An Army Driver in the Far East and Egypt

This memoir comes from a longer written account by Harold Stephenson of North Cave, grandfather of Stephen and Andrew Marwood.

Available from his page...
Call-Up and Training Embarkation - Scotland to Durban	Durban to Suez Serving in Egypt

Call-Up and Training

My farm work at Mr. Brumfield's [farm] had been pleasant and easy, but farm wages were very low and I decided to find better paid work. I was lucky and found a job at South Cave Sandpit but my wages never came higher than ten pence per hour.

The Metropolitan Police in London were advertising for recruits to work in London, with a good wage and a pension after twenty years.

I passed the written exams at Brough police station and was invited to go to London with a free rail ticket and I passed three exams ok but I failed on the medical. My gums had a disease, and I was told I could come back and join after I had my false teeth put in. I stayed in the barracks for the rest of the week. I got my teeth out and false ones made, and on the 7th January 1940 I was called into the army. This was quite a surprise. All the staff at Capper Pass smelting works were exempt from military service but this did not apply to workers of sub contractors. I only got about seven days' notice and I had to pack up and sort myself out. I was sent a free rail ticket to Bulford Camp not far from Stonehenge.

A lorry collected about twenty of us from the railway station and then I discovered that quite a few of us were from the Hull area. About thirty of us were billeted in a long wooden building with beds on each side. There was no choice about who slept where. Only the corporal had a room to himself and he was there to guide and keep noise down, discipline us and show us how things were run. First job the next morning was breakfast at 6.00 a.m. and then outside quickly, and lined up where all our personal statistics were taken down. Then it was the fitting rooms where all sorts of clothes were slung at us and the sergeant in charge guessed what sizes we needed and his guessing was not very accurate. However boots had to be fitted on straight away and all our private clothes and belongings were packed away and stored until we got leave to go home. It was all go, go, go - run here, run there. Meal times were about twenty minutes and then the next lot moved in. We marched round and round the square, until we could keep in step and in line. Clothes were exchanged if they did not fit and there was not much choice.

It soon came to firearms. We had a lecture about how to look after them and use them. We all went with our new rifles and five rounds of ammunition to a firing range. There were about ten targets all with large numbers beside them and flags to warn us not to shoot if someone was working behind the targets. At first it was mainly misses that were recorded and we each got a list to tell us how we had done. I did very well because I had been shooting pigeons and rabbits etc. But most of the others had never seen a gun before. There was a lot of discussion about who had done what, and I had the most hits. Next day we went again. It was the same procedure, go to the front fire all your ammunition and then the hits were counted and listed. We got some very different results this time, the two lads one on each side of me fired at my target and at the count up there was chaos. This meant a long fast march on the following day. No stopping, run and walk, if you broke ranks there was more discipline. That night we were all footsore, with blisters etc, and any one with boots that did not fit them well was nearly crippled.

We soon accepted the discipline and moved on to becoming drivers. Again I had been driving so I was passed out right away and I only went for the ride. I suppose by now we were classed as real soldiers. We were introduced to all kinds of weapons and explosives. We never used any, but we had to dismantle some of the larger anti-aircraft guns and then put them together again. We still had to march round the barrack squares and we had to be dressed correctly, with nothing dirty or out of order.

This led us up to a passing-out parade with all the top officers judging the results. Our platoon did quite well and got a few complimentary words of praise. We then moved to Broadway in Worcester[shire] where we were billeted in a series of hotels and we all met to go into the country to drive tanks and light armoured vehicles. We could also get proper baths with hot water, but this did not last long.

Embarkation - Scotland to Durban

We were informed we were going to Scotland and two long trains set off from the local station and travelled overnight to a place just outside Glasgow. There was a very big ship anchored in the bay and we were all transferred by small loads and got on to the Queen Mary (the largest luxury liner in the world). Unfortunately we were not the first troops to travel on the ship. The Australian soldiers had been brought over in it and it was surprising how many souvenirs had been collected.

