4. Hansard, 12 October 1946.
5. London Evening News.
6. John Saville, The Labour Movement in Britain, Faber and Faber, 1988, pp. 98-9.
7. The Times, 6 March 1946.
8. Laurel programme interview.
9. D N Pritt, Brasshats and Bureaucrats, pp. 236-7.
10. Spector, op. cit., pp. 13-14.
11. D N Pritt, op. cit., p. 237.
12. Morning Star, 25 October 1997.