大象传媒

EGYPT 鈥� THIRD AND LAST VISIT

Sunday May 21st, was a complete change for many of us who went on an houseboat trip down the Nile, the longest river in the world. Our journey was along only a tiny fraction of its length in a northerly direction down to the Nile Barrage where grows an amazing collection of tropical and semi-tropical plants. We had a grant time, lots to eat and did not return to our camp until 2200 hours. It is difficult to remember after so many years the cost of the outing, but I believe it was ten shillings in English money and well worth the outlay. I still have a photograph taken on board ship as a momento of this very interesting day.

There followed three days when I was detailed for various battery duties. First as Orderly Sergeant during which a great deal of time was consumed inspecting cookhouses, toilets, tents, stores and so on. At the same time I had to organise more amendments to our range tables. These arrived from time to time and it was vital that our records were both accurate and up to date. I was in bed late and read a book before dozing off. In the morning I had to take a leave party to Cairo. It was a very hot day and I duly noted that I was 鈥渇agged out鈥�.

The next day I was on duty in charge of the guard, taking over in the late afternoon and I believe it was on this occasion that a wandering Egyptian appeared out of the darkness in the middle of the night and offered to tell my fortune by drawing odd signs in the sand with his stick and studying them intently. But he had little substance to impart, except that soon we would be going home. So we gave him a cigarette and sent him on his way. There were many local labourers and tradesmen employed by the army in this part of the world and others who did odd jobs for the soldiers and our visitor was probably one of them. As an example, an Egyptian appeared each day just before reveille selling hot tea and shouting out 鈥淗ubbly, bubbly, bubbly, hot chai鈥�.

The next three days were spent out in the desert on various schemes. First of all a day with the Divisional Signals with which the regiment was closely linked. Next a wasted day because the wind and sand brought everything to a halt and invaded our clothes, equipment and vehicles creating a real old mess. Worst of all it gets into the tea. On the third day we took part in a rather unsuccessful exercise which ended abruptly with Tiffin, as the midday meal was called in this part of the world. Why the sudden ending I did not know and nobody else seemed to know either. We just packed up and returned to camp.

Sunday came and with it my name as regimental orderly sergeant which was an easy duty on the Sabbath, beginning and ending with rounding up the few people who wished to attend church and then, later in the day, assisting with the guard mounting ceremony.

At this juncture, I would like to mention a curiosity of the leisure hours in the Officer鈥檚 Mess. There was in the regiment a certain captain who, when the evening was far spent, used sometimes to take a number of wine glasses and chew them down to their stems and this, as far as one could see, without any adverse result. My informant was always impressed but never to the point of desiring to learn the technique. Looking back, it is astonishing as to what prompts one to perform this trick, from whom does one get instruction in the art? Neither he nor I for that matter have ever seen anyone advertising such instruction!

Monday 29th May was occupied with a command post scheme in which all the command posts in the regiment, nine in all, plus Regimental HQ and observation posts were set up and attended by all their officers, specialists and signallers. All were interlinked by radio and telephone and a mock battle took place. The intention being to keep all the nerve centres in the regiment in practise and finely tuned. The scheme lasted most of the day and in the evening I managed to find the time to see the film 鈥淔lemish Farm鈥� which I quite enjoyed.

Next morning everything had to be sorted out, cleaned up and restored to good working order where necessary. In the late afternoon I had to take over as Regimental Guard Commander until the same time the following day which meant the loss of another nights sleep. The day afterwards, around midday, we all moved off with our guns to the ranges and when we got there I found I was on guard again! June 2nd and 3rd was spent on the ranges in the heat and dust, but I had little do most of the time.

The whole affair was not a great success, although the gunners were able to put in some practice firing their guns and we all arrived back in time for dinner.

