大象传媒

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I joined the Navy in August 1943, and after initial training at H.M.S. "Collingwood" at Fareham I was recommended for Combined Operations training in Scotland, and I was sent to Lochailort.

It lay at the back of beyond, between Fort William and Mallaig on the West Highland railway line, in the midst of some magnificent scenery. But we had little time to admire it.

We lived in Nissen huts scattered round a concrete parade ground at a respectful distance from a grey turreted mansion where the officers lived. Larger huts housed the gymnasium, lecture rooms and the mess. Towering over all was An Stac, the nearest mountain which rose to an impressive 2,500 feet. But just as menacing in our eyes was the much nearer assault course with its evil-looking obstacles, water jumps, barricades and hanging ropes.

This loomed large in our lives because a good part of the course was concerned with physical fitness. We started every morning soon after being wakened at 6 o'clock (by a Chief Petty Officer banging on the corrugated iron walls of the hut with a club) with P.T. on the parade ground - even in the midst of a Scottish winter. Then breakfast was followed by Signals Training, Divisions on the parade ground, lectures on seamanship and navigation, and then another P.T. session before lunch. The official day's work ended with some form of sporting activity, either running, climbing, river crossing - or a combination of all three. Sometimes we were sent off to play "silly buggers" on the railway track and creep about with heather and bracken stuck in our balaclavas as we fired off blanks in old Lee Enfield rifles.

Sometimes on Saturday afternoons this exercise would be extended and the entire camp would be split into two fighting groups. A target or objective would be set for one group to attack and the other group would be expected to defend it. Each group would then double away in opposite directions into the surrounding countryside carrying rifles and black ammunition, and officers took up positions to act as umpires. Then the battle would commence, umpires would pop up out of cover and judge whether a man had been killed or not, and would finally decide which side had won the battle.

Even though it was a make-believe engagement there were sometimes casualties. Some men fell into rivers, some twisted their ankles, some fell down mountainsides - and some felt the effects of having to ford an icy river with water up to their waists as we took part in some of these manoeuvres on New Year's Eve.

Sometimes we had to race up and down the slippery, tree-strewn slope of An Stac, and such was the curious nature of the soil or rocks that if anyone fell or grazed his skin the scratches invariably turned septic, so that there were usually one or two of our members in sick bay with blood poisoning.

Any free time we might have expected was spent in private study in our huts, cold, draughty buildings somewhat inadequately heated by a single stove in the centre. No fuel was provided for this stove, and we were expected to get out and forage for wood if we wanted to keep warm.

From time to time we went out on the loch in a power boat to play at being officers and giving commands. At other times we had weapon training. But the highlight came at the end of the course and was known as "Endurance Week". This consisted of the old and too familiar runs, climbs and assault courses, but now each of us was checked for our time and placing. It also brought 'THE BOXING' which, in all its terrifying rumour and bruising fact, typified what Lochailort was all about.

Once in each course each Division was required to box another, every man taking part in the contest. There was little attempt to match the men by anything but a very rough and ready weight system. Age and boxing experience never came into the reckoning, and a good deal of disconcerting folk-lore had been built up around the event.

The Commander liked to sit on a raised platform above the ring (rather like a Roman Emperor watching Christians being thrown to the lions) and see plenty of what he called "blood and guts". "However badly you get punched you must come back for more" we were told, "even if you have to crawl back on your hands and knees". It was said that it was better to be a good loser than a winner, provided that you showed the required amount of guts.

Each bout consisted of three one-minute rounds, and the battering which could be handed out during those three minutes was proved by the state of the faces of some of the recipients. Immediately after the battering some of us even found ourselves (with our bloody noses, puffed cheeks and split lips) thrust out on sentry duty dressed in tin hats, gaiters and oilskins.

When the aches and pains had subsided, however, we did get some satisfaction in being able to hang up our blood-stained gym vests and shorts in strategic places near the main gates to provide welcoming morale to the next draft of cadets marching down the road from the tiny green wooden station of Lochailort.

The whole purpose of the course had been to produce officers to take command of Tank Landing Craft. It was generally reckoned that those considered unlikely to achieve that ambition were weeded-out at intervals during the course, and as our period at Lochailort drew near its end and we actually received letters from the naval outfitters requiring measurements for our new uniforms we all felt that we were well on our way to our first commands.

Unfortunately a considerable number of us completed the course but were never actually given a commission. The reason was never made clear; perhaps the authorities had selected for training more than they required at that time and had used some sort of lottery system to choose those to receive commissions; perhaps we had committed some fatal "faux pas" at the very end of the course. We never knew.

But looking back I was perhaps fortunate in that I never did get actively involved with the Normandy landings on D-Day.

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