Thank you, Anthony Eden
By Martyn Habberley
T/22793936
RASC

August 1955

The papers were full of the crisis over the Suez Canal, and it was almost a relief when, just as I was about to have an August Bank Holiday off, a telegram came to report the next day to Aldershot, for a recall to Colour service from my Class A reserve category.  I went to the office and told them.  "This isn't very convenient", they said.  I exploded and told them it wasn't all that much of a thrill to me either. Luckily I sat my evening class O Level exams just before the call-up came through! Back in uniform again, we drove three-ton lorries all over the country, carrying ammunition and stores to various ports, mostly Cardiff and Southampton, for the great expeditionary force.  It was quite a lot of fun, as several times we drove convoys through the heart of London at night completely ignoring traffic lights, and when we were held up, housewives would come out with tea and bikkies for us.  Most of the time I was based at Maindy Barracks, Cardiff, and Smoky Joe's Cyprus Cafe in Bute Street was the favourite watering hole.  I remember a few good nights out at the Seamen's Mission, where a motley assortment of all colours of people had a whale of a time dancing to jazz records.  We were very short of cash, but scrumpy rough cider was only 4d a glass.  After covering most of the country collecting stores of all kinds, we ended up at the REME barracks at Stansted, where our own trucks were sprayed with a sandy colour ready for the desert.

Eventually we loaded up our own ship in Barry Docks, the SS Marshall (I think she was Red Funnel Line out of Liverpool) and a really desperate old rust bucket she was.  She carried three-ton trucks loaded with tank ammunition and a deck cargo of the same plus crated jerry cans of petrol.  We sailed on Guy Fawkes Night from Barry, so we had a pyrotechnic send-off. There were about eighty drivers aboard, mostly reservists but also some National Servicemen. Generally speaking none of us had anything to lose, so we were a pretty bolshie lot.  A Major Nightingale was our commanding officer, and we were half of an 'Independent Transport Column’ belonging to the Suez effort.  The other half of the Column was on a much faster ship, an LCT (Landing Craft Tank) and left a few days after us, passed us in the Mediterranean Sea, got to Suez, did the job, and passed us again in the Med on their way back while we were still ploughing slowly towards Egypt.  In fact, we were running into a storm for several days in the Bay of Biscay.  While the ship was being loaded there had been a strike by the riggers, trying to make a few quid from the national emergency, so the loaded trucks in the holds were not properly fastened down.  When we started rolling badly, over forty degrees in fact, the trucks started breaking loose.  Every time the ship rolled there was a shuddering crash as everything in the holds went from one side to the other, and on deck the ammunition (I think 20lb-er) was jumping out through the truck canvases and rolling around the decks, where the petrol in the jerry cans was leaking out steadily. Luckily there was plenty of seawater washing around as well. After the worst rolls there was a long wait before the ship righted herself, the crew all looked terrified and we were definitely in real danger of foundering.  The Bosun went below in the early stages to attempt to lash the cargo, but broke a leg fairly quickly, so after that they decided to head into the wind and just let it roll, and we did this for three or four days.

Our quarters were at the top level of a cargo hold, where standees, four layers of steel beds hinged to pillars between floor and ceiling, had been rigged by the same blokes who did the trucks, and the whole lot was breaking loose in large chunks.  As the ship rolled we were looking straight up the steep stair/companionway to the deck and seeing solid green water - not a pretty sight, especially as everyone was rolling around in their own mess, as there was not a man who wasn't thoroughly sea-sick!  The army cooks had been provided with chicken hut kitchens bolted to the outside decks, with no fiddles on the stovetops, and they did their best, but the results only went flying, so they had to give up trying.  What a journey! We called at Gibraltar for bunkering, then on to Malta.  There were attempts to discipline us into blancoing our kit and polishing our brasses, but we soon put a stop to that by throwing every bit of cleaning kit overboard.  The CO ranted, “There is enough room aboard this ship to clap you all in irons." He must have been reading too many Hornblower books, as who would have driven the trucks?