We were all put into the cabins and we were very crowded. A cabin for four persons had six soldiers crowded in with their entire luggage. The crew served the first meal, but then we were all given jobs to do. The first night I was on guard duty in the kitchen and after that I had to keep two bathrooms clean. I never knew how many of us were on the ship, but it was crowded to overflowing, we had to line up and take a run round the deck in parties. Four times round was one mile. There were medical exams and injections. It was a hive of activity.

We set sail and went north, round Ireland into the Atlantic Ocean where we joined two more large troop ships. We had no escort at all and we were told these three ships could outrun any German Naval boats. We saw no other ships and at night we all crowded into a large public room and played "Housey, Housey" as it was called, later it changed to Bingo. There was also boxing matches and plays organised by various officers. It was funny but the main attraction was the T.S. girls with their concert parties. They were never let loose on their own and they were on a lower deck. The best swimming pool was reserved for them and the officers. The other pool was never filled with water. Often there were spasmodic alarms, which went off where everybody had to be at his or her specified safety or lifeboat deck.

It was nice to see some land after about a week and it was West Africa, Sierra Leone. There was a very large dirty river, which ran into the sea. The harbour was only small and it could take the two other boats ashore to refuel and restock and give the troops a bit of exercising on the land, but the Queen Mary was too big and we had to refuel and renew our stock from small boats, which transferred everything out to us. I believe that ours was the best system. All manner of the local people came out either in canoes or just swimming and diving, we were engrossed. If we threw a coin over overboard they would go under water for a long time, but they always picked it up. They soon knew they were entertaining us and a few tried to get on board, and then they kept away from the ship until we left.

The weather was now getting very hot with little or no wind and not a cloud in the sky.

The crew put on a show when we crossed the equator and the second swimming pool was opened for a day and night and all officers etc got dumped in it as naval ritual. We continued south until we reached Cape Town. It was a fantastic sight with the Table Mountain and a nice white cloud on top of it. But of course our ship was too big to enter the harbour, so they promptly moved out to the naval base at Simonstown.

This turned out much better, because we went on the train to Cape Town and saw how the locals lived as well as how the white population lived. It saddened me when I first saw all the poverty and the young skinny kids trying to cadge a piece of bread crust or any thing at all. After a couple of days our boats left Simonstown and out into the open sea, our ship sailed to Durban in East Africa and the other two crossed the Indian Ocean to Trincomalee in Ceylon.

Durban to Suez

We went on to Durban, had one night ashore, disembarked some Scottish Highland troops, and then followed the other two boats to Ceylon. This was the first time we had any rough weather. There had been a large swell as we went round Northern Ireland but here it was very turbulent, everything was fastened down and the wind and rain howled like a Banshee. No food was served at midday as plates etc cascaded off and on to the floor. At the evening meat we queued up and collected a food parcel and took it into our cabins to eat. It meant on early night with no Housey, Housey. But it calmed down the next day with nothing happening until Trincomalee. The harbour was quite large and nothing much but army barracks. Our small group disembarked and slept in the barracks that night and the ships started off during the night to the Far East. We waited around until nightfall and then we were put aboard a small ship, which had been carrying oranges in the holds.

Hammocks were distributed and after some practice we found out how to hang them and where. It did not matter where one went on the boat; it smelled of oranges. We did not get very far because at daylight the ship anchored in a small bay and did not move until it was dark. We were not allowed on shore, but the green fields and mountains looked very nice after all the water.

