Potato Fight on The Somersetshire, February 1939

The Somersetshire

My grand-uncle Dick has recently released his memoirs of his time as an officer in the RAF, serving in Sudan, The Eritrea and Egypt. They're too good not to share. Big Fear was a story included in these that occurred way after the war. We start here 7 months prior to the outbreak of World War II.

My Tour of Duty With No.47 (B) Squadron

Southampton

It was February 1939. We staggered up the gang plank of His Majesty' Troopship Somersetshire, bound for the Red Sea and Port Sudan. We were laden down with suitcases and kit bags, and had recently passed out at RAF Manston, Kent as Metal Riggers. This was a reasonably new trade in the Royal Air Force and was the result of the modern metal aircraft being introduced in place of the fabric aircraft now being phased out.

In December 1938, due to the Munich Panic, the whole of RAF Manston was threatened with, 'No Christmas Leave, until the seventy-odd Avro Ansons on strength had been camouflaged' from their lovely shining silver covering. So our first introduction to an operational aeroplane was not an insertion repair but a two inch dope brush.

So there we were, four decks down hammocks, packed like sardines, Navy, Army and RAF, being fed out to all the stations from Gibraltar to Hong Kong and bringing home the time-ex fellows. Twice a year the troopers sailed, February and July.

Half of our class had been posted to RAF Khartoum, who when we arrived found that we had been allocated to No.47 Bomber Squadron operating Vickers Vincents, a large bi-plane.

Though this epistle is about my tour of duty with No. 47 Squadron in the Sudan and Eritrea, I feel that an account of the ten days on the Somersetshire would also be of humorous interest to the reader.

It was not long before we reached the Bay of Biscay and foul weather. All the 'land lubbers' were visiting the toilets and the side of the ship, much to the amusement of the Royal Navy personnel who walked around with smug looks on their faces.

The 'heads,' the naval term for the toilets, right in the aft of the ship, ran across the ship, port to starboard and consisted of separate cubicles with cowboy swing doors. They had a long connecting trough beneath all of them, flushed with running water feeding out of the ship's side, whichever way the ship rolled.

It was not long before all the 'rookies' were caught. Old Navy Petty Officers were quietly entering empty cubicles, screwing up pages of newspapers, setting them alight and placing them carefully on the surface of the water in the trough, where as the ship rolled, floated quietly under the backsides of the occupants in adjacent cubicles warming, or should we say burning, the cockles of their hearts.

Shouts of pain were heard regularly until the trick was discovered and nobody ever went into a cubicle without watching through a part-opened door for any Navy man entering the toilet area.

By Gibraltar practically everybody had found their sea legs and in Gibraltar Harbour the first batch of personnel went ashore. Similarly at Malta and after a few days we arrived at Port Said.

The Gulli Gulli men were allowed on board. These were Egyptian conjurers using three inverted egg cups, finding and disappearing numbers of chicks with their skills. No chick anywhere, lift up the egg cup, a chick, put it down again and lift up, chick gone. Amazing, even though we knew where they were going. How those chicks must have suffered.

The following day half the ship was taken on a route march around Port Said for exercise much to the amusement of the locals.

Incidentally, fatigues and duties were shared between three services daily and the day we were due enter the Suez Canal it was the Army who were on cookhouse fatigues. On the fore deck a circle of about twenty soldiers were sitting in a ring, on buckets, with potato knives, surrounding a huge mound of potatoes. There must have been a ton there with the numbers of troops on ship to feed. They were part of our lunch.

We were moving very slowly, about two knots, when suddenly the anchor was dropped and we hove to. Everybody wondered why and on enquiring from the Merchant Navy crew were told that a big Italian troopship was coming out of the canal in a few minutes.

Slowly she came past our ship, a beautiful huge shining white liner. Three times as big as we were, only twenty yards away. On its upper decks reclining in deckchairs were a number of senior officers, with their wives, dressed in pure white tropical uniform with multicoloured epaulettes. Italian troops were on the lower decks. It must have been trooping from Eritrea and Abyssinia and it was not long before one of our squaddies had shouted across the water gap “Up you Musso,” and with an immediate response of “Up you Engleesie” from the Italians.

