Chapter 8

My rifle which in Britain had been extremely accurate was no longer so when I retrieved it in Iraq, perhaps it had had a bad sea trip, got banged around or otherwise warped but it was so much off that I checked the serial number to be sure; it was mine. To complete the course we hurled a few Mills bombs, fired a Bren gun, marched around a bit and behaved as soldiers were supposed to do and then we returned to our more sedentary duties. The commissioned ranks had also to be kept up to scratch and a series of tactical exercises was introduced. An assorted collection of craftsmen, NCO's, a sergeant-major and a lieutenant was assembled one day together with their vehicles and other paraphernalia; they set off across the desert to a location that I believe was only a map reference. After two days the lieutenant had to admit that he was completely lost and so were they all. He was somewhat upset and said, "I feel terrible, I ought to shoot myself." and the sergeant-major enquired, "Then why don't you -- Sir?" The suggestion was not taken however and a search party later led the group back to base.

Attempts were made to keep us occupied and clubs were formed. There was the musical appreciation group with its portable gramophone and limited records, the photographic club again with equipment scarcities, a current affairs program that naturally kept clear of politically sensitive subjects, while anyone interested could learn to drive an army lorry. One enterprising officer tried to revive an interest in calculus and actually collected a few members though how long the course lasted is anyone's guess.

Attached to us were some Indian Army troops under British officers; the make-up was a little unusual, many of the soldiers had been temporarily released form prison on the understanding that if they served for the duration of the war they would then become free men. Most of their crimes were of a political nature, some included murder. They seemed to have an intense loyalty towards their officers and I encountered them in the following way; for our sports minded colleagues just kicking a soccer ball around wasn't sufficiently satisfying, they wanted a regulation sized pitch marked out. The hard baked sand didn't take paint very well but discarded engine oil could be used instead. Since I could measure with a steel tape and knew how to construct right angles using the three, four, five principle and could count beyond 50 I was given the pitch proportions and told to get on with it. For help I was put in charge of six Indians who would hack out the narrow shallow channels with their picks along string lines that I had laid out and these they would fill with oil producing very dark lines. There were six of them all armed with picks and only one of me armed with an empty rifle. However I was told that they were quite harmless and could be persuaded to behave under the threat of confiscating their pay books which would have the effect of breaking their contracts resulting in their going back to prison. I had no trouble at all, in fact they were a cheery group quite happy to work.

In the army I came across quite a cross section of humanity, running the whole gamut of characters. I am reminded of a sergeant-major, a peace time regular, who discovered one day that things were missing from the Company Office; he decided to do something about it. In the office there was a large wicker basket used for laundry and into this he contorted himself pulling down the lid nearly shut so he could peep out and identify the thieves. He waited and waited but nobody came in because the word had got around; eventually he emerged very stiffly, defeated. Early one morning he had occasion to phone the captain; it was a wall mounted instrument, he took the receiver off its hook and stood rigidly to attention facing the mouthpiece; when the captain answered he snapped a perfectly smart salute and said, "Good morning, Sir -- I am now saluting you." And then he carried on with whatever else he had to say.

I forget exactly how it came about but one time when I was in Baghdad I got roped in for guard duty, this time it was to watch over a prisoner. The prison was only a tent top surrounded with barbed wire and there was only one prisoner. It was all very informal, we chatted a bit and he didn't seem to be at all concerned with his predicament. I asked him what he was doing there and he said that he was being charged with theft. "Of what?" I asked. "A jeep," he replied.

Apparently he had acquired a jeep and sold it to an Arab. "For how much?" I asked. "Four hundred dinars." he answered. At that time the Iraqi dinar and the British pound were at par. He seemed to be quite happy, perhaps he had the money stashed away somewhere.

A new item was now added to our kit to improve our lot; to alleviate some of the discomfort and soreness around our shirt collars due to perspiration we were issued with scarves puggree, squares of light cloth, khaki coloured. This was the same material that was wound around the crowns of our pith helmets; some lads, fashion conscious, decided not to wear them in the accepted manner and this led to an order being issued to the effect that 'scarves puggree will be worn loosely around the neck and not in a triangular cowboy fashion."

Most of us were classified in one of many trades but there were a few who were not tradesmen and they were classified as general duties and they could be given any task not requiring any special skill. Three of these were attached to the Company Office where their main duty seemed to be making tea. A vacancy occurred in one of the workshops for a clerical type and I was ordered to take this job on a short term basis, for about three weeks. I didn't jump at the chance, actually I didn't think much of the idea but I went. The work was simple, checking parts in and out of the shop and took in total less than 30 minutes a day and it was boring, boring. The three weeks stretched into six weeks and eventually into ten weeks. I complained several times that the job could be easily done by a general duties type but was constantly fobbed off. After a while I asked to see the colonel and then the bureaucracy slowly slipped into gear, my request went upwards from rank to rank until at last an appointment was made for two weeks hence. The very morning that I was to see the colonel I was told to get back to the DO again. When I approached him after going through the rigmarole of marching in, saluting smartly and agreeing that I was indeed the soldier he thought I was he said,

"You have a complaint?"

"Yessir."

"You want to return to the Drawing Office?"

"Yessir."

"But I see you are back there already."

"Yessir, this morning"

"Then there doesn't seem to be any complaint now does there?"

"No Sir."

"Now don't think that your return has anything to do with your making a complaint, it's purely coincidental."

"No Sir, certainly not, Sir." I lied.

"Dismiss." I did so, inwardly fuming at having to take part in this farce that could have been settled weeks before at a lower level and which would have saved the colonel from looking so foolish.

Opportunities sometimes allowed us to do something out of the ordinary and two of us asked if we could spend our two weeks leave in Teheran, in Iran. Strangely enough permission was granted and we set off in the evening crossing into Iran at Ahwaz. The journey took about 20 hours passing through Dizful, Khorramabad, Arak and Qum and countless numbers of tunnels through the mountain ranges before reaching Teheran. It was an interesting trip carried out in upholstered luxury. We were billeted in an army camp but were left to our own devices day and night. After Shaiba Teheran was a lively bustling city; we did some window shopping looking at the Russian made Leica cameras that were much cheaper than but inferior to those made in Germany. There was a plethora of uniforms about of various branches of various forces of various countries not counting the wonderful uniforms of the cinema doormen -- quite confusing; I was saluted several times by Russian soldiers who were probably just as uncertain as I was.

I was caught out by a British major when I failed to salute him; he asked me where I was stationed and when I answered "Shaiba." he enquired, "don't they salute officers there now? They used to when I was Provost Marshal." I had not worn my greatcoat for ages when I was in Shaiba and had not polished the brass but it was much colder in Teheran and I was now wearing it. He eyed the green brass buttons of my greatcoat with disapproval but let me off with a warning as he realised that I was on leave from that God-forsaken spot; I think he felt sorry for me.

We went to a cinema to see Bambi which I had seen before in England but this was different; the sound track was in English with French sub-titles and to one side a separate screen about seven feet square carried the dialogue in Farsi. It was just as well that I had seen it before because those who could read explained the film to those who could not and I could hardly hear the sound track for the constant babble.

Compared to Shaiba the air was cool and crisp and my friend who was a bit of an amateur astronomer said that under the right conditions the planet Mercury could be seen with the naked eye and sure enough under a cloudless sky just after sunset we saw it quite close to the sun's edge; I've often looked for it but I've never seen it since. The reason for our choosing Teheran as a vacation centre was that another couple of members of our group had gone there not long before and spoke of it approvingly; they had stayed a little longer than we and had climbed, or partially climbed, Mount Demavend that was about 19,000 feet high. We had no desire to copy them but spent the best part of a day walking northwards from Teheran seeing the wide open spaces apparently uninhabited apart from the occasional local who viewed us with interest and suspicion as to our intent. In the city one of the main sights was the railway station, an architectural gem that had been built earlier by the Germans. Being a carpet weaving centre there were all shapes, sizes, colours and patterns on display and also for sale, many laid out on the sidewalks to be walked upon by passers-by which surprised us. I wasn't too certain about the sanitary arrangements but on many streets I saw open gutters running between the sidewalk and the road and there seemed to be ample water run-off from the northern highland. All good things have to come to an end and after two weeks we caught the train back to Ahwaz and thence to Shaiba.

For entertainment we had radio programs relayed from Britain but we also picked up programs emanating from Ahwaz which was under American control. Rum and Coca Cola sung by The Andrews Sisters was pounded out at least three times daily. Occasionally boxing was arranged between ourselves and the Americans to what we would call amateur rules, three three-minute rounds with a two-minute break between rounds, no referee in the ring but with the contests bring controlled verbally by an officer at ringside. The styles of the two countries differed and we considered ourselves lucky if we won three out of the ten bouts. Naturally we cheered for our own boxers but were appreciative of any American who adopted the more upright stance rather than the American crouch. There were frequent cinema shows and sometimes ENSA parties visited us on their tours of army bases; twice I recall going to shows given by touring Russian groups; though the language was unintelligible to most of us the types of turns given did not require any great understanding of Russian and their performances were first class. I usually went along fairly early to grab a reasonable seat and was frequently annoyed when I was dispossessed by late arriving superiors; on such occasions I sometimes returned to my billet to read a book or to go to sleep; I was fairly content in my own company.

