Proceed to Peshawar. George J. Hill
On the left of the road the ground rises in terraces, and along the edge of each terrace were rows of the Mehtar’s men, each man with his musket. There must have been three or four thousand of them. . . . We came first to an open expanse of grass where a body guard of the Scouts, Rajputs, and Bodyguard were drawn up. Then horsemen galloped past the popinjay—four little gourds hung from a pole, about 30 feet from the ground—firing their enormous jezails [rifle, Pashtun] as they passed underneath. . . . We passed between heavy iron doors and under an arched entrance and found ourselves in the outer courtyard of the Mehtar’s fort. . . . Due north, thirty miles away, Tirich Mir, like a frosted cathedral, towers to heaven!38
Cunningham’s two brothers were killed in service in World War I. He was assistant commissioner in Tank, NWFP, in December 1918, and he was involved in negotiations in the brief war with Afghanistan in 1918–19, as he spent two months traveling between Peshawar and the Khyber Pass. He then went home on leave, and returned in the summer of 1920, posted to Kohat, and was in Peshawar in January to be invested with the OBE.
He was involved with the tour early in March 1921 of the Prince of Wales, for which he was officer in charge of the press. Then the viceroy came to visit Kohat and was to be given a picnic lunch “under the trees,” where there were no trees, at an altitude of six thousand feet.39 There were other duties and complicated arrangements in the Kurram Valley and Thal, and in North Waziristan in Bannu, Razmak, Wana, and Jandola. He went home again on leave in the spring of 1925. When he returned, he was for a short time stationed in Kabul as the counselor to the British legation. He was then appointed private secretary to the viceroy, 1926–31, Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), who set a good model for him in his later postings. During this time, he met and married, in 1929, Kathleen Mary Adair, of Tullow, County Carlow. He went home on leave again until 1932, and was a member of executive council, NWFP, from 1932 to 1936. He was on home leave again, and returned to be governor of the NWFP until he retired. He had accumulated more honors and was knighted just before he took over the governorship.
His tenure was marked with many jirgas (councils) and much travel, especially in the two Waziristan agencies. On the same morning he took the oath of office he traveled to Bannu to discuss the issue of the faqir (also spelled fakir; Muslim mendicant) of Ipi, who had “just appeared on the scene, who would be a constant source of trouble for the next ten years.”40 In 1939 Cunningham traveled to Kaniguram for a jirga, and to Razmak, Ladha, and Wana, all of which are places that were seen by the travelers in December 1943. In 1940 he went to Bannu and Ramzak, and Miram Shah and Mir Ali, and Kohat—sometimes on horseback and sometimes by airplane. He frequently walked about and showed great courage.
Propaganda in support of Pakistan first came to Cunningham’s attention in 1941. At that time, it “was not expected to be a separate dominion [but would be] a Northern Muslim State strong enough to claim a half share with the Hindus in a Federal Government.” The northern territories were unusually peaceful, and one of the few times he mentions them was on 20 November, when he had a very friendly Mohmand jirga at Shabkadar. His memoirs did not mention the visit of Enders early in December, and he mentions the outbreak of war in the Pacific without additional comment on 8 December.41 Early in 1942 he had the unusual experience of entertaining Chiang Kai-shek for two days. The generalissimo traveled to Khyber and was back in time for a banquet in Peshawar on 13 February. In March 1942 Cunningham held an Afridi jirga in the Khyber, and was back in the Upper Kurram again in August.42 He received a visit from the commander in chief, General Sir Claude Auchinleck, who flew in from Karachi.
