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PARTITION - additional recordings /
Andrew Whitehead /
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CD-12
Francis Leo ('Frank') Leeson
interviewed at his home in Worthing by Andrew Whitehead, 20th June 2001
bom 1926; enlisted in the army cl944; nuclear bombs dropped while at sea heading east,
and ship was diverted to Bombay; served as a khassadar in the NWFP tribal agency of
South Waziristan, C1944-47; later travelled across south Asia on behalf of National
Geographic; joined the British Army; afterwards worked in insurance. Wrote a typescript
account of his time in South Waziristan, 'Frontier Legion' - which includes a more
complete account of his mission to evacuate the Baramulla convent than is contained
here. Has extensive diaries, photographs, scrap books, and other records.
Tr 1
Aged 74.
'We were intercepting Mahsouds who were comign down thro N Waziristan with the
intention of sacking and pillaging in the plains generally. But quite a no of those
Mahsouds were intending to go on to Kashmir. This was early October [47]'
'They felt there was a cause I'm sure, but loot etc was also v much to the front of their
minds. We actually had a camp outside the walls of the post I was in at the time and there
they were impounded, all these Mahsouds - I've actually got a picture of that - but it was
general talk. We were more obsessed at the time with getting the Hindu and Gurkha
troops out of N Waz'n into India....'
PHOTO OF AFRIDIS GOING TO K [and see more towards end]
'That was much later on, that was about the 17th November... they were carrying on
pouring into K for weeks after the initial invasion, and of course they were not only going
in up the M'bad road, but also directly across into the Poonch area'.
[Mahsouds and Afridis] 'were typical tribesmen in these baggy trousers and shirts hanging
outside with waistcoats, v roughly tied turbans or pugris as we called them, and their
weapons were mainly the standard type of army rifle of that period, the ?Lee Enfield or
imitations of them ...'
HOW MUCH OFFICIAL SUPPORT FOR TRIBAL INVASION
'We cdn't really see anythng from W'stan. It was until we started our journey home at the
end of Oct and we were in a scout convoy passing thro Nowshera that we encountered
hugh crowds of people waiting for a tribal convoy which was expected, carring tribesmen
into K. And as we had the crescent and stars on the sides of our trucks, scout trucks, they
obv thought that we were something to do with this, and they were throwing flowers at us
as we passed thro Nowshera. When we got to Rawalpindi then of course we realied what
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