KEN  ROBERTS'  ARMY  SERVICE

Ken Roberts carried out his National Service in the Royal Army Service Corps, from July 1947 to August 1949.This web site describes some of his experiences at Exeter, Farnborough, Yeovil, Thetford and the Suez Canal Zone.

Please feel free to e-mail me on any Army subject, but particularly about Fayid or the Suez Canal Zone in general.

Ken Roberts  in the Army

My National Service in the Army started with a railway journey from Plymouth (North Road) to Exeter on the morning of 3 July 1947, my call-up papers having arrived in mid-April. On reaching Exeter, I somehow made my way to Topsham Barracks, the long-established home of the Devonshire Regiment. They didn't exactly have the regimental band out to bid me welcome but there was, at least, a good meal waiting. Some sixty of us, forming the month's intake, were given an eight-digit number each and were issued with Pay Book (Part One), Pay Book (Part Two), various other documents, a complete set of  mess gear,  uniforms (Best Battle Dress and denim outfit) two pairs of boots, two sets of underwear and socks. That was quite enough to be going on with but there was also a .303 Lee-Enfield rifle each, complete with stiletto-style bayonet.  The rifles were packed in grease inside wooden cases and had to be thoroughly cleaned. Some of us learned the meaning of "thoroughly" the hard way and went for a run around the barrack square carrying  the rifle aloft.

After two or three days of living the easy life, as described  above, we were required to get down to the serious business of becoming soldiers. We were divided into two platoons of thirty. As members of the General Service Corps we  were introduced to the arts of marching, drilling, saluting and everything else which could be done by numbers. One such exercise (as an example) involved marching forward ten paces and Halt (shout " 2 -  3"), Salute (shout - 2 - 3), Deliver the non-existent message to the non-existent officer  (shout 2 - 3 ), Salute (shout -2 - 3),  About turn (shout -2 -3), March off  and so on; day after day. There were blokes still shouting out " two three"  after they had been in the Army three months or more. Which at least proved that  the  basic drill movements were the same all over the country.  

  I had only managed to pass the eyesight test with 20/20 vision by a subterfuge at the medical exam;  unlike most of my colleagues I had actually wanted to get into the Army. When the man  in the white coat said "Cover your right eye with the card and read the chart" that was easy with the good left eye; When he told me to  cover the left eye,  I changed hands and read with the left eye again . This worked fine at the medical exam, but the  NCOs at the firing range were not fooled for very long. I only just managed to pass the rifle-firing test.

  Meanwhile, a Regular Army lad by the name of John (from North Devon) was enjoying himself very much; when we  had mastered the system of firing the rifle taking careful aim we were subjected to a sniping variation. A small target about six inches tall in the shape of an enemy soldier would appear somewhere in front of the sniper for five seconds only, the idea being to hit the target before it disappeared.  John - a country man (and also, we believed, a poacher) put three rounds through his target before it disappeared. The NCOs assumed that two people had mistakenly fired at the same target and ordered a repeat performance; the result was the same - John drilled another target three times in five seconds.

Cleaning the rifle after using it was quite an entertainment; two paraffin-fired field boilers produced enough boiling water for the two platoons and, amid screams of pain caused by the careless handling of the  boiling water, each and every rifle was  cleaned ready for oiling. With the oiling and wiping task completed to his satisfaction the sergeant then distributed the flannelette 4 x 2 rifle-cleaning rags;  only trouble was that he hadn't been able to obtain enough 4 x 2  for everybody to have a piece each. So we were obliged to share one piece between two people, the state of the country's economy being no better in 1947 than it is today in the 21st Century.

In another lesson we were supposed to hide and camouflage ourselves in a couple acres of woodland  and the NCOs would walk about tapping people on the helmet whilst criticising their lack of success in hiding away.  John was the one who was so well hidden that he let the NCO walk past him and then crept up from behind and put a stranglehold on him. Very sadly, after three weeks at Topsham, John was discharged from the Army because he was not able to read or write - I wrote a couple of letters home for him. Having signed on as a Regular, John was entitled to  a civilian demob suit for his four or five weeks' work. I managed to get in touch with John fifty three years later in February 2000, at which time he was self-employed in the business of hedging and fencing and had been all his life after leaving the Army

Route marches in FSMO (Full Service Marching Order) were endured twice after an introductory cross country run in physical training gear. Estimates of the length of the run varied from three miles to fifteen miles but I believe the actual distance covered was five miles (a local new entrant told me). There was one training session devoted to gas drill, in which we entered the gas chamber in groups of about six and after the regulation amount of time were ordered to take off the mask and leave immediately. Presumably this was to prove that the chamber was, in fact, full of tear gas. I would have been happy to take the corporal's word for it !

