Field

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24 Field Squadron

I left No1 and was posted to 24 Fd Sqn which was part of 36 Engineer Regiment based in Maidstone. I was put on the back of a truck and off we went to a small camp, Kings Hill Camp, on the outskirts of the village of Hoo. I don't remember much and have no photographs, but the camp had at least two wooden huts with central heating, that's army
talk for a stove in the middle of the hut. The winter of 62/63 was fast approaching and I remember spending lots of time around the stove to keep warm. My everlasting memory of Kings Hill Camp was the severe winter of 1963/64, I was on guard duty over New Year and we spent more time helping civilians to get their cars out of the snow drifts.

I did not reside long with 24 Fd Sqn as I was off to the other side of the Medway to complete my A3 Draughtsman Mechanical course at the RSME which was not the super place it turned into a few years later. It was built in Victorian days and some of the staff must have been there since then. Visiting pubs in Brompton high street was part of any young sappers education, the two Sawyers with its sawdust on the floor, the Beast and the Cannon. This was the first time that I had gone around the workshops experiencing the trades allied to Draughtsman Mechanical, I enjoyed every minute and would return six and ten years respectively. All good things must come to an end and after completing the course I found my self back at Maidstone to catch a lift back to 24 Fd Sqn, but ended up staying with 20 Fd Sqn.

20 Field Squadron 1963-1964

Libya October 1963
Time with 20 Sqn was for me a lot of firsts, first time abroad was traveling to Libya, we went by civilian aircraft and flew in to an airfield near to Benghazi and were transported to Wavell Barracks by civilian coach, what I thought was strange was that every other Libyan wore a greatcoat of British, Italian or German issue. Another first but not the last I would see in my service was people living in cardboard shacks.

We arrived at Wavell Barracks Benghazi which was the home of the 14/20 Kings Hussars. The job we had flown all this way for was to construct an airfield for the Army Air Corps, in those days they flew Austers and Beavers, fixed wing aircraft. The plan was for the job to take two weeks to complete and then we would join the Squadron at a place called Bomba for an exercise. This was not to be, a strike in England meant the equipment would arrive two weeks late, so we thankfully stayed in Benghazi.

The equipment we were waiting for turned out to look like giant rolls of roofing felt called Prefabricated Bituminous Surfacing (PBS) and soon had cause to rename it Pretty Black and Sticky. While waiting for PBS to arrive we were gainfully employed as all Sappers are in lush postings when work for others starts at 0700 and finishes for the day at 1300hrs.
I was employed a great deal either on the end of a wheel barrow humping hardcore or on the end of a spade batching concrete.
Another first was working with local labour and making sure they did the work they were hired for, some of the older hands were not as soft with them as us young un's. The jobs we completed prior to the PBS coming were: construct the base and erect a Twynam Hut, a base and construct an Elephant hut, a Fuel storage site and finish the drainage ditches alongside the taxiway and runway.

The equipment arrived and we set about getting it laid. We were told that we were the first since WW2 to use the PBS. The drill was to roll out the material then two lads armed with watering cans filled with a mixture 50% Kero and 50% Diesel would then spray the PBS, two more lads with bass brooms would the scrub the mixture into the PBS, the result was the bitumen would appear. The rolls were 100ft long, we would get along in pick it up, excess liquid and bitumen would the drip all over our legs and boots, we then laid it sticky side down, the next and subsequent strips would be laid with a 50% overlap, we would then do a sand dance to ensure the joints stuck. When it was complete we were taken up two/three at a time in a Auster to view it from above. It was pretty impressive from above it looked like a concrete airstrip. The month soon came to an end, this for me was a never to be forgotten experience and lessons learned would be employed by me throughout my service.

Christmas Island www.christmas-island.org

We flew to Christmas Island via, Newfoundland and spent New Years eve 1964 in Vancouver airport, then on to Hawaii. We were billeted at Port Camp some of us under canvas as accommodation was short. Our job was to build a fuel storage facility as the one built by the Americans in 1941 was leaking. All the pipes and valves were made of aluminum, high humidity was a major cause of equipment rusting and falling apart. My first job was as a draughtsman but unfortunately I was the wrong type and soon found my self on the end of a shovel batching concrete for the tank saddles. I became the surveyors assistant and was taught to use the level and soon I was doing the leveling of bund walls and saddles. We all got the chance of going of in groups of five to have 5 days leave in Honolulu, we stayed at the American Air Base. The Americans were very friendly and thought anyone from Christmas Island was an escapee from devils island.

12 Field Squadron, Osnabruck, Germany 1966-1989

I arrived in Germany and went straight to bridge camp at Hamilin, our main role was construction of the Heavy Floating Bridge and Heavy Ferry. Hamilin was a great place and I completed three bridge camps before leaving Germany. We received our APC 432 in 1967 and went everywhere by rail flats to save mileage, mine was 14EA39 my driver was Ernie Entwhistle and between us we kept it on the road, we had many a teething problem and had to have a team flown from Eengland to fix them. We were out on exercise a great deal our main role was construction of the Heavy Floating Bridge and reserved bridge demolitions. The SSM was Polly Perkins one of the last of the WW2 Sappers he was replaced by an SSM we nick named crazy horse.

Bavaria, Southern Germany

We had gone down to Bavaria to the village of Berchtesgaden. We had an Admin Officer Lt Gerry Heap, when he met Zepp it was instant recognition, during WW2 Heap was, as a Sapper, a guard on a POW camp and Zepp was the chief trouble maker. After this Zepp could not do enough for us. The German plans required us to use a similar construction as the mess on the left, but our ex clerk of works redesigned the lot and the result is as the finished product. I visited in 1977 and it was still in good condition but overgrown. I went on Christmas leave December 1969, and ended up at the RSME on a welldrilling course January 1970.

