大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Dianne Burtrand of Chelmsford Library on behalf of Douglas John Pike and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Signals in the sand

On the first January 1941 we landed at Port Said, realising how lucky we were to have sailed right through the Suez Canal. Disembarked with the usual mysterious delay of a couple of hours, then onto a train for a stop/start journey to Delta down to what turned out to be Cairo. By then it was dark and we were herded onto a couple of three tonners, answered don鈥檛 know how many Roll Calls 鈥� nobody loved us but someone was scared of losing us. We piled out of the lorries 鈥淧ick up Parrots and Monkies鈥�, and were sent into a large marquee set out as a mess; fed; led to tents dug into the sand; shown general direction of latrines/ablutions and were told to bed-down. It turned out that the bed-bugs had a better night than most of us, This we learnt was Digla Camp.
We woke up next morning in a camp which could have been in the middle of Sahara but was Maadi. We were about a mile from the Maadi Tent, a club run by ex-pat ladies doing their bit but who seemed more concerned with the welfare of the Kiwis whose base depot adjoined 3GHQ Signals, that being the unit we had joined.
It will be seen that since Douglas Isle of Man we had only our own knowledge of geography to keep us informed as to our whereabouts. Only on odd occasions did anyone bother to keep us in the picture.
We were about thirty minutes train ride to Bab el Louk station in Cairo, free travel on a very modern train. If not on duty in the afternoons we were allowed to visit Cairo, early priority the pyramids, with well established Service Clubs providing cheap and cheerful meals, chars and wads, eggs and chips etc.
Sometime in April/May I received a long letter from A. giving an account of a land mine destroying Star and Pancras buildings. (Some seventy were killed in a surface air raid when the shelter wall was blown down and the thick concrete roof dropped onto occupants. A recounted how she accompanied my Dad all over London searching for Mum who they eventually found at an Edgeware Hostel, cheerfully drinking tea! Con was rescued from the first floor and later took rooms in Hunter Street, a stone鈥檚 throw from The Hope, her first pub).
Odd line maintenance jobs cropped up. One Signalman, Ken Barnard, was put into Grey Pillars GHQ frame room and did shift work therein from February 1941 until his Python came round in June 1945. It must have been a record! I found a short sojourn as Sergeant鈥檚 Mess Barman, quite pleasant as it seemed that proper jobs were at a premium, leaving only guard duties/sundry fatigues/short route marches into desert/ multi airline drill etc.
We visited a local firing range to use our Lee Enfield rifles, not in anger only by decree. Learned that after firing the weapons had to be 鈥榖oiled鈥�, the puzzle being solved by presenting us with a small funnel and jugs full of boiling water. This had to be poured down the barrel after removing the bolt. After this and much cleaning of the barrel with oil and four by two, fall in was ordered and 鈥榚xamine arms鈥� enabled an officer to peer down the barrel with the bearer placing his thumb nail to reflect the light. Passing down the line a shout of 鈥淪ergeant, this is the filthiest rifle I鈥檝e ever seen, take his name鈥�, then passing on to the next man he roared 鈥淣o by Christ here it is!鈥� A weird pantomime followed with the offending Signalman placing his rifle on his shoulder (without bolt) enabling the Sergeant to peer through, then he took the gun onto his shoulder and the offender was ordered to look through and asked 鈥淲hat can you see?鈥� Back came the totally accurate reply 鈥淭he cookhouse chimney, Sir鈥�. Total collapse of the whole inspection followed causing 鈥淧arade dismiss鈥� being called.
Then 21 Construction had a crisis. Short of hands the solution proved another crisis 鈥� the writer was posted to them in August 1941, to a fifty mile camp on the Ismalia to Abu Aguila road in Sinai. They were building an OH route using 鈥業ndian Pattern鈥� metal poles, three steel tubes and an iron base. Two camels with 鈥榮wifts鈥� ran out 200lb of copper wire, all joints were bound and soldered but binding-in could be alarming if a sand storm blew up behind as static would discharge through bare knees and earth via the metal poles. Battledress was welcomed in October.Christmas 1941 came and we had the traditional gunfire served by NCOs, Captain Keep serving lunch with the Sergeant鈥檚 assistance. Paraded early in January we were told 鈥淓njoy yourselves for a few days at Timsa Leave Camp, having endured minor discomforts for several months鈥�.
This was put to Sousa鈥檚 Stars and Stripes March and known as 鈥楳inor Discomforts to you鈥�, sung to express disapproval for many months afterwards. Later we had to turn out when Purple Air Raid Warning was telephoned. We were about ten tents strong, as good as buried in the Sinai shades of Moses, and hence the stand-to was not popular with all ranks but my untidy habits in tent led Sergeant Davey to claim that people like me caused all 鈥渢his b****y bull-shit and red-tape鈥�.
Spotting what seemed a good chance of posting to the newly formed UG Cable Section, I put in a written request to Captain Keep, stating that the Section would benefit from my absence and quoting Davy鈥檚 observation! This was not well received. All ten others in the tent were interviewed individually but only one (of course my pal Dave Willis) heard the allegation. The two of us were threatened with Court Martial for collusion in lying about our Section Sergeant. A bit of tongue-in-cheek by Keep, not an easy task for any young man to discipline in the middle of the Sinai peninsula. No sympathy from us (he shouldn鈥檛 have joined Supplementary Reserve as a YIT).The route was completed to link with the Palestine Post and Telegraph鈥檚 work so off to El Arish and maintenance of the Gaza Strip route. Welcomed by Aussies at their NAAFI we were given Log Cabin cigarette tobacco 鈥� 鈥� Back in Aussie even the Sheilas roll their own!鈥�
After seven days leave in Jerusalem, of which two were spent at K. Vin Kibbutz, we went up the Blue to Etnooh to build pole routes from one sand dune to another. To we cynics they were seemingly pointless routes.
One day near Dhaba we were working away alongside the road when it soon filled with all types of soft-skin vehicles, all going one way back towards Alexandria. Ribald shouts of 鈥淩ommel鈥檚 just behind鈥� but 21 Construction, true to Cirto Cito, stuck to its eight wire OH route perched up their poles, feeling without being told that we must be up the pole making the route ready for the Afrika Corps. 鈥淕eben mir Brot und Wasser, bitte, ich bin freundlich!鈥� was practised. In the nick of time light dawned somewhere back at Maadi and we packed our limited Parrots and Monkies and fell back towards Alex, noting the concrete fortifications on the way manned by Aussies which we later identified as El Alamein