Sunday June 4th was not the usual rest day and saw me out again to do some survey work which did not go too well and it was after 1500 hours when I arrived back at camp which left little time for the various odd jobs always waiting to be done. In the morning the battery was out again to practise 鈥渇iring in the upper register鈥� which I have already described in some detail. As there was nothing for me to do during the firing, some of us, all similarly unemployed for the time being, were able to get away and visit the School of Artillery at Al Maza in the afternoon, have some tea and drive back to the ranges where we arrived very late in the evening.

June 6th 1944, the day of the Normandy Landings saw me detailed to attend a 鈥淢ines鈥� exercise. This particular subject was now accepted as my special forte having been trained by experts in the art. So whenever mines were mentioned I was usually sent for and thankfully that was not very often. At some time during the day I heard the King鈥檚 speech about the second front, but much more exciting to a bunch of us sergeants who went that evening to the pictures in Cairo, was the film 鈥淪weet Rosie O鈥橤rady鈥� starring Betty Grable. We attended the last house and every one of us was singing the theme song in the cinema and all the way home. I can still remember it quite clearly whereas the second front only brought forth sarcastic remarks such as 鈥渁bout time too鈥� from the lads who had already taken part in two such invasions and knew all about beachheads.

The next three days were spent on mundane things such as battery day orderly duties and a sergeant鈥檚 mess do which proved a flop. Another exercise was organised which while giving us further practise could hardly be called a success. I then went to Cairo to buy myself a beret. The issue beret was, in my opinion, a disgrace. It had a thick band around it which was either too tight or too loose. It was shapeless and could not be made to look smart when worn and here in the desert it was unbearably hot, so off I went and bought one with leather edging through which was threaded a lace which could be adjusted to suit the size of my head.

We then spent a day in camp on make and mend which was followed by a very busy day in which I took part in a regimental command post scheme in the morning and an air photography exercise in the afternoon. When that ended I had to take over in charge of the guard and during the evening felt very poorly. In the morning I seemed much better and spent the time on specialist work and various odd jobs, I even enjoyed seeing a film in the morning.

June 14th saw the battery out again on a one day exercise and I felt bad again that night. Next day I had the feeling that I was making a recovery, but on the 16th I developed a temperature in the afternoon and feared the worst. Next morning I was sent off to the 63rd General Hospital wit ha recurrence of the my BT Malaria. It was not a bad attach, but it needed proper medical supervision. Later in the day I was visited by the Padre which I thought was rather good of him to get in touch so promptly. I soon found that the quinine given to me in liquid form completely upset my inside. The dosage was then changed to pills, as when I developed malaria in Tripoli, and I was much improved by the evening.

On the 19th I had a visit from our Battery Captain and our sergeant major and the next day I was allowed up for three hours and wandered around the grounds of the hospital with Eddie who unbeknown to me was also in with Malaria. During the next two days I read a lot and chatted to Eddie and gradually got better. In this particular hospital there were British nurses who generally supervised but all the hard work was done by Palestinians in the ATS and of Jewish origin and the entire set p was very efficient. During my stay here I was particularly well looked after by a rather nice looking ATS who even used to send me little notes inviting me to meet her downstairs outside the canteen. Sadly, however, I really didn鈥檛 have the strength to cope with a flirtation at that time! Over the next three days I spent the time walking, reading and eating ice cream and then Eddie left for the convalescence depot at El Ballah on the Suez Canal and where I had spent a few weeks after leaving the 2nd New Zealand Hospital. He managed a swim in the canal, recovered quickly from his malaria and woke up one morning to find a 15 cwt truck had arrived to take him back to the battery.

On June 26th I saw the officer commanding the hospital and was able to obtain permission to return direct to my unit. I did not want a repetition of going to convalescence camps, etc, again and I returned 鈥渉ome鈥� with strict instructions to spend a few days on 鈥渓ight duties鈥�. During this time, for some reason or other that I cannot remember, I made a trip to the Helusan and to Maadi. I also had to draw some new equipment for the specialists stores and best of all managed a shower each day. One afternoon I was even able to listen to the radio, a rare event indeed!

