A Historical Perspective: War Games at Tow Law

I've posted before about my grandfather Les Parkinson's experiences serving in the British Army of the 1930s, and looking through my text files I've come across another extract that hasn't yet made its way to this weblog. In his descriptions of coal-fired mobile kitchens and the mechanized army still being a thing of the future, it really underscores to me just what the situation was like in the years immediately prior to the Second World War, and how much of a whirlwind of change that decade saw. The events described below took place in 1935 or 1936, after the deployment of the Cheshire Regiment to Malta that the last post covered; ten years later, the world would be practically reshaped.

Still, despite the coal and horses and so on, I'm certain that the majority of my grandfather's experiences will be deeply familiar to anyone who's ever spent time in the army, no matter what century or decade.

*****

After the short leave and on our return to barracks, we learnt that we were going to go on "manoeuvres." This was to play at being soldiers in a war atmosphere. Remembering what we did in Malta, we thought it would be a piece of cake. That was where we were wrong. In fact, it was brought home to us when we had to do a lot of exercises to get us fit and in fighting order. This toughening-up consisted of lots of route marches and physical training. All this gave us some idea that what lay ahead was not going to be a picnic. We learnt that we would be near a town called Tow Law. This was a small town in County Durham, out in the wilds and in a mining area, and the exercises would last about three weeks.

Prior to setting out, we had to be sure that all our equipment was in good order. This applied especially to our groundsheet. This was a cape-like item made of a rubberized material that acted as a cape and could also be used as a bivouac or small tent. By lacing two together, one could make a small tent and this we were taught to do, but we just laughed and thought they can't do this to us, it's not human. How wrong we were.

At this time the regiment still used horses, for the army was not yet mechanized. The only people with motor transport were the RASC, known as the Royal Army Service Corps. They provided all the motor transport that was required. We had horses for the main officers to ride. They were the CO, the second in command, the adjutant and the five company commanders. Even they could not ride all the time, they had to march like the rest of us, and when they did the grooms had to lead the horses. The other transport, such as the supply wagon and field kitchen, were pulled by draft horses that were hired by the army for the occasion.

As we were going to a "war," we did not have to be bandsmen so we did not have our instruments. Instead, the music we had to march to was provided by the drum and fife band that the army maintained, just as the Scottish regiments used their pipe bands. As the bandsmen were the official stretcher bearers, they were all assigned to various companies to perform first aid duties, and those who were not first aiders were assigned as riflemen to various companies. I went to "B" company, just my luck, for they were the duty company and did not know just what this meant, but I soon found out.

At the appointed hour we formed up on the square, ready to set off to go to the "war" games. To make sure we had our food we had field kitchens. Now these were ovens on wheels pulled by four horses with a rider on one of the front horses and two cooks marching behind each kitchen. The kitchens were fired by a coal fire, as each had its own supply of coal. The cooks wore blue overalls and marched behind their kitchens, as they had to keep the fires going all the time to make sure that the midday meal was ready on time.

Anyway, we set off on the way to Tow Law. On the line of march we marched for fifty minutes of each hour and rested for ten minutes, covering a distance of two and a half miles each hour. During this fifty minutes and after the first one, we were allowed to smoke. This was called "marching at ease."

After about four hours we had to learn what being "duty company" meant. We had come to a steep hill. The men marched up and then the duty company took off their equipment and marched down the hill only to be passed by the horses being led up the hill. The kitchens were still at the bottom of the hill. It then dawned on us that we were to be the horses. We were the "drag rope" party. Drag ropes were attached to the field kitchens and we humans became horses and pulled the carts up the hill to save tiring the horses. The cooks were still with their kitchens but looked like negroes, for their faces were black from the smoke from the fumes and the handling of the coal. When we got up the hill we got dressed and set off on the march again and the horses did their work again.

At work at the British Army's field kitchens outside Ypres, 1917.

We were told that we would have a couple of hours' rest at lunch time. Eventually we went into a field through which ran a stream. We were ordered to bare our feet and soak them in the stream, during which time an RAMC orderly would inspect our feet and treat any blisters that we had. There were some, but I had none as I was taught to look after my feet.

Then came dinner. Part of our equipment was a mess tin, as it was called. It was a thing that served as a plate and drinking vessel. When the bugle sounded "cookhouse," we lined up for the food. I was hungrier than I had ever been and this was my first meal out of a field kitchen, one that I would never forget. BULLY STEW! Corned beef, probably left over from World War I, and everything else that you could think of. Wow, the taste was queer, to say the least. Smoked, yes, and the cooks themselves, though they started out wearing clean blue boiler suits and clean faces, by the time they had marched for four hours behind the kitchen and keeping the fires going, their clothes were just as black as their faces. In fact, they looked like gollywogs.

Anyway, after they had served the food they were able to wash themselves in the river. While we were resting after that "gourmet" meal, I was surprised to see an ambulance pull into the field. This, we learnt, followed behind us and picked up the waifs and strays, all those that could march no further. To our surprise, it was empty. After a while we set off again on the line of march. We did learn that we were going to "camp" out for the night so we had to erect bivouacs, and after eating our evening meal - that is what they called it - it went dark and as we did not have any lights we all "crashed," that is, crawled into our shelters and went to sleep.

At about two in the morning, we were rudely woken up by the bugler sounding the alarm, so we broke camp and set off on a forced march. This, we soon learnt, was to march quicker and for two hours at a time without the usual ten minutes' rest each hour. Just as dawn started breaking we learnt that an enemy force had tried to, or was on its way to, attack our stopover place and that was why we had to break camp and set off on a forced march.

Fortunately for us and unfortunately for some poor farmer, we stopped alongside a field in which a crop of turnips was growing. Well, it was food and we were hungry, so we helped ourselves. I reckon that the farmer was a little mad when he saw what the army had done to his crop of turnips. Almost everybody had one, and I can assure you they tasted good and filled a large hole. Later we stopped at a little village called Sunnyside. Little was an apt description, for it consisted of two rows of houses and a coal mine. We had breakfast of sausages and bacon and two hunks of bread. Boy, it was good. We also had a good audience for all of the villagers must have been there watching us. For most of them, it was the first time they had seen soldiers since the war ended. Little did we know that this audience participation would be with us until the "war" was over.