Stopping well short of Alex we loaded up with miles of Multi Airline material and plunged south west into desert and met other sections including the Indian Line Section. Some went north, others went south and the Airline route was completed in some seven days. We went south after some miles, who knows how many, passed petrified tree trunks, then looking down a steep escarpment that proved to be the Quatara Depression. We saw a short way down a Permanent Line Route, decades old, the W W Route from Wadi Natrun to Mersa Matruh. This we cut and grafted in our pathetic Multi Airline to the Wadi Natrun side. Sergeant Davey and Corporal Copestake went off to survey the route to the west, leaving Davy鈥檚 swan song 鈥淜eep 鈥榚m busy 鈥榚llmutt, (L/Cpl. Hellmuth) even if it鈥檚 only picking up paper鈥�.
Hours later the driver returned without the two NCOs. Years later we heard that Davy was shot and Copestake taken prisoner.
Several weeks on we were at Test Points freeing lines twisted together by whip aerials. I was one of six manning the first Test Point North of Depression. Much activity under route as real soldiers fell back, leaving us as what we felt to be a very thin red line between Afrika Corps and Cairo. Later we learned that this was the strategic withdrawal for beating Rommel鈥檚 last fling and the Battle of Alam Halfa. It seems that we were ordered back by night on or about the 27th August 1942.
Camping at Amerya, on or about the 1st/2nd September, we were taken back towards the forward Airline Route but stopped on top of a rise and saw wrecked tanks still burning. These were some of Rommel鈥檚 49 tanks, 55 guns, 395 vehicles and 2910 dead, lost by him. We did not return to our test points, the Forward Multi Airline had served its purpose. It was back to our Maadi base.
Here I managed my transfer to 2 UG Section, joining it at Amariya Repeater Station where we had a couple of weeks awaiting complete break out at El Alamein as we started work on the UG cable to Mersa Matruh. Day into week, week into month, Christmas came and went. I cannot remember why or how but for several weeks bridging Christmas we were at Kom el Dik, centre of Alex,our favourite Service Club being the Jewish F. Club known by us as the H.N. (Dave Wallis stayed at Maadi, joined Ken Barnard at Grey Pillars and the two remained friends until Dave鈥檚 death circ.1990. Ken followed within about six months. Fortunately the three of us had made our homes in Essex by then and were able to have lunch together several times).
Before completion of the cable to Matruh I was sent back to Maadi Adjutant鈥檚 Office to make a statement on the illegal contents of a 鈥楪reen Envelope鈥� containing a programme from Music for All and a photograph of a man clad only in a shirt standing beside the sea.
Full of trepidation I agreed that items and an accompanying letter to Aud (the first for months) were mine. It transpired that one Sergeant Walden of 21 Con had been stealing mail and parcels from the section, somewhere up towards Tripoli. My Green Envelope was found when his kit was searched. Ironically he had retained it to protect me from punishment for abusing the Green Envelope scheme!
Sometime in 1943 we set off for Palestine and laid UG cable from Haifa to Beirut, most of it alongside railway constructed by Kiwi engineers. A week鈥檚 leave in Beirut and I hitched to Damascus, spent 4/5 days there and saw whirling dervishes. Section asked if anyone fancied an attachment to a cable-ship? Yes Please! After special jabs about twenty of us went off to Port Tewfiq, into a camp near the canal and spent several days on the Cable and Wireless cable鈥攕hip, Pacific, a real relic of early days of submarine cabling. Taught splicing of gutta-percha insulated cable and prepared for posting, in July 1944, to Bullfinch at Alex.

