STEAM AT WAR 1




This series is drawn from my unpublished memoirs titled “One Sapper’s War”.



Following on from the outbreak of war in 1939 the first and second echelons of the second NZ expeditionary forces had departed for the Middle East and United Kingdom. By early 1940 the third echelon to form the final grouping for the main body was being inducted. The Minister of Defence sent notices out to railwaymen calling for volunteers in forming a railway battalion to consist of two operating companies. The exercise was conducted in some urgency and the units thus formed became the 16th and 17th Railway Operating Companies of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Forces. Each contained 380 troops holding the skills necessary for train running operations. I became a member of the locomotive section of the 16th Railway Operating Company. My proudly borne regimental number was 27452 and my rank, the ignominious title "Sapper". In fact we were field engineers and wore the field engineers' puggarees on that curse of our lives, our lemon-squeezer hats. Within a week we were in camp at Hopuhopu, a damp and foggy place on the bank of the Waikato River between Ngaruawahia and Taupiri. We were issued with kit, 1911 vintage Lee Enfield 303 rifles, given a crash course in parade ground drill and sent home on embarkation leave.

The sailing date was deferred following the sinking of the Auckland Vancouver liner Niagara by German mines laid off the Northland coast. Our destination looked set for France but two or three weeks later we were again prepared for embarkation when France was over-run and Dunkirk became a legend. There was talk of disbanding the railway battalion, however, another two weeks saw us onto a troop train for the overnight journey to Wellington to board the troop ship Empress of Japan, which in convoy with the then new Mauritania and Orcades carried the third echelon to the Middle East. Later when Japan came into the war the name Empress of Japan was changed to Empress of Scotland. She was a steam turbine ship of 26000 tons and there were 3500 troops onboard. Our unit was accommodated in a hold at the stern on "D" deck almost on the water line. The portholes could not be opened in rough weather because they frequently dipped beneath the waves. Access was via a cargo hatch with a jury-rigged timber stairway that spiralled down to our quarters. We slept in hammocks that had to be unrolled every night and slung from ceiling hooks so closely spaced that one had to squirm up between the others to get into one's own. Once having mastered the art of getting into them without tumbling out the other side it took three nights to adapt to lying in the enforced banana shape. Finally exhaustion took over and we actually achieved comfort in them. The noise from the propellers and drive system was horrendous and in the first few days we felt quite overwhelmed by it. We were fed three meals a day in one of five half-hour sittings. We took our places in the dining room in accordance with the code on our boarding tickets. We were in transit for thirty-one days and served thirty-one rabbit stews and sago puddings with a Sunday treat of sultanas added to the sago. For all of our waking hours we carried our life preservers that added to our personal bulks in the crowded conditions. Fortunately on the voyage we had no cause to use those much cursed encumbrances. After ten days of chronic seasickness for some, mild to none for others and reactions from three inoculations we arrived at Freemantle. We experienced withdrawal symptoms when the horrendous noise from the propelling machinery was replaced by the relative silence of the berthed ship. We were given shore leave for part of the thirty-six hours that the ship topped up with supplies, presumably more rabbits and sago as the diet continued the same for the remainder of the voyage. We sailed next morning into the Indian Ocean and heading generally Northwest celebrated the traditional ceremonial crossing of the equator and noted the shoals of flying fish leaping from the sea and gliding on their large pectoral fins away from the passage of the ship.