A Lancashire lad Goes to War : Chapter 3

AFRICA

The ship put into Freetown in Africa, where about 2,500 men from the Royal Air Force disembarked. I believe that we had left Glasgow with 17,000 on board, but two died during the journey and were buried at sea. Some men had been given only 48 hours’ Embarkation Leave, and some wanted to use this time to get married. In those days most women wanted a ring on their finger before committing themselves physically to a man and if they had their monthly period some men would not be able to consummate their relationship. I often wondered how many of these newlyweds lived to return home.

We set sail from Freetown on a southerly course and ran into heavy seas. The ship’s notice board told us that the waves were 60 feet high, so when we took a parallel course to the waves, the ship leant sideways. When we were eating, it was necessary to hang on to everything in order to stop us from losing our plates of food on to the floor. Eventually we anchored in Cape Town harbour (Port Elizabeth) to take on supplies, where nobody except a few sailors was allowed ashore.

A voyage up the Red Sea took us to Port Tewfik, where we all disembarked, were given a cup of tea and a bun, and then herded on to a train. That provided a novel experience - natives on the roof and hanging on to the sides, some sticking their heads through the windows trying to sell us watches and gold rings. We eventually arrived at Cairo Station and transferred to trucks to take us to the Royal Artillery camp at Al-Marza, where we were booked in and allotted tents. The tents held eight men - four on each side. They were dug into the sand by about three feet and sand was banked around the outside to about eighteen inches. The sand was dampened and then smoothed with a plasterer’s trowel to leave it looking polished like plaster; this was to smarten the appearance of the camp for occasional inspections by senior officers.

I met Roy on the second day, but he was being posted to the 4th (Durham) Survey Regiment the following day. We had to sit another Trade Test, had talks about Arab people and their customs, and were told not to drink ice-cold drinks between 10.00 am and 4.00 pm to avoid getting stomach cramps. I made several trips into Cairo, as it was only fifteen to twenty minutes away by tram. It was strange wandering around Cairo, as I felt that I knew my way and never became lost - I could always find my way back to the tram to return to camp.

In camp, the cookhouse and dining room were about ten feet apart. One lunchtime I was crossing from one to the other (as usual) with my plate of stew and cup of tea. I felt a downward pressure on my plate, saw something black in front of my face, there was a quick waft of air and my plate was empty - most of the gravy had gone too! I looked upwards and saw in the claws of a kitehawk (popularly known by us as shitehawks!) my lunch rapidly disappearing skywards. This was a big joke amongst the cooks, as it happened regularly with new arrivals, but I made sure that it did not happen to me again. Kitehawks were protected by the Egyptian Government - black and white and scrawny about as big as a sparrow hawk - otherwise we would have shot the lot for stealing our food. The only way I could protect my meals was to lean over the plate with my arm as I was carrying it and hope for the best! The other strange thing concerning the food was the brown bits I found in every slice of bread. They were dead weevils that had been baked in the bread, and the technique was to pick out the ones visible and ignore what might be in the middle of the slice. One could not be too fussy because there was nothing else to eat.

Eventually, I too was posted to the 4th (Durham) Survey Regiment based just south of Ismailia. I now discovered that all the reinforcements were needed following the capture of Tobruk, when only about a dozen of the original Troop remained. The head of our unit was Captain Kemsley, nicknamed ‘The Jeep’. I was the only Instrument Operator in the area, so I had to train another. He was called Johnny Lock, and though we were colleagues we were never friends. The new instrument was a Mark IV, which was more compact but heavier than the Mark III. There was a good supply of batteries, and two 1200W and two 250W-charging plants. Once again, I was the only person who knew how to connect and correctly charge the batteries, so I had to teach someone else how to do it.

When we had sorted out our equipment and the headquarters field parties, Advance Post and wagon line (cookhouse, troop headquarters, water trucks and supply trucks) personnel, we did a mock deployment. However, no one in headquarters knew how to use the Line Testing Unit (LTU), which checks that there are no breaks in the cables between headquarters and the microphones. If I remember correctly, the resistance of a new cable was 180 Ohms per mile, so if a microphone stopped working and the LTY gave a resistance of 90 Ohms, a line party was sent out for half a mile to look for the break. One day a tornado came through the camp and lifted our mess marquee, complete with some of the poles. They disappeared up the swirling sand chimney and travelled out of sight as the tornado moved away. We never found the marquee or the missing poles.

About two weeks before we took up our position at El Alamein, a couple of ENSA trucks pulled into our camp. The person in charge asked our Captain if he could put on a show for us, which was gladly accepted as we were just hanging around waiting for orders. I think they had about a dozen performers, and I was instructed to help with the stage for the afternoon performance. We had set up most of the equipment when the singer called me over - he had an electric plug in his hand and wanted to know where the mains were so that he could plug it in. When I told him that the nearest mains electricity was about twelve miles away, he said that he could not work without a microphone. This caused a bit of consternation and reminded me of a time in my Sixth Form at school when the master left the room and one of the boys started singing like Bing Crosby with the glass from an oil lamp. So, I got hold of a lamp glass and explained how it was several years ago. He tried it and was surprised how good his voice sounded. The show took place and was very much appreciated by our Troop.

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