20 Field Squadron Maidstone 1973-1976

I found myself back in Maidstone, but spent the first six months at the RSME on my A1 Welldrilling course, this went down like a lead balloon with the Squadron. On my return I like most Field Troop Sgts was soon counting paint brushes in the G10. How the mighty had fallen. I had been away from Field Squadron life for about 5 years and did not like what I saw, I perhaps was my own worst enemy as I had been in posts were I was responsible for achieving targets with my team or as part of a team responsible for my own performance.

Oman

The Squadron was sent on a tour of Oman and was based in DOFHAR province where a little war was going on with the Aden backed and Chinese trained rebles or Adoo as they were known. We were based at SALALHA in UM ALl GHAWARIF with the SAS.

The situation in Oman at the time was: see map
The country had been ruled by a ruler who had kept the country in the medieval period although money was coming in through oil revenues. In 1970 (I was in SHARJHA) his son over threw him and called in the Brit's (SAS & seconded personnel) to get his army in shape to fight the Communist rebels. The Chinese wanted to control the Straits of Hormuz and subsequently oil shipments to the west. In 2005 I read two books that filled in the gaps as to why things had happened (1970)
a) Where Soldiers fear to Tread by Sir Ranulph Fiennes
b) SAS Secret War by Major General Tony Jeapes.

I was loaned to the Sultans Engineers who had come down to DOFHAR to get experience. I have always regretted not having any photos as I think this was right up my street and looking back it was my finest hour. My job was to train them and then go up on to the Hornbeam line and refurbish the mines and lay new minefields. The main problem was that only one spoke good English and one other passable English and I had to teach them to read minefield records and use a compass, apart from how to deal with the M60 (American) jumping mines,dingbats and DM31s (German). I wont bore the reader with how I did it. We did the job with no losses but it took me some time to come to terms with the way they worked which was linked to their culture, this I think had a profound effect on my outlook on life on the front line, this did not go down well with the heroes back at base.

I was billeted with the Oman Artillery at a place called MUGSHAYL at the start of the Hornbeam Line which stretched some 40 miles into the interior. One claim to fame was I that fired a 5.5 howitzer and a 25 pounder in anger at the Adoo. One day we had 7 out of 11, 122mm rockets on our position all missed us. When the job was finished I reluctantly returned to the Squadron. One of the Junior Officers I was to meet again in 1982 in Belfast with the TA, where he had become a barrister.

I was loaned to a civil firm to drill a well outside a town called Mirbat. Mirbat was the scene of a famous SAS battle and was still a bit dodgy. I had a bodyguard who knew when the Adoo had been about as he was uneasy until we got to the site. I would pick him up each morning, I noticed that I seemed to be the first to leave the town in the morning and soon had a twitchy bum when he would be unsmiling and had his AK47 at the ready, when it was known the Adoo had been out laying mines I closed by eyes when crossing wadies that could not be seen from the town, waiting for the bang. One day he came out with a sandbag and when out of sight from the town got me to stop, he legged it up a wadi and placed in under a rock, I later learned that his brother was in the ADOO. I was on my own, my labourers were locals, my mode of transport was a three tonner with no cab, no doors and sandbagged floors and contacted the Squadron every night with my drilling report and re-supply. I was in my element, I lived in a rat infested fort and listened to the world service and the Indian Broadcasting Service on my borrowed RACEL radio. When ordered back for a weekend, the only quick way out was by Sky van, I became a dab hand at getting a seat before the goats and locals.

Kenya

While at Maidstone the Squadron went to Kenya to build a road (graded track) and a bridge. The mighty had fallen further and I ran separate Officers and Sgts Messes, I had a constant battle with the SSM on the day to day running and finances of the Sgts mess. The QM wanted a combined mess but others had delusions of grandeur and wanted their moment of glory, When we got back the books were audited and I was the equivalent of 50p down on the thousands of pounds that passed through my hands, I was begrudgingly congratulated through gritted teeth by the SSM.

On return from Kenya the Squadron had a task for six weeks that involved demonstrating the MGB to the Dutch who were looking for a new bridge. My role was to provide two bridges daily from three bridge sets. There were two teams, those in the day that built the bridge and the other team who worked at night to strip out the bridges (Ron Pocock in charge). I repallatised and washed them down and lined them up ready for the day shift. By the end of this I could repack each pallet in my sleep. Quite a bit of kit when missing which triggered a board of officers, I never did learn the outcome, it was suspected that mates of a snr member in the Sqn who were at the RSME helped themselves or were provided with kit while no one was on site. The trial took place on the bridging ground at the RSME!!!. The makers of the MGB were only too happy to replace the missing items when they found out about the losses as the Dutch bought the MGB.

Denmark

The Squadron went to Denmark for a small exercise with the Danish and German engineers, this was an eye opener as like most I tended to look down on other armies. The Danes were impressive with their covert discipline, this I think was due to a maturity not found in our young soldiers. The Germans were better organised at section level and their vehicles and kit were well thought out. Some of their best practices were from WW2. I think a Squadron from BAOR would have been more suitable as our role was more broader than the Germans. On return I went on to be an instructor on the Regimental Class 2 Combat Engineer Course.

My last job as I was posted, was to run the Sgt Mess, the OC at the time saw my disappointment and gave me a good bit of advice, look on it as another management job, if you cant run a Sgts mess its time to give up. When my time was up off I went to 31 Armoured Sqn in Germany.