FROM DEPOT TO DESERT
As Remembered By Les Walklin
Transport Sergeant 1st Btn Coldstream Guards
At the Guards Depot, Caterham
What a fearsome place the Guards Depot at Caterham was. Completed in 1877
the barracks were very basic, cold and unwelcoming. NCOs staff determined
to make life a misery for all recruits daft enough to have signed on or who'd
been coerced to join as National Servicemen. Tom contacted me after purchasing
a copy of 'My Regiment and Me' and told me that it was there that he, a Canal
Zone veteran like you readers, found himself posted as a drill instructor
in 1950. He would join the team charged with transforming raw unkempt recruits
into fully trained guardsmen. Their role being to mould recruits into their
concept of fearless fighting machines. If you could survive their onslaught
you could face anything. Well didn't you all go through the same sort of agony?
Before the ritual square bashing began the barrack room had to be left in immaculate condition. But additional unscheduled room inspections were frequent and instructors like Tom would scream 'Stand by your beds' on entering the barrack room. Following closely behind would be a Superintending Sergeant, such as Sgt 'Rhondda' Collins or Sgt Fletcher. Then the tirade would commence. “I'm not satisfied with the state of your bed areas. The barrack room furniture is filthy. Not a trace of polish on it. Can't see through the windowpanes. Dust on the sills. You've p---ed all over the floor in the urinals. The sinks in the washroom are filthy. The taps don't shine. The landing and stairs need sweeping and mopping and the Company area outside is littered. So you'd better get a move on and get it sorted. I can't stand filth. Be assured, a fate worse than death awaits you if I return this evening and find anything not to the required standard.” His complaints were either figments of his imagination or deliberate wind-ups intended to shake us up and ensure we had no peace.
However the result would be pristine elegance as shown in the photograph of the then L/Cpl Tom Jackson's squad barrack room ready for inspection by a Company Officer.
Recruits’ Barrack Room ready for inspection
The next photograph shows L/Cpl Jackson's squad marching off the Commandant's Saturday Morning Parade. Sgt. 'Rhondda' Collins is marching to the front right of the squad with Tom at the rear. Both are wearing their blue forage caps with white bands and buff belts.
L/Cpl Tom Jackson’s squad
Tom spent two years as a drill instructor at the Depot before being posted to the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards based at Fanara. The photograph shows Tom now a Full Sergeant, smartly turned out as usual and proudly displaying his red infantry sash - not easy come by in the Regiment. He was on this occasion inspecting No. 1 Company tented accommodation at Old Basuto Camp, Fanara.
Sgt Tom Jackson – No. 1 Company at Fanara
Terrorist activities
During the 1940s, a group of civilians volunteered to fight the British control
of Egyptian land around the Suez Canal. The British had deployed military
bases along the coast of the Suez Canal under the claim of protection. Many
Egyptians viewed this as an invasion against their sovereign power over their
country. While the Egyptian government didn't refuse the action, the people's
leaders organized groups of Fedayeen who were trained to combat and kill British
soldiers everywhere in Egypt, including the military bases. Those groups were
viewed very highly among the Egyptian population. So in 1951 mobs of irregular
'self-sacrificers', or 'Fedayeen' attacked the British military base defending
the Suez Canal Zone.
There was considerable guerrilla activity pretty well all along the Sweet Water Canal towards Fanara and Suez. Fedayeen terrorists armed by the Muslim Brotherhood would ambush convoys on the Treaty Road, bomb passing trucks and open fire on their drivers and escorts. They sniped at patrols from hidden positions behind the banks of the Canal and promptly vanished when soldiers approached. This kept the 3rd Battalion companies busy, especially while based at Tel el Kebir watching roads from Cairo to the Canal Zone before moving to Old Basuto Camp at Fanara. So it was not all bullshit, for it involved real soldiering in the Sinai Desert and along the Sweetwater Canal, seeