STEAM AT WAR 13




We put into Freemantle for thirtysix hours and had twelve hours shore leave. Most of the troops went into Perth to spend the time. A few of us teamed up, had dinner in Perth and took an afternoon train a little further inland to Midlands Junction where the Western Australian Railway workshops were located. We were welcomed and given a tour of the works and shown new locomotives for their railways and boilers under construction for mine sweepers. We were treated to a few social beers in the local pub and returned on the worker's train to Perth and Freemantle.

Next morning the convoy set off down the coast round the corner and across the Australian Bight and in a few days put into Hobart. We passed in through the submarine barrier that consisted of heavy steel netting at the sea end of the deep entrance bay and drawn aside by mine sweepers to make passage. A destroyer followed the ships through dropping depth charges prior to the closing of the barrier. We sailed up that scenic tree and farmlands bordered waterway to the town backed by snow-capped Mount Wellington. We were there for six frustrating hours with no shore leave and again set off across the Tasman for good old New Zealand. We passed south of Stewart Island and up the South Island east coast with the Dunedin contingent recognising the Otago Peninsular. It was a murky day so did not see any more land until arriving in Wellington Harbour on the morning of 12th of July 1943 to the overwhelming pungent odours of lush bush and ferns.

The Wellington and Hutt Valley troops were disembarked within a few hours of berthing followed later in the day by the Auckland and South Island people. The Manawatu, Wanganui, Taranaki and Hawkes Bay troops were off-loaded the next day. Adjacent to our quarters was a ships orderly room containing an extensive range of office equipment including thirty Remington typewriters. On the morning after our arrival only twenty-nine remained. What a witch hunt took place! But they were looking at the wrong people. No doubt someone's rehabilitation in the secretarial world got off to a good start. Those like myself bound for Palmerston North were disembarked in the early afternoon and within three hours reunited with our families.

The New Zealand Railways due to wartime pressures were very short of staff which was the main reason why the government wanted the railway battalions back home rather than being sent to another theatre of war. Thus, the companies were disbanded and the men returned to their jobs. I was retained in the army for three months while undergoing hospital treatment for my now very severe digestive disorder. The retention of food was an ongoing problem. Finally I was discharged on a war pension and unofficially warned that if I valued my pension not to take up any employment. At age 24 this was not news to my liking. I went back to work where I had left off as a locomotive fireman that did nothing for my health. The irregular hours of work, sleep and meals took its toll so after seven months I resigned from the railway and re-entered my first choice of trade as a turner and fitter in a small engineering works serving the district's agricultural industry and lost my pension. With the support of the returned servicemen's rehabilitation scheme I completed my engineering apprenticeship and gained trade certification.

I recovered my health, married my wartime correspondent and used my rehabilitation loan to build our home. We raised two daughters, moved on in my trade to leading hand, works foreman, works manager, secondary school teacher in technical subjects, middle management in a textile factory then retirement but not idleness.

STEAM AT WAR 12




As the active war zone receded westwards and the North African ports became operable the desert railway ran out of work as a supply line but continued in use bringing out the vast quantity of war wreckage. Our 16th operating company was relieved from what had been a long and arduous term of duty, and withdrawn to the New Zealand forces base camp at Maadi.

I was joined to a small detachment of eight men to be transported to El Kantara on the Suez Canal to pick up a fleet of diesel electric locomotives and ferry them up to Beirut in Lebanon. There we were to establish train-loading schedules over the routes from Beirut to Haifa in Palestine and Beirut to Tripoli in north Lebanon near the border with Syria. We also had to train South African engine-men to operate the new diesels that were displacing steam engines that in turn were being sent to work in Turkey.

We were based in a beautiful campsite in an olive grove with fourteen American technicians who maintained the locomotives and sixteen South African engine-men. There was excellent comradeship among this specialised group and life was idyllic. The north and south runs were right on the Mediterranean coast and we were given the superfluous advice to not permit night-time lighting that could be visible from the sea.

