National Service 1948-1949<\/b><\/p>\n
My six months deferment of National Service, which I was allowed in order to take a scholarship, expired in mid-February 1948.\u00a0 I had already passed my medical.\u00a0 I have a Grade Card dated 8th September 1947 saying I was medically examined and placed in Grade 1.\u00a0 I had the medical in High Wycombe and the nice old doctor who examined me casually said to me that he had brought me into the world!\u00a0 He was Doctor Bailey, who had been our family doctor in Bourne End.\u00a0 I was instructed to report to Huyton[1]<\/a> in Liverpool, Harold Wilson\u2019s constituency.<\/p>\n Dated 2nd<\/sup> February 1948 I got my \u2018National Service Acts Enlistment Notice\u2019:<\/p>\n \u00a0Dear Sir,<\/i><\/p>\n In accordance with the National Service Acts, you are called on for service in the Territorial Army and are required to present yourself on Wednesday 18th<\/sup> February 1948 between 9 a.m. and 12 noon to:- General Service Corps, No. 77 County Primary Training Centre, No.3 Site, Bluebell Lane, Huyton, Liverpool.\u00a0 A travelling warrant for your journey is enclosed.\u00a0 A Postal Order for 4s, in respect of advance of service pay, is also enclosed.<\/i><\/p>\n I spent the night in London with the Thompsons, friends of my fathers.\u00a0 My letters tell how I got the train from Euston, an early one, to Liverpool, arriving five minutes early, to my amazement.\u00a0 By bus to the camp, arriving there at 1.30.\u00a0 I was informed I was going to Hollywood[2]<\/a>, an infantry basic training camp just outside Belfast. \u00a0I was put into 17 Platoon, C Company, the 28th<\/sup> Training Battalion.\u00a0 I then had nothing to do till 6 pm.\u00a0 \u2018I\u2019ve never been so bored in all my life!\u2019.\u00a0 There were about 200 new recruits of whom about \u00be were destined for Hollywood.\u00a0 We were sorted out and after about 1 \u00bd hours we were put onto buses for the docks.\u00a0 It was a perishingly cold night and I was not prepared for the cold and nearly froze.\u00a0 We had to wait on deck for another two hours before the boat sailed.\u00a0 It\u2019s not in the letter but I remember a large proportion of the recruits were drunk and being sick all over the deck.\u00a0 \u2018I\u2019ve never known two hours go so slowly.\u00a0 What was worse was that I (was mentally) prepared to spend the whole night on deck\u2019.\u00a0 Using my initiative I got a bunk, while most of the other recruits did have to spend the night on deck.\u00a0 I had quite a good night, sleeping fitfully, and got up at 6.30.\u00a0 We got into Belfast about 8 am.\u00a0 We disembarked, were lined up on the quay, put into lorries and driven to an RASC depot for breakfast.\u00a0 Then again into lorries, into a train for ten minutes, and then Hollywood Barracks.\u00a0 There we had to fill in forms and were issued with knives, forks and spoons, blankets, a mattress, two complete sets of underclothing, battledress, boots (they had run out of black boots and I was given a brown pair and told to make them black), belt and webbing, groundsheet, gas mask and a kit bag to put everything in.\u00a0 The worst thing was the T.A.B. injections.\u00a0 We were all very sick for a couple of days after these.<\/p>\n I was told I was likely to be there for 12-14 weeks basic training, with a War Office Selection Board (WOSB) interview after about 6-8 weeks, to see if I was suitable officer material.\u00a0 Typically pessimistic I comment in my letter home: \u2018it seems that commissions are very hard to get.\u00a0 Nevertheless there is no harm in trying\u2019.\u00a0 We were not allowed out of barracks for the first four weeks until we were passed as sufficiently disciplined and tidy to go into Belfast.\u00a0 I got my Army Number 22007972.\u00a0 I weighed 12 stone and \u00bd lb.<\/p>\n Further comments are amusing to look back on.\u00a0 \u2018I went to the barbers this afternoon looking like an Italian waiter and came back looking like a scarecrow.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never had my hair cut so short before & I never want it so short again.\u00a0 They have quite a good NAAFI here and I have just had a very good fried eggs & chips and very cheap too.\u00a0 Could you send me some of my socks as there seems to be rather a shortage of them here.\u2019<\/p>\n We got paid 4\/- per day and for some puritanical reason I decided that I should save some of this.\u00a0 I opened some sort of army savings account into which I put 1\/- per day and thus only had 3\/- per day to spend.<\/p>\n The next letter describes the daily routine, after a grumble about the cold weather.\u00a0 \u2018Outside we are exposed to the full blast of a biting east wind.\u00a0 Still I manage to keep warm somehow, by some magical process known only to myself\u2026\u2026We get up every week-day morning at 6.30 prompt & if you aren\u2019t out by then you are pulled out.\u00a0 Breakfast is at 7.\u00a0 Before then you have to wash & shave (in hot water, not cold, thank goodness), make your own bed & fold the blankets up in a special way.\u00a0 1st<\/sup> Parade is at 8.\u00a0 There is a break for half an hour at 10 when you can go to the NAAFI & have some tea and something to eat.\u00a0 Then more parade till 1 pm when there is lunch and again from 2 till 5 when there is a sort of tea.\u00a0 The rest of the day is free but so far there has been more than enough to do then, in the way of cleaning and sorting out stuff.\u00a0 If however you do get bored in the evening there is plenty going on.\u00a0 There are films every night (changed every two nights and a different one on Sundays), there is a very excellent library and a wood-work shop, two canteens where you can buy very good food very cheaply (as many fried eggs as you like at 5d each and potato chips to match).<\/p>\n \u2018I have spent the whole of the day cleaning, since about eight o\u2019clock (written on a Sunday).\u00a0 We have to get up at 7 on Sundays, as a special treat! \u00a0To counteract that we get up at 6am on Saturday.\u00a0 It is really too terrible for me getting up at such an unearthly hour.\u00a0 Anytime before 8.30 is awful but 6 o\u2019clock is really too much of a good thing!!