A Terrible Waste of Time and Money
By Ernest George Larbey, Royal Engineers

I served in the Royal Engineers from May 1953 until Dec 1956. My release date was May 56 but by August I was called back up to fight in the fiasco that was known as the Suez Crisis. I was married on the 7th of August and had to report to Barton Stacey on the 9th. Needles to say Eden was not exactly my favourite politician. It was not too long before I found myself on a stevedores course in Marchwood down on Southampton waters. It rained for the most of August & September and as we were living under canvas, morale was low and all reservists being ruled mainly by young, untested officers.  The 3 months of not knowing what was going to happen was nearly unbearable and to be quite frank there was a near mutiny when some Brigadier was sent to give us a pep talk. Some bright sparks decided to stone him with handfuls of gravel when he arrived 2 hours late.

However things improved when the powers to be decided tents were not ideal accommodation in such weather and we were moved to a condemned barracks at Aldershot about mid October. We had not been there too long when it was looking more and more likely that Nasser would not take over or block the canal so we were sent home on extended leave.  Little did we know of course then that Mr. Eden intended to go in anyway. I had been home 24hrs when the dreaded telegram arrived ordering me back to camp and within 12hrs found myself and about a dozen other chaps as an advance party on the troop ship Asturias and the following day, 2nd of November, headed out of Southampton water well over laden, bound for Port Said.

The trip took a week. It was a very uncomfortable week as every inch of the ship was taken up by bodies. One couldn't walk without treading on some poor chap or his kit.  We arrived on the 9th some days after the ceasefire and immediately were set the task of unloading Jerry cans of petrol from a hold of a ship, each can having to be picked up and taken ashore.

Our billet was a college where we lay our bodies on the terraced floor of a classroom, where we cooked our meagre rations taken from our ration packs. Our toilets were outside tennis courts with trenches cut across to allow us to crouch over these open ditches with the aid of a pickaxe driven in the ground just in front, which allowed one to perform one's bowel movements with a degree of safety. Is it any wonder more than 50% of us went down with dysentery, me included.

I was flown out and spent a week in the British Military Hospital in Nicosia to be followed by a wet week under canvas in a transit camp outside town.  I was flown home by BOAC and allowed to carry on with married life on my release on Christmas Eve.  What a terrible waste of time and money and Anthony Eden was knighted for that fiasco.

I have a memory of a day in the Canal Zone during the Suez Crisis when our troop officer, who shall be nameless but only he if he should read this will he know who I am talking about, I am sure he will never forget it. He was a very young National Service. [I think] 2nd Lieutenant. Keen to impress us reservists he ordered our troop sergeant to have us parade on the road outside the school we called camp. With our school one side of the road and a block of flats on the other side it made a place to parade with ease. Little or no civilian or army traffic to bother us, the lieutenant thought, so it would make an ideal parade ground.

We were all drawn up into 3 ranks open order for rifle inspection. We were told the officer would be inspecting our arms so we should remove the magazines of our .303s and place them on the ground between our legs This was duly done and the troop officer started to make his inspection. As he passed we were to replace the magazines ensuring the first round was pushed down into the magazine before slamming home the bolt. Every thing went well but our officer found fault with every one's rifle. They were dirty of course as we hadn’t a chance to clean them. Passing along the middle rank Mr. ------- decided to go back and re-inspect another chap's rifle. Why he did this only he can say, but the consequence could have been disastrous. Grabbing the chap's rifle, he opened the bolt, and started gazing down into the magazine, undoubtedly looking for more dirt. He then rapidly slammed the bolt home not realising he had pushed a round into the breach. All hell broke loose when he then pulled the trigger. A large hole appeared alongside a woman’s head who happened to be hanging out of a shuttered window in the block of flats opposite. The lieutenant made his excuses and left and the rather shocked parade was dismissed.

We over heard that officer the following day telling a fellow officer about his ordeal and finishing off the conversation with. "I will never inspect another rifle ever again"
 

I was flown out and spent a week in the British Military Hospital in Nicosia to be followed by a wet week under canvas in a transit camp outside town.  I was flown home by BOAC and allowed to carry on with married life on my release on Christmas Eve.  What a terrible waste of time and money and Anthony Eden was knighted for that fiasco. Reading some of the other stories on this web site I thought it might be interesting to have yet another slant on what was known as yet another Forgotten War?