Arrived in Malta, we were brought stern on to the quayside in Valetta Harbour, and an attempt was made to sort out the tangled mass of machinery below decks.  It didn't last long, as there was a strike of riggers in Malta as well (also taking advantage of our national emergency!) and so gash dock labour and the ship’s own derricks were used to warp the trucks up and over onto lighters alongside.  When they brought the second or third truck up, the little wizened chap on one of the swinging warps on the boom ran out of line and let go, and as the end whizzed through the blocks, the boom swung across, hit the superstructure and bent, and the loaded truck dropped about a yard, snapped the wire, and went straight through the lighter below, direct to the harbour bottom, where it probably lies to this day, ammunition and all! The following morning we tried to get under way.  The tug towing us out was late arriving, so the stern lines to the quay were let go, and we pulled out to the bow anchors.  Unfortunately a ship had arrived in the next berth during the night, and her anchor chain was fouling one of ours, so we swung gently round the harbour on the scope of our chain, bouncing none too gently off several other ships.  One was being coaled by men carrying baskets up a ladder, and they ran for their lives. One or two ships had officers jumping in silhouette like cartoon drawings, telling off our captain through loudhailers in fairly strong language.  We laughed till we cried. What an outfit!

When we got finally clear we steamed on for Suez.  Although radios were not allowed we did have one or two aboard, and had been following the BBC news with much interest, so we knew that we were going to arrive too late to be of any use.  However, we arrived off Suez knowing that hostilities were over and done with.  A fleet of ships of all sorts were moored in the roads, including destroyers and aircraft carriers.  There we lay for ten whole days with no idea of what was to happen next.  Mail arrived a couple of times via a minesweeper that did the rounds of the shipping every day, and we were much buzzed by aircraft from the carriers.  Eventually our leader, Major Nightingale, scrounged a lift ashore on the minesweeper to try to get some orders.  While he was ashore a nasty swell developed, and by the time the minesweeper brought him back, it took several attempts to come alongside bending itself badly against our ship's side.  Poor old Nightingale, commonly referred to as 'Tweety Pie' was a bright green after a couple of goes, no doubt feeling very lonely on the minesweeper's foredeck as he tried to grab the Jacobs ladder, and we kept up a loud barrage of 'drown, you b-------, drown', which can’t have been much help. He finally made it, and once he had recovered his composure, addressed us from the poop.  The bad news was that he had no orders for us, and the good news was that he was to fly back to the UK from our next port, and would see us again, probably in Blighty.   The ship got under way.  We watched anxiously, as the ships wake going one way meant Cyprus, the other way meant Malta and the way home.  A cheer went up as the wake curved to the right.  We had already suffered rude gestures from the other half as they steamed past us on their way home, while we still struggled to arrive.  We did our best to enjoy a bit of relaxation, but attempts were made to occupy us usefully in chipping paint on the upper parts of the ship were abandoned, as it was soon discovered that gratings and ironwork in general were in such a state that there was nothing left under the paint except brown rusty dust, so that whole sections of gratings and upper works in general were disappearing entirely under the chipping hammers, which hardly inspired confidence in those parts of the ship which were under water!

We finally pulled into Southampton Roads under Cowes two days before Christmas Eve.  I was on fire picket that night and managed to sneak a good scrub in fresh water in the ship's officers shower during the small hours of morning, as we had been washing in seawater for weeks without any salt water soap, and we were all covered in masses of boils.  I had lost two and a half stone in ten weeks.  When we got ashore we were taken to Netley Hospital, overlooking Southampton Water, where we were reunited with Major Nightingale.  He told us that we would not be allowed home until the ship was unloaded and all the equipment signed for.  We had a conference amongst ourselves, and a message was passed to Major Nightingale that as far as we were concerned, he had until eight o’clock that evening to change his mind, as we were off home in the morning, allowed or not.  He returned eventually to announce that after consultations he had changed his mind, and in the morning we were driven off in three-ton lorries howling a few last insults at the major, who must have been very glad to see the back of us.  How he got on with writing off the damaged and missing equipment, I have no idea.  We spent one more day in the army after Christmas leave, handing in our kit, and then were discharged to Civvy Street.  I had done an extra month the first time, and now had a further four months service from the Reserve- my last call-up, thank Heaven!

The entire Suez incident was a complete fiasco as far as we could tell.  At the time one fell into the trap of thinking 'those in charge must know what they are doing', but hindsight and history tells that the powers that be really were utterly, completely incompetent, and that our private impressions on the ground of utter chaos and incompetence on a huge scale, were absolutely justified.  Can anyone tell me why we loaded hundreds of wheelbarrows onto ships, and hundreds of Elsan toilets, when troops were leaving for a short, sharp desert campaign?  I have had no faith in the public image of leadership, or in the mostly ludicrous coverage of anything by the media, ever since.

 Martyn Habberley