Balaichandra Datta(1923-?) was born in a village near Raina, Bardhaman in Bengal. Nothing is known about his parentage and early life; except that after his matriculation he shifted to Patna, where he learned typing and telegraphy. In February 1941, he joined the British Indian Navy as Wireless Telegrapher and was posted on the ship Taloyar.
Taloyar was a naval training center; with a school, a number of small ships on board, and residential quarters for the ratings. Hence, Balaichandra by virtue of his assignment could access a lot of sensitive information relating to the movement of the navy. Meanwhile, his old colleague Salil Shyam returned to Taloyar from Malay carrying two letters by Netaji: one addressed to Saratchandra Bose and the other to Jawaharlal Nehru. He requested Balai to ensure that the letters reached the addressees.
This was the spark that inspired him to campaign among the ratings of Taloyar. He did it in such a way that nobody could doubt him or get a shred of paper in support of the plot. Hence, with the first spark of the naval revolt; everybody suspected that there was an insider at the root of it. In February 1946, Balaichandra was dismissed from the service; but he could not be court-martialed for want of convincing evidence against him. Later, he joined journalism and wrote a book on the naval revolt, Mutiny of the Innocents.
Source: Balaichandra Datta, Mutiny of the Innocents, 1971. Sandip Bandyopadhyay, Nau Bidroha, 2018 in Bengali.