WWII: Palestine posting after the war

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BOYS who were 11 at the outbreak of the Second World War were 17 when it ended in 1945. They were entitled to expect that peace would bring an improvement in the quality of life; food rationing would be over; and fuel shortages and conscription would end.

But that wasn’t to be. Food was rationed even more, as was the power supply – and conscription continued.

Unless they were in a reserved occupation, at the age of 18 those wartime children could expect to be conscripted into the Armed Services or even the coal mines. The terms of enlistment in the Armed Services were for “the duration of emergencies”. It is doubtful if any of my art school friends were in reserved occupations so, like me, they were continually expecting their call-up papers.

On August 15, 1946, aged 18, I was drafted into the Army. It was not my preferred choice, but with a bit of luck I would see more of the world. One school friend, Ron Williamson, was also at the Derby Midland Station that Thursday, with his pal Bill Willetts, on the same draft.

We endured six weeks of primary training at Budbrook Barracks, Warwick. I don’t know where Ron and Bill went from there but I went on to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) Clerk’s and Storemen’s School, at Hilsea Barracks, Portsmouth.

I was never sure whether I was selected to be a clerk because of my 12 months’ experience at George Innes, Derby’s up-market men’s outfitters, or rejected for the infantry because of my lack-lustre performance in military training. Were my half-hearted mock bayonet charges paying their due dividend?

But, oh, what a boring life being a clerk in the RAOC depot at Old Dalby, Leicestershire. Being able to get home each weekend on a 36-hour pass for a night in my own warm, dry bed was its only advantage. It was so cold in the Nissen hut billet that to sleep we kept most of our clothes on and put our trousers, tunic and greatcoat on top of the bedclothes. Condensation ran down the steel arch of the hut and formed pools on the floor.

In December, volunteers were wanted for service overseas. Ignoring the golden rule “never volunteer for anything”, I put my name forward. The choice posting was Germany which had a reputation for warm-hearted frauleins, top-of-the-range cameras at bargain prices and a night out to remember for the price of a packet of fags.

During Christmas and embarkation leave, Derby was getting colder. It was the prelude to the worst winter of the 20th century. As the winter deepened, an RAOC contingent left Feltham on an unheated train bound for Southampton, at 3am on January 17.

Wherever we were going, it wasn’t Germany. After standing for hours on the dock, we embarked on the snow-clad SS Mooltan destined for Port Said. We had no idea of our final destination. Britain had Armed Forces in every country along the African coast of the Mediterranean, also in the Middle East and more distant Eastern countries.

Our final destination was to be Palestine. The rough journey there and the brief period in a Cairo transit camp more than satisfied any desire for adventure we may have had.

Despite Palestine being the battleground for Britain’s first post-war conflict, it was a beautiful country. We arrived at Camp 153 on the lower slopes of Mount Caramel, south of Haifa – the very Mount Carmel where Elijah slew the prophets of Baal and from which Derby’s Mount Carmel no doubt took its name.

Camp 153 was on the eastern side of the main coast road. Our place of work, 614 Advanced Ordnance Depot, was on the other side of the road. It was a large depot similar to the ordnance depots in the UK.

An important difference, however, was the civilian workers who were either Arabs or Jews. The Arabs were gregarious and many lived in the village of Tirah, which nestled in a cleft in Mount Carmel, behind Camp 153.

Carmel, like other hills in the region, was limestone and Northern Palestine bore many resemblances to Derbyshire. The lifestyle of the villagers was not far removed from many of the villages in the Peak District. Anyone who was a child in the depressed times of the 1930s could empathise with them. They were simple, friendly people.

Comradeship within the camp was very high; newcomers were welcomed upon arrival. The first question one asked was “Where do you come from?” Later, I was asking newcomers the same question. There was an abundance of Brummies, oodles of Taffs, a profusion of Jocks, Scousers galore and a miscellaneous mixture of others, but no Derbeians.

We shared a beach behind the depot with a company of Sherwood Foresters but the Notts and Derby regiment had returned to the UK and their camp had been taken over by the 6th Airborne.

After two or three months in Palestine, RAOC’s top brass decided to hold a course to turn some of its less soldierly soldiers into more soldierly soldiers.

It didn’t surprise me to find myself on this toughening-up course. It was held in Camp 153. We moved from our billets to join troops from other RAOC camps in Palestine. What a surprise it was to find Alan Tipper, my old classmate from Derby Junior Art School, in the same billet!

For two weeks, we endured the early rising and the long, hard training in the hot sun. On the plus side, boring office duties and the all too frequent guard duties were set aside. Alan and I had enjoyed swimming together in Queen Street Baths and now we could finish every day with a swim in the clear waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

The fickle finger of fate was to bring me into contact with another school friend, Clem Weston, who went to Brighton Road School. A leg injury put me in the Bir Yakov Military Hospital where Clem was also a patient. Our time there overlapped sufficiently long enough for us to go to the hospital cinema together and have the odd chat over a cup of tea.

The biggest coincidence occurred in January 1948. Some weeks before Christmas I had written to my mother to say I was to be transferred to a military hospital in Britain. My mother told me to “look out for Len Kelly”. He was returning from leave in the UK.

It amused my ward mates when I told them. Len was in a Guards regiment, a real soldier. I was a non-combatant clerk in the RAOC. There were 100,000 troops in Palestine and a similar number in the Canal Zone and the odds of running into Len were practically zero.

Then, one day, as I queued for a mug of tea in a transit camp at Port Said, I felt a tap on my shoulder; it was Len from Benson Street in Derby!

These meetings with Derby friends were all too brief and any of us could be whisked away without warning.

For some years now I have been seeking out Palestine veterans and getting their memories and experiences in print and passing them to the Imperial War Museum and the National Army Museum.

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This article is from the Derby Evening Telegraph and is reproduced online here.