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EGYPTIAN WATERWAYS

In 1940, with the mounting war in North Africa requiring more and more supplies, the army sent out teams of engineers to organise and maintain the vehicles and transport network necessary to keep the supplies moving. Among these was Len Harrow from Merseyside, who was to spend the next 4 years developing and opening routes across North Africa

EGYPT

The Movements and Transport lnland Waterways Transport - Royal Engineers (IWT), section emerged in June 1940 when it became clear that conventional supply lines depending upon road transport were extremely unreliable in North Africa.

Egypt had 2,200 miles of navigable waterways, including the Nile itself, its huge Delta and many miles of canals, and so this was an obvious way of moving the vast quantities of supplies involved in a global war. From its small beginnings in early 1940 (just two men) this section had grown by late 1943, into an organisation employing over 2,000 people of all ranks and many nationalities, British, Dutch, Cypriots, Indians, Seychelles Islanders and, of course, many Egyptians.

Local civilian sailing and transport companies cooperated, allowing all their vessels, tugs, feluccas, dumb barges, and dhows to be requisitioned and organised by the IWT. The Royal Engineers themselves developed special power and dumb barges including some experimental types made out of concrete. A typical barge would have a capacity of 200 tons and would be towed in groups of two to six, by tugs ranging in power from 200 to 600 hp. The army also made self propelled barges with diesel or even steam engines of 100-200 hp. The feluccas and dhows moved under their own sail or were towed by the tugs.
The extent of the transport network was vast, from the very busy Nile Delta section in the north including the canals linking Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailia and Port Said, down the Nile itself as it made its way from Wadi HaIfa on the Sudan border.

South of Khartoum, in the Sudan, the Nile wound down from Juba, the highest navigable port for barges. From there a combined road and river route crossed over the hills and down into the Congo and so on down another vast river network which led out into the Atlantic through Equatorial Africa.

With increased enemy activity in the Indian Ocean causing losses to shipping travelling up the east coast of Africa, the alternative of off-loading supplies from Britain and America at the mouth of the Congo and transporting goods by barge up this mighty river was attractive.

Although a great deal of work was required in the handling and transfer from ship to barge to truck and back to barge, the resultant safety and the shorter ocean shipping travel made this a very practical option.even though the total distance from the mouth of the Congo to Cairo was 4,423 miles!

This network was to see cargoes of bombs, shells, bridge building equipment, vehicles, cotton-seed, sheep, cattle, wheat, sugar, nitrates, oil fuel, petrol, lubricants and even - aircraft!
To keep the North African squadrons flying, replacement aircraft were shipped out in crates from Britain and North America to the Congo.
A short distance upriver they were then unloaded and assembled at small airfields
which had been specially constructed deep in the jungle" From here the assembled aircraft were then flown overland across Africa to Cairo.
The small contingent of British Officers, NCOs and men, like Len Harrow, scattered in little ports and wharfs up and down the Nile may have felt that they were, at times, a long way from the war, but their contribution to the eventual victory in North Africa was absolutely vital as supplies meant victory, particularly in the hostile environment of the African desert.

Leonard Dorrien Harrow (Len) was born on 8th October 1914 at 17 Lloyd Avenue in Birkenhead. His father was Richard Gibson Harrow and his mother Elizabeth, (maiden name Thomson). His unusual middle name was after General Smith Dorrien.

Len's father, Richard, had spent much of his early childhood in the Royal Liverpool Seamen's Orphanage as a result of the loss of his father, James, a shipwright on the steamship 'Tagus" which had disappeared en-route from Oporto to Liverpool in April 1877.
(Len is keen to find out any information relating to the SS Tagus).

With Len's family's nautical background, it was no surprise that, on leaving Cavendish and Bidston Avenue Schools, he should go into the offices of the Clan Line, in 1929, joining his brother Fred.

Throughout the thirties Len worked in various shipping companies in those halcyon days when the Mersey was busy, always full of ships, sailors, cargoes and smoke! They were hard times too though, the depression affecting many families on Merseyside.

But worse was to come when, in September 1939, war was declared on Germany. It was not until 6th June 1940, however, that Len was called up, his papers instructing him to report to RASC Brighton the following week.
So, like many other young men caught up in the uncertainty of war, Len became engaged immediately to his sweetheart, Jean Brobyn, who was just 21. By this time Len was a 'mature' 25.

The following week, the 13th June, he reported to RASC Brighton for initial training and to find out what his King and Country had in store for him. After two months training there he was sent to Feltham to join the 9th Vehicle Reception Depot. Then he learned that he was being sent overseas.

After an all too brief Embarkation Leave of just a week in early September, it was back into training and preparation for what lay ahead. On 10th October 1940 he sailed from Liverpool for the Middle East on "Chitral", via Capetown.

At this time the Mediterranean was controlled by the Axis forces and thus it was far too dangerous to contemplate sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar, so all shipping, even those bound for Egypt, went round the Cape of Good Hope up the East Coast of Africa and into the Red Sea. Two months later, on 8th October 1940, Len and his comrades arrived in Suez at the start of their real war. For the next 2 months Len was with the 9th Vehicle Reception Depot which had been established at Tel-El-Kebir RASC. However it was not to be long before Len's war took a surprising turn.

Having a nautical background from his family and his job in civvy days, he was an obvious choice to join the Movements and Transport/Inland Waterways Transport section — Royal Engineers — (IWT)

Len was to serve for over 4 years in this Section, opening and operating supply routes on the Nile and the Delta canals. During this time Len learned, by cable, of the death of his mother, Elizabeth, in July 1942.

With the war in Africa effectively over by 1945, Len was able to get a home posting on compassionate grounds, his father having sustained a broken pelvis, and on 1st February 1945 he arrived back in Greenock.

Two days later he was at the North West Ports HQ at "Overleasowe" in Eleanor Road, Bidston, and a week later, on 10th February 1945 he and Jean were married after more than four years separation.

For the next two years they lived with Jean's mother in Holm Lane but during this time put down a deposit on a new house in Durley Drive, Prenton. On 24th October 1945, their son Ken was born at Liverpool Maternity Hospital.
Len served with the NW Ports Embarkation Staff until he was eventually demobbed on 10th February 1946 at Ashton under Lyne. He then rejoined the Clan Line returning to his shipping roots.

In May 1947 Len, Jean and young Ken moved into "Fair Haven" in Durley Drive, they had not been allocated a number then. Two years later their daughter Christine was born at "Fair Haven".

For the next thirty years Len worked in shipping both in Merseyside and abroad until his retirement in 1980. He is now aged 89 and lives in a residential nursing home.

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