Drilling and Marching on the barrack square occupied quite a lot of our time but there was also the assault course to be brought into play. This was closer to Tiverton than to Exeter and we were spoiled out of our minds by being taken there in three-ton Bedfords, standing up, holding on to whatever we could find by way of support and being thrown about mercilessly by the permanent staff drivers of the Regiment. Enough of us survived the trip to make it worth the sergeant's while to set fire to the piles of brush and delayed action fuses of the  realistic sound effects, which were craftily designed to go off right beside the narrowest parts of the  course, complete with thick, nauseating coloured smoke.

The NCOs provided their own amusement by tripping people up, taking away the Tarzan ropes just when someone was about to grab one and generally shouting and bawling  when anybody then fell into the mud. Little did we know that the mud was less of a problem than the four feet depth of water which had to be waded through further along the course. This feature was a concrete-lined trench built into what would otherwise have been a pleasantly gentle stream. At least it was a sunny day, as luck would have it, and we all managed to get back to barracks in time to collapse on to our beds.

But not for long ! We were due to parade at 0730 the following day for some training or other, prior to which we were expected to wash, shave, eat breakfast and lay out our kit on the scrupulously tidy beds ready for inspection - either Sergeant-Major's inspection or Officer's Inspection, with the floor of the barrack room also in a fit, scrupulously clean condition ready for inspection. A diagram posted on the wall at the end of the barrack room gave precise instructions about how the kit had to be laid out. First the bedding (three blankets) had to be folded in the correct manner so as to sit neatly on top of the three "biscuits". The three biscuits were square mattresses which, laid end to end, matched the horizontal dimensions of the bed frame.

All the kit then had to be placed very accurately on the blankets. By "all the kit" I am referring to two mess tins, knife, fork, spoon, shirt (folded as if for display in Montague Burton's shop), underwear (also correctly folded), spare pair of boots very highly polished, socks, spare pair of bootlaces coiled and secured with thread and then polished with boot polish so as to look like liquorice confections, large pack, small pack, webbing belt, water bottle with the attached cork scrubbed absolutely white, anklets, spare beret (the front stiffened with cardboard inside so that the bakelite badge stood vertically one inch above the left eyebrow and the waterproof  cape folded to form a rectangle. Hanging behind the bed had to be the greatcoat, folded with the belt fastened so that the garment gave the impression of being worn by a very, very thin person; also behind the bed needed to be the rifle, very highly polished.

In theory all this had to be done between reveille and "Get on Parade", but a lot of the lads deliberately missed their breakfast so as to make enough time and it was not unknown for one or two to lay out the kit the night before and then sleep on the bare floorboards; this was acknowledged to be highly dangerous because the NCO would often stamp around at reveille and blunder about kicking anything in his path, regardless of who or what it happened to be.

The inspection itself took place in our absence, and it was not until we returned from the morning's labours that we could discover  how thoroughly the inspection had been carried out. There were several methods by which the RSM  (or officer) could indicate his displeasure at the standard of kit layout; any brass buttons or buckles not sufficiently shining would be visited by a daub of grease; any  item of webbing equipment not having been freshly coated with "blanco" prior to the inspection would have  remarks and arrows heavily chalked upon it. The inspection would then be repeated the following day, much to the chagrin of those with faultless kit who perhaps had planned a riotous night out in Exeter but would now have to prepare for another kit inspection instead. Perhaps this was one of the Army's ways  of getting people to rely upon each other and work as a team.

The end of the six-weeks course designed to teach us the basic essentials of being in the Army arrived and we prepared laboriously for the CO's inspection and passing-out parade. Music was supplied by the full Band of the Devonshire Regiment on  this noteworthy occasion and  quite a few parents, relatives and girl friends were in attendance. All the drill and marching ceremony went without a hitch and we returned to our barrack rooms ready to  move on, face the world and fight the King's enemies wherever they might be found.

Having previously been lectured and advised by people in high ranks about the opportunities available to us and having collected the appropriate rail tickets, we were supplied with "haversack rations" and deposited at one of the Exeter mainline stations. My own destination was No 3 Training Battalion, Elles Barracks,  Farnborough, Hampshire, there to be trained as a vehicle mechanic. I never met up again with any of the lads I knew at Topsham Barracks.

My arrival at Farnborough went largely unnoticed because I was looking for a military establishment something like Exeter, with guarded gates, cast iron railings, Union flag flying and  Army personnel everywhere. Instead I wandered along what seemed to be a main through road, carrying all my gear (other than rifle, bayonet, helmet and blankets) until I was suddenly accosted by what I instantly recognised as a Guardsman (he was wearing a peaked cap, for one thing) ; he wanted to know whether I belonged to Intake Platoon. My reply was that I was still looking for Elles Barracks RASC. He said "This is the barracks". Apparently a lot of the permanent staff were guardsmen , taking a break from ceremonial duties.

The accommodation was similar in style to that at Exeter - straight single-storey huts, numbered consecutively. The food was also similar, but the daily timetable for work was far more relaxed. We started our "school work" at about 0830 and were usually able to knock off at about five p.m. In many respects the  work  followed a kind of school routine, with exercise books being a necessity and the teachers being NCOs. There were separate instructors for the various subjects such as engines, gearboxes, carburettors, transmissions, brakes, clutches and so on. The subjects of vehicle electricity and ignition were only briefly taught, "electrician" being a separate trade.

We were also taught how to harden and temper a cold chisel, obtain fairly precise measurements using a surface plate, use basic machine tools such as a pillar drill and, generally, use everyday equipment like valve spring compressors and hub pullers. Very few of us had ever experienced this type of work before; one lad in particular had worked in a side street garage in Bristol but the rest of us thought he had only operated the  forecourt petrol pumps. He reinforced this opinion by coming near the bottom of the list of successful trade test candidates.

Those of us who celebrated the end of the thirteen week course by being classified as "Vehicle Mechanic Group A Class III" on 13 April 1948 and thus entitled to put a " T " (for tradesman) in front of our eight digit numbers, were then employed as labourers at places like the Ration Stores, Cookhouse, Officers' Mess and Company Office until such time as a posting became available. I clicked (if that's the right word) for the job of stoker at the Sergeants' Mess; this entailed booking a permanent early morning call for 0430, then  walking to the Mess to flash up the coal-fired boilers so that the sergeants could enjoy breakfast, hot water and heating  every day of the week including Sunday.

One enjoyable feature of the job was that I was relieved daily at 1330, leaving me with a free afternoon and a free (if a little short !) evening. The nearest cinemas and hostelries were at Farnborough but whilst we, the course members, were at Elles Barracks the Army broke new ground by opening a public house for the use of servicemen only, within the barracks; it was created from one of the accommodation huts and fitted out with all the possible characteristics of an ordinary civilian pub. It was staffed by the NAAFI and  officially christened "The Tubal Cain". As far as I was concerned its great advantage over other pubs was its proximity to my bedspace - about twenty five yards away !

After a few days into the course new friendships sprang up among lads who, until a short while ago, had been drilling and square-bashing at different locations all over the country. When we had been sorted into working groups of similar trades we were moved into two-storey accommodation buildings behind the other side of the road. These buildings were on three sides of the barrack square, the other side being a wire fence along one side of a football pitch. Having chosen a bed space next to a lad from Liverpool I soon discovered - in fact all twenty-odd occupants of the room discovered - that Scouse was either a Glen Miller fanatic or only possessed the one record. It was "Moonlight Serenade", which he played on his wind-up gramophone every single night before lights out. I don't think I ever heard what was on the other side of the record.