We moved very slowly but we arrived at Colombo, the capital of Ceylon where we disembarked and went into temporary barracks. It was a pleasure for all of us; we were free to roam about at will. No parades, no kit inspection, just cat and sleep and please ourselves. We stayed there for about a week. We wandered around and found there was some horse racing in the town so quite a few of us went there. It was only a small course with lots of amateur rides but we had not much money. The island looked lovely with lots of growth on it. It had been cultivated but a lot of it now looked neglected; there was not much traffic in the harbour. It was like a holiday for us but after a week we were told to pack our kit as we were sailing after dark. A dirty little, old boat moved into the harbour and we were hustled aboard and found that the previous passengers had not been house trained. The whole boat smelled of sheep. We were again supplied with hammocks. We hung them where we could, but the higher up you got, the greater the smell. We were not allowed on deck during darkness as a cigarette light may have attracted submarines. The boat rocked and swayed and almost every one was sick. I was not too bad lying in my hammock but as soon as my feet touched the deck I had to run to the toilets, which was also filthy.

At daylight we were allowed out on deck, and some were trying to clean the place up a bit. Then the ship's engines stopped and we were stationary with the boat just wallowing around. The crew were trying to repair it but with out much success. 'Lookouts' were posted all around the ship in case a submarine [crew] saw us and moved in. It all finished when some of our engineers went and helped to get the engine going again. It meant another night inside with the hammocks, and next morning we were told we should be disembarked at Bombay.

The view as we approached Bombay was magnificent: a nice clean river with lots of traffic on it, and it looked like a hive of industry. As we approached the harbour they looked rougher and poorer. We disembarked and marched with our full kit through the centre of Bombay, and a little way out of the centre we were put into tents. It seemed very nice, but we knew little of the rainy season. Although it did not pour down it drizzled incessantly. It was quite warm, and yet everywhere we went we had to take our raincoats etc.

We stayed here for two weeks and as there was no official work we got lots of time off and we went in small parties, 2,3 or 4 in to the town centre. There were children everywhere asking for "Baksheesh", following us round, but as privates in the Army we had no money to spare. We were only paid ten shillings per week and in a strange country it did not last long. Some of the children were well behaved and took No for an answer, but lots were very belligerent and kept following us and, I presume, swearing at us also.

There were a lot of fine buildings in the centre but we had no books and did know which were which. The only time I really spoke to an intelligent Indian was in a bank. He was only a bank clerk but he came and sat down and we talked, about India and the poverty and the rich people and the really rich people. He had a good job and he was getting less wages than I was. He had a wife and two children to keep and was living in a hovel. He offered to take me to see it but it did not seem safe to go into the poor area. He made me appreciate the ten shillings I was getting and all my clothes and food provided. The damp atmosphere was appreciated, and I was pleased when we moved on again. Our next ship was a proper troop carrier, quite modern. After we boarded it, it set off at full speed. We called at Aden, but did not disembark and then went to Port Tewfik. It was really part of Suez docks.

Serving in Egypt

We disembarked, and boarded a modern train, and went along the Suez Canal to Ishmalia, where we crossed the canal and continued through the Gaza desert to Sarafan barracks between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. The first free day we had we went to Tel-Aviv. The sea was warm and every thing looked fine. We planned to go to Jerusalem next but before we got the chance, about forty of us were put on a bus with all our equipment and we went to Baghdad.

The roads were quite good as we started and the scenery improved as we went towards Haifa. There were some very green and cultivated areas and these got better as we entered Lebanon, but there was no stopping. The bus just went on and on with the drivers changing over and the officers keeping us heading in the right direction. Later we came to a very desolate area, which went on for miles with sand and rocks and nothing of interest to see. As we approached Baghdad we could see the rivers and vegetation in the distance but we diverted to Habbaniya airport and the RAF. We did not get a chance to go sight seeing as the RAF had collected some lorries from Basrah in the Persian Gulf and we were not allowed to leave the camp except in civilian clothes, which we had not yet got.

It was a case of preparing the lorries for our trip back to Palestine. There was a variety of vehicles but every one was run on diesel oil and many of our soldiers knew nothing about Diesel engines. I was lucky, I had driven a diesel tractor in England and knew the principle of keeping all filters clean and the injectors were not to be tampered with because of the fuel that was sprayed into the cylinders and as the piston came up the pressure ignited it. A completely different system to petrol vehicles.

