Documento FM/1/4 - 'Major F. Mackenzie 1st Battalion, 15th Punjab Regiment, June 1939 - October 1939; October 1939 - March 1940 Calcutta Leave to at [Cleeve] and early war days'

1 diary handwritten notebook

A small notebook containing diary entries from 23 June 1939 - 8 March 1940. Mackenzie notes that on 10th August 1939, Professor G. Tucci visited who he writes is 'probably the world's best Tibetan scholar' and who he continued to meet with in the succeeding days. Alongside the entries of his own life are comments on the world news including the start of WW II. The regiment returned to Kolkata on 10th October 1939 and the diary entries subsequently contain information about his social life as well as war news and the death of Jemi Bikram Singh. He received authority for leave home on 19th December 1939 and travelled from Dum Dum to Jodhpur with Air France on 24 December, flew to Basra the following day and arrived in Baghdad on the 26th December. From there he went to Tunis and then Paris and reached England on 29 December 1939 when he returned to his wife to find her still poorly from pneumonia. The entry for 29th January 1940 contains three sketches made on his journey to London.

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