\u00a0 As I was saying I have spent the whole day cleaning and also much of the previous two days trying to make a pair of brown boots black.\u00a0 By devious ways I have managed.\u00a0 Cleaning isn\u2019t really all that bad as we have a wireless to listen to.\u00a0 Of course today, when we were allowed it on all day there would be two long fuel cuts\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018The training here is split into two halves.\u00a0 For the first 8 weeks we do primary training which consists of large quantities of drill and learning all the elementary things about the rifle etc.\u00a0 Most of which I think I know.\u00a0 The next six or seven (I think we stay here thirteen weeks altogether) weeks consist of more advanced training; which is much more fun though harder work.<\/p>\n \u2018Actually taken all in all I am quite enjoying myself as the place isn\u2019t too bad, nor the food nor the people.\u00a0 There are a few public school chaps & one other person from Radley in my actual intake & two others about.\u00a0 We all live in huts, at twenty people per hut.\u00a0 The people in my hut are not too bad.\u00a0 There is one crazy Welshman who has a most marvellous singing voice. There is another chap who is about the size of an elephant and looks rather like Hardy\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018I had a very pleasant shower this afternoon; the first proper wash I have had since Monday. \u00a0There are not many facilities for cleaning oneself thoroughly, except for Sunday when one is allowed a shower.\u2019<\/p>\n A letter, three weeks later, complains that I have hardly a moment to spare except that this morning I had been put on fatigues and had been driven into Belfast, done some work there, and been driven back, had been excused all parades, and had thus an hour to spare to write a letter.\u00a0 I say I am quite enjoying life there.\u00a0 \u2018It is not bad at all as long as you keep on the right side of the officers and N.C.O.s, but you have to work hard to do that.\u00a0 There is a tremendous amount of spit and polish, far more than is necessary.\u00a0 You would hardly recognise me now as I have to be tidy and clean.\u00a0 I am very well fed.\u00a0 I went to the pictures on Tuesday and saw two mediocre pictures, but enjoyed them very much.\u00a0 It is such a pleasure to see something other than khaki and brass and boot polish.\u00a0 (I have used three tins of the stuff since I have been here).\u00a0 Today was the first time I have been allowed out into the outside world since I arrived here.\u00a0 It was a very pleasant change.\u00a0 I expect I shall be able to get out a bit more now as we are beginning to settle down at last.\u00a0 We still do not seem to have done very much at all in the way of training.\u00a0 In fact we do not seem to have done very much at all yet.\u2019<\/p>\n Almost immediately after this is a letter written from C Squadron, 8th<\/sup> Royal Tank Regiment, Catterick[3]<\/a>.\u00a0 I had rung my parents on Sunday March 14th<\/sup> and told them I would probably going to Catterick in three weeks time.\u00a0 Suddenly the next day after tea someone came up and said they had seen I was being posted on Tuesday, March 15th<\/sup> i.e. the next day.\u00a0 My letter continues: \u2019I nearly fainted in amazement and went to have a look.\u00a0 I saw that I was being posted on the next day leaving at 2.30 pm.\u00a0 Where I was going I did not know, nor into what.\u00a0 There followed some hours of frantic packing, handing in kit, filling up forms, questioning, and (inevitably in the army) waiting.\u00a0 I discovered at length that I was going to Catterick (as I expected) though why I was going so early I did not know, and to this day I do not know.<\/p>\n \u2018Then at 2.00 began an absolutely nightmare journey.\u00a0 First we went by lorry to Hollywood Station, & waited half an hour for a train.\u00a0 In Belfast we had to change stations and wait 1 \u00bd hours for a train to take us to Larne, where we got on a boat going to Stranraer.\u00a0 We had to wait an hour before that sailed at about 7.15.\u00a0 On the journey over I managed to get something to eat at an exorbitant price.\u00a0 The trip took about two hours and it rained pretty well all the way.<\/p>\n \u2018The next stage of the journey was by train to Carlisle where we arrived at about a quarter past one.\u00a0 We had to wait then for quite a time for another train to Newcastle.\u00a0 We got to Newcastle at about 4.30 in the morning.\u00a0 We had to wait then in the waiting room for two hours for a train to Darlington.\u00a0 We got to Darlington at about 7.30.\u00a0 It was light by then and things had at last come to life.\u00a0 After a short wait there (a mere twenty minutes) we caught a train to Richmond, from where we were taken by lorry to the camp here.\u00a0 It was not till I got here that I learned that I was going to the 8th<\/sup> Royal Tank Regiment (8th<\/sup> RTR).\u00a0 Through the whole of the night I suppose I only had about an hour\u2019s sleep and a pretty awful journey it was, all the time carting a great kit bag and rows of haversacks etc. \u00a0In my Army Book\u00a0 \u2018Soldier\u2019s Service and Pay Book\u2019 it says my training at Catterick began on April 8th<\/sup> and ended on 14 June.\u00a0 I never went near a tank!<\/p>\n Life at Catterick was much less intense than at Hollywood Barracks.\u00a0 I know I had to endure all the ghastly things that feature in the classic stories of army life, like peeling potatoes for 100 people and sweeping out the NAAFI, but my memories are much more pleasant.\u00a0 I was training to be a wireless operator and how long can you spend doing that?\u00a0 I had already learned the basics of operating the 38 wireless set, the type that was then use in tanks, at the STC camp at Radley, when I passed my Cert B exam.\u00a0 So when my instructor discovered this I was removed from the group doing the training and joined him as an instructor!\u00a0 The fun part was the practical work, which involved going out on the Yorkshire moors in a truck and trying to contact each other over long distances; not in the least arduous and on a fine day a real pleasure.