We were divided up into small teams of about eight drivers and a corporal and four lorries to each team. There were two types of heavy goods vehicles. One was the British Foden, which had two driving axles at the rear end and two steering axles at the front end. These vehicles were ideal for heavy loads on good roads or solid rock roads but once they went on sand the rear wheels just dug holes and they stuck fast. These were the ones, which we were given and drove for the rest of our driving days in Palestine, Egypt and Greece.

The other types were American built and although they were bigger, they could not carry as much weight because they only had two axles. But the wheels were bigger and they did not sink into soft sand as easily. We were lucky and got the British ones and we found them more reliable and easier to maintain. The time soon passed and we started preparing to leave. Two drivers to each truck, and the officers and spare men were travelling in the coach. They led the way. We started very slowly, as a lot of the drivers were not used to such big vehicles. At night time we stopped and cooked some food and as all the lorries were carrying water we could wash as well.

One night as we stopped I could see a small brick built shed. In the distance and after eating and washing, myself and another decided to walk across to it, so we picked up our riffles and ammunition and set off. We approached it very carefully, and as we got nearer the door opened and out stepped a Londoner with his rifle.

He invited us inside and he was well stocked up with food etc and he showed us what he was doing out there alone. He was looking after an oil pumping station. Only a very small set up but he was out there on monthly spells, mostly on his own. He was pleased to see us, but he would not part with any of his beer, which he said was his lifeline.

We continued our journey to Sarafan barracks with out any real excitement and when we arrived back we were told to put our lorries into a workshop where they overhauled them and fitted a new set of tyres. The four lorries that we set out with and the same lance Corporal and drivers were then given written orders to deliver them to some barracks in Cairo. The lance Corporal was made into full Corporal and we were issued with quite a lot of ammunition for our riffles and off we went. There was nothing really exciting except when a group of Bedouin Arabs wanted to join us but the Corporal could not make them understand and he fired one round off and they then left without saying "Goodbye". We crossed the Suez Canal at Ishmalia and very close to great Bitter Lakes. We were also surprised to see that running parallel with the Canal was a railway and the Sweet Water Canal. We continued across to Cairo and the Barracks to which we were to deliver the lorries and there we handed them over to the officer in charge who told us where to park them and where we could get some food and sleep. We thought this was a very good place, we just sauntered around and went inside to eat as and when we chose. The barracks were a long way from the town centre, very near to where the airport is today but we still had some money so we took a tram into the centre but the army men could travel for nothing. No one ever questioned us, so we just went all over sightseeing.

Our lorries were still parked where we had left them and no body seemed interested in them until one morning one of them had been started up and left running all night. We stopped it and assumed that it was some mischievous soldier who did not know how to stop it. Although it had a key to open doors etc, to stop the engine one had to release a compression lever and that closed off the ignition. This happened once or twice and we always stopped it. By now we were running short of money and in desperation we went to the pay Masters office and he gave us a long talking to saying we should have been back in Palestine a fortnight ago. Our Corporal took our side and told him we had no orders to go back, we had no tickets and we had no money and if we had, we should not spend it on the train fare back.

We got paid all our back pay but we had to start work. First we had to show the sergeants and others how a Diesel engine worked and then we got a job every evening, as trains came back from the front line bringing men on leave, injured or ill.

There was a very mixed bag of people and we had to wait until the train came in and then we put notices on our lorries i.e. Air force men. Sailors on leave, Infantrymen, Foreigners working for the British and we had to take them to various barracks in the Cairo district. Some men had practically nothing to wear and some [came] with lots of loot, which they were hoping to sell, and a lot of rough clothes were left in lorries so the owner could get new ones from the store. We also got another job, civilian Egyptians were building a new barracks out near the pyramids just outside Cairo at Gaza. These barracks were being built for the Ghurkhas who moved in before they were completed.

