Partition Voices: Frank Leeson
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Frank Leeson giving a first-hand account of the invasion of Kashmir in October 1947 by Frontier tribesmen from Pakistan and of the evacuation of those trapped at St Joseph's Catholic mission hospital at Baramulla in Kashmir. He was taking to Andrew Whitehead at his home near Worthing in Sussex on 20th June 2001.

Frank Leeson, born in 1926, enlisted in the British army in about 1944 and for the next three years or so served as a khassadar in the tribal agency of South Waziristan in the North West Frontier Province (which became part of Pakistan at independence in August 1947). He had a first-hand vantage point on the movement of armed tribesmen as they headed towards Kashmir. He also accompanied the Pakistan army when they evacuated those trapped at St Joseph's Catholic mission hospital in Baramulla in early November 1947. He wrote about his time on the Frontier in his book Frontier Legion: with the Khassadars of North Waziristan, published in 2003.

He was also a photographer and he allowed me to use the photograph below in my book A Mission in Kashmir - it was taken at Rawalpindi on 13th November 1947, and shows Orakzai tribesmen on their way to join the lashkar fighting in Kashmir. Others of his photos can be seen here.