\u00a0 There was plenty of free time in the evenings, not so much spit and polish, and I went frequently to the pictures, seeing such classics as \u2018Random Harvest\u2019 and \u2018They made me a Fugitive\u2019 with Trevor Howard.\u00a0 I went to the theatre in Richmond.\u00a0 And for the one and only time in my life I went to the speedway in Middlesborough and found it most exciting!<\/p>\n On my short leaves, 48 and 72 hours, I took to going to a small inn, the Punch Bowl at Feetham, about 20 miles west of Richmond up the River Swale.\u00a0 There I could totally relax, have some privacy, have proper baths, spend as much time in bed as I wanted, read long Victorian novels and walk the dales.\u00a0 There was a big tarn up on the top with a colony of black-headed gulls which I enjoyed visiting.\u00a0 The first time I went I collected a number of eggs and took them back for tea.\u00a0 On another visit I was dive bombed by the nesting birds and was scared stiff as they attacked me, flying six feet above the water straight at me screaming in indignation.\u00a0 The food was good and the waiter, who was called Charles, was very friendly, and if I remember aright, very plump.<\/p>\n Easter was at the end of March and I got four days leave.\u00a0 I made another nightmare journey to Abergavenny and back. I remember trying to sleep on a bench in Newport station waiting for a train.\u00a0\u00a0 My parents must have been spending Easter at the Coach and Horses[4]<\/a> in Llangynidr.\u00a0 Going back to Catterick I had to go from Abergavenny via Birmingham, change for Sheffield, change for York and change for Darlington, and finally change for Richmond.\u00a0 I had to walk from Richmond to Catterick, over an hour in the dark.\u00a0 Most of the time the trains were packed although I spent the journey from Sheffield to York in a very dilapidated but empty first class compartment.\u00a0 At York I had two hours to wait and went to the Royal Station Hotel which I found to be awfully grand sort of place, despite which I went in and had a proper meal.<\/p>\n Very soon after that I got 10 days leave and went back to Little Mount to spend the time there enjoying clean sheets, good food and no army parades.\u00a0 It was the travel to and fro that was so bad because all the trains were packed full, often including the corridors.\u00a0 And I went home again for Whitsun.<\/p>\n After Whitsun, towards the end of May, I went for the War Office Selection Board interview to assess my potential as a commissioned officer.\u00a0 This was held in Catterick.\u00a0 It consisted of various intelligence tests (like putting a dismantled bicycle pump together!) and interviews.\u00a0 It was all very civilised, beds with sheets, eating in the officer\u2019s mess.\u00a0 I passed and was promoted to acting unpaid Lance Corporal, an automatic upgrade if you passed.\u00a0 Passing WOSB meant that my next move would be to Officer Cadet Training Unit at Mons Barracks[5]<\/a>, Aldershot.\u00a0 I went there on 18th<\/sup> June.\u00a0 I have the movement order for six potential officers to be posted to Mons Barracks dated 9th<\/sup> June.\u00a0 We were to proceed on June 18th<\/sup> for our basic course \u2018departing Richmond by the 0720 train.\u00a0 RTA will detail transport to the station.\u00a0 Lance appointments will be relinquished on posting.\u00a0 Instructions contained in the Pamphlet \u2018Selection and trg of Potential Offrs\u2019 issued to Sqns 30 July 45 will be strictly adhered to.\u00a0 Haversack rations will be collected from the cookhouse at breakfast which will be at 0600 hrs.\u2019\u00a0 Among the potential officers was one ULC[6]<\/a> Walder, A, who was to become a great friend.<\/p>\n Going to OCTU [7]<\/a>was a bit like going back to Hollywood Barracks only the spit and polish was worse. \u00a0I cannot remember much about the time there.\u00a0 I was group E8, so this particular system cannot have been going on for long.\u00a0 Each batch was there for four months and I think there were two batches going at a time.\u00a0 The newspapers had recently been full of two officer cadets from Mons, in the previous batch to us, dying on a route march as a result of having to do a forced march on a full stomach.\u00a0 So the route march programme was curtailed for us.\u00a0 I had got very fat at Catterick and was too heavy to take part in the boxing as there was no one my weight!\u00a0 Certainly for the first couple of months our training was all about drill.\u00a0 Only after that were we segregated into smaller groups (I think there must have been 25-30 of us in E8) according to our future destinations in the army; infantry, cavalry, artillery etc.\u00a0 In spite of my earlier training having been in a tank regiment I was assigned to anti aircraft artillery.\u00a0 And so I started to learn about AA guns and radar.\u00a0 There was a certain amount of indoctrination about how to behave as an officer.\u00a0 We were shown a David Niven film to demonstrate how an officer conducted himself.\u00a0 All I remember is that one should never wear one\u2019s collar outside one\u2019s blazer if one was not wearing a tie.<\/p>\n We got weekends off twice a month and I usually went home as it was not far.\u00a0 I had my motor bike at Aldershot, having turned down an offer to sell it for \u00a385.\u00a0 Petrol was the problem and I clearly remember going in to a shop as I crossed the railway bridge at Didcot to buy some lighter fuel and got home on that.\u00a0 I have one letter dated 6th September to my parents, who were obviously away, all about one weekend.\u00a0 \u2018Dennis and I spent a lovely weekend at the Warrens and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves all round.\u00a0 I got back just in time for Friday night\u2019s supper there, when we had a lovely chicken.\u00a0 We lazed in bed till about 9 am on Saturday morning and cooked ourselves a lovely breakfast of bacon and eggs etc.\u00a0 We got down to Marlow just in time to go and have coffee at the Swan!\u00a0 Back for lunch to the Warren\u2019s where we ate our weekly joint, a most gorgeous bit of veal.\u00a0 We played tennis in the afternoon till it came on to rain.\u00a0 We just got in in time before a tremendous cloud burst.\u00a0 We played ping-pong most of the evening.