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NAVAL HISTORY OF G.T.H GREEN: A TELEGRAPHIST IN NORTH AFRICA

So we steamed on towards our destination which was Bougie, a port on the north African coast, which the army had recently taken from the Germans. The high octane fuel was for the aircraft and for the tanks. We, on board the CLAN LAMONTE, were having a hairy time. At one time there were approximately forty planes attacking us. You could see the torpedoes coming towards the ship, but miraculously missed us. Those were the Torpedo Bombers. Then the dive bombers had a go.

These were very frightening. The noise when they dived was horrendous. Thank God we were not hit. At nighttime it was like an enormous firework display with the ack ack fire from the ships and the flares dropped by the bombers in the dark. I wondered how long the human mind and the body could stand up to all the nerve racking noise, the fear of being blown up, of drowning. Your mind plays funny tricks when it is under such stress.

Of course, you must show no fear to the next man. You try with all your willpower to show how brave you are, to carryon under fire, although we are all scared. However, noone is a coward. We all do what we have to do. My worst moment came the night before we sailed into Bougie. I was on the upper deck. It was a beautiful warm evening, just getting dark. Without any warning a bomber came out of the dusk straight for us. I saw the bombs leave the aircraft and immediately dropped to the deck. This was it!! Being blown up into smithereens.

It was only I seconds but I had time to wander what it would feel like -would it be painful, or would it be one great flash of light and then nothingness. I lay on the deck waiting for the impact and certain death. The aircraft screamed past overhead. It seemed like an eternity, but in fact, was only a few seconds. I heard someone shout, ‘They have missed us’. I rose to my feet, pretty shaken, trying to keep my nerves under control and then watched the anti aircraft fire from all the escorting warships which was exploding in the night sky.
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After another hours sailing, I could see the odd light from the coast and knew we were almost there. The fear now was submarines. They sometimes waited outside the entrance to the harbour submerged and then they would fire a torpedo and sink the ship. Harbours around the Med were littered with sunken ships, which had been destroyed in this way. However, I went below decks to my cabin and fell into my bunk and asleep at once.

I awoke to the sound of the anchor chains clanging through the fairleads. It was a marvellous sound, especially after you had been to sea for a few weeks on end. We went alongside the quayside and the dockers started to unload. We had our fingers crossed that the German dive bombers would not hit us. They came once or twice a day. Merchant ships were their main target. We were lucky they did not hit us, although we could see other ships hit our luck held out. The heat and humidity were bad for us. We had not as yet become acclimatized to the atmosphere.

We just perspired and cursed the flies. They were everywhere. When the food was out you spent most of the time swatting them. North Africa was hated for the flies. They just got worse, nothing would stop them. They made life so miserable. They got into the eyes, ears, nose and sides of the mouth, it was awful.

We were hoping to get back to sea soon. So bad were the conditions, even submarines and planes seemed better than the flies. These pests carried all kinds of disease. The Arabs did not seem to mind them, could be they were used to them. The smell around the harbour was awful, so when the orders came to sail to Algiers we were happy. I had read about Algiers and I was looking forward to going ashore there. It seemed a very romantic and fascinating place. However, we had to get there and had to reckon with more attacks. So far, we had led a very charmed life.

Ships had gone down, blown up by submarines and planes, but we sailed on. We wondered how long we could be so lucky, but we were, and very soon we sailed into harbour at Algiers.

It was a grand sight. The white houses of the Casbha rising above the city, shimmering in the heat. The palm trees with the green fronds making a beautiful backdrop. Compared with the sea it was colourful and it did not move when the wind blew! What we did then was the smell that came from the city itself. It was awful. This was mixed with the scent of perfume which the Arabs made and sold on the streets of the Casbha. The name Casbha means town of the Arabs.

I bought some of it for Nancie and she used it for years after the war. It was so strong, only a small touch was needed. However, the end of the war was a long time off and we had just arrived in Algiers.

We were drafted off the ship and billeted in a French school at the top of the town in Rue Tunisia. This was a miserable place, no beds, we had to put our hammocks on the floor and sleep (or try to} on them. The floors were stone and we were always cold. The toilets were very strange . There were no seats to sit down on, you had to stoop down and do your stuff. No luxury such as toilet paper, it was all a bit primitive especially after the luxury of the CLAN LAMONT but we had to accept it and make the most of it.

One thing was nice, there were plenty of oranges. I ate loads of them. It was the first time I had been to North Africa and I was most interested. Not knowing what my next draft would be, I got around and saw as much as I could. A week after we docked in Algiers I was to report to the Harbour Wireless Officer. He told me that my job was in charge of the temporary Signal School in the French school (ecole) which we were using as temporary barracks.

My job was to train young, inexperienced telegraphists. These had been sent from England as reserves for the sips of the fleet. Most of them had only been in the Navy a few weeks, and had a lot to learn: to increase the speed of reading morse (also sending), to learn about codes and just general discipline. Very few of how to lash up a hammock.

However, there was a lighter side. We could go swimming in the warm sea and sunbathe on the beautiful sands. It was during this time that Nancie’s cousin, Leslie Appleby arrived in Algiers with the Army. They were camped on the Spur, a high point overlooking the Bay of Algiers, where the Army had a large transit camp.

