大象传媒

A Sapper's Tale.

I enlisted in the Territorial Army at Chelsea Barracks in London in February 1939 at the age of eighteen. I enlisted in the Royal Engineers, I suppose, because I wanted to be in a technical unit before being conscripted into anything. I was recorded as a Group A Draughtsman , which was useful as I received, from memory, an extra sixpence per day, over the usual 2 shillings.

It was at Chelsea that I met for the first time Dennis Castle, who was to become a lifelong friend, amongst others.

There were three Field Companies, 220, 221 and 222, which was my company, and 223 Field Park Co. These were duplicated with 501, 502, 503 and 504 Field Park Co. 222 Company was rather like a family concern; with probably over 200 men in all. and was formed into Sections 1,2 and 3 and HQ.
Thinking back, I feel that each Section had it's own characteristics, No.1 being rather serious and technical, No.2 more swashbuckling, almost harum-scarum, and No3 consisted of older men and quiieter. I was in HQ Section, with Dennis.

At Chelsea we had weekend and evening parades and training, and a camp away at Dover from July 30 to August 13.

War was declared and 222 and 221 were mobilised at Hurst Park Racecourse on 2nd September 1939, and on the 3rd October landed in Cherbourg. A fortnight later, having picked up our transport, we arrived at the small village of Bouvines near the Belgian border. Everywhere were reminders of World War 1 such as the faded signs on walls, and I felt that I was treading in the footsteps of my father who had served in that war, and had been wounded in the Somme battle on 1st July 1916.

Then came the "phoney war" period, with no action except for defence works along the Belgian border, as the Maginot Line only existed on the border between France and Germany. I was elevated from Sapper to L/Cpl., and Dennis and I became the Bren gunners for HQ Section.

After a while, it was here that there was some discussion in the company about leave back to England, until the Company Sergeant Major, "Nobby Chapman" [a veteran of WW1 and later to die at Dunkirk], called a parade of the whole company, and referred to the rumours of leave. He told us to forget about leave, and, in view of what the future would hold for us, it would be easier for us if from now on we considered ourselves dead ! Serious stuff for a nineteen-year old.

During this time in Bouvines, I happened to be leaving our HQ room, when a despatch rider reported in as a rider for liaison between us and either the Service Corps or our Field Park Co. He asked where to put his bike, and so I took him to the barn which served as our MT shed. After standing his bike up, he looked around and with amazement pointed to a van. He said that he had been driving that van on a baker's round only a few months before. If we looked in the cab, we would find that the underside of the roof was covered with his collection of cigarette cards, and suggested that we cleaned the mud off the numberplate to reveal the number he gave us.

I mention this as an illustration of our lack of serious preparation for war compared with the efficient equipment enjoyed by the Germans. We had a mix of service vehicles and commandeered civilian transport.

Came May 10th, 1940, Germany invaded Belgium and that night we crossed the border on our side to meet them. We stopped at a place called Steen OckerZeele, and I was sleeping in a ditch at the side of the road when I was woken up with instructions to report to HQ. This turned out to be in the lodge inside the castle gate, and I had an eerie feeling as I entered into what looked just like a filmset for WW1, with tin-helmeted, greatcoated figures bending over maps on a table illuminated by candles in bottles. I was informed that the three sections would each be at certain map references in Louvain in order to blow up bridges, and I was to guide up three 3-ton trucks with the required explosives.

It was daylight when I was picked up by the trucks, and we set off along a straight concrete road with open country each side and the occasiional copse with an encouraging roadside gun pointing the way we were going, confirming that we were still on our side! We had been warned that the enemy had mobile units including motporcycles with sidecars having mounted machineguns.

Eventually having delivered the first load, we found that the next Section were picnicking comfortably in a ditch with food they had found and with a
gramophone playing - must have been 2 Section!

I had become seriously infected with blood poisoning in a badly swollen arm, probably from barbwire, and on the retreat was seeking a medical aid post.
We came across one, and I was despatched with my small pack into this small house where the MO set out to save my arm, [succesfully] , and set me on a stretcher for picking up. That night there was enemy activity, the company moved out, and wounded began arriving. I was told that I would have to leave, and either make way to base hospital at St. Nazaire, otherwise return to my company. I had no idea then that St. Nazaire was the other end of France!

I had a walking-wounded label tied to my battledress, which was useful in getting lifts on trucks and ambulances, but I always seemed to be half a day behind the company. I got on a red cross train, which headed with many stops and starts for Calais, and which was shot up, despite the red crosses painted on the roofs of the carriages.