After breakfast, we set off again to go to where we would stay in proper tents. What a luxury that was to be. We finally got to our camp site around tea time. This time we had a light in each tent. Although it was a hurricane lamp powered by paraffin, it was a light, but we did not have time to bother with lights for we were too tired to do anything but sleep, sleep, and more sleep. I slept so heavy that the next thing I remember was hearing that stupid bugler sounding reveille.

Having the army on their doorstep was something new and exciting for the locals, so much so that they followed us around. Wherever we went, they were sure to be. In the mock battles there were always the "good" and the "bad." The latter was known as the skeleton army. Ten men would represent a hundred and always wore blue arm bands for they were the blue army, while the other side was the white army and in the middle were the umpires who were mounted on horses and wore red. Their word was final. They watched closely what went on and declared the winners and losers, and gave you signs that said you were out of action. I was always in the blue army and would have to leave camp first to take up our positions to repel the invaders. The riflemen fired blank cartridges and the machine gun was represented by a wooden arrow on a stand, and the gunner had a rattle to imitate the firing of the gun.

On one of the stunts we were on, the first one had the attention of all the villagers. The plan was that we were defending a valley. We were posted atop the hill with our machine guns pointing down the slope. Through the trees, it was the perfect ambush site. Unknown to us, the locals had followed the white army and had guessed what was to happen, and had got in a position behind us and could be seen by the whites. They sent half their force behind our lines whilst the other half kept us busy, and we were all "killed" thanks to the locals.

These "wars" took place at varying times of the day. The funniest, though, was one near the end of the two weeks. We were all issued with bits of kindling wood in addition to our haversack rations. The plan was that our field kitchens and transport were to be captured and we had to fend for ourselves. Well, we all had heavy loads on our backs to carry. Some of the fellows got fed up with the extra weight in their packs and dumped some of it. At evening time we stopped and bivouacked in a field and told to cook our own food, as the transport had been captured. Those who kept the extra weight were able to prepare a meal by joining forces, and those that ditched their load went on the scrounge or did without. Then everybody settled down for the night.

During the night, our transport was returned and was able to feed us all with a big breakfast. We did not have any portable latrines, so those who had to "go" had to do it in a ditch by the hedgerow whilst the others were breaking camp. Suddenly a lot of shouting attracted us and we saw men running towards us, some with their trousers around their ankles. They were being chased by cavalrymen. Secretly, the other side had brought a troop of cavalry up during the night and they decided on an early attack. Being chased by a man on a horse and having him slap your rear with the flat of his sabre is not funny, especially just after breakfast.

Anyway, after the umpires stopped the "action," we returned to base camp to prepare to march back to our barracks in Catterick Camp, for the war games season had ended for that year. After the thirty-odd mile march, barracks never looked nicer.

Past Perspectives:

• The Maltese Deployment
  
• Riding the Holy Rails
  
• On the Manchester Beat
  
• A Yellow Warning
  
• The Liverpool Blitz
  
• The Manchester Blitz
  

It Came From the Public Domain: The Alien Hah-Rah

This weekend marks VCON 36 here in Metro Vancouver, and so I've been giving some thought to science fiction beyond simply why my goddamn keyboard won't write brilliant and astounding stories for me. It's at conventions that you really get a sense of the genre's history, the degree to which it extends past just what you can see in the stores today. It's true that there's a lot of things that science fiction writers of the past didn't see coming, and so a lot of historical stuff feels kind of bumpy today. Truly timeless stuff doesn't get put down on every last page, after all.

While some stuff holds up so well that it never goes out of print, there's doubtless plenty of material that's just been forgotten among the reams and reams and reams of paper that represent the output of organized science fiction since Amazing Stories started up in 1926. I think I discovered one such thing, a brief piece that headed up the letter column of Wonder Stories in December 1935 - "The Alien Hah-Rah," which takes us through the plots and tropes that were already considered tired less than ten years after the genre, then known as scientifiction, launched.

I was entertained by it more than seventy-five years after it was first published, and that alone is enough for me to want to share it - to do what I can so that piece of the genre's history isn't totally forgotten. I've searched through U.S. Copyright Renewals 1950 - 1977 and cannot find it attested as having been renewed, so to the best of my knowledge the following letter is presently in the public domain. So hah-rah, and let history take it from here.

*****

"The Alien Hah-Rah," by Richard G. Kerlin
Originally printed in the letter column of Wonder Stories, December 1935

A strange communication came into my possession last year, at which time I was a member of that well-known exploration party, the Ackerman-Darrow Scientifictionic Expedition. As you know, we were then investigating the Gobi desert for those missiles resembling meteorites, of which we have so often read in your magazine. These seeming meteorites, as everyone knows, are always really hollow containers of unknown metals, and they contain either poisonous gases which kill everyone in the world, or a monster which kills everyone, or the seeds of a new life whose growth eventually dooms mankind, or, as in the majority of cases, a message written on a number of ultra-thin, indestructible, peculiar sheets of a substance which of course defies analysis.

I need not tell (but I will) how we found such a meteorite. Toiling wearily along one day, we came upon a great pile of rocks which obstructed the trail which we were following. At once we noticed the pitted surfaces of all these globular stones, which lay in heaps all around. Of course we recognized them at once for what they were: Hollow containers filled with poisonous gases, etc. (see previous paragraph) which had arrived here from outer space.

The first one that we picked up gurgled as we shook it, so, fearing that it contained some virulent liquid whose release would spell mankind's doom, we threw it away. (This missile was later found to be a coconut.) The next one, upon being shaken, responded with a faint rustle, as of manuscript pages. This we opened after an hour's application of our electro-disintegrator ray and a subsequent three-second application of our old can-opener. An old copy of WONDER STORIES fell out. (You all remember the great panic that followed our discovery, as thousands of science-fiction collectors from all over the world rushed to the Gobi desert to prospect for these meteoric missiles.) The following message was written on the edges of the pages:

To the finder of this message (it said): give this communication to the editor of WONDER STORIES. He is to blame, to a great extent, for my troubles. Here is how it all happened.

