 Soon after, fully recovered from his injuries, he returned to India to do what he could.With the eventual defeat of the Japanese in Burma, West was one of the first British civilian allowed back into the country, flying into Rangoon on 9 July 1945 to find the city in a parlous state and discovered that his Cathedral, St. Paul's, had been fitted out as a distillery by the Japanese occupiers.West devoted his energy to help rebuild his diocese.