At the time of the trip by Enders, Bromhead, and Zimmermann, a visitor from Dir said that Dir state was “‘more peaceful than it had been for 45 years.’ . . . 1943 is remarkable so far as the War was concerned only by the extraordinary few mentions of it which he felt the need to make.” “But on the whole the shadow of the war seems to have been removed.”43 In April the viceroy went into Waziristan and landed at Miram Shah, then flew over Razmak and got back in time for Peshawar to shoot snipe. On 25 October Cunningham commented on the ministers in his cabinet, and on 20 November he was at a governors’ conference in Delhi with the new viceroy—Wavell having become viceroy in October. Cunningham mentions there was a “bad affair” at Razmak on 14 December, when two Gurkha battalions suffered many casualties during an “ordinary exercise.”44 This was only days after the travelers passed through Razmak on their way to Quetta, and it was on the day before AZ reached Karachi.
Cunningham believed the British were a benevolent presence in the NWFP, because they kept peace between the warring tribes. This benefited Britain and the empire, and it was also the humane thing to do. He quoted Kipling: “At any price that I can pay, let me own myself.”45
It is remarkable that there is so little about World War II in Cunningham’s memoir. In fact, while there is much about the problems with the tribal areas, especially in the Waziristans, and about politics in Peshawar and Delhi, there is much that is not here—either because it did not appear in the diary, or, more likely, because it was not included by Norval Mitchell in his book.
The Commanding Officer: Smith
The CO at the NLO in Karachi had to agree to send someone on the trip, and he would also have had to decide whether to send himself or to designate someone else. The trip would take at least a month, and in the event it took longer. What good would this trip do for the Navy, and could he spare a man for it? We do not know the answers to the questions, but there are indications for the reasons that he said yes, and sent Zimmermann. He would be glad to get AZ out of Karachi for a while, for although Zimmermann was properly obedient, it was obvious that he did not enjoy Smith’s company. He was, as the saying goes, upstaging Smith, and Smith would have been hard-pressed to find a reason to say no.
Lieutenant Commander Francis Howard Smith, USN, known at that time as Howard Smith, was a regular Navy officer who came originally from Akron, Ohio. He was born 27 August 1892, and he had worked in India for the past thirteen years as an employee of the Firestone Corporation, which was headquartered in Akron. He was said to be fluent in Hindustani His regular Navy commission and his work in intelligence suggest that he had been under cover for a long time. He was well connected in the local community. As Zimmermann relates it, his girlfriend was a Russian émigrée, Nadia, who had been (or was still) married to an Indian. Madame Nadia Dubash and a man named Sheikh were employed in some sort of counterespionage activity. The ONI in Washington was wary of this, but had not (yet) put an end to it. Smith threw a birthday party for himself at the NLO in Karachi on 27 August 1943, shortly before the request came to send someone to the NWFP.46
Smith was apparently a bit of a martinet to those who worked for him. AZ called him “Com Smith” and wrote to his wife that Smith was “short—quick-witted and cocky—. . . . He knows a lot about this country, having lived here a number of years—can speak Urdu and loves to bask in his importance.”47 On the other hand, he was appreciated by his superiors, or at least by one who had flag rank. Commodore (later Vice Admiral) Milton E. Miles wrote, “‘Smitty’ didn’t fluster. . . . So we requisitioned [him] from the Office of Naval Liaison, Karachi where most of his work had been for SACO [Sino-American Cooperation Organization].”48
Kiss up and kick down, the saying goes, so it is not surprising to have two different views of his ability. Smith finished the war in Calcutta, doing cumshaw work for Miles, and then left the Navy. He probably returned to his native Ohio. A “Francis Smith,” born on 27 August 1892, died in Akron in January 1975.
The Minister Plenipotentiary: Engert
The message on 26 October 1943 from IB Quetta to J. R. Harris said that it “would be up to Smith to explain the presence of a Naval Liaison Officer to Enders and Engert.”49 Cornelius Engert was the U.S. minister to Afghanistan.
We do not know if Lieutenant Commander Smith, head of the NLO in Karachi, ever contacted Engert or Enders about this message, but after the trip was over Enders wrote to AZ asking him to “remember me to Commander Smith,” and it is possible that Smith also contacted Engert. The trip, however, is never mentioned in Engert’s personal papers or his official correspondence, nor did his son, Roderick, know about the trip. There is a coded