Our lorries could hold fifty workers, and they would have an Egyptian in charge of the works. He would count them on and count them off and always had a stick with him and any one that stepped out of line or was slow or lazy got a taste of it.

The lorries that took them out had to wait. They also had to bring them back. Sometimes it was six to eight hours, we wandered around and round the Pyramids and climbed a short way up or found a cool place to rest. We always had to get back to meet the train in. It was here that we found how useless these vehicles were on soft sand, but if we got stuck the passengers would jump out and push or dig to get going again.

One weekend we were told to clear and polish our lorries as there were three very important people coming to meet us and to see the lorries working. For a whole day we cleared and polished and then we took them to the Aerodrome, lined them up and waited. Eventually a plane came in and three smartly dressed men got off, one in uniform, and they inspected everything, admired the looks of them and asked about how good we thought they were and went away quite happy. We were then told it was Montgomery, who was to be in charge of all Middle East Forces and the other two were diplomats or government officers who had been to Greece to negotiate with the Balkan Countries.

Our job working with Egyptian workers was generally slowing down and we were moving ammunition from trains into some caves just outside Cairo. There were also a few of the new articulated lorries being used. They were quite small compared to ours but they were the first articulated trucks we had seen. They were new Bedfords with trailers attached.

There was a bit of a problem when these vehicles arrived the drivers who were quite young and inexperienced could not reverse them very well and it was a long way back into the caves. I had driven tractors and trailers in England and another of our drivers also had experience of artics, and we were both delegated to stay at the caves and give any assistance, which we could.

It was a doddle of a job waiting for someone to come and we could sit in the shade and keep a low profile. Our other vehicles were still meeting the night train in. So we were all enjoying our selves visiting in Cairo and getting onto the tram system. The trams were always crowded with people hanging from the doors and anywhere else they could, we always got a seat. A bit of shouting in English and our uniform worked wonders, but this war never stood still.

Our corporal got instructions to take our four lorries to Suez and our job was to move heavy guns and machinery to Port Said. We used to load up in the afternoon and set off alongside the canal and the railway. (All of which ran parallel). We always stopped at Ishmalia in the early evening and then continued to Port Said where we stayed overnight and returned first thing in the morning.

Once again we were short of money. The officers at Suez said that they got the exact wages sent from Cairo and they could not pay us. We really did not need much money. We could go into any of the mess rooms and get food and some drink. This improved when a new company of soldiers arrived and started building a new barrack between Suez and Ishmalia. We called there regularly and also got food from the Suez camp. Again our job dried up the ships were not coming in as often and rumours said that the ships were being diverted to the far East. We then got orders to go to Alexandria and join our own company, which were moving from Sarafan barracks in Israel. We took a nice slow drive to Cairo, stopped a couple of nights and cleaned our lorries, met some of our former friends and then went along to Alexandria. We had not seen it before but it sounded all right.

As we approached the outskirts of the town we stopped and were directed to our own company, which were parked in a large flat sandy valley. Our company now had more Palestinian in it then British and there was hardly any one we knew. The officers were the same and some of the N.C.Os, but as we talked to the officers. We were told that a lot of them men had volunteered for various other companies such as the long range desert patrol and were working behind the enemy lines. The main Italian army was only on the Mediterranean coast and perhaps fifty miles inland but some of our chaps were over a thousand miles into the centre of the Sahara desert, down as far as Chad or Niger. They lived by raiding enemy stores or stealing their lorries. Some of them died or were killed out there and one chap I knew quite well because he came from Hull towed some vehicles over a thousand miles, a few got mentioned in despatches. Some of the others had been sent to the Far East to the Japanese war. These had all been replaced by the Palestine troops and quite a few jeeps and small lorries had been changed for our heavy vehicles. After all our expectation to be going back home, we were disappointed, and it took us four long years.