\u00a0 In fact we played ping-pong most of the time when we weren\u2019t either eating or listening to the wireless.<\/p>\n \u2018Another leisurely morning on Sunday and another good breakfast.\u00a0 We went down to lunch and had the Warren\u2019s weekly joint, a lovely bit of lamb.\u00a0 We did ourselves proud in the way of food I think.\u00a0 I gave them a 72 hour ration card I had.\u00a0 I hope you didn\u2019t want it\u2019.\u00a0 The following weekend, with my parents still away, I went to the Farnborough Air Show.<\/p>\n On 22 September I went with the other AA cadets to firing camp at Tonfanau[8]<\/a> in Merionethshire to see if we had learned anything.\u00a0 I do remember that we actually did hit one drone, using the radar.\u00a0 My first comment home was that the food was absolutely wonderful and an incredible amount of it, and plenty to drink really cheap!\u00a0 The weather was bad and we did not get much firing practice.\u00a0 At the weekend we climbed Cader Idris[9]<\/a>. We went in an army truck to Tal-y-llyn lake and walked from there.\u00a0 The clouds were so thick we could see nothing from the top. We stopped for dinner on the way back at a hotel with a name like Tynycornel[10]<\/a>.\u00a0 That about finished OCTU.\u00a0 The last event was the passing out parade which our Regimental Sergeant Major was determined had to be the same standard as Sandhurst, so we drilled and drilled and drilled until we were perfect.\u00a0 The Regimental Sergeant Major was called Brittain, who became famous for his voice!\u00a0 We had our farewell dinner at the Bramley Grange Hotel[11]<\/a> near Guildford.\u00a0 I still have a signed wine list, saying on the back \u2018This belongs to the O\/C Pl. Sgt.\u00a0 Do not steal.\u2019\u00a0 I was the Platoon Sergeant.\u00a0 There is no date but it must have been early October.<\/p>\n Towards the end of OCTU our postings were decided.\u00a0 I opted to go for an overseas posting and was allocated to Malaya.\u00a0 I have an \u2018Urgent Memorandum\u2019 dated 12 Oct 1948 from the War Office to the Officer i\/c Officers\u2019 Section, Depot, R.A. Woolwich stating that \u2018the undermentioned RA officers are placed under orders for service overseas (FARELF-SINGAPORE) and will be warned to hold themselves in readiness for embarkation not before 8th November 1948.\u2019\u00a0 There are four of us, again including 2\/LT A.D. Walder, with whom I had become great friends at OCTU.\u00a0 He was even fatter than I was but considerably cleverer.\u00a0 So we shared a cabin on the troopship with the other two, 2L\/T Fletcher and 2L\/T Windass.\u00a0 A.D. Walder (David) wrote a book about our time at OCTU called I think \u2018Stand by Your Beds\u2019[12]<\/a>.\u00a0 I had a copy (a Penguin) but cannot find it.\u00a0 I could not identify myself in it, Windass was obvious.\u00a0 But it gives a wonderful tongue-in-the-cheek picture of what life was like at OCTU.<\/p>\n So we had to pass the time till we sailed at Woolwich Barracks.\u00a0 This was no hardship as we had the run of the Officers\u2019 Mess and nothing to do.\u00a0 The Officers Mess was like nothing I had ever seen, silver cups all over the place, elegant tables with silver cutlery, great food.\u00a0 Just the thing for a young 2 L\/T to relish.\u00a0 And of course we had to go to Horseguards Parade just to get saluted by the guardsman on duty.\u00a0 I think there was plenty of home leave as well.\u00a0 I have a photo of me at someone\u2019s wedding in my full officer\u2019s regalia, dress uniform, Sam Browne belt, with a large paunch!\u00a0 Somewhere about November 18th we set off for Liverpool to board the Troopship Empire Halladane and sail off to Malaya.\u00a0 I had been in the army exactly nine months and achieved, for the army, precisely nothing.<\/p>\n I have reproduced separately the letters I wrote home from the time we sailed from Liverpool until I returned home, cutting out those parts that which have little relevance to my life in Malaya.\u00a0 The voyage on the troopship is described in detail over the course of four letters and I will not repeat it here.\u00a0 The voyage was a mixture of boredom and periods of fascination at the strange new world I was seeing.\u00a0 I only went ashore once, at Port Said, at the north end of the Suez Canal.\u00a0 I had hoped to go ashore at Aden but there was a strike on and so we could not refuel and only stopped briefly.\u00a0 I did not go ashore either at Colombo, in what is now Sri Lanka; in my letter I give the reason as the bad weather, but in fact the younger officers had had a wild party the night before and were throwing glasses overboard and our shore leave privileges were cancelled!\u00a0 The few nights we had on Belakang Mati island in Singapore before going up-country were most uncomfortable and made much worse by the stories of the other officers there about the dangers of sleeping in tents, of black widow spiders and scorpions, which we were certain were not true but which still struck fear into our na\u00efve and innocent youth, particularly with the wild jungle all around.<\/p>\n What is astonishing to me now about the letters is the almost complete lack of insight they provide into the real life we were leading, almost as if I was giving a white-washed account of another world, where everything was fun and enjoyable.\u00a0 It was anything but that.\u00a0 In the first letter after arrival I comment that there is a tremendous terrorist scare going on but that I would be lucky if I ever saw one before I left.\u00a0 It was as far from the truth as could be.\u00a0 Earlier in the year the Federation of Malaya had been formed, uniting the various Sultanates on the Peninsula, and including Singapore, Sarawak and Borneo.\u00a0 This heavily favoured the ethnic Malaya population, effectively making the much poorer and radical ethnic Chinese into second class citizens.\u00a0 The Chinese Communist Party, formed in 1930, had been the backbone of the anti-Japanese resistance, and in 1948 it went back into the jungle to fight the new Federation.\u00a0 It was relatively well-armed because the arms supplied by the British to fight the Japanese were hidden in dumps in the jungle, and there was still plenty of guerrilla expertise left over from the war.