July 3rd arrived and we were ordered to pack up all our equipment and personal belongings. On the 4th, the camp was handed over to the unit that took over from us at Anzio, namely the 92nd Field Regiment of 5th Division. They must in their turn have been relieved for a rest before continuing the struggle. The following day at 2300 hours we moved off by train after hanging about for hours beforehand. Our accommodation for the journey consisted of closed wagons and the one I was unfortunate enough to share must previously have been field with fish because the residual stench was awful.

We dismounted at 1500 hours the next day having spent 15 hours doing a journey of 100 miles. It was a grim rid with much starting and stopping, the latter part being hot and clammy for we were in the middle of the Egyptian summer. Our destination was Almyira, some ten miles from Alexandria. We spent three days here under canvas, waiting for a ship to take us back to Italy and with no training to do, the time was spent first of all on washing clothes because everything gets grubby when travelling army style and this was followed by letter writing. We then read any and everything we could lay our hands on followed by an early night in order to make up for lost sleep.

On the second day all those soldiers not on duty went to Alexandria, which was a much smaller, less crowded and from what I saw, a more refined city than Cairo, but perhaps without its Arabic attraction. It was at one time the centre of Rome鈥檚 middle eastern empire and then went into decline until less than one hundred years ago, when it was resuscitated and became the largest port in Egypt. During my visit I saw the film 鈥淭yphoon鈥� with Hedy Lamaar which I rated 鈥渘ot bad鈥�. This was preceded and followed by two good meals and several teas. As I have mentioned elsewhere we were always hungry and on the lookout for caf茅s, probably because of the active lives we lived, plus constant fresh air, except when in fish wagons, and being of an age when people tend to have large appetites. There was seldom anything left on our plates and one of my group used to scrape his plates absolutely clean after every meal, not the tiniest particle of food was allowed to escape. But to continue, our day in Alexandria also included a visit to the British church where I duly signed the visitors book and finally arrived back at camp by midnight. The last day before departing saw me posted as orderly sergeant but there was little to do except ensure that all the tents were taken down. I tried to get into the picture house in the evening, but it was full up.

The regiment and various other units embarked on board SS Staffordshire on July 10th. It was not what I would call a very high class affair, just a typical trooper with no trimmings. It looked as if it was used only for short journeys of a few days at a time and we were more or less found somewhere to sleep by squeezing in to cabins wherever possible with junior sergeants, such as myself tending to be tail and charlies. During our first night on bard, there was an air raid which consisted mainly of lots of noise and which did not last very long. We hung about for a couple of days getting to know exactly where our boat stations were and establishing where everybody was berthed and the position of the toilets, very important on a troopship, the situation of the canteen with a note of hours of opening and anything else we felt necessary. Each morning I was able to slip ashore for a walk along the dockside, but the bother of getting on and off troopships was rather wearing with guards on the gangways and passes needed.

On Wednesday July 13th, my lucky number again and incidentally Eddies as well, it was his 25th birthday, we put to sea early in the morning. In fact, before I awoke and all day long the ship glided through a perfectly smooth blue sea. The whole voyage lasted five days and as it progressed the sea gradually changed becoming more and more rough which was surprising for the time of year. However, I had obtained a copy of 鈥淭he Amateur Gentleman鈥� by Geoffrey Farnoll, a story set in Regency England and which I quite enjoyed.

The food on board was of quite reasonable quality considering we were on a trooper and we were able to buy a few things from the canteen such as chocolate, cigarettes, cups of teas and cakes. One day we were shadowed by a German JU88 for a short while and at a very respectable distance. As usual I was detailed for official duties, this time for both battery and regimental orderly sergeant. The other highlights of the Mediterranean cruise were an afternoons concert which proved very popular and on one day a dinner of pork, peas and potatoes. Quite a treat and a change from that good old standby, bullybeef.

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