I borrowed a truck and drove up there to see him. Would you believe it. We passed on the road. So of course we did not see each other that day. We met the next week, when he came down to our barracks for a short time. It was a nice reunion, he was able to give me a lot of news of home. He had only just left England, so I had first hand news of Nancie and Pam.

In those days the men in the Navy were issued with a tot of rum at 12 midday. If you felt kindly towards someone, or they had done you a good turn, or like Leslie you gave them a ‘sipper’ of your rum and it was just a sip. However, Leslie being a soldier and unused to Navy etiquette took a drink and drank it nearly all!! much to the amusement of my mess mates. I explained to him rather pointedly the error he had made, but we parted the best of friends. We said goodbye and did not see each other until after the war.

By this time, I had passed my examination for Petty Officer and things were getting a little easier. A Petty Officer in the Navy is a good job. You do not have to do cleaning of the mess or preparing of meals and of course a little more pay. One has to go to the Captain of the ship to be given the rank of Petty Officer. So the day came for me to appear and to be given my rank. I made sure everything about me was clean, boots polished, white hat spotless, real ‘tibbly’. However, all the whole world fell apart as I marched in, head up, shoulders square, looking straight ahead. I tripped on a metal strip by the door, and just dived in. Was my face red. So are the mighty fallen, but I regained my composure quickly, came to attention, saluted smartly. The Captain just smiled. He saw what had happened so I marched out Petty Officer Telegraphist Green a bit pleased with myself.

The job as Instructor was getting very boring, although a safe one. I felt I wanted to do something more. Then my chance came. The powers that be wanted a Petty Officer and four sailors to take a wireless trek into the desert to liaise with the Army, rather a change from being at sea. So, from being cold and wet all the time we were now hot and dry. I enjoyed driving the wireless truck. It was a Humber staff car converted to a soft cover over the back to house the wireless and transmitter.

I did not realise then how inadequate the gear was. There was no proper aeriel or mast. I had to stop and camp by trees and throw the wire over t (real Heath Robinson). In the desert there are not too many trees, so was always a problem. However, I did not learn this until later, in he light of experience. So I collected the truck from the Army depot and four sailors from the barracks and set out for Bone, a port some miles up the coast from Algiers. By this time the Army were pushing through North African terrain and captured Bone only a few days before we were sent there.

We took nearly three days and nights to get there. The coast road took us over the Atlas Mountains and very varied types of terrain. The weather changed from 1000 in the shade to almost freezing at night, especially when in the mountains. What did surprise us was when we came into snow; can you imagine snow in North Africa? The snag was that we were not dressed for it, short trousers and shirts. However, we managed to sustain ourselves and what an adventure it all was. Just five men, all on our own, no back up!

We had to scrounge our food, petrol and water from wherever we could. At night times we had to stop and camp. There were no road lights in the mountains. If there was no moon we could not drive. The headlights on the truck were useless. They had been hooded, so we had no choice. We must have looked like bandits, unshaven, unwashed, with dirty khaki drill, guns strapped to our sides. Sometimes we acted like bandits.

One small Arab village we drove through had a barbers shop. We all decided we could do with a shave and a trim. We stopped and went in. The shop was full of Arabs. We decided we could not wait for all of them be served so we told the barber to start and shave us. He refused, we got tough, pulled our guns out and told them all we would shoot them they did not. However, we were completely outnumbered so decided to go quickly before their reinforcements turned up. There were also German patrols in the area. You could not trust the Arabs not to tell them they had seen us and as the Germans were fully armed we could not take a chance of being caught by them.

Our main armament was a Thompson machine gun, known by us all as a ‘Tommy Gun’, and three clips of bullets, 10 bullets in each clip. As the gun emptied a clip very quickly, one had to be economical with the trigger finger. Although you could move a lever to make it fire one bullet at a time, of course, this rather defeated the machine gun effect. So we pressed on and drove quickly for the coast road. The next day we arrived in Bone about midday. The sun was high, the temperature was 100° in the shade and after a week without a shave or a bath we parked the truck at the Wireless Officer's office (a large house on the seafront) and ran down to the sea which was only a couple of hundred yards away. To just bask in the surf in the warm sun, after those days of sweat, dust, flies, etc. We stayed there for about an hour and a half, then back to the office!

What a reception I got. The Warrant Officer in charge was a big rough man, bearded like most of us. He cursed me, threatened to have me shot, reduce me to the ranks, etc, because he thought we had deserted. He understood we should have arrived three days before. He thought we had been ‘skiving’, a word for shirking in the Navy. To make matters worse the truck had developed a puncture whilst we were in the sea (how, we never knew), so he blamed me for that as well. My name was mud.

When he had finished ripping me off, in no uncertain terms, he informed me that we were making an early start the next morning and to get the puncture mended or else! I had no tools, nothing. I had to go and tell him that I could not do it. He went berserk. However, he was told by one of his Senior Officers that my truck was not suitable for the job we had to do. They swapped it for a similar model but not so old. With modified transmitter and receiver and banks of batteries. How the dickens we were supposed to keep those charged up I was not told. We eventually cadged a generator from the Army (that was another story).

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of George Green and has been added to the site with his permission. George Green fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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