大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Margaret Walsh of The Royal Star and Garter Home on behalf of Mrs Daphne Hill and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's term and conditions.

About 1941-42 the war was in full swing in the Western Desert. The General Staff had insufficient drivers to take the replacement vehicles up to the Front. His Majesty's Government gave permission to recruit Palestinians, and with the few ATS that had arrived in Cairo, via the Cape, a recruiting and training centre was opened in Sarafand. The basic training was the same as that given in the UK. Their army number was prefixed with the letter 'P'. Four thousand Palestinian women joined the British Army during World War 11. Those suitable as drivers joined the Driver Training Company at Mena near the Pyramids, outside Cairo, and were soon taking convoys of new vehicles round the clock up to the Front in the Desert.

Meantime many women were employed in the offices and stores in the Command and in Palestine. I took up my appointment as DAPM [Deputy Provost Marshall British Troops Egypt, i/c Red Caps] in 1945. We had sections, a Sergeant and so many NCOs in Cairo [HQ with CSM], Alexandria and Moascar [The Suez Canal area] to carry out police duties in the area. We had a few jeeps, and the trips across the desert from Cairo to Alexandria avoiding camels straying across the road, were trying in the summer. We wore KD [Khaki drill] uniform jackets with skirts amd ankle socks and our legs soon got brown. In the winter the normal Khaki serge battle dress was worn.

In Alexandria, among other duties, the girls accompanied the Anti-Vice Squad, picking up prostitutes and taking them for medical checks. Soldiers were also picked up for being in a Red Light district. The GOC thought that the shock of men coming into contact with girls similar to their wives and sisters was an added punishment. The street was internationally known as Sister Street.

Among their normal duties, the Cairo Section was responsible for customs control duties on the nightly Cairo-Haifa train, which left every evening, reaching Haifa a.m., and leaving the next evening to return to Egypt. Egypt was a 'foreign country', and the customs check was at Kantara on the Suez Canal where the train crossed the bridge into Sinai. The number of service personnel and civilian 'natives' was so great that the train was held up for hours, so in the end the Egyptian authorities asked the British to check our personnel plus the Polish forces for contraband, which was done while the train was on the move. The train was very long, with long corridors. Every carriage was full of people and their baggage. The NCO opened the door and asked if they had goods to declare. If someone looked guilty, you had to check their baggage, and most had a lot! We joked that we were looking for Baksheesh, Hashish and Mahleesh [couldn't care less] - a joke on Arabic words. We confiscated the booze, cigs. and the normal goods.

A memory that is still with me - seeing dawn through the train window - the moon, a palm tree and the dome of a mosque - a real Biblical scene, and then we slowed down for Gaza.

Two girls went up and down every night. The women I commanded, the senior NCOs, were from the UK mostly. We were a mixed crowd - Palestinians, girls from India, Cyprus, various European countries. They gossiped away in their rooms [in a house] in Hebrew. I would hear the CSM telling them "Get moving. I do not know what you are saying, but get on and DO IT." The girls got on well together and we were a happy unit. One L/Cpl, a Greek, I am sure could not read orders, but the girls covered for her!

The Palestine Command had their own ATS Provost unit, but the train duties were run from Cairo.

On reflection, it was a privilege to have seen the Holy Land before the tourists, been inside the Pyramid, and watched the belly dancers in the night clubs of Cairo, and generally to have been there.

In 2005 I am still in touch with L/Cpl M Nissim from Jerusalem, now Mrs. Robins in Florida.

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