\u00a0 In June 1948 the so-called bandits started attacking rubber planters\u2019 bungalows and other soft targets. The British did not take the uprising very seriously at first, so that when I arrived we were very much a bunch of amateurs at guerrilla warfare.\u00a0 It took 12 years in the end before the so-called Emergency was brought to a successful end.\u00a0 Nevertheless, even at that time, certain precautions were taken.\u00a0 I was assigned to 26 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery[13]<\/a>, within that to 16 (Sandemans) Battery, which was the Commander-in-Chief\u2019s mobile reserve.\u00a0 The Battery consisted of three Troops and had been sent off to various parts of south Malaya, initially to defend the planters\u2019 bungalows from ambushes and later, as we got more organised, to seek out the bandit camps in the jungle.\u00a0 The bandits waged a vicious war against the ethnic Chinese rubber tappers and attempted to disrupt the rubber industry, the backbone of the economy, by trying to force the plantation managers off their plantations and by slashing rubber trees.\u00a0 Luckily for us, though we did not know it at the time, bandit activity was much less intense in Johore than further north, up beyond Kuala Lumpur and further east.\u00a0 So my first assignment, once Christmas was over and we had had a modicum of jungle training, was to join a platoon of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers on Mount Austin Estate, about 30 miles north of Johore Bahru.\u00a0 As far as I recollect my total group was me, an old armoured car and its crew, driver, gunner and wireless operator; just a small part of the troop.<\/p>\n But before I went there many things had happened.\u00a0 The Regimental headquarters was at Tampin in Negri Sembilan, a well-established army base with all the trimmings, like the regimental silver on the table at meal times.\u00a0 As soon as we arrived David Walder and I managed to be given a room to share and we were each assigned an armoured car.\u00a0 Our Battery was equipped with a number of old General Motors armoured cars, rescued from the Western Desert, where they had no doubt seen noble service and were still painted in their desert camouflage.\u00a0 They were armed with a 303 machine gun and a 20mm cannon.\u00a0 The cannon could slice through a rubber tree very easily.\u00a0 David, who had really wanted to be in a cavalry regiment, was more delighted than me.\u00a0 We were issued with revolvers to be carried at all times.\u00a0 This was my downfall.\u00a0 We were fooling around with the revolvers in our room, when I pointed mine at him and pulled the trigger, thinking it was empty.\u00a0 But it had a round up the barrel and I shot him in the stomach.\u00a0 My mind is a blank after this.\u00a0 David was whisked off to hospital and operated on and survived.\u00a0 I do not know what would have happened to me if he had died.\u00a0 Fortunately he pulled through but for the rest of his time in Malaya he was given an office job and I did not see him again until we were boarding the troopship to go home.\u00a0 We kept up a correspondence for a while.\u00a0 He went to Christchurch, Oxford and I remember him writing to say it was all just like \u2018Brideshead Revisited\u2019, which I had not read at that time.\u00a0 David went into law, became a QC, then Member of Parliament for and a junior whip under Mrs Thatcher.\u00a0 He died about 1990.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n I suspect I was dispatched to the Skins to get me out of the way.\u00a0 Our main function was to patrol the roads at night, more I suspect to show a presence than for any useful purpose.\u00a0 It was quite scary at times, driving along the narrow estate roads, that were not built to stand the weight of an armoured car, wondering if the flimsy bridges would collapse.\u00a0 On at least one occasion the roadside verge did collapse and we had to signal for a recovery Scammel to come and pull us out.\u00a0 We would have been a sitting target.\u00a0 Driving around\u00a0 was a nice and cool way to spend the time, especially after the intense heat of the day and not at all arduous.\u00a0 I had my head out of the turret, with a big spotlight to scan the surrounding country.\u00a0 I never saw anything.\u00a0 Once or twice we were called out to a planter\u2019s bungalow which had come under fire, but by the time we got to the scene there was nothing about.<\/p>\n Sometime during this period I was summoned back to Tampin to be given an official reprimand.\u00a0 I remember nothing about the official reprimand.\u00a0 But I still have a vivid recollection of the drive back to Tampin.\u00a0 My Battery Commander had come to collect me.\u00a0 He was a wild Irishman, Major Dennis Graham, thin and wiry with a small moustache with a reputation for fast driving and iron nerves.\u00a0 He told me that if he had had his way I would have been given a sound flogging and sent back to my troop.\u00a0 He went on to say that he was sure I would leave the army and become a city gent, catching the early train to London and coming back at night to my family and living an utterly dull and boring life.\u00a0 At that point I vowed to myself that I would never get into that kind of life style.\u00a0 I have come close to it at times but I think his disparaging remarks have been a major influence on the decisions I have made through my life about how I wanted to live.<\/p>\n I remained on Mount Austen Estate until nearly the end of February.\u00a0 My next assignment was to defend (!) a Dunlop Estate at Sagil, near Muar, a small town on the west coast just south of Malacca.\u00a0 It was more comfortable, with electric light and running water but deep in the middle of a huge rubber plantation.\u00a0 The way of life was much the same, patrolling fruitlessly in my armoured car, and basically getting pretty bored for days on end.\u00a0 By now, though, the whole of the troop had come together and we were beginning to act in an infantry role as well as still using the armoured cars.\u00a0 The infantry role included responding to bandit attacks, mostly against rubber planters, and going into the jungle and searching for bandits and bandit camps.