大象传媒

CABLEWAY BRAKING SYSTEM 鈥� DESIGNED AND BUILT IN THE FIELD
Recalled and recorded on tape in 1985 by Edmund Ralph Wilmot BEM S.A.E.C.

With the East African campaign coming to an end, we boarded ship again and sailed for Tubic in Egypt. I requested a transfer to the Engineers and went before the Manpower board. I was an Infantryman and had a lot of questions to answer and the usual stories, about how much it cost to train a man on a Vickers Machine-gun and on Mortars. Anyway I eventually joined an Engineering company and went up through Italy with the 8th Army and a lot of my time was spent driving trucks. Although on one project I built a braking system for one of Monty鈥檚 Caravans, more on that story at another time.

There had been trouble with the Italian river crossings, which with winter weather had caused some hold ups. We had tried frogmen in the water and Jerry had his own frogmen, which lead to fighting under the water. Bailey bridges were out. As soon as you started another Bailey, they turned everything they had on it. Eventually it came about that somewhere or other Kenny Wray, a very fine Officer in charge of the Engineers had seen the remains of a cableway, used by the Germans to pull a Howitzer to the top of a high mountain point.

So encouraged by Kenny Wray, we turned to this idea of the Aerial cable-way, with orders to start work in our mobile works to evolve an effective cable-way system. It had to be simple, quick and easy to erect. The theory eventually boiled down to the idea of a gravity run cableway, with a high mast on our riverbank. On the enemy bank of the river would be a shorter mast, so that the load would be carried down hill. These masts had to be made up from smaller sections, which could be erected or taken down very easily. They were to be supported by guy ropes, which were attached to the masts by a very clever design. Hammers and mallets were bound with hessian, to try and silence the noise made when the spikes were hammered in. The main purpose of the cable-way was to carry Jeeps, 6-pound anti-tank guns and ammunition across the river. It eventually finished up bringing back the wounded.

We designed and built a carriage-way, consisting of a three quarter inch diameter running rope and a half-inch winding rope. We soon had problems with the design, in that when you came to pick up a gun or Jeep. The brake system would not hold on to this one running rope and it tended to creep. Eventually after playing around with this, they said it鈥檚 the best we can do and they decided to test it.

In a clearing amongst the Olive trees at a place called Vasto, they erected these masts and put up the cables. Kenny Wray came out of his little hut, which was his Headquarter overlooking the Adriatic, to see the demonstration. Once the demonstration got going to the stage of trying to pick-up a gun, they started to have difficulties. Another very fine Officer called James McLaughlin. He did something quite extraordinary while this was going on. The gun kept jumping and sliding down the rope a bit at a time as they lifted it. It could not be held stationary during the lifting process. Eventually they managed with great difficulty to raise the gun and its supporting cable entered into the retaining claws, which held it. For some reason James walked out and stood underneath. He looked up just at that moment the dog clamp let-go on the guy ropes and down this lot came. It must have bent his head forward, as this gun had just 8 inches of clearance under the axle and with mud on the ground. You can imagine what it did to him. The men rushed in, took hold of one side of the gun and threw it over, grabbed a piece of corrugated iron, and laid this chap out on it. As he was straightened out, he let out the most shocking scream and that was that. Kenny Wray turned a dirty colour white and said to his driver, 鈥渢ake me back鈥� and with that away he went. Well, we planted James under the Olive trees and then the job just stood.

Everybody was disillusioned with this and it was forgotten more or less. It was about a month after the tragedy. I was having a shave using a little mirror in the fork of an Olive tree, just outside our dugout and I could see the remains of the stores that had been used, including the gun still in the mud in the valley below. I suddenly had an idea and said to my friend and half-section, a chap called Thomas Sidney Thomas. 鈥淵ou know Sid, these boys have been barking up the wrong tree, this can be done all right鈥�. He replied, 鈥淲ell why do you want to worry about it. It probably would never be developed into anything anyway, its just one of these mad Army ideas. We will have to get Jerry to show us how to do it鈥�. Anyway I decided to follow up this idea of mine and I used to sit in the dugout at night, with my improvised oil lamp. I drew various sketches and eventually made a full sized drawing, which could be read intelligently. I got this chap Thomas, a mechanically minded fellow, who had been working in the Rand Gold mines on the winding side of things, to check out my drawings as I went along. After trying various ideas, I came up with one, the cleverest part of which was an inverted L slot, with a sliding face on the outside cheeks of the carrier, which by means of a brake lever, could be used to lock this. We found that by this means you would be able to lift the load, run it across on gravity and the brake would not come on until the brake lever was pulled, by means of a little light wire rope that had a handle on it and hung down from the brake lever. It progressed well and I eventually evolved a braking system that would clamp onto the top running rope. The actual rope that carried the weight. However there could be a problem with this design, in that it could cut the rope right through with the bite of the brake. Technically speaking the situation was that the load was designed to operate on the brake and therefore the effect on the brake would be proportionate to the load. If this load exceeded a certain point, it could damage the rope though we reckoned that up to 3000 pounds would probably be all right. There was only one way to find this out and that was another test.