I was in the Three Hundred and Ninety-Seventh National Bank Building at three a.m., lighting the fuse to the charge I had just placed in the vault door, simply minding my own business, when a sweet odor came to my nostrils and something was clapped to my face. It was chloroform.

I came to myself in a laboratory. the mad scientist in charge of the joint noticed me and at once addressed an assistant. "Take him up there. You know where," he said significantly. I saw the assistant shudder and a look of awful horror came over his face. Reluctantly he came over and seized me (I was still groggy and weak) and marched me out of the room. As we ascended a flight of stairs, he whispered encouragingly, "Don't let this ordeal get you. He's trying to injure your mind, leaving it tortured and weak forever. When the mental damage is done, he turns his victims loose, to affect sane people by their ravings."

He shoved me into a room and locked the door upon me. I looked around for torture instruments, and saw a file of WONDER STORIES upon a long shelf. Having nothing to do, I read some of them. Then, too late, I realized! Already that insidious menace was creeping into my very brain. Plucking fingers tore at my intelligence, and it gave way. Helpless now in the influence of those stories, I read more and moer of them. I raved, I wrote fan letters, I frothed at the mouth and begged for new copies. I had become one of those pitiful science-fiction fans.

One day the Professor came in and saw the title of the story I was writing, "The Master of the Doom of the Menace of the Terror of the Horror Plague of the Curse of the Scourge of the Conqueror of the Green-Purple Peril of the Onslaught of the Malignant Invasion of the Fatal World-Wrecking Death."

"Aha!" he exclaimed. "Great! In the last stages of scientifictionitis; trying to write stories himself!"

At once I was carted out of hte room and placed in a cone-shaped contrivance. The door was sealed upon me. A terrific roar, unendurable pressure, and unconsciousness followed. I awoke to find myself on Mars.

I stepped from the ship only to be surrounded by insect-men who firmly led me into a great stone building and into a tiny room. So - they would throw me into a dungeon! I laughed, for I had read hundreds of stories about escapes from Mars, Ceres, Phobos, fire, and debts, and my experience as a safe-cracker stood me in good stead. Noticing some nitroglycerine in a cup on the table, I went to work. (Lucky, huh?) After getting everything all set to blow, I first exhausted every other possibility of escape before trying this last resort. No windows; walls four feet thick; no trapdoors in either ceiling or floor; no secret panels; no machine by which to rotate myself into the fourth, fifth, sixth, or blue dimensions; no machine enabling me to walk through walls; no contrivance to shrink me out of my difficulty; no apparatus to transport my component atoms elsewhere in the form of vibrations; no ability to yearn myself back to Earth. I turned to the door and lit a match for the fuse. Then a thought struck me - I tried the door. It opened. I left.

As I stepped out of the doorway, I instinctively struck out blindly in all directions at once to overcome the guards. Any stf. fan would have done the same. After ten minutes of furious struggling, I sank to the floor, exhausted; then I noticed that there had been no guards there at all. (What! No guards?) This made me mad, so I left the narrow corridor.

I came out into a great hall, and an insect-man greeted me nervously. "Didn't you like the room?" he clacked. "We gave you the best in the hotel." My mind, already weakened by scientifictionitis, collapsed utterly, so I sent this message which will fall on the Gobi desert, thirteen miles, seventeen feet, and nine and one-half inches from any designated point. Nuts to thee...

So ended the tragic message in the second missile in that great heap of fused meteorites (actually hollow containers, etc.). We of the Ackerman-Darrow Scientifictionic Expedition hope to send you others of these amazing messages after translation by Pretcher Flatt and verification by Prof. Crackpot, Sfn. D.

A Historical Perspective: The Maltese Deployment

Once again, I feel in the mood to post an extract from the memoirs of my grandfather, Les Parkinson. Unlike previous posts, this doesn't relate to his service in the Royal Navy or the police; instead, it's a bit from his service in the British Army with the Cheshire Regiment in 1934. At that time, the Cheshires had been posted to Malta, Britain's central Mediterranean fortress.

When we got up and saw that we had stopped we realized that we had arrived, for we no longer felt the rhythmic pulse of the ship's engine. When we were able to go on deck, oh, what a sight. There lay the biggest battleships I had ever seen, lots of them, what a grand sight it was. Later the ship was berthed at the quayside to be unloaded. Although it was winter the weather was warm, no snow or frost, and the harbour was a hive of activity. Small boats were like flies, bells ringing, and bugles sounding off on the battleship. It was all a new world.

The Grand Harbour, as it was called, was a wonderful sight. On the west side were high cliffs with a lift running up the side from sea level to the top, where the Barracca Gardens were. It was in this area that the navy wives used to gather to wave farewell to their husbands when the fleet left harbour. In the Grand Harbour were the battleships Barham, Repulse, Renown, and Queen Elizabeth with her distinctive inverted "Y"-shaped funnel. There were the eight-inch gun County class cruisers with their huge funnels, the London and the Devonshire, the aircraft carriers Glorious and Courageous, the fleet repair ship Resource, and several supply ships. These were painted a different colour than the fleet, which was painted in medium light grey. The Home Fleet was a dark grey, the Mediterranean Fleet medium grey and the Pacific Fleet a very light grey. In the various creeks that let off the main harbour lay the destroyer flotillas and the submarines with their depot ship, the Cyclops. The whole view was so wonderful that it is a sight never to be forgotten. Little did we know that we would get to know the ships and their crews better as time went on.

We had to leave the view in order to eat breakfast and prepare to disembark. At the appointed hour we left the ship, carrying our musical instruments and our sea kit bags. We ended up inside a large warehouse on the quayside. There we found the band of the only other infantry battalion on the island, the 1st Bn. Worcestershire Regiment, waiting to play us to our new home, St. George's Barracks. The civilians were out in droves to see the latest regiment to occupy their homeland. The Maltese people have a long history. While they are somewhat akin to the Italians, they have their own lingo and ways but there was a lot of poverty evident. It was plain to see that they relied on the armed forces for their living and well-being.