Signalman at sea part 3

Given a pass to the Fleet Club, we spent days on the sonar anti-submarine equipment in Alex Harbour. On to Haifa, then two or three days leave in Jerusalem before going out into the Med searching for a cache of cable on the sea-bed. Working in watches around the clock, we picked up miles of it and coiled it into Bullfinch tanks. We cruised the Med then into the Aegean and waited for a German retreat. Accompanied by two destroyers mine sweeping, there was great excitement when one mine surfaced near enough for us to see it blown up by small arms fire from a destroyer. We continued with escort until October saw us tie-up in Chios harbour.
Unfortunately natives thronged the quayside thinking that we were a food ship and there were poignant scenes amid minor sharing of our limited rations. Restoration of various cables to Lesbos, Samos etc.
Strenuous rowing by about eight of us in the cutter grappling for severed cables, sometimes with Jimmy the one (the First Mate) aboard.
We had our own parody of the Harvest Hymn going something like 鈥淭ime to jag it in, time to jag it in, time to jag it in, jag the bd in鈥�. 鈥楯ag it in鈥� being our slang for turn it in, stop work.
We were delighted when Ward Room leakage revealed that the na茂ve Jimmy the one congratulated our Captain Ross on our enthusiasm in the cutter with our own 鈥榮hanty鈥�, thinking 鈥榡ag it in鈥� was 鈥榙rag it in鈥� etc. and referred to the damaged cable!
Eventually we sailed into Piraeus and the Section put ashore as Bullfinch sailed off. Post war I learned that it laid cable across Piraeus harbour mouth, linking two sections of Government troops. This brought to a near tearful end the most enjoyable part of service including my 25th birthday with the Navy鈥檚 traditional invite to enjoy 鈥榮ippers鈥� of Nelson鈥檚 Blood from all lower deck messes, including Chief Petty Officers鈥� (who were issued with 鈥榥eaters鈥欌�� full strength rum). The birthday disappeared into oblivion from noon until about 8pm. About a week later Bullfinch left us on the quayside.

Signals back to land but it was Europe if not Blighty

Some of our detachment whose Python was more than a few months off were given LIAP (Leave In Addition to Python), a rail journey from Italy to a Channel Port. My Python being due in May I failed the test. Christmas 1945 was deferred by decree of General Scobie (known as Scompie to Greeks) due to civil strife in Greece. We had a traditional Xmas day (Scompiemas) in February. The land-lubber members of the Section 2 UG appeared together with a complete G1098 and under Captain Ross were located near Phaliron (airport for Athens).

A volunteer was requested for Storekeeper (for the second time I broke the unwritten law against action) and I put myself forward with an eye on only about three months before repatriation together with the surprise inclusion of a bicycle in the G1098, custody of which went with the job. This transport enabled frequent visits to Athens as the strife subsided and many were the large jugs of Retsina consumed, Di Jenkins and Charlie Evans making up our trio.
(Charlie鈥檚 remark after he missed his footing after a surfit of wine was 鈥淪teady me ole flower鈥� and this passed into our domestic jargon to become my pet name for Audrey 鈥楳y Old Flower鈥�). It was our version of the Three Mustgetvinos, most evenings culminating with the three of us mounting the bike back to Phaliron鈥�..fortunately mostly downhill.
V E Day found me in Athens transit camp and some days later (minus bicycle) it was Parrots and Monkies time boarding a troopship to Taranto.By train to transit camp somewhere south of Naples, a week or two on to Ortranto and back to Blighty on the 11th June.
鈥楯e t鈥檃ndrai鈥� was at last fulfilled for Audrey May Belch as she became Mrs Pike on 1st July 1945 after five years and four months of waiting. A full white wedding was arranged in a fortnight. Clothing coupons, war damage for losses in Star, were used for a Moss Bros. Ginger鈥檚 Department suit. A week鈥檚 honeymoon at Tintern, then back to Chester and farm work at Salisbury. Three months on from the Middle East return I was off to Germany, attached to Air Formation Signals Blankenees outside Hamburg. Another Christmas overseas with RAF Officers and NCOs doing their traditional duty. Twelve days privilege leave to UK on 16/1/1946 by Liberty ship Cuxhaven to Hull 鈥� not a bit like the Andes! A minor bonus being I had now been with the three services. Demob came in March 1946 as a class B release. I was needed for post war reconstruction! End of Service life!

Since reading the above I noticed that missing from the detail was the memory of the weekly Free Issue of fifty cigarettes each. This cause for gratitude was soon cancelled when the cigarettes materialised as the dreaded Vs. They were dreadful. Everyone complained about them. On a visit to the Middle East by an MP, a couple of packs were taken by him back to Blighty. He brought up in the House the dissatisfaction of the forces that he met. In a debate he was poo-poohed by the Minister of the War Office, one Sir James Grigg, and when he was challenged to accept a trial of the Vs his reply was a short 鈥淐ertainly not!鈥� In the Western Desert the Bedouins offered 鈥淓kks for cigarettes鈥� but coupled the invitation with 鈥淢oosh (not) Vs鈥�. They showed the same good taste as Grigg.

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