\u00a0 We were required to keep log books at about this time to record our patrols and write down what lessons we learned from them. I still have mine.\u00a0 It shows that between the end of March and the end of June I went on twenty such patrols, varying from a few hours to ten days.<\/p>\n My letter home of March 30th<\/sup> describes the ten day patrol in some detail, although it sounds more like a glorified picnic than a serious military operation.\u00a0 My log book describes the object as \u2018jungle experience\u2019 and \u2018to cover area and find any bandits there may be\u2019.\u00a0 We were a big group; 27 of us from all the three troops of the Battery and Battery HQ.\u00a0 The description in the log book captures a bit more what it was like;<\/p>\n 1st<\/sup> day\u00a0 Very slow going along forest reserve track, into an isolated rubber clearing.\u00a0 Across a swamp into further clearing.\u00a0 No tracks visible but found it after casting around.\u00a0 Perseverance and Perspiration (mostly perspiration).\u00a0 Complete fade out at River Lenga of any well defined track.\u00a0 After finding an unmarked woodcutters track I got lost returning to report.\u00a0 Careless following of blazed trees.<\/i><\/p>\n 2nd<\/sup> day Bashed straight through jungle on a bearing over a range of mountains and through swamps.\u00a0 It always seems to pay in the long run to go on a bearing rather than follow tracks.\u00a0 We were only 800 yards out at the end and found the clearing the next day.<\/i><\/p>\n 3rd<\/sup> day Established base in clearing and received food drop.\u00a0 Very good rations<\/i><\/p>\n 4th<\/sup> day Rested.<\/i><\/p>\n 5th<\/sup> day Patrol upstream for some miles but NTR (nothing to report).\u00a0 Rivers quite a good route to follow.<\/i><\/p>\n 6th<\/sup> and 7th<\/sup> days\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waited for further airdrops and for sick to recover.<\/i><\/p>\n 8th<\/sup> day Return journey, by partially recc\u2019d route.\u00a0 Route not properly recc\u2019d and we were delayed.\u00a0 Once again following a bearing got us on route.\u00a0 Quite easy to map spot using contours and watercourses and guessing possible swampy positions.<\/i><\/p>\n 9th<\/sup> day Found clearing for next airdrop but owing to impossible weather and excess of food we cancelled it and came straight back following forest reserve boundary which proved to be a good track.\u00a0 Good to be back in civilisation.<\/i><\/p>\n In spite of all the rain we seemed to be perpetually short of water and always thirsty.\u00a0 One night all we had was water scooped from a large muddy puddle (an elephant wallow) that had to be purified (we always carried water purification tablets with us), and tasted revolting even when the mud had settled down.\u00a0 Bamboos were a good source of fresh water when split open.\u00a0 Whenever I have smelled wet burning grass ever since I have been reminded of the fire we made to burn down the long grass in the clearing so we could receive the airdrop.\u00a0 I also remember having to carry one of the batteries we used to power the wireless set we carried.\u00a0 It must have weighed 30-40 lbs and in the damp heat it was very tiring.\u00a0 By the 8th<\/sup> or 9th<\/sup> day we were all absolutely soaked, with no dry clothes, and smelling.\u00a0 Never before or since have I been so disgusted with having to get dressed in wet and stinking clothes when we got up on the last morning.<\/p>\n Soon after that I moved again, not to a comfortable rubber planter\u2019s bungalow, but to a small encampment on the edge of the jungle.\u00a0 I was promoted to troop commander.\u00a0 Thank goodness I had a wonderful sergeant major who was really in charge and I was left to learn the ropes.\u00a0 He taught me how to curry bully beef in a mess tin over an open fire!\u00a0 The main road we were on from Muar to Bakri had a notorious ambush spot close to our camp where the road went through a narrow gorge with jungle close to the edge and we always travelled in convoy with everybody fully armed and ready to dismount instantaneously.\u00a0 Most of our time, however, was spent patrolling the jungle in small sections of 8 to 10 men.\u00a0 The patrols were usually pretty fruitless and we never came under fire.\u00a0 On my fifth patrol searching for a bandit camp, on April 17th<\/sup> Easter Day, I had my first success:<\/p>\n Followed stream bed up to where the camp should be and searched the jungle along the stream with no success.\u00a0 So we went over the hill and into the valley the other side.\u00a0 Found the camp with very little trouble about a quarter of a mile in from the rubber.\u00a0 First camp I have seen.\u00a0 Well laid out, but very scattered.\u00a0 Hard to control in an emergency.\u00a0 Wonderful sentry post – looking through a hollow tree trunk lying on the ground covering the track in.\u00a0 All huts made of split bamboo, before they were burnt they must have been quite substantial<\/i>.\u00a0 The water came from an underground stream coming out of the hillside, making it harder than ever to locate.<\/i><\/p>\n On April 26th<\/sup> we had another big operation.\u00a0 A bandit camp of 300 men with field guns had been reported and we went in to what I suppose would now be called \u2018search and destroy\u2019. There were 5 sections from 16 Battery and 2 sections of police, about 70 of us I guess.<\/p>\n Took informer with us.\u00a0 Left here at 0100hrs debussed at 0500 hrs.\u00a0 Horrible road.\u00a0 The informer led the way along hardly visible tracks through black jungle.\u00a0 Very little noise considering the number of men.\u00a0 The police were terrible.\u00a0 I thought our chaps were bad at keeping distance but the police did not bother to try.\u00a0 After about three hours going we opened up on the wireless which delayed us unnecessarily, or so it seemed, when we were so near the camp.\u00a0 Moved on eventually and stopped in the end of the squatter area just short of the camp.\u00a0 The informer started stalling and so one section had to go on ahead.\u00a0 Meanwhile I took the informer and he said he knew another place where he knew there were bandits.