大象传媒

After about 18 months of Military experience and training, i was promoted to Lance Corporal and posted to 514 Coy RASC, a company in 168 Brigade and part of the 56th London Division, often known as the Black Cats. They were currently based in Essex, and 514 Coy workshops were located in a doctors house, in the small village of Wakes Colne. The Journey was completed by train. Even Wakes Colne had a station in those days! Although i think if you went past the station, you would be in a turnip field!
When i arrived at the company HQ, Corporal Ben Lyons asked for my army number,"T90193" i replied. "Oh, a territorial" he said. Not in this case, i told him, because, although it was a territorial unit that i had joined, war had been declared and i was a proper soldier!
Workshops were located a couple of miles from HQ, and there were three rows of sycamore trees in the garden where the vehicles were parked for cover. Most of the vehicle servicing was done here. Apparently, they knew i had an aptitude for motor bikes because i was ordered into the bike shop.
The following day i was promoted to full corporal, and within a week i was introduced to the sergeant's mess! Things move a high speed here! As sergeant, i took charge of one of the tweo workshop sections, under Staff sergeant Jock Henderson. Practically all the men were tradesmen, including fitters, carpenters, Blacksmiths , Electricians, Coach trimmers,etc. and each section had a workshop waggon, fitted out with lathes, drills, welders, etc. We had a breakdown lorry with winch, and all the equipment necessary for recovering vehicles. There was also a stores waggon, and a 15cwt truck for a general run-about.
I mostly travelled on the recovery vehicle, although there were exceptions to this arrangement, as when bikes were thought neccessart, for example. When we were on the move in convoy, a recovery vehicle would always bring up the rear to make sure that nobody was left behind. Sammy Clatworthy always drove my breakdown waggon when he was available, and usually i had crew of three or four travelling in the back of the lorry. The breakdown lorry was an Albion,the workshop and stores lorries were Thornecrofts.
I soon discovered that there was a downside to being promoted as sergeant. There was a rota which appeared on the noticeboard for orderly sergeant, and my name began to appear on it. There were only five qualifying for this doubtful honour, and therefore turns came round too quickly for the social register!
One of the duties of orderly sergeant was a regular inspection of the guard over 24 hours. An outhouse near the entrance to the house served as a guard room, and the chap on guard frequently used a lean-to shed whuch had been erected for cook house to shelter under, especially at night. One night a car came down the road and stopped outside the entrance, footsteps were heard on the yard and from inside the cook house a voice called,"halt, who goes there?" a voice returned and said " Bloody well come out and find out!" it was the orderly officer, Captian Wicks. I am sure he is a Yorkshire man by his dialect, and had probably served in the army before. Both he and our workshop officer Capt. Tom Otley were "getting on a bit", and did not join us when we eventually went over-seas.
The guard commander got an old fasioned rocket, His rank, corporal. I never heard what happened between Capt. Wicks and the orderly sergeant of the day, i can only tell you that i was relieved that it was not my turn for duty!
I was very interested to see how the chaps amused themselves when off duty. Some, of course, went off to the villiage pub or the nearest cinema, but the better tradesmen seemed to be able to occupy their time in there own speciality. The turner, or lathe man, spent his spare time making engines for model aeroplanes, and two coach trimmers worked together making minature armchairs for children. They seemed to take orders from chaps going on leave, and they were very well made too!
There were, of course, the cards schools as well.After pay-day there would be little groups of card players in most of the rooms in the billet. After a few days, the winners seemed to gravitate to central tables and the stakes would increase.
I remember standing by and watching an extraodinary game of brag. There were seven chaps who carried on bettibng, and only when two were left in ,still nobody called! there must have been two extraodinary good hands! At last one of the players said with confidence ," i have some more money upstairs , but i won't bother to get it, i will call" When the cards were turned over, they both had identical hands! King,Queen,Jack, Straight! The caller lost!