After four months in this beautiful part of the world the four married men of our group were recalled to base to prepare for furlough to NZ. We held a farewell party and gave those who lived near our homes messages to our families. We remaining single fellows carried on in apparent isolation but we were not forgotten and a week later in some urgency we were commanded to return to the furlough embarkation camp at Giza in the shadow of the Great Pyramids. Thus, after a four-day train journey we arrived and divested ourselves of everything that we could not carry in our sea kit bags. Four days later we were transported by road to Suez, loaded onto the 37000 ton New Amsterdam and at 16.00 hours that day weighed anchor and commenced the thirty day homeward journey. There were more than 6000 troops aboard. We enjoyed three meals daily and those of us who gained possession of one of the 700 library books read the time away. A few of them were good and some utter rubbish, but the possession of a book meant that one exchanged it hand to hand for another. There were frequent appeals for the return of all books to the library under threat of cessation of further issues. As the library was empty we did not fall for that one. They got them back at the end of the voyage. We were billeted up on an enclosed weather deck in rather more comfortable conditions than we had experienced on the outward journey nearly three years earlier. We actually enjoyed reacquainting ourselves with hammocks. After two days sailing down the Red Sea we put into the port of Aden and lay at anchor for two days within the perimeter of volcanic peaks surrounding the huge crater harbour. We were not ashore and by the look of Aden with its barren surrounds we did not feel deprived. Our ship was joined by thee more to make up a convoy that changed in structure at various points of the journey.

We departed Aden and steamed across the Indian Ocean to pass off Colombo and head down the Australian West Coast. By day the convoy travelled at moderate speed pursuing a zigzag course and at night speed was increased and a straight course followed. The Dominion Monarch was stationed off our port beam. In some heavy weather we were to see her plough through waves cresting higher than her bridge superstructure. Frequently our escorting destroyers and light cruisers would turn off and disappear over the horizon and hours later or next morning were back in their normal stations. When we reached the Australian coast the warships went off elsewhere and Catalina amphibian aircraft took over the escort duties. We noted members of the crews visible in their observation blisters.

STEAM AT WAR 11




Following a week of horrendous bombardment from allied artillery by night and aerial bombing by day the enemy was routed. As the railway track was repaired we followed up with supply trains, first with a field workshop train to which I was attached for two weeks to eventually arrive at the end of rail within sight of Tobruk. The Germans had built the final 19kms of track to the edge of the escarpment overlooking Tobruk by dismantling some of our sidings and balloon loops and transferring the rails and sleepers. Over the entire 560 kilometres from El Alamein to end of rail the war wreckage presented vivid evidence of a great long running battle. Burned out tanks especially Italian tanks all pointing west were still smouldering. There were destroyed road transport vehicles, half-track troop carriers and everywhere temporary graves marked by wooden crosses and German and Italian helmets. There were intact munitions supply dumps and airfields littered with self destroyed fighter planes. We passed through a rearguard action site at Fort Capuzzo where the defence emplacement consisted of nothing more than a metre high wall of rocks and rubble. The sight and stench of the shredded Italian clothing and equipment was appalling.

A winding road from the end of rail led down to the Tobruk port. Our construction units built several widely spaced railway spurs or curved back-shunts onto which we pushed the arriving trains then disconnected and moved out about a half kilometre while Indian labour gangs performed the 3 to 3½ hour task of unloading. We then backed up, hooked on and cleared out hopefully before enemy air attacks that by then had become few and far between. About 25Km short of Tobruk a large airfield was established at Gambut from where American Liberator bombers attacked targets in Italy. It had its own railway siding and we regularly delivered trainloads of bombs and aviation fuel. The sight of twenty-one of these heavily loaded bombers taking off in echelon formation was awe-inspiring. The dust from the surface would hang in the air for an hour or more. From the approaches to Gambut and Tobruk we were to watch these places come under air attack, especially the Tobruk port where the harbour was jammed with sunken British, German and Italian ships.

During their occupation the enemy had brought over about twelve diesel mechanical locomotives to work as much as they could of the captured railway. There were three sizes, 500, 350 and 250 horsepower. Most of them were rendered unserviceable by having their engine fuel systems destroyed. The few that were mobile soon became inoperable through breakdown and lack of spare parts. All were pushed to the ends of spurs and back-shunts to serve as end of track stop blocks. The Italians contributed about an equal number of ingeniously designed yard shunting locomotives that had tall central cabs with the engines mounted beneath. They were built on low slung chasses the ends of which carried traversing jacks which in the retracted position passed beneath the wagon headstocks. Evidently Italian railway working methods called for much preoccupation with re-railing of wagons. None of these were left serviceable and joined wreckage bulldozed clear of the tracks.

A great gift to the allied forces was the capture of large numbers of Italian Fiat and Lancia heavy-duty diesel lorries. These were most durable vehicles that stood up to continuous use. By contrast, the German trucks, especially those with air cooled motors soon joined the junk piles. Highly prized were the captured Italian Lancia and Alce motor cycles. They were the first sprung rear end motor cycles that we had seen. Their very smooth running motors had quite large external flywheels. The finely engineered German BMW motor cycles that came into our hands did not survive long in the desert conditions.