Suddenly, a big potato became airborne and smashed into the side of the Italian Trooper, and then another, another and them within a matter of seconds the huge potato pile was aloft in the air and on its way to the 'enemy ship.' Then The Somersetshire raised their elevation directing it at the upper deck officers. They had to quickly duck into their cabins with their wives and families.

The rain of spuds travelling through the air was likened to the English arrows at the Battle of Crecy. Hundreds and hundreds. Corned Beef only for lunch- no spuds, but one up to the British.

And so we passed into the Canal. Incidentally the world had not forgotten how Mussolini had conquered Abyssinia from Eritrea with the use of poison gas in 1936. They were generally hated. As we steamed down the canal the Captain decided to exercise the troops. It was the only time that I had ever seen a tug of war match where both teams were pulling aft, out of sight from each other, behind the superstructure. A long rope around a big pulley was ran around the bow of the ship.

When the RAF team was losing ground two or three spectators jumped on the rope until, instead of a team of eight, thirty or forty were on each side. The RAF even wound their rope end around a bollard. Still, all good fun.

The day before we were due to disembark at Port Sudan we were told over the tannoy to collect our deep sea kit bags and be ready to disembark in the morning, in No.1 Khaki Dress.

When we took our KD out of our kit bags and changed into it you had never seen such a sight in your life. Nothing tailored, shorts below the knees, tunics too big, black boots instead of shoes, topees too big. (It's possible he means 'toupees.') Dad's army was never in it. (I'm assuming he's retrospectively referencing the TV show produced 1968-77.) The remarks came thick and fast. “Why should Britain tremble?” “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

And when we walked down the gangway and were met by a bronzed reception party from The Port Sudan, RAF Squadron, we realised how awful we looked.

We spent the next eight hours in the Seamen's Mission (chaplain's room?) and finally embarked on the Sudanese train at six in the evening on our forty-eight hours journey to Khartoum.

The next two days were spent, firstly winding our way through the Red Sea Hills and finally out into the desert, via Atbara, to Khartoum and 47 Squadron. Every so often we pulled into small village stations where we were pestered by sellers trying to get us to purchase eggs and awful-looking bread. We had previously been instructed not to buy any native food. We had a good supply of service food, even though the butter and the corned beef poured out of the tins.

Finally, at about 6 in the evening, two days later, we arrived at Khartoum. The railway line ran past the camp gate, fifty yards away. Uncoupling our coach, the train steamed on to Khartoum Main Station.

We de-trained and offloaded all of our kit. A Sudanese came out of the camp gate leading a donkey, accompanied by two others with brooms. The entrance reminded me of the old fort gates and ramparts of the old Beau Geste films.

The Warrant Officer in charge of our party was asked to mount the donkey and slowly he was led in and under the camp gate. All of the time the two Sudanese were sweeping the road in front of the donkey. Later when asked why they swept the road we were told that 'It was to ensure that the donkey did not trip up and that the new draft arrived safely.”

As we walked under the archway we saw the Squadron on the roof and they rained hundreds of beer bottle tops down on our topees.

Inside, we were located by the chap we were relieving and taken to our billets with information to “Get a meal and then up the NAAFI for a big party.”

Later we climbed the stairs to the NAAFI, the only two storey building on the camp, dining room underneath, and were met by the Padre at the door. “Welcome to the Squadron. You'll find it quite hot, but you will get used to it. You've joined a smashing Squadron.”

We mingled with everybody, drinks flowing, piano going non-stop, and in a matter of an hour everybody was well on their way. Then all the squadron songs were starting to be sung and very rude they were. Salomi Somersetshire, the lot. (I can find no reference to this online.) In the corner, with a pint in front of him, was the Padre singing away.

F---- them all

F---- them all

The long, the short

And the tall

I was shocked, but found out later that he was a Cpl. Policeman posing as the padre. He certainly fooled us.

In passing, we found out that a barrel of beer had been voted from the PSI two weeks previous in readiness for the new draft's arrival. Beer was flowing the day we arrived and two weeks ago. And so it went on. Any excuse for a 'booze-up.'