\u00a0 After about three miles we came to a house which we had passed on the way out.\u00a0 I went in with him and he stalled again and said that only documents were there.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t find any.\u00a0 Took him back with another chinaman whom he said he did not know but would not look at him and hid behind a tree when he saw him coming.\u00a0 The other section had found a camp capable of holding about ten men recently deserted and containing documents and a hat with a red star.\u00a0 Another recce all around the jungle but no other camp.\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0Felt like strangling the informer.<\/i><\/p>\n Soon after this we started going out on night ambushes.\u00a0 I would go with about four men.\u00a0 My log book for April29th<\/sup> records we were going out \u2018anti rubber slashing\u2019 (slashing the rubber trees would reduce their yield).<\/p>\n My first night ambush.\u00a0 Walked to Colinsburgh Division factory and skirted round the edge.\u00a0 No one saw us and no dogs barked – surprising because of the noise we seemed to be making.\u00a0 Laid ambush for about four hours at the spot Mr Harper-Ball and Mr Scott were shot, then moved into Bakri just short of the Lee Rubber Factory.\u00a0 Very dark under thick rubber – only light from lightening flashes.\u00a0 Nothing seen – dogs a nuisance especially when they bark at you.\u00a0 Useful to tell when anyone is coming.\u00a0 Returned to Colinsburgh Factory and watched it till dawn but nothing.\u00a0 The chaps need training in moving by night and I need it in night compass marching<\/i>.<\/p>\n The worst thing about these ambushes was the mosquitoes.\u00a0 The rule of silence meant we could not be slapping ourselves when we felt a mosquito biting us and I don\u2019t think we put on anti-bite lotion in case we could be smelt.<\/p>\n At the beginning of May the real troop commander, Captain Stenning, returned and I could go back to comparative peace.\u00a0 I think we were now four officers in our camp, Captain Stenning, Lieut \u2019Tiny\u2019 Rissik, 2 l\/t Bill Greenstreet and myself, and so there was some company after the comparative loneliness of the previous weeks.\u00a0 In my letters I relate that I had been down to Singapore for the day \u2018on business\u2019.\u00a0 It was actually to collect a truckload of howitzer shells.\u00a0 The Battery was actually going to use guns again, even if they were only howitzers, to shell a suspected bandit camp.\u00a0 I arrived in Singapore, after crossing the Causeway from Johore Bahru, in my Dodge, in full anti-ambush mode, with my section fully armed with loaded sten guns, and the windscreen down.\u00a0 We were promptly stopped by the Military Police and told we were not in a war zone any more and to put our toys away.\u00a0 It was very down putting.\u00a0 But I was very proud to be entrusted with such an important mission!\u00a0 Another one of my quite frequent trips to Singapore was to attend the funeral of one of the men from another troop who had just died in an ambush.<\/p>\n On May 21st<\/sup> we made a raid on a squatter area which was supposed to be harbouring bandits, three sections of us but no police.<\/p>\n Time out 0300 hrs.\u00a0 Moved in too late.\u00a0 It was already light – almost not enough troops for such a large squatter area.\u00a0 As we approached the squatter area 1 man strolled down a hill to a hut, grabbed something and dashed off.\u00a0 We fired but it was too late.\u00a0 3 more men were arrested (and proved to be bandit supporters).\u00a0 A wire led from their hut to a path on the edge of the jungle.\u00a0 This was definitely a bandit path – but we found no camp – a pity.\u00a0 Not enough perseverance.\u00a0 Time in 1245 hrs.<\/i><\/p>\n It amuses me that my next letter home, dated May 22nd<\/sup>, merely comments that \u2018life continues quite steadily\u2019.\u00a0 The one of June 5th<\/sup> is equally misleading.\u00a0 \u2018I haven\u2019t done much travelling around this week.\u00a0 I have just sat here doing very little\u2019.\u00a0 In fact the Battery had just mounted a major operation, \u2018Operation Shinty\u2019.\u00a0 I had a very relaxed time lying in ambush for four days on a hill top.\u00a0 We had been out the week before to recce the best place and found this wonderful location with a view point, hidden in rocks with high grass all round, from where we could cover the main tracks in and out of the area which was being covered, without being visible.\u00a0 We saw nothing the whole time but it was a lovely spot.\u00a0 The worst thing was not being able to cook as our smoke would have been seen.\u00a0 The next worse was one of my little group (there were only five of us) being stung by a scorpion.<\/p>\n A few days later the manager of a nearby rubber estate at Serom was murdered by bandits.\u00a0 We were called out and, after searching the area near where the manager had been ambushed, received an urgent call from a police patrol who had bumped into some bandits about a mile to our north.\u00a0 We joined them and found a large bandit camp capable of holding 50-60 men, hidden in an area of overgrown rubber.\u00a0 The camp was full of documents and with food still cooking on a fire.\u00a0 There was also a large pack containing medical supplies.\u00a0 So we burnt the camp and went home.\u00a0 I wonder why we never went in pursuit?\u00a0 Only three days later did we have another major operation involving the whole battery to arrest all the people we could find in the area of the ambush.\u00a0 But we were three days too late.\u00a0 Half the males had moved out of the area and there were a large number of empty houses.\u00a0 We detained 550 people but only 10 of these were taken to the police station for further \u2018questioning\u2019.\u00a0 It was the first and only proper police screening operation I had been on.\u00a0 Five days later we were again called out after another ambush in which a naval officer had been killed.\u00a0 My log book comments that just as we were moving in the police called the operation off.<\/p>\n In between all this I was sent to be the defending officer at a court martial.\u00a0 The defendant had deserted and been picked up in Singapore two weeks later.