Our barracks were about two or three hours' march away. We marched along the coastal road past Sliema Creek, a town where the destroyers were moored, and on to St. George's Bay, a village. Here we saw the building that was to be our home for the next few years. It was on high ground. The barracks lay in two long rows, behind which was the NAAFI at one end of the building that was the gymnasium, cinema, and sometimes church, and at the other end was the sick bay. The rows of buildings ran north and south. At the back of the westerly rows lay two double-decked buildings. These were to be used by us, the Band, Drums and Signallers. Behind the east block lay the NAAFI, below which was the guard room and north of this was the officers' mess and quarters. At the south end beyond the sick bay was a road that led up to St. Andrew's Barracks and to officers' married quarters.

At the side of the road led up the hill to the barracks was St. George's Bay, which was to be our private swimming pool-cum-boating pond. On the side of this was a huge block of flats, which were married quarters, and the road that was in front of our block led to the fire hall and the barrack square. Also there was the band sergeant's married quarters plus the range warden. He was from the Royal Engineers and looked after the rifle ranges. The whole island was made of lava rock, but from which volcano no one knew.

It didn't take long to settle in our new quarters and get back to normal routine. The worst bit of news we got was that boys were allowed into town only on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and then we had to be in by 6:00 PM. They said that this restriction was to prevent our being corrupted by the evil goings-on in the "bad" areas of the town.

We learnt that the main city was the capital, Valletta. The other "towns" were Sliema, Calafrana, Chian Tuffea, Imtarfar, Marsa and Musta. Musta boasted of having a church with the fourth-largest unsupported dome in the world. The population were devout Catholics, and this was evident by the feast days they had. It was surely a land of bells and smells. They had some funny beliefs, and one was rather funny. Most churches had two spires, one on each side of the main entrance. On each spire was a clock, both in working order, but neither of them showed the correct time. One was early and the other late, the reason being that the Devil himself liked to interrupt their church services. When the devil came by the first clock he was early, for the service had not started, so he went away only to return by the time on the second clock. He then found that the service had been held and the people had gone home, so he missed the service much to the joy of the people.

We used to contend with church in St. Andrew's Barracks, and the gymnasium was converted for this purpose. Our chaplain was a Captain Carter, he was a terrible man, and we often wondered how he ever became a man of the cloth. His wife was not a nice person. She used to have men working in her house doing housework that she hated doing. She was always reporting the men to their officer for the slightest infraction, boy, she was hated. I myself was once reported by her for having a couple buttons on my fly undone, and this was whilst we were in church. During church services the boys were the choir, and Mrs. Carter used to sit in the front pew with her daughter. They both used to look for trouble.

After we had settled in to our normal routine, life was great. We used to get up at five thirty in the summer and finish at twelve noon, then the rest of the day was play time.

We had a couple of new officers come to us, one was named John Daniel Egerton Smith. He was a real snob, as his name suggests, and we christened him "Egg and Chips." He hated our guts and was a double-dyed "B" of the first degree. He hated the Band, why, we never knew. One day we were playing his platoon at field hockey, at which he was good for he played for the English national team one year. Anyway, we knew that he had it in for us and expected the worst.

Before the game, Bill Hookway, our bass drummer, who was a very good player, offered a reward of half a crown to the first bloke who drew blood on Egg and Chips. The game was about five minutes old when Hookway hit the ball at Egg and Chips, who tried to hit it but missed, and the ball veered off his stick and hit him on the left eyebrow, nearly taking it off. He had to go to hospital and left the game. His team had to play one man short and never stood a chance, but this didn't ease the situation at all. He never changed his ways, but he was always on his guard in contact sports for I am sure that he knew why he was hurt.

Sport was good, for it no doubt developed us and gave us a good start in life. Our soccer team won all the trophies. There was a civilian league open to civvy teams only and the champions were always the Sliema Wanderers, and in the annual charity game between the forces and civilians, they always won for that was the only team that beat us. Rugby was not played as the ground was too hard, for the playing area was gravel.

There was a horse racing track at a place called Marsa, and each year there was a period of racing that they liked to think was akin to Ascot. The ladies got dressed up to the nines, just like the real Ascot, and the Governor-General being the guest of honour as is the Queen of England, this being the typical actions of the English abroad. There were two army bands on the island and they were always engaged to play during the main meets of the year.

Whenever there was the British Army, there was always pomp and ceremony. Depending on the whim of the Governor-General, the bands used to take it in turn to beat retreat on the Palace Square in Valletta. The two regiments used to take it in turn to provide guards at the Palace. The regiment used to send a company to town, and they used to stay in the Floriana Barracks just outside of town. From there they used to march into town for the guard duties, and changing guard on the Palace Square was an event that drew big crowds.

The first time we beat retreat was an exciting thing to me. We bussed to Floriana Barracks then marched the short distance to the Palace. We rehearsed and rehearsed until we were perfect. There was only one land entrance to Valletta and that was through the arch called the Porte des Bombes. Everybody who could hold and play an instrument was on parade and boy, the thrill of marching through the gate and seeing the crowds, for anybody who was anybody was there. In fact, the whole of Malta must have been there to see the Cheshires beat retreat for the first time.

Anyway, we included the changing of the guard for the first time, and how the crowd loved it. Our regimental sergeant major, Jack Sharples (Big Jack, he was called), was as proud as a peacock, and the CO came to us after the show with the Governor-General and his wife to congratulate us on a good show. This became a regular monthly event during the summer months.

Big Jack, by the way, was a wonderful man. He was about six feet tall and took size seventeen in boots. He had a voice like a foghorn and prided himself on knowing every man in the regiment by his name. In fact, one day in the 1950s when I was in the Police after the war, he saw me in Manchester on duty in Deansgate. He came to me and said, "How are you Parkinson, how are your brothers?" That was about fifteen years after I had left the regiment.