The army would not be the army if we did not have visitations at times by the top brass. I don't remember and I don't think I ever knew who the officer was who came to inspect our installations; I wasn't much interested. However the Machine Shop was set up to display our talents and virtually every machine was to be working, operators were called in from other jobs where necessary and Johnny Lockett was one such lucky one. Although he was a skilled man he had been put to work driving an internal gharri around the base on trivial errands but now he was called in to stand by a machine that was honing the bores of cylinder blocks and he was doing just that when the top brass came by. The machine had been previously set up.

"And what's going on here?" asked top brass.

"Honing cylinder bores Sir".

"I see, and how metal are you removing?"

"Don't know, Sir."

"You don't know! then what are you doing here?"

"Watching, Sir."

"What's your trade?"

"Precision grinder, Sir."

"Precision grinder and you don't know how much metal you're removing?"

"No, Sir, I was just told to come here and stand by the machine. I don't think it's cutting anything." Johnny Lockett was not very popular with his superiors after that and I believe he went back to driving the internal gharri.

I think it was about July or August 1945 that I was transferred to Egypt, anyway while we were in transit we read that the Americans had dropped a super bomb on Japan and the consensus among us was, "There they go, bragging again," and we put it out of our minds.

We travelled in style this time -- to start with. After WWI two Australians, seeing the potential, had acquired some vehicles and started a company, Nairn Transport, to carry passengers and freight across the Middle East and our party was put on two of their air conditioned coaches to travel from Baghdad to Damascus. The routes had been well established by this time and the coaches left the metalled roads and went across the desert in a fairly straight line from point A to point B. I was in the second coach following the leader and for a while all went well; we kept a reasonable distance between us because our passage stirred up a whirl of loose sand. Of course it had to be our coach that eventually broke down; our driver honked and honked until he got the attention of the leader; consultations followed. By-and-by a tow chain was hitched to one of our front spring shackles and off we went. With no power we had no air conditioning and the heat became unbearable so we opened the windows. This was not a good idea because we were following close, a tow chain's length, behind the other coach and we were in the minor sandstorm of its wake. Soon our sweaty bodies were caked with sand and the only respite came when the front spring shackle gave way and we ground to a halt. Repairs were made and the tow chain was re-attached, this time to the other front spring shackle. Many miles farther on this one also gave up the ghost and there were no more spare parts available for repairs, fortunately a small Arab settlement was close at hand. It was now night and we waited and waited until a relief coach reached us and took us uneventfully into Damascus. The next day we boarded the metre gauge railway train bound for Dar"a. My memory now fails me; I remember passing the southern end of Lake Tiberias and arriving at Haifa but I don't know how I got there. From Haifa we took a train along the coast into Egypt, crossing the Suez Canal at El Qantara, finishing up eventually at another desolate spot, No.2 Base Workshops at Tel-el-Kebir.

TEL-EL-KEBIR

I remember my father telling me when I was a youngster that the battle of Tel-el-Kebir was one of the last battles in which the British fought in red coats. I suppose that it stayed in his mind because it would have been still in the news when he was a child, the battle having taken place in 1882. No.2 Base Workshops was in that general vicinity but as usual it was in the wide open spaces; it was similar to Shaiba in size and content and served the same purpose. On one of my trips to Cairo I passed through the town -- or was it too small to be so called -- and I paused at the cemetery where the British dead of that battle were buried and my thoughts went back to my father's tales.

The European war had finished and the American claim to have a super bomb was no longer bragging, it was a reality. The debate over the use of the atomic bomb rages on but my opinion then and still today is that it was justified in that it shortened the war and saved many 1000's of lives, Japanese as well as Allied, maybe even mine. It depends on whose ox is being gored. We were going in the right direction and demob was in sight.

British forces in No.2 BW included quite a number of Jews who had every reason to want Germany defeated; initially they were integrated with us, they said they didn't want to be isolated in ghettos but as time went on and as they absorbed more and more of military training and organisation they felt large enough and competent enough to warrant separate status. When I arrived at Tel-el Kebirs' camp, the Jewish camp, was an accomplished fact. I imagine that Haganah was born or nurtured there; maybe Irgun also.

The DO staff was larger than that at Shaiba and included several Jews one of whom became my friend; his parents had sent him to Palestine before the war when things looked threatening in Austria and by the time I met him all his family had perished in Dachau. He was alone in the world and he joined the British forces I sensed hostility on the part of two other Jews, one male, one female; I don't know why, I hadn't done anything to them, perhaps they thought the British were standing between them and the creation of the Israeli state.

The office work was much the same as before, nothing very exciting; one of the lads, Craftsman Edlin wishing to upgrade his draughtsman's rating applied to be trade tested and was told to design a lawn mower for the officers' quarters. Since the lawn at the officers' quarters boasted about 50 blades of grass per square foot this was a little silly.