Incidentally, I was still a strict teetotaller. My father, who prior to his retiring, ran a public house, had bet my three sisters and myself that there would be ten pounds for not smoking and ten pounds for not drinking until we reached the age of 21. I was the only one that had stayed 'pure' and my 21^st was 3 months away. So I watched everything soberly.

In the morning I joined 'B' Flight, 47 Squadron and was given a Vickers Vincent bi-plane to look after, together with a fitter. She had a crew of 3; pilot, navigator and air gunner. All open to the weather and sun. Powered by a small Pegasus she sometimes carried a 50 gallon long range tank slung under the fuselage. Fuel was pumped up to the header tank behind the engine by a wind-driven propeller pump in the tank's nose. Starting was by a handle which wound up an inertia flywheel which the pilot engaged by pulling a cable. It was tough going winding up the engine at temperatures of 120F (49C) in the shade. Before the aircraft taxied away from the sand apron the pilot checked the engine and magnetos and we, the ground crew, had to hang over the leading edge of the tail plane to hold it down. The sand blast on the back of our legs was painful, sometimes enough to bring flecks of blood to the skin.

The air gunners were tradesmen, fitters, rigger and wireless mechanics and were called Part Time A.G.s. They received extra for flying. Often we flew in the rear open cockpit and over the period of a month also added a few shillings to our basic pay.

Just inside the camp gate was the hockey pitch and the station parade ground. When swimming had finished, about 5 o'clock on Sunday, the contents of the pool were pumped into a channel about 2 feet wide and fed right around the grass pitch and released onto the grass. By Monday morning it was a lake, Tuesday it had disappeared and on Wednesday afternoon we played hockey. It was the Station Warrant Officer's pride and joy and he even had fifty airmen running all over it banging tins in an attempt to ward off a plague of locusts which suddenly appeared one day.

A couple of weeks after I arrived we were given a free cinema show in the NAAFI. Cpl York, the Squadron goal keeper was the supplier. He had been given a cinematic projector and camera by Alexander Korda the film producer. The very first Four Feathers film had just been completed at Khartoum, near the big native village of Omdurman. Cpl York had been loaned to Korda to radio Egypt and UK for supplies. Not being permitted to be paid, this was the way Korda had thanked him. Yorkie used to hire old films from Egypt and give these free shows once a month. And very funny they were. We used to hiss the villains, cheer the heroes and boo when the film broke.

And so we settled down to the routine of the Squadron. Woken up by the billet boy at half past five with a mug of tea and a chunk of fruit cake and work by six o'clock. Breakfast, eight to nine, and with topees, back to work until one o'clock. A light meal, tiffin, and a quick shower and into bed. All shutters of the billet had been closed by eight o'clock in the morning, with six big fans in the ceiling trying to keep us cool. Peace reigned until four in the afternoon when the sportsmen got up to pursue their different pleasures.

Khartoum had a small zoo, two cinemas and on the river outside the Governor General's Palace was moored a small gun boat, used by Lord Kitchener when he reconquered the Sudan with the final Battle of Omdurman. It had been transported across the desert in sections and reassembled further up The Nile.

The big native village of Omdurman was allowed to be visited by parties of six only.

The Squadron was occupied in routine flying, visiting and checking on landing strips in the Southern Sudan. Shortly after arriving at Khartoum three Vincents, with myself in the rear cockpit anchored by a monkey chain, flew to Kassala on the Eritrean border. This was a huge mountainous mound of rock jutting out of the desert and was the first and only Sudanese village to fall to the Italians in the first few days of the war in June 1940.

It was quickly recaptured. Later in the year we camouflaged the silver Vincents with dark green, light and dark earth distempers.

Across the other side of the aerodrome was the Imperial Airways hangar where our mail used to arrive by big four-engined bi-planes. Handley Page HP42. Later in the year the mail arrived by Short Flying boats landing on the River Nile. It was with us within 2 hours of landing.

We had a visit from the engineer running the Imperials Airways Flight requesting help with an engine change. A Corporal Fitter was loaned; they worked all night and the aircraft took off early the following morning on time towards South Africa. He was rewarded with fifty pounds, an absolute fortune on those days.

Come back next week for some elephant watermelon bombing, and further war stories.