Anyway, back to Malta and the thirties. Being a band boy, life was restricted and we had to attend school. Everybody in the regiment had to get the third class certificate of education, but we boys had to carry on until we became men at eighteen years of age, so we carried on learning and taking exams. First the second class certificate, then the first and on to the special, and the latter two were equivalent to high school. They involved languages, and it was a rule that one selected Hindi or one of the other popular languages of India.

When I started swatting for my first class, I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew. I managed to pass one subject easily, but the English was hard. We had to more or less learn these books to memory. One of them was as dull as dishwater, and this was "Chippinge" by Stanley Weyman. It was a story of the Middle Ages in England. I just couldn't get into it enough to answer detailed questions, so I was glad when my eighteenth birthday came. This was a day I had looked forward to, for I became a man. My daily rate of pay increased from one shilling a day to three shillings a day, and most of all, I was able to smoke openly and not have to hide my cigarettes. But the other things that came were unwanted. I had to have a rifle and battle order equipment, do guard duty and go on fatigue party.

Our school was in St. Andrew's Barracks, as was the church, and to get there we had to climb a hill and pass married quarters. It was about two miles' march and of course the musicians had to play on the march. The hardest thing was to keep one's khaki uniform clean. The "dhobie wallahs" used to a good job starching stiff the tropical uniforms.

Being boys, we all had to do sports, such as soccer, rugby, field hockey, athletics, swimming, water polo, life saving, fencing - you name it and we did it. Most of all, we did a lot of it, to get out of band practice in in the afternoon and evenings, and when we had spare time we used to go into the practice room and make up a band with one of the boys being the conductor. Nine times out of ten, the band master would come by and listen and watch, and more often than not would teach the conductor how to beat time.

As a result of our public performances, the band was much in demand. The wives and families of the Royal Navy personnel had an amateur dramatic society, and they decided to stage "Gypsy Love" at the Valletta Opera House. This was a very beautiful building and it was quite an honour to play there. The band became the orchestra in the pit, the conductor was of the opera house and our band master, who was a good cellist, was in the orchestra. The show was a huge success. Another job we did was for the Navy. The captain of the aircraft carrier Glorious asked us to beat retreat on the flying deck of the carrier to celebrate the ship's birthday. This we did, and what a shock when we got on the deck. We formed up below decks and were taken up on the aircraft hoist to the upper deck. That, I thought, was the best and most interesting retreat we did. Afterwards we were assigned to messes for a meal, boy, those sailors lived well!

After that, friendships with three vessels were formed, in particular the one with HMS Resource was the best. When the fleet sailed on its autumn course to the eastern Mediterranean, the band went with them. Only men went, though. They were assigned to various messes and parts of the ship. They gave many concerts, especially as they entered the foreign parts of the eastern end of the "Medi." All told, they were away for one month, and we had many social evenings with the crew. I got friendly with a rating, Bob Dunne. He was saving up to get married when the ship was in England for refitting and recommissioning. It was a sad day for us when he went. The band was on the quayside, playing her out of the harbor, while she was flying her decommissioning pennant. This was a very long pennant that flew from the aftermast as a sign that she was going home after two and a half years' absence.

About six months later, who should walk into our barracks room, none other than Bob. When I asked him why he was back, he said, "Well, as you know, I was going to get married. When I first left England I made an allotment from my pay to my girlfriend. She got the money every month for two and a half years. Every now and again she would send with her letter a bill showing that she had bought something for our home. When I got to the house I saw all the furniture she had bought with my money. I also saw the children she had by her husband, who she married one month after I first left the UK. There she was, living in my house and using my furniture that had been bought with my money and I couldn't do a thing about it, as all the bills were in her maiden name. So to save trouble I just walked out of her life, went back to barracks, cancelled the allotment and re-signed on the Resource for another tour."

I think that going in to the army was a good thing. I cannot ever recall missing my parents or my home. Of course, I missed the Depression years by being abroad. It was only when I returned and by seeing the state of things that I did realize that I had not lost by joining up. In fact, much later when I went to join the Police, did I fully realize that I had done the right thing by leaving home when I did.

Being in Malta was a good thing, although I was not able to see the place because I was a boy, and being such movement was restricted greatly. We were only allowed into Valletta or any other place outside the barracks until eight o'clock and then it had to be a Saturday or Sunday and in the company of another boy. But I never had the money to go into town. My basic pay was one shilling a day, which was one-twentieth of a pound, and then the exchange rate was four dollars to the pound, so my shilling a day was worth cents. Of that money I made an allotment of sixpence a day to my mother, as did my eldest brother. This helped out at home. We were lucky, for we had three meals a day and a roof over our heads and were paid for it. When we got paid on Friday, the money we received we had to spend on cleaning materials, so to get extra money I did work for other boys.

The main job I did was being DRO for them at the price of one shilling. The Dining Room Orderly had to draw the food from the cookhouse, take it to the dining room, serve it and then clean up afterwards. That happened for times a day for us boys. We got an extra meal, supper, plus we had to go to the cookhouse for "spud bashing," where we peeled potatoes for next day's dinner. The only good thing about that was the bucket of "Sergeant Major's" tea that we had to drink during the time it took to peel potatoes and onions when required.

Our Commanding Officer was Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Percival, and he was later the GOC Singapore during WWII when it surrendered to the Japanese Army. He was mad on sports, so much so that everybody had to take part in most branches of sport. He initiated a league-type programme where a "young" soldier with under two years' service was teamed with an "old" soldier in all team events. I finished up participating in fencing (epee and sabre), bayonet fighting, tug of war, cricket, rugby, soccer, running a quarter-mile, half-mile and cross country, swimming, rowing and water polo. This actively kept us busy and fit, especially field hockey, that was a great game!

Because of the ability of the band, we were split into two to balance out the other company. We were called Band A and Band B. Each year one of us was first and the other second. That was because of one man, Joseph Jellye. He was a very good all-round athlete and he was the odd man between the cutoff for A and B that was done according to the alphabet. We never lost an event. This was good for the regiment.

Every regiment had its sports day during the year and always invfited other teams to run in the invitation race. Usually the race consisted of two laps of one hundred and ten yards, two laps of two hundred and twenty yards, one half-mile and that killer of races, the four hundred yards. We usually entered two teams and always did well. One of the perks of being a member of the battalion teams was that during the season we were fed special meals, much to the sorrow of the non-runners.