DO STAFF No.2 BASE WORKSHOPS TEL-EL-KEBIR Back row (l to r) George. Sgt Madders. Cfn Grey. Cfn Pulgram . Sgt Wassel. Cfn Brewster. Cfn Edlin. Cpl Johnsoon. Faris Seated Sgt Simon. S/Sgt Tudor. Herta Weiskopfova. Lt Hackman. S/Sgt Rollason Squatting Tony

To control traffic in and out of the compound barriers were placed across the roads at suitable places; these followed standard army design, probably unchanged for a couple of centuries, a pole spanning the width of the road, pivoted at one end and counterweighted. Alongside the installation an Arab sat on a cushion on an upturned petrol can, waiting for customers. I don't believe he had any means of identifying friend or foe but when he was satisfied he raised the pole to allow a lorry through. There was one drawback to this system however, come quitting time he would pick up his cushion and off he would go, back to the wife and kids, often leaving the pole neither vertical nor horizontal but at about 45°. An unsuspecting lorry driver coming in after dark and seeing no horizontal barrier would charge straight ahead and that would mean vehicle repairs and a replacement pole. To overcome this shortcoming design ideas were solicited and I got busy with a matchbox, a penholder (the wooden rod type, then current), paper clips and a light spring that I wound out of some fine wire. The principle I used was not original. Simply put, the operating lever in this case the bent paper clip due to spring action would only stay in one of two extreme positions and the pole, in this case the penholder would also only stay on one of two extreme positions. I gave the model to the sergeant who seemed impressed and it was passed up through the ranks, everyone trying to beat it. Eventually it finished up in the hands of Brigadier Butters; he seemed satisfied and gave the go-ahead to modify one of the existing barriers. The most suitable one was close to the DO and this we decided to modify. At this stage it should be pointed out that design ideas are transformed into finished products by means of engineering drawings, these really have the status of legal documents to be followed precisely. This is at variance with the beliefs of some people who think that a drawing is only a pretty picture of something that has already been made; more than once I've been asked, "Where do you get the model you've copied?" The barrier was duly examined and drawings prepared showing exactly what had to be done to modify it to the new design and the drawings were issued to the machine shop.

In charge of the machine shop were two Polish officers whose names to me were both unpronounceable and unspellable and they oversaw the modifications. I believe their hearts were not in the job, they resented being told what to do even via drawings by a lowly craftsman but since the brigadier had ordained it they had to comply. "Vy don't ve do like in ze old country?" they asked, meaning that they wanted to make a barrier operated by a pinion and quadrant, like in ze old country that could be similarly be left up in the 45° position. They took matters into their own hands and decided not to work on the existing barrier but to start from scratch; they didn't even build it across a road but selected a spot near the machine shop. A steel tube was used for the pole and metal strips dangled from it to simulate a solid barrier when the pole was horizontal. To balance the extra weight of the strips the counterweight had to be increased and then the tube began to bend so they rammed a solid bar inside the tube. Two channel sections were concreted into the ground to support the tube and the pivot rod was beautifully mounted on ball bearings; the only thing was the thing didn't work. Ignored were all my design instructions particularly regarding the relationship of the centre of gravity to the pivot point that were detailed on my drawings and that had been approved by the major in charge of the DO. The springs and shock absorbers that had been salvaged from scrapped vehicles were also not mounted where they should have been. In short the Poles had created something of a dog's breakfast and they awaited the brigadier's inspection with some concern. He was not pleased. The project was abandoned and when I left to be demobbed some five months later it still stood in isolation in the desert, a stark monument to false pride and stupidity.

With the end of the European war conditions had eased a little and I took advantage of this to spend a couple of days in Cairo; I did the usual tourist things, viewing the Sphinx and climbing a little way up the Great Pyramid at Giza. Coming down to earth again I found some Arabs with their camels gathered at the base of the pyramid waiting for people like me and of course I couldn't resist being photographed aboard a static camel. Another half day was spent in the Cairo Museum where Tutankhaman's historical artefacts were the main attraction. We could also go occasionally to a spot on the Suez Canal, Lake Timsah, for a weekend where the army had established Ferry Point Leave Camp, where tent tops were situated amongst pine trees and where discipline was relaxed. The trip by army lorry took us by Zagazig and the Sweet Water Canal where to fall in meant a series of unpleasant injections by the MO. We lazed and swam and ate and sun bathed and for the first time saw little sea horses I found that I could float in the canal whereas I never could in fresh water but I also found that there were leeches in the water and a couple attached themselves to me.

DO & CLERICAL STAFF No.2 BASE WORKSHOPS. AFTER VJ DAY