It was winter and one of our officers, who had been a great friend of McLaughlin happened to drive in there, saw me and said 鈥渉ow are things going鈥� I said 鈥渨ell so-so but what are we doing about this cable-way, is it shelved鈥�. He replied 鈥淥 yes, we have given it up, now that it鈥檚 killed old James I think that鈥檚 enough鈥�. I replied 鈥淣o I don鈥檛 think old James would have looked at it like that, he would have liked to feel that he gave his life for something鈥� He then said 鈥淲ell, what can we do鈥� I said 鈥淚 have got a drawing in the dug-out which I have been working on. I thought you might like to look at it鈥�. Well he immediately became enthusiastic and said, 鈥淩ight lets go and look at it鈥�. We went up to the dug-out, got the light going and he had a look at the drawings, sitting on one of the bunks and he eventually said to me, 鈥渨here did you get this idea鈥�. I said, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know really鈥� He replied, 鈥淛ust explain to me how you propose that this would work鈥� so I did. Now he was a mechanical Engineer in Civy-street and after he had looked at the drawings, 鈥測ou know I believe this damn thing could work鈥� I said 鈥渟o do I and there is one way to find out, we鈥檒l have to build one and test it鈥� Anyway he said 鈥渃an I have this drawing鈥� I replied 鈥測es, I don鈥檛 want it鈥� and he took it away. Early the next morning a light truck pulled into the camp with a British Army Soldier at the wheel, and he said that they wanted to see me at Headquarters. I had to spruce myself up a bit, then I jumped in this truck and went with him, when I got there, this fellow was sitting at the end of a hut behind a makeshift desk, he said 鈥渟it down sapper鈥� so I sat down, and he said 鈥淚鈥檝e been looking at this drawing of yours, It seems to have possibilities, do you think it will work鈥�, well I replied 鈥渉ow long is a piece of string鈥� I don鈥檛 know, but I think it might if I make and test it. It would take a little time if you could give me some labour, and there were some good Italian tradesmen who had worked in the local aircraft Company.

So under camouflage nets working at night, pretty well none stop, we built one of these machines, and we were no sooner finished when they did a test, which was very quickly erected in a gap across a river. I never forget how they had very quickly run 9 guns across this river, however one 6 pounder gun ended up in the river, because it was swinging on this hook and they were over doing it. I didn鈥檛 take any part in the demonstration, although it was suggested at the outset that I should, but I said no, it isn鈥檛 going to be used by chaps that know anything about this device and will probably be at night, because they had involved some system whereby they used a shaded torch to signal from one bank to the other. The short mast which broke down into two pieces, loaded that into an assault boat where you attached two ropes to the back of a boat, and the stores, hold-fasts, hammers and you cross over at night. You erected this thing at night on the opposite bank, that was the plan and that was how it was used. I sat up on the top of this mound and I watched, the next moment I saw this Staff Sergeant coming up the hill towards me, he said, 鈥渢he Boss wants to see you鈥�. I went down, there were a lot of Royal Engineering Officers asking me questions about various things until I said, well you鈥檝e seen it work gentlemen, there鈥檚 no questions that I can answer other than that. Old Wray was delighted with that, he said it was ruddy marvellous, well they worked it so fast that the sheath wheels, without ball bearings had sparks shooting off the wheels as it went across, and altogether they slung over nine guns, a couple of jeeps and was all done in a short time. He was so enthusiastic about this; he said we are going to have to build about fifty of these in the workshops. The plan was that they would issue one set of this equipment to each of the anti tank batteries, and it would be hauled in a disassembled state by a GMC truck that would go along with them. The GMC was ideal for the job because it had its own motorised winch on the front.

Well that was that until one night within site of Masino mountain, we heard tanks coming up the road and the racket went on half the night, and my half-section said to me 鈥渢onight鈥檚 the night, these boys are going to have a go by the sound of it鈥�. Well old Jerry sent a couple of planes over; we watched them dropping their bombs. The next morning at 6a.m. Alexandra drove into our place and asked to see me, they called me and I went up to give him a salute and we shook hands. He said 鈥渓ook here, that ruddy thing鈥檚 marvellous, it turned out wonderful, we are 10 miles on the other side and successfully used 14 of these machines, I think there is only one left working by now, jerry turned everything he鈥檚 got on us, to stop us, but we did the job.鈥�

Well subsequently we moved up across the Po, we went up to Lake Chasimino, a wonderful lake about 21 miles across, and we took over what had been an old aircraft works, and floating out on the lake there were the remains of flying boats that had been smashed up and machine gunned by the RAF. I actually found a chaps rotting leg in the bilge of one of them. We used to swim in the lake. Another chap and I were billeting in a little casa, it was very comfortable, and it had a hot water system, which would have been great if it had worked. The Manager had owned it originally. We had a little field motorboat and we used to go around the lake on it. I subsequently found out was a well-known place back in history where Hannibal had a battle.

Notes:
1. SAPA newspaper report in South Africa Quote 鈥淪pringbok Wins B.E.M. FOR INVENTION. - ROME, Wednesday. - A former Johannesburg salesman, Lance-Corporal E. R. Wilmot, has been awarded the British Empire Medal for inventing a foolproof braking system for the aerial ropeway that is used for slinging guns and supplies across canals and gulches to assault troops at night. - SAPA.鈥�
2. General Alexandra awarded Sapper Ted Wilmot the British Empire Medal.
3. Details of this cableway and braking system is contained in '8th Army Bridging Memorandum No.2 Dated July 1944'

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