With the participation of sports, we did not have much time to go into town. What bit of money we had we managed to last on. We had a cinema in barracks with one projector, and at the end of each part the lights came on and the screen was wetted down with water whilst the reel was changed. We went there three times a week. It cost twopence to get in and threepence for a couple of cooked "pigs' feet" to eat during the show. These we got from the NAAFI. These were good for we used to toss the small bones into the crowd, much to their annoyance.

Today is May 7th, 1934. It is my eighteenth birthday. Today I can go to the NAAFI and buy a packet of cigarettes and walk about smoking without fear of getting put on the fizzler (a charge) for smoking. Today the army says that I am a MAN. To prove it, I had to move out of the boys' room and go into the mens' rooms. To prove it further, they gave me a rifle that fired real bullets and had an eighteen-inch long bayonet, and equipment in which to put the bullets when they gave them to me. But as is life, with the good things that came with being a man so came the bad things, like having to be prepared to do guard duty and to do fatigues. That is how I celebrated my birthday, by being on a working party. We were making a new barrack square-cum-hockey pitch, for the surface was gravel. The engineers used explosives to blow the rocks to a reasonable level of evenness, then we had to manhandle them and level off the surface.

Still, it made me realize what a sheltered life I had led up till that date. It was good to think that no more would I be locked up in a cell for the night for being cheeky to an NCO or to get caught smoking and get jankers for it, which was punishment confined to barracks, and extra fatigues like whitewashing the coal bunkers.

Les Parkinson celebrates his eighteenth birthday with his comrades - Malta, May 7, 1934

Each autumn in the army we had to contend with manoeuvres. This was playing at war, with the red army versus the blue army. Our CO made a bet with the Governor of the island, Sir David Campbell, that he could land troops on the island, so the powers that be decided to make that the plan for the coming manoeuvres. Now that I was a man in the eyes of the army, I was to be an unwilling participant, for our regiment was chosen to be the invaders.

On the day we marched to the grand harbour at Valletta and boarded a battleship, HMS Repulse. This thing they called a ship was huge, it was the biggest thing I had seen, or even been on. We boarded little boats called Trot Boats and were taken out to the Repulse, where she laid at anchor in the harbour. We had to walk up the gangway that was on the side of the ship at a very steep angle and so on to the deck. We were fully booted and spurred for a "war," with full fighting gear plus a load of blank ammunition.

Being an invasion force we didn't have a band as such, so those (me) that were not stretcher bearers were riflemen. I was attached to B Company. My sergeant was a big fat fellow named Culm. He had just returned to the UK, having spent six years in Africa on the Gold Coast as an instructor to the local army. He was scary and mad, having spent so many years in the sun drinking whisky.

When it got dark the ship sailed, to where we did not know, but it was a good feeling to be at sea on the go, and most of all on the "floating town." I lost all sense of time. We eventually stopped sailing and formed up on the deck to go again into the Trot Boats. Then our time came to file down the gang planks to the boats. This time it was a little different, for we had to go down the steep slope. At the top as we left the deck there were two sailors, one on each side of the gangway. They had to check that our belts and our epaulettes were undone. This was to ensure that if we slipped and fell into the water we could cast off our equipment, which weighed about fifty or sixty pounds.

Anyway, we got into the boats safely and moved off and formed up to go to landwards to land on the island. By this time it was getting light, for dawn was breaking. Our sergeant, Benny Culm as he was known, gave us a lecture as to what we should do as he had a lot of experience. He said that when the boat hit the sandy beach it would stop, and over the side we would go and wade ashore. He would lead the way and then we would see him on the beach. After a while, we felt the boat scrape on the bed and stop. Benny Culm then shouted, "Follow me."

Over the side he went and disappeared. The water was supposed to be waist-deep, and it was where we went in, but for him he landed in a hole and all one could see was a rifle laying on the water and a topee floating. Eventually he came back to the surface, cursing and swearing at us for laughing. We made it ashore without further to-do and did not run into the "enemy." We lay around our positions for hours, for the sun came up and dried us. We had no food, so we ate any fruit we could find. Eventually, the "war" ended when we marched into barracks without being "attacked" or even seen, so far as we know. Anyway, we were a sorry-looking bunch and went to bed after a good meal and slept for two days. That was my baptism of fire and the only manoeuvres we held on the island.

Past Perspectives:

• Riding the Holy Rails
  
• On the Manchester Beat
  
• A Yellow Warning
  
• The Liverpool Blitz
  
• The Manchester Blitz
  

A Historical Perspective: Riding the Holy Rails

Back in 1936, seventy-five years ago, my grandfather Les Parkinson was a soldier of the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment in the British Army, serving in what was then the British Mandate for Palestine - mainly to serve as a warning to Benito Mussolini not to try any funny stuff near Britain's African possessions, as at the time the Second Italo-Abyssinian War was raging. The British military presence was likewise used for security purposes in Palestine, which was then experiencing a general strike and an Arab nationalist uprising that would continue until 1939.

I previously posted a brief extract of his memoirs dealing with this time back in 2009, accompanying a period photo. This is another, larger fragment that I'm glad to be able to share with whoever wants to read it. As for myself, when I read it it was a bit surprising to learn that the tactic of house demolition as a punitive measure against insurgents wasn't a policy that the Israeli Defence Forces came up with - rather one that they seem to have picked up from the British.

*****

After I got rid of my boils, I returned to duty and got my first train escort. It was a goods train group to Haifa. This proved to be an event from which I learned a lot. As I was senior soldier, I was in charge of the escort, so I chose to ride on the footplate. I picked the train up at Lydda and learned that we were going through to Haifa. The trip would last two days, so I drew rations for all four of us for the two days. The food was all tinned except the bread. We had tins of "machonicies" stew. This was two tins in one. The top tin contained the stew, and the bottom contained the rice. Then there was dry tea, tinned milk, margarine and the usual bully beef and tins of beans.