\u00a0 He never stood a chance with me defending him or even with anyone else.\u00a0 He was sentenced to six months.\u00a0 I enjoyed two days holiday away from the Battery and was lodged in the mess of a Royal Artillery Aircraft Spotters unit.\u00a0 I was most disappointed that I was unable to get a flight back to base!<\/p>\n We became very friendly with a couple of the younger rubber planters and some of us (officers!) would visit them on Sundays for Tiger beer and curry.\u00a0 My letter of July 10th<\/sup> admits I am feeling a bit the worse for wear due to an excess of beer, explaining this was the usual practice before Sunday tiffin. The planters had a Chinese cook and we only had an army cook!\u00a0 So it was a pleasant change to have some decent food as well as the beer.\u00a0 I think this became a regular event.<\/p>\n My letters home contain snippets of information about my release from the army and about dates of departure.\u00a0 At first I was worried that I would not make it home in time to go to Cambridge in October.\u00a0 Then, when it was clear I would get the early release I needed, there were doubts about the date the boat would sail.\u00a0 Early to mid-August seemed most likely.\u00a0 I was counting the days like any schoolboy!\u00a0 And then the army saw fit to let me have ten days leave.\u00a0 I went to stay with the parents of Peter Sturges, with whom I had once shared a study at Radley.\u00a0 They lived in Ipoh.\u00a0 He was a rubber planter and also very involved with horses.\u00a0 Their house was on the edge of the racecourse.\u00a0 They rented a flat for me next door and looked after me with great kindness.\u00a0 They still had Peter\u2019s \u2018amah\u2019 who looked after me; I had never met a personal servant like her before.\u00a0 Peter was in fact in a Guards Regiment stationed a few miles away and his sister Jane was also there.\u00a0 I seem to have spent much of the time swimming and generally relaxing.\u00a0 They took me round sightseeing.\u00a0 There does not seem to have been any concern about bandits or ambushes.\u00a0 I still have vivid memories of driving Peter back to his regiment one night in their Oldsmobile, and driving at 80 mph on the way home.\u00a0 It was the fastest I had ever been on land!<\/p>\n I was moved to Battery HQ in Muar at the end of July, for the last three weeks of my stay in Malaya, as Intelligence Officer.\u00a0 It was a more luxurious life but I remember nothing of what I was supposed to do. \u00a0I went down to Singapore on August 15th<\/sup> and sailed on August 17th<\/sup>, my 20th<\/sup> birthday, on His Majesty\u2019s Troopship \u2018Orduna\u2019.\u00a0 We arrived in Liverpool a month later.\u00a0 It was a very boring voyage and a very hot one.\u00a0 My Officer\u2019s Release Book is date stamped September 17th<\/sup>, so we must have arrived a day or two before that.\u00a0 I was granted Release Leave until October 6th<\/sup>.\u00a0 I was then free of the army for good.\u00a0 I had thus served nineteen months altogether.\u00a0 I was given Premature Release to go to University, so I suppose I should have served 24 months.\u00a0 I am not sure now.\u00a0 I think the conscription period was raised from 18 to 24 months during the time I was in the army.\u00a0 It certainly was by the time the Korean War came in 1950.\u00a0 I have always been glad that I escaped that war.\u00a0 So now I was free to restart my education at University.\u00a0 I went up to Pembroke at the beginning of October 1949 to start my new life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> http:\/\/www.army.mod.uk\/signals\/organisation\/8084.aspx<\/a> for 2013 shows that this is the place where the British Army has their Signals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a> http:\/\/armyfitnesstest.co.uk\/assessment-centres\/belfast-northern-ireland\/<\/a> for 2013 shows this is where the Army has a training assessment centre.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [3]<\/a> http:\/\/www.army.mod.uk\/structure\/28835.aspx<\/a>. 2013 still the Army\u2019s main training centre.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [4]<\/a> http:\/\/www.coachandhorses.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n [5]<\/a> http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mons_Officer_Cadet_School<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n [6]<\/a> Unpaid Lance Corporal<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [7]<\/a> Officer Cadet Training Unit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [8]<\/a> http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tonfanau<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n [9]<\/a> http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cadair_Idris<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n [10]<\/a> http:\/\/www.tynycornel.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n [11]<\/a> http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bramley,_Surrey<\/a> \u2013 the hotel burn down in 1996<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [12]<\/a> http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Stand-Your-Beds-National-Service\/dp\/0953503666\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385464726&sr=1-2<\/a> .\u00a0 This is incorrect and the book was actually Bags of Swank – http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Bags-Swank-David-Walder\/dp\/B001F1S3MK\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385465596&sr=1-2&keywords=Bags+of+Swank<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n [13]<\/a> http:\/\/www.britains-smallwars.com\/malaya\/reg.html<\/a>\u00a0 – for some information on the regiments<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [14]<\/a> http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/David_Walder<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" National Service 1948-1949 My six months deferment of National Service, which I was allowed in order to take a scholarship, expired in mid-February 1948.\u00a0 I had already passed my medical.\u00a0 I have a Grade Card dated 8th September 1947 saying … Continue reading
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