Shortly into the thirteen week course all of us trainee vehicle mechanics (VMs) were sent down to No 6 Training Battalion at Houndstone Camp, Yeovil to learn how to drive. Bedford three tonners were the most numerous of the vehicles used on the driving course and we all enjoyed the experience of driving around the Somerset countryside at the Army's expense. The first circuit on which to practice began and ended in camp; each trainee driver was issued with a progress card which one of the twenty-odd NCO instructors would use to record the day's learning activity - starting up, pulling away, reversing, gear changing, stopping, etc. If the following day's instructor turned out to be a different NCO, he would be able to check on yesterday's progress and move on to another segment of the learning process.

  YEOVIL COOKHOUSE  1994   YEOVIL GUARDROOM

The second, longer circuit, used by  trainees who had mastered the basics, took them out into the country around an extensive radio transmitting station; this was known as the "Somerton Circuit", which was about fifteen miles around. The rules laid down by the Company Office did not allow a trainee to drive back to camp on the busier public roads until he had passed  stage seven of the  course. Some NCOs, themselves very fond of driving, would deliberately downgrade a trainee to stage six so that they could do the drive back to camp, promising that the trainee would be upgraded again in time for the driving test.

 YEOVIL RATION STORE  1994  YEOVIL CAMP SQUARE

Before starting the day's work, it was the trainees' job to carry out the  "daily task"  on whichever vehicle they picked. It was also the trainee who had to check the oil, fuel and water, the radiators being drained every night during the winter months. Instructors had their own little gimmicks for training the would-be drivers. One NCO would get the trainee to stop  the truck facing uphill and apply the handbrake. He would then place a matchbox on the ground close behind or touching one of the rear wheels; if the trainee crushed the matchbox while pulling away he had not mastered pulling away.  Another NCO had a habit of  giving an ear-piercing whistle without any warning, this being his way of judging the trainee's ability to bring the truck to a halt quickly and safely. Yet another instructor claimed that he could not instruct comfortably without a cigarette smoking away in his lips - "Get me ten Players from that shop over there."

The driving test itself was a normal civilian test, carried out by civilian examiners and took place  in the town centre of Yeovil. The "pass rate" was said to be about eighty five per cent of those deemed by the permanent staff to be worthy of taking it. Yeovil town centre, being the busy place that it always has been, often became even more crowded by the number of Army vehicles  using the two differing test routes, but there was never any complaint from the local traders,  who did quite well out of off-duty soldiers in the evenings. It was a pleasant walk back from town to Houndstone Camp, stopping off at the "Bell Inn" about halfway along on the left hand side.

After six weeks it was time to return to Farnborough and finish off the VM course. Back to marching (at the regulation RASC speed of 120 paces per minute) to and from the workshops every day and carrying out a twelve hour guard duty about once a week; one location to be guarded was called Jersey Brow, adjacent to the Farnborough experimental aircraft workshops where jet engines for airliners were continually run on test for countless hours. There was also a two-day deployment to nearby Fleet, where a squad of us dug a huge trench to accommodate a cylindrical tank of some kind, the tank being delivered to the site on a tank transporter, appropriately enough ! I never discovered what  fluid the  tank  was intended to hold.

Thetford, an obscure place in Norfolk, boasted an Army transit camp and little else, as far as I was aware. It was used to accommodate troops destined for overseas service and the regimentation imposed upon the occupants was, using hindsight after fifty-odd years, unbelievably and unnecessarily harsh, pointless and stupid. We had passed in our rifles before leaving Exeter (mine was Serial No BE 12177) and we did all the drill movements carrying our spare pairs of boots instead; "pick up your boots" was the command. Later "Put your boots down" - dozens of times a day. Instead of leaving three neat rows of rifles on the ground to march around the drill-square to, there were three neat rows of boots every time.

Thetford transit camp was more like a prison than an Army post but fortunately we only spent six or seven nights there. The thinking in the ranks was that the staff kept people so busy that there was no spare energy available to trouble-makers, who might, among other things, make a run for it rather than get on a troopship to Palestine. There were rumours doing the rounds that there had been several suicides and self-inflicted wounds in the recent past at Thetford. We never actually saw Thetford itself because we arrived there in hours of darkness and left again in darkness; in between times no one was allowed out of camp. Not until 2002 did I discover from the TV that a lot of the outdoor episodes of "Dad's Army" were filmed around Thetford. Quite a nice locality by the looks of it  !