The engine crew consisted of a Jewish driver and an Arab fireman. To me that spelt trouble, but the driver told me that they had been together for years so all was good between them. The engine driver I found to be a great fellow. He told me that the Arabs had sold their land to the Jews for they cold not make it productive, and after seeing what the Jews had managed to do with the land, the Arabs wanted it back. But in general, both parties got on well together. It was the militants that caused the trouble. This I thought was true, for in towns and villages one could see Arabs and Jews living next door to each other in perfect harmony.

The engine driver told us that the strikers got a lot of money from other Arab countries, but part of it came from wrecking the trains and stealing and selling the goods. He told us that when they were going to wreck a train they would take a section of the track out where it was on a bridge or an embankment. They would then go to meet the train on level ground, open fire with their guns and shoot at the train. This was to get the driver scared and make the train go faster to get away from the shooting. When the train arrived at the point where the rail had been removed, it would topple over and roll down the embankment, then it would get looted by the rest of the gang, which was waiting at the site. A lot of this could be stopped now that there were soldiers on each train, for by learning to drive the train in times of need, the soldier could stop the train and with his guns could drive off the raiders. So I learnt to drive the engine.

The driver told us that at each goods station down the line, they would stop and do all the shunting that was needed. The fireman did the driving whilst the driver reported in and rested in the station building by having a nap.

The first place we stopped at was called Tulkarem. It appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, but there were villages around in the hills and nearby was a town called Nablus, which was a stronghold of the strikers. We managed to get over the trip without any bother. I was happy with it for I learned a lot, so much so that I was able to pass the information on to others, much to their delight. Little did I realize that my tuition would pay dividends shortly, on the return trip.

Tulkarem, Palestine - 1936

The Golden Arrow was the crack passenger train that ran to Jerusalem every Monday from Haifa. It was always well-guarded, for there were always at least three escorts going back to Lydda from the end of the week's escorts. I was to return to my base by the Golden Arrow. My escort was fully seasoned, as were the other two who were returning to Lydda. However, the escorts from the Haifa group were on their first job and had an NCO in charge. I knew this chap, so I told him of my learning from the engine driver and he had me ride on the engine and gave me one of his men to teach. He had a Lewis gun. He and the other men patrolled the train, having two at a time in the guards' van.

It had been made very plain to us that martial law had not been declared, and so the military were there to assist the Palestine Police in maintaining law and order, and that all incidents had to be reported to them for their action. It was common knowledge that the Arab gangs came from the Nablus area, and this was hilly country and near to Tulkarem, so one had to be very alert when in the area.

Before leaving Tulkarem, we stopped for about an hour, this enabled the passengers who wished to leave the train and stretch their legs to do so, as well as get a drink of "cold" water, for there was none on the train. It was here that I took pity on a young couple with a baby for I gave them my water bottle to have a drink, and in return the man took my photo and mailed it to me. During the stop the escorts patrolled around the train. I told the NCO that for the next few miles, we had to be ready for anything and not to relax one bit.

Sure enough, it happened. After we left the area, someone started shooting at the train. I made the fireman lay down on the coal bunker and made the engineer stop the train. He didn't want to - he wanted to go faster to clear the area - but my rifle pushed in his back, and the click of the bolt putting a bullet in the spout, convinced him to stop the train. Then a bit of a gun fight started, but as soon as the raiders heard the machine guns going they gave up and fled. We found a wounded man when we searched the area. Further down the line we found that the usual length of rail had been taken out to make the train crash, but this time it didn't work, thanks to my teacher, the first engine driver I met.

Not long afterwards the police arrived, for one of their patrols had heard the shooting and they took over. One of them recognized the wounded man. He lived in Nablus. The police were a cruel lot. They picked the Arab rebel up and dropped him on the ground, him with a bullet wound in his thigh and a burst of machine gun in his shoulder, but he wouldn't talk at all. By this time the sun was up and it was very hot. The Arab kept crying out "moya moya." He was asking for water, so the police gave him some. They poured it out so that it splashed on his face, but none for drinking. While this was going on, we were waiting for the repair crew to arrive and repair the track.

Eventually the police came with the Arab's wife and they restarted their efforts to make him talk, but he didn't. In fact he died without recognizing his wife. Usually in cases like this, any information the police got they acted upon. Any building, whether it be a house or a shop, that belonged to a known striker or in which ammunition or explosives were found was blown up by the Royal Engineers on the instructions of the Palestine Police. So off the police went and had the Arab's house blown up. We were able to continue our journey when the track had been repaired, and arrived back at camp safe and sound and very much wiser.

Most of the preparation for wrecking trains was done at night time, when they knew they wouldn't be spotted. To combat this, it was decided to provide mobile patrols of the main routes from Lydda, Haifa, Jerusalem and Jaffa. This action was brought in because a train on the Jaffa run was wrecked and one of the escorts on the engine was killed. This chap, named John Quirk, was blown up when the engine's boiler blew up, and poor Johnny Quirk was scalded to death. This train was the first to be blown up by the new system that was now in use. The Arabs used to plant a bomb below the rail joints with the detonator pin sticking up above the rails. The length of track was loosened, but left in position to avoid visual detection. As the train wheels went over the bomb, the pin was depressed and the bomb detonated.

To combat this, a flat bed was placed in front of the engine, and this detonated the bomb and did little or no damage to the engine. In addition to this, the Royal Engineers came up with the ideal patrol vehicle. They got hold of a few trucks, joined them together back to back and fixed railway bogey wheels to them. The gasoline engines provided the driving power and the truck wheels propelled the vehicle. There was an engine facing each way so that it was able to go either way without using a reverse gear. Mounted on each vehicle was an ack-ack mounted Lewis gun. Eight men manned the queer-looking vehicle, but it was effective. The one we had was used every night, all night, mostly on the run to Jerusalem. When on patrol, we often saw an Arab camp so we would stop and search them, and always we found nothing but were always invited to eat with them.

