Distant Memories of  a Grapple Guy

From: 23262626 Sapper John Mann, Transport Troop, 71 Field Squadron RE,
28 Field Engineering Regt.

    I was a National Service chap, got called up (after getting deferred for several years) in November 1955, spent 2 weeks training at Malvern and another 4 at Worcester. As I was a Quantity Surveyor they then sent me to Brompton Barracks, Chatham to go on a Quantity Surveying Course but after a week or so there  they discovered that they had too many Quantity Surveyors  (typical army organising!) and not enough jobs to go round.

    After doing several weeks of guard duty in January `56, square bashing, numerous odd jobs including internal decorating in some of the large buildings they decided to send me and a few others to some god forsaken place called Erlestoke, nr Devizes, Wiltshire – heaven knows why!

    After a week or so and as I had a driving license I was put into Transport Troop. Every morning we used to have an informal parade at 8.00 am outside the MT offices and one morning it was announced that the CO’s driver, who was a regular, was getting demobbed. The MT Officer (can’t remember his name) looked along the motley crew on parade and said “Sapper Mann, as you look the most reasonably dressed soldier out of  you untidy mixed bag you can be the CO’s driver from now on”!

    I was a bit apprehensive at first but thought this must be a good number so let’s go for it and make the most of it. And so it was that I was driving Colonel Woollet all over Salisbury Plain and elsewhere during March, April and May 1956. It wasn’t until sometime in April, I think, that I realised why I was driving him to Army Headquarters at Wilton, nr Salisbury so much when it was announced that the whole Regiment was being sent out to Christmas Island – where the hell’s that we were all murmuring!

    Well, like Cpl Tom Pierce – who is on this website - one day in May `56 we were herded into trains to go to Southampton to board the Charlton Star. I remember that we were supposed to board the ship the same day.

    But before boarding it the ship had to be inspected by a team of health officers, well, they turned it down flat and refused to allow the troops on board. The ship was full of bed bugs amongst other things! All the mattresses and other bedding were taken from the ship and the whole ship had to be thoroughly fumigated. Obviously this took quite a time and we couldn’t board the ship that day. So we were marched off to some transit camp where we slept rather rough that night and boarded the ship the next day. I remember as we were boarding the ship that they were loading all new mattresses all wrapped in polythene. (Funny how one remembers these silly things!)

As Tom Pierce (above) says, we then sailed to Christmas Island via the Azores, Panama Canal and Hawaii.

    We were allowed to disembark at these places and I can remember a peculiar smell at Azores harbour. It was full of boats loading or unloading bananas and lots of little kids offering to take us to various “ladies of the night”! The trip through the Panama Canal was very interesting with some interesting scenery, fortunately I bought a camera before we left and I was able to take some photos through the Panama.

    When we arrived at Christmas Island it was very hot – about 95 to 100^o  I believe, so it was with great difficulty when we landed for fighting the crabs on the beaches! Fortunately the advance party had erected tents for us so we were billeted to our respective tents straight away at Main Camp.

    I hope I won’t bore you readers with the following brief resume` of my time on the Island but it might jog the memories of what others did as well:-

    The first week or so many of us were working down at Port Camp busy cutting up large cargo boxes to make and erect formwork to make concrete bases for generators and other plant equipment.

    Then my first vehicle arrived, it was an old American Jeep which had been shipped from Singapore, it had no clutch so you just had to double declutch and change gear at the right revs! I spent quite a number of weeks driving various officers around the Island doing reconnaissance (I can’t spell the short version!). One particular Officer, whose name I unfortunately can’t remember, I got on very well with and he loved to drive the jeep sometimes so that he could have a go with the no clutch business!

    Eventually we had a batch of new Land Rovers arrive and I was one of the chosen few to have one, I had never driven a brand new vehicle before so I was on cloud 9! Again I continued to drive various Officers around exploring the Island for some time. On Sundays I would drive a bunch of mates down to Port camp for a swim in the Lagoon. I remember on Sunday evenings giving some chap from the Stores driving lessons. He would repay me with loads of brand new grey socks, which were great for several years after demob for wearing in Wellingtons and walking boots etc.!

    After a period of time I had to give up my Land Rover (I can’t remember why) and was engaged in driving 3 ton tippers instead. We used to drive these from the mud lagoons where they quarried stone and then we would drive our loads up to the stone crusher. It was up to us to find the best routes from the lagoons to the stone crusher through the coconut plantations and I remember having many races to get to the crusher first with a chap named Mick Martin who was billeted in our tent!

    Another job I got given was working on one of the Star Mixers (I can’t remember if it was before or after the tipper job!). There were three Star Mixers which churned out macadam for the  airfield runway. There  were about 5 or 6 crew on each and I was given a less exhausting job of standing on the top platform and making sure the machine was continually firing at the right temperature and that the flame did not go out! I always felt sorry for the guy at the ground level who had to keep shovelling cement in to the base of the mixer. No mask would you believe, just a wet handkerchief or rag! However, he was given a regular ration of condensed milk to help. We worked around the clock on these Star Mixers in shifts and there was a competition each week to see which crew could produce the greatest tonnage whereupon they were given a large crate of beer. You see, some officers do have a heart! Our crew did win a few crates I remember.

    My next job was  involved in erecting the jet fuel tanks at the Tank Farm – there are some photos of these in the picture gallery. They were metal plated tanks – I can’t remember the size- but they were something like 30ft diameter and 45ft high. They were bolted along the seams with torque spanners inside and out and also sealed with mastic. When we worked inside the heat was terrific, something like 145^o F, it was so hot that we worked naked except for boots and socks otherwise the heat of the metal plates would have burnt the skin off your feet. We only had to stand inside for a few minutes working and then there was a pool of water on the floor – the sweat from our bodies!

    After the tank farm I went back to driving various vehicles including 10 tonners and a Scammel on one occasion – my, that was an experience!

    I have thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas Island Reunions at Sand Bay Holiday Village, Nr Weston-Super-Mare since 1997 when they started there. It is through chatting to the guys there that I realised how fortunate we were to leave in August `57 regarding the Bomb Tests. Whilst we were there the only bombs tested were dropped on Malden Island (about 500 miles south of Christmas Island) whereas after August `57 further bombs were tested very close to Christmas Island and I believe one actually on the North East corner of the Island!

    Many of us left the Island in August `57 on the ship Captain Cook. We were very annoyed at the time because Colonel Woollet had been striving to get from the War Office an overseas allowance for us, all the fourteen months or so that we were on the island, with no success. The next contingent that were coming in to replace us, we were told, were going to get overseas allowance and yet we had done all the bloody hard work, their life would have been a doddle compared with ours!!

    We arrived and docked in Liverpool on 27^th September 1957 (I remember it well because it was the day after my Birthday – you would have thought they would have got me home in time wouldn’t you?). I then went home on disembarkation leave and was demobbed late November, I couldn’t even get all my leave entitlement in before I was demobbed!

    There are plenty of friends out there in the big wide world that I would still like to get in touch with, particularly Mick Martin, Steve Dancy and Brummy Price with whom I shared a tent.

Cheerio for now – John Mann              johnfa.mann@ukgateway.net