The journey to Liverpool docks has disappeared from my memory completely, so it was probably uneventful, apart from the usual discussions about which station shall we throw the haversack rations out at and why is the train going at walking pace all the time.

Arriving alongside H.M.T. "Georgic" was quite a relief; the grey-painted vessel looked huge, especially to those who had never had anything to do with ships. Some, in fact, had never seen anything larger than a ferry before. Having been employed in Devonport Dockyard for two or three years I was well prepared for finding my way around the decks and stairways of the Georgic and looked forward to the cruise. By now we knew we were bound for the Middle East and some feared the worst - a Palestine posting.

Arriving at Gibraltar in broad daylight, we anchored offshore and took in the scenery. Africa was visible across the Strait and there was plenty of traffic passing between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, so the photographers among us were kept quite busy, some with more success than others. My own equipment consisted of a Kodak Model C box camera, taking 620 size film and producing prints 3.5" x 2.5". Unbeknown to the occupants of Mess Deck Dog Seven, that portion of the ship's accommodation allocated to the Farnborough contingent among others,  unprogrammed action was taking place on the main deck.

One member of an infantry regiment took it into his head to dive overboard and strike out for the shore; whether he headed for Gibraltar or North Africa we never did find out but by the time one of the ship's boats had been launched into the water he had covered half a mile. The first we heard of it was when a pair of NCOs  of the MPSC (Military Prison Staff Corps) came to the  mess and asked "Where does so-and-so sleep ?" (mentioning his surname). They collected his personal kit and bedding and departed. We later discovered that he was now occupying a billet in the ship's clink  and was destined to do so until he rejoined his regiment at its destination.

Life aboard the Georgic was most enjoyable, with very few duties to perform, plenty of card games and two daily sessions of  tombola on the main deck. There was not a lot to see until another ship passed or when Georgic was nearing a port of call. We would hear over the loudspeaker system "Hands to stations for entering harbour !" in plenty of time to get up on deck and watch the manoeuvre, taking in the scenery at the same time. At the main ports of call, Georgic would be surrounded by "bumboats" - local traders trying to make a fortune at the expense of  travellers like myself on five bob a day !

During the latter part of our voyage - the leg between Tobruk and Haifa - an announcement came over the loudspeaker system to the effect that the group of vessels approaching Georgic on the port bow comprised one Admiralty Floating Dock on its way to Malta, being towed by two or three tugs. It was certainly a very slow-moving group and it was not until the year 2000 that I came across any details of their voyage. Some magazines published in the late forties came my way and the front cover of one of them featured a picture of A.F.D. 35 being shepherded north along the Suez Canal. It had been built in India for the Pacific war but, two years after the end of hostilities, was taken to Malta and eventually scrapped without seeing service.

At Haifa there was a lot of discussion as to whether we would be disembarking, this being the time approaching independence for the newly-formed state of Israel. The Palestine Police were currently looking after the interests of British personnel and their families but there was a substantial military presence still, whose stores and equipment had to be removed to the Canal Zone to the south. Apart from two or three sunken cargo ships in the harbour there was no sign of any belligerence at Haifa, and it would be several weeks before any of us returned to Palestine. Even then it was only for a few days while we took back to Egypt anything which was useful and conveniently removable.

"Georgic", having arrived at Port Said, was manoeuvred into position for the voyage south through the Suez Canal. Taking station as part of a single-file convoy, she was gradually closed up behind a liner flying the Dutch flag. As the distance between the two vessels decreased, it became obvious that the Dutch liner was carrying civilians; even closer it was possible to notice that quite a few of the passengers were female,  bent on obtaining a first class suntan. It was evidently going to be a pleasant few hours sailing down to the Great Bitter Lake, at which point the convoy would come to a halt and allow a northbound convoy to pass through to Port Said and the Mediterranean.

The name of the liner was "Willem Ruys"; her hull was painted light blue and the upperworks white; I think she had a single buff-coloured funnel. This was her maiden voyage. Many years later - in October 1985, after having changed hands several times and re-named as the Italian "Achille Lauro" - she was to become high-jacked by terrorists in the Mediterranean and was front page news for quite a while. Less newsworthy was her subsequent grounding on the coast of Madagascar in the 1990s, an accident from which she would never recover.

Ken Roberts' Army Service part 2 here.