Next morning, on the return trip, the camp would be gone and so would a length of railway line, or we would find a planted bomb. They were very crude, for by removing the detonating pin the bomb was rendered harmless. We used this type of patrol vehicle until a new type was built and put into service. The Engineers built a thing that looked like a house on a flat bed. It was made of concrete and was pulled by an engine that was manned by men of the Engineers. We also had a couple of plate layers with us so that effective repairs could be carried out immediately. This train was christened "the Hillman's Pride."

By now there was a good routine in the camp, and one rotated around so that we all got a chance at all the various jobs, good or bad. One day, I found myself on the stand-by. This was a number of men who stood by in case of emergencies. When a train was wrecked, a squad of men were sent out to guard the train and its contents. One afternoon, a train on the Jaffa run was wrecked. Now this route to Jaffa was not a very popular route, for it was dangerous as it mostly ran through heavily wooded areas and orange groves. One could hide an army in them. The trouble was that you didn't know who was shooting at you. The only way to tell was by the sounds of the shots. The Jewish people had modern guns, better than those of the Arabs. Their guns and ammunition dated back to the First World War. They had found huge caches of guns and ammo that the Turks had buried during the war. This, plus the fact that the Jews did not fire on goods trains, helped to determine who was shooting at you.

Our group was ordered to get ready to go out to the train wreck. As it was a goods train, extra men were needed, and to my surprise my brother Ron was put on the patrol. The NCO in charge was an old Indian soldier, Corporal Adams. He had spent many years in India and was not a greenhorn, that was a comfort.

When we first arrived at our camp at Sarafand, the site of the PP's polo pitch, we found a vehicle park full of new trucks painted in desert camouflage. This accounted for the rush in the UK to get drivers trained. These trucks could carry eight men and their equipment, so now we were putting the trucks to good use.

The train wreck to which we had been assigned to guard was on the Jaffa line and past the first set of orange groves. It was about ten miles away from Lydda. When we got there we found the wrecked train being looted by Arabs from the local village, but they soon went away. The train itself was a goods train and carried general cargo, such as gramophones, records, radios, millions of Camel cigarettes, booze, and anything else that could be bought from a store.

We set up our "shop" and started to guard the wreck. Naturally, those on patrol made the rounds of the wrecked box cars and we all had a good time. Corporal Adams let us have what we wanted - except the booze, that was a no no - and I really enjoyed my first smoke of American cigarettes, and the food that was there supplemented our rations.

When darkness came our relief didn't arrive, so we had to settle down for a night's guard in the open. We had a bit of a fire going to keep us warm, for it got very cold at night. Corporal Adams gave us a lecture on what he expected of us. Being an old "Ponkey Wallah" who had served many years in India, and out there they had many skirmishes with the natives, especially on the northwest frontier, so we listened intently to the voice of experience.

He told us that the Arab strikes would come during the dark hours and that they would fire random shots from all sides to try to see just how we were deployed. He said that it was reasonable to assume that they would come from the side of the wreck that faced open fields and not through the orange groves behind us, for they would probably be patrolled by the Jews who owned it.

We had two Lewis guns, which he placed at the front and rear of the train so that each had a 180-degree field of fire. The rest of the men patrolled in pairs on each side of the trains. All this talk took place while we ate our supper. As we were in pairs, one could sleep while the other kept watch and they then changed over, but one had to be awake and on watch at all times and nobody could fire his weapon until told to. He warned us that the most dangerous times were at dusk and dawn.

We had nearly finished our meal when one of the sentries reported seeing what he thought was a person crossing a field and going into a hedge ditch. With that, the fire was doused with water and we all scurried off to our new set positions. What time it was we had no idea, but it had to be around ten or eleven. Anyway, our Ron and I had the Lewis gun at the front of the train and we lay there listening, not daring to speak for fear of giving away our positions.

Then the shooting started, sporadic rifle fire just as was predicted earlier, first from one place and then another. Finally, on instruction, guns fired to where the muzzle flashes could be seen. Then all was quiet for a while. The lance corporal came and told us that when they next fired a very light would be shot by Corporal Adams. This was to light the area so we could see who was where and when we could see the target, we were to open up with our Lewis gun.

Well, up went the very light just like a firework, and lit the corner of the field where we thought the Arabs were, and we opened up with our gun. We put a good burst into the target. Then the gun stopped firing on its own, so we went through the routine to get the gun firing, but it wouldn't go so we had to work by touch to get it going.

The drum was a round thing like a deep plate that held the bullets, and as it rotated around it placed a bullet in the firing position. Two pawls stopped the panier from rotating either way, and we found that one of the springs had broken. It was the one that stopped the reverse movement, so we swapped the springs around so that the gun could be used in an emergency.

Ron and I just lay there with our rifles at the ready for the rest of the night whilst the others did the same, but they managed to keep whoever was out there at bay, for we were sure that they would not try to get by us, for we had the machine gun that they didn't like to face. They had no way of knowing that our gun was not working properly. They tried again and the other gun came into use, and that seemed to settle the attackers down. So after a couple of hours, all went quiet. Perhaps they were tired and wanted to go home to bed. Just one person seemed to have been left behind, for he fired the occasional shot just to let us know they were out there somewhere.

Eventually, dawn broke. This is when one's imagination runs riot. Somebody spotted what they thought was a person climbing a tree near to where we had made camp, so the order was given to open fire with the Lewis gun, which we did, and put a good burst into the object. At that range we couldn't miss, but the thing still stayed there, so the lance corporal walked over. When he got to it he burst out laughing, for the man climbing the tree was his overcoat swinging from a branch. It had been there all night, and it looked as though a crowd of moths had eaten it for it was full of holes.

A good search of the area provided us with good evidence of our attackers, for we found blood spots and marks of someone being dragged and a few empty shell cases. These, the police determined, were of Turkish origin from the First World War. During the search we managed to acquire a few cartons of cigarettes and a few other objects of worth. When our relief came, they told us that they had had a rough night and day too, and that the company sergeant major was searching every patrol that returned to camp, so we had to ditch our loot along the roadside. No doubt the Arabs who found it were grateful for our small gifts.

Past Perspectives:

• On the Manchester Beat
  
• A Yellow Warning
  
• The Liverpool Blitz
  
• The Manchester Blitz