During august 1942 there seemed to be a change of atmosphere in the camp. We were advised to take leave, and new kit was being issued, Including KD shirts and shorts. It was obvious that we were about to move! But where to? And then we thought we knew where we were going, because were issued with topees! No doubt this was to fool the enemy, but we found later that we had been fooled as well!
The move was in september, the exact date i do not remember, but we were loaded on to a train and the destination turned out to be Gourock,on the river Clyde.
There were several quite large ships standing out on the harbour, and we were loaded on to a tender and taken out to board the Princess Catherine. A ship of about 14,000 tons, and was obviously a cruise ship in more peaceful times.
the three stripes were to be of benifit here, because other ranks were billeted down below on the so-called mess decks, the cargo holds, and sleeping in hammocks, but senior NCO's were put into cabins, four to a cabin!
The ship got underway after dark and by daylight we were obviously well out in the atlantic ocean.I went up on deck and i have never seen such a mess! the decks were being cleaned because half the company had been ill during the night, and there were some very sickly looking chaps up there, looking sorry for themselves!
On looking around, i could see that we were in a convoy of over 30 ships. Sailing quite close to us in the middle of the convoy was a naval cruiser called the Aurora, and at each corner in the distance there was a naval destroyer. Very reassuring!
Various military activites took place, like the occasional rool call, kit inspection, Etc. and seniors nco's were supplied with binoculars and took turns on submarine watch!Otherwise life was very civailised. There was a sergent's mess with a full time barman, and we spent much of our spare time playing rummy and drinking gin and roses lime juice!
Once or twice during the next two weeks there was a flurry of excitement out on the horizon, when two or three of our escort ships suddenly speeded up and rushed out into the distance, but we never heard the reason for this activity.
I was quite concerned at one stage when i was on watch, because one of the ships in the convoy was gradually losing touch with us! we later discovered he was having engine trouble, and the convoy commander had yo make the decision to press on and leave him behind.
Our first stop was at freetown, west africa. We sailed into the huge harbour and took on water and other supplies. We were there two days, i think, during which we were amused by the native boys, who came out in their little boats and begged for money. When money was thrown over the side, they would dive in and catch the money before they reached the bottom!
When we set sail again, still traveling south, the convoy was much smaller, probably because many of the ships which came out with us unloaded and returned to the UK. The Aurora was still with us but the destroyers were not in evidence. Then we were joined by an armed merchant ship with a gun mounted on the bow clearly visable. The Aurora then speeded up, turned, and steamed through the middle of our convoy with all hands lining the rails and went off to the north! We were to encounter Aurora about six months later!
Our next change of scenery was table mountain in south Africa! We docked in Capetown and immediatly recived instructions from the skipper that we should not all crowd on the port side at the same time. Not obvious to land lubbers, but understood by some! we disembarked and boarded an electric train, travelled a few miles and arrived at a station called, I think, Retreat. We then left the train and lined up in "military formation" on the road, and marched carryong full kit for about 3 miles to camp, where we would stay for about two weeks.
After our in-action on the ship for about 3 weeks , some of the men could not manage the march, and i remember seeing a lad from my village flaked out on the road-side! i had not seen to speak to for several years. As they say," it's a small world!"
Tented accommodation was already in place when we arrived at the camp, we were settled in and the various military duties were allocated during the morning of the first day we were there. On the second day, those of us without duty were allowed out of camp, to have a look round and we found that it was not difficult to make friends. I called at a bar with one of the other sergeants, a chap called Frenchie for short; we met some people from Weinberg who we were to get to know quite well.