The train stopped eventually, as we learnt that Calais had fallen, which was a bit of a shock, as even with my limited geography I knew Calais was supposed to be behind us! Those of us who could left the train, and started walking in ones and twos for Dunkirk, checking in odd houses for any food we could find..

I was with another chap when we entered Dunkirk docks, which was in a mess, with cranes toppled over, wires all over the place, and I have the particular memory of the smell from a large heap of smouldering bales of wool. There were hundreds of french helmets lying about, probably from the bombed railway trucks by the quayside.

We were crossing a large area deep in broken glass and asbestos and other rubbish, when there was a sudden blast of sound as an aircraft appeared, shooting at the same time,and was immediately gone. When we got up, we found that my companion had been shot in the foot. I got his boot and sock off, and used part of my field dressing as best I could as a temporary measure, and found a piece of wood for him to use as an additional support while I got him somewhere.

Just then another aircraft appeared, whereupon my mate started running for shelter, with one boot and one bare foor, completely disregarding the broken glass and other debris, and I lost sight of him, never to see him again. I don't know how bad his wound might have been but it certainly was not improved by this treatment.

I slept the night in a tall concrete grain silo in a perfect slit trench, consisting of
a leather conveyor belt set in a trench in the concrete floor, only spoilt by the tremendous earshattering racket of a Bofors (?) gun outside, and schrapnel hitting the remains of the steel shutters. The following morning I followed a number of men along a damaged wooden jetty, got on a ship, went below for a hot drink and food.

I fell asleep, only to wake up with a feeling almost of panic, rushed on deck to find that the reason was the sudden quiet, we were in Newhaven with no sound but from the seagulls and with a view of green fields ashore..

I was sent to a hospital in St Albans, and then on leave to home, where my parents had received an official letter that I had been reported missing, that I was not necessarily killed as I might be a POW, but they should report any news.

My next posting was to a training camp in Newark, where, as a spare ex-BEF L/Cpl , I became for a short while a permanent guard commander, taking charge of rookies to various guard positions, with many quite hilarious situations.

Then off to a large RE camp in Liverpool, where I believe I was the only Londoner, where everyone seemed to understand me easily enough, even if I didn't always understand what was being said to me! It was here that I experienced yet another of those amazing coincidences.

I was given leave to go home to London, and as my girlfriend [later my wife] would not be at home until the evening, I elected to miss the early rush train, and instead took the midday one. I had to change trains somewhere, and to my great surprise and pleasure met on the platform my old mate Dennis. He had thought that I had 'bought it' at Dunkirk, meanwhile he was still with the company, which had come off the beaches.

When he asked if I wanted to come back, and I said yes please, he said that he would see the adjutant when he returned from leave. I have mentioned previously that the company was like a large family, and a couple of weeks after leave I was back with 222 Company. All because I had taken the later train.

There followed a spell on the South Coast, with three of us surveying minefields which had been hastily laid during the panic of the threatened invasion, and the company following up and lifting those mines which were now deemed unsuitable. Then we had a number of moves to do those sorts of things that RE's do, interspersed with various exercises.

One of these was a demonstration of the effects of fighter aircraft on ground troops and vehicles. We were assembled on Salisbury Plain in a long chain of small pens formed with wire, with representatives from units from all over. A small party from 222 were in the righthand pen, next to the RAF control van, which broadcast details of what was going on. We were shown how aircraft could hug the ground and then surprise, how they could shoot up old trucks on the plain in front of us , and then how fighters from above could be called down to shoot up cutout outlines of troops on the move.

However, one of the aircraft began diving down towards the spectators, which was the usual, common sort of stunt organisers of such do's would do to impress, but the winking lights coming from this aircraft looked all too familiar to me. One then tries to reduce ones size to the absolute minimum. Unfortunately, this was real, and I believe from memory that over twenty men were killed and many wounded. This was in 1942, I believe 13th April.

Being in the righthand pen had saved us, one of our chaps had a hole in his greatcoat, another had the heel of his boot hit, but the greatest havoc had taken place further down the line, where the line of fire had converged.

I only mention this particular incident because of one odd personal affect this had for me when we were asked to hand in all field dressings, pending the arrival of further ambulances. Now, I had used part of mine at Dunkirk, and since had often been found to be "improperly dressed", - go to the QM Store for a replacement. The QM usually said that as I had part, a full one would not be issued. And so on.
I was now issued with a replacement.

Dennis was sent on a diesel electric course, and while he was away I was despatched for overseas. It would be a long time before we would meet again.

