´óÏó´«Ã½

In early 1941, the 7th Armoured Division, now renamed the Desert Rats, had returned to the Delta after pushing the Italians out of Egypt to regroup and take over their new tanks. They brought with them a mass of older tanks and vehicles recovered from the desert awaiting repair.

The new tanks needed desert proofing, particularly to excluded dust from the engine and improve cooling. The abrasive desert dust turned a tank’s engine oil into a fine grinding compound. As a result any pistons and connecting rods bathed in this muddy oil were quickly ground down. These engine failures could render a tank’s engine useless after a few weeks in the desert. The pistons could be fitted with new sealing rings but the connecting rods were a problem. The repair entailed the boring out of the worn white-metal, big-end bearing and recasting new white metal in place. This was a factory job but the factory was a convoy journey away in England. In the meantime, the fighting vehicles would be out of action.

Cpl Stan Fox, a sheet metal worker by trade, was used to working with solder. His services were suggested as a possible solution. He soon became proficient pouring whitemetal and his failure rate for rebuilds soon dropped to zero. Assisted by Bill Cracknell the two set up a ‘production line’ at the far end of the workshop turning useless metal into usable connecting rods. The REME workshop at Wardian was soon refitting working motors in the tanks.
This story was submitted to the people’s War site by a volunteer from CSV Oxford on behalf of the late Bob Borthwick. It is a transcript of his own diary and several interviews. He gave written permission for the material to be edited and published.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.