We met them a few days later, and they asked us to join them at a party. Off we went to the party, I was wearing my best army boots and battle dress and they were in beach wear, it was a beach party! We met them several times during our stay in South Africa, and they could not have been more kind.

My only regret is that I did not climb Table Mountain, but at least I did see it! It was in Capetown that I first saw a cinema with a sliding roof. I was watching a film and little bits of grit started falling on my head. I looked up and found I was looking at the stars!

After about two weeks in Capetown, the time arrived to move on. We boarded the train again, complete with full kit, returned to the docks and boarded the Neuw Amsterdam. This was a liner of about 45,000 tons which was built in the UK, delivered to Holland but, we were told had never done a cruise voyage! When war was imminent, she was brought out of Holland to the UK to keep Hitler鈥檚 hand of her!
Neuw Amsterdam was obviously a lovely ship. She had two swimming pools and the accommodation was superb. The other good point about her was that she was so fast that she did not need an escort. We sailed up the east coast of Africa and eventually arrived at the Gulf of Suez, Where we weighed anchor. We were taken off the ship by tenders, or is it lighters (?), and we were in Egypt!

Transport arrived, and we were loaded up and taken by road to a supply area know as El Tahag. This was on the main route between Ismailiya and Cairo. It was an established camp area set up and used, no doubt, for all British troops arriving in Egypt. The accommodation was tents, as usual, and there were showers, bars, and even cinemas. The cinemas were Shafto鈥檚, and there was a string of them at intervals all the way to Cairo.

Although we were not aware of it at the time. This was probably when 167 and 169 brigades went off up the western desert, whilst 168 brigade crossed the Suez Canal and headed east.

During the next two or three weeks we were re-equipped, and it looked as though we meant business at this time. We thought we would not have too far to travel because at night we could hear the rumble of guns coming from a westerly direction. El Alemain, no doubt.

Eventually we were ready to move. The vehicles had been loaded with everything we would need for the next few months. The division had been supplied with about 30 brand new motor bikes, 41G3L Matchless for the experts, and I had been detailed to adopt my usual position at the rear of the column. Capt. Pyke took the lead and off we went.

But we didn鈥檛 go west towards the artillery, we went to the east! We crossed the Suez Canal, travelling over a pontoon bridge, and into Palestine as it was then. Into and across Jordan and Iraq. We travelled roughly 100 miles a day and prepared a location for the vehicles following for a halt for the night. Part of the journey was on reasonable roads, probably made from an oil-based substance, but quite a lot of the journey was on sandy desert.

My brief, as usual, was to ensure that nobody was behind me. If a pack slipped or someone was taken short, I stayed with them until they were ready to move again. This resulted in one alarming experience and we were lucky to get away with it! We were travelling across the desert with no road, just an occasional oil barrel on the roadside as a guide, and one of the chaps pulled up for a jimmy riddle. I eventually suggested that we ought to be on the move again. He started up his bike and went haring off to the Northerly direction! I went after him as fast as my bike would go, but I could not catch him! By taking silly risks, I eventually headed him off, by which time the other bikes were out of sight. I knew that by turning to the North West we would cross their track, but would we be ahead or behind them?

We set off again to the North west and after travelling three of four miles, we came across tracks of vehicles and found the odd oil barrel marking the route. The track was pretty firm here, but we eventually found signs of the bike tyres and they had passed this point. The next concern was, after pushing the bikes so hard , would we have sufficient fuel? We pressed on and, much to my relief; we caught up with the rest of the column taking a break.

One of the places where we camped overnight was at habinia, where the RAF had a base. We eventually reached the outskirts of Baghdad and camped for three days just outside the city. One notable thing I remember about this stop was the noise the bull-frogs made at night! They made such a racket we couldn鈥檛 sleep. We investigated in the morning, and they were lying in a piece of swampy ground about a quarter of a mile from us. We managed a couple of trips into the city, and popped into the bars and had a look at some of the shops before moving on towards the North East.

After another two days, mostly on the desert, we arrived at the oil town of Kirkuk, Which is towards the NE corner of Iraq, near the area occupied by the Kurdish community. On the way we had passed several Bedouin camps with their long black tents, Arabs sleeping in one half and their animals beyond a barrier at the other end. They did not seem to be overjoyed at our presence, but we had no problems.

We passed to the west of the town, in the direction of Mosul, I believe, and set up camp on land by the side of the road. To my practised eye it was probably farm land, and between two ridges of hills which were about three miles apart, the plain between was completely flat. The road was quite decent, again made with an oil product and sand, with a pronounced camber which made it difficult to negotiate when wet, as I was to discover later!

To the west of our camp a wadi carried surface water away from the road to a stream in the hills. As workshops camp location was quite close to this wadi, the boys in my section decided to make a drainage channel through the middle of our tents, as we had been warned that we would probably have quite a lot of rain to contend with, and we would be there several months.

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