There followed for me the Halifax embarkation centre, with men being organised for various drafts. Each day a parade would take place on a large carpark behind the local cinema, and there would be perhaps twenty sections, each with an NCO in charge for rollcall. When the names had been called and answered, and the report "All present and correct" had been made by the section NCO, and repeated up the chain of command to the top man, he would then pass the words "Carry On" down the chain. The NCO for each section would then call out specific names of men for particular requirements, and the man called would spring smartly to attention and march away from the parade ground.

That left the rest, and the Army not wishing to have any idle hands would require "The first eight men report to the cookhouse for duty" and the next half a dozen would be despatched on similar duties, and so on.

In such a situation, it does not take the experienced soldier long to realise that, just before can happen, the action to be taken is to spring smartly to attention and march from the parade ground to elsewhere, perhaps the NAAFI. Even better if he could obtain a chitty that the QM hadn't in stock some important item of equipment, such as the right size of plimsolls.

There were notices all over the place that walls have ears, and we were not to discuss what was happening to anyone, and so that no-one would guess where we were bound, we were finally marched off to the station with our brand new topees strapped on the backs of our packs..

We arrived in Scotland by train. I have only been this once to Scotland, and so I know that there it is night, it rains extremely hard, it has no platform and so we have to make our across railway lines to a ship which we board. But this was only the ship to take us out to a huge ship, which turned out to be the Queen Mary. We enter through a large hole in the side, are issued with details of which of the four breakfasts, dinners and teas we are to have.

We were shown to our bunks, and I was told that there some 700 men in my room. The bunks were like shelves, with a mesh walkway above us for the next higher tier of shelves. The first thought of the normal soldier in such a situation is the means of escape if necessary, then resignation when realisation sets in.

The Queen Mary travelled over six weeks to Egypt around South Africa, without escort, which apparently could not keep up, zigzagging to avoid any tracking submarines. We disembarked and dispersed to our respective centres, and I arrived at the RE base at Ismailia.

There I was assigned to HQ of the 8th Armoured Division, the GO-boys after their division insignia, and just out from England with brand new up-to-date tanks. We went into the desert for initial training and acclimatisation, and then up to Alamein. There was much in the way of preparations for the battle to come, and one of the less publlicised of these was the deception to lead the enemy into false apprediation of the battle arrangements.

Except for some old tanks retained to make new tracks, our armour was removed and sent elsewhere, dressed up to appear like trucks, and replaced with trucks looking like tamks. When the Battle of Alamein began, we followed up with no particular role that I know of, other than as supporting reserve troops, until the division was finally dispersed.

I contracted Jaundice at Benghazi, was flown back, with other sick and wounded, to Tobruk in one of two much patched planes. We had to wait four days before take-off, and entered the aircraft to find that everything non-essential had been stripped out and we had to find a place to sit on the framework. Then followed the request from the pilot for us all to move forward to help him take off, and the reverse procedure took place coming down at Tobruk. That was my first flight ever!

After hospital, and convalescence, I was sent to the RE base at Ismailia. It was there that there was a drive for draughtsmen of all sorts, architectural, engineering, electrical, in fact, everyone who had experience in drawing. Those selected were sent to GHQ Cairo, where it turned out to be for conversion of information from air photos on to maps which were continually being updated as new air sorties revealed fresh information.

I moved about, and finished up at the end of the war attached to an American unit at an airfield at Foggia, in Italy. There being no further requirements for aiir photography, I was sent to an RE Works unit, first at Taranto, and then to Crotone in the 'toe' of Italy. The demobilisation plans favoured family men to go first, and so, having served five and a half years, four of them overseas, I had to wait.

Eventually my time came and I returned via a four-day rail journey, with stops for 'knives and forks' to receive rations, finally to arrive at Calais, where we stayed the night in order to take the ship to England the following morning. So, early in the morning I made my through the camp with a towel over my shoulder to have a wash and freshen up.

Then came another of those amazing coincidences, as there appeared coming towards me, just as once before, my old pal Dennis who had just arrived in Calais from Venice, and of whom I had heard nothing since 1942. We exchanged experiences, and I learnt that while I had been in the Western Desert, he had landed in North Africa.

We could never remember later who had switched to be demobbed with the other, but that was how it happened, we came out together, and in due course I was best man at his wedding.

I am 83 now, and I cannot explain why I happened to write of these particular instances, that came to mind as I wrote. There was, of course, so much else that happened during my five and a half years of army service, sometimes serious, but sometimes hilarious, that I feel these days rather as though it was a long story of long ago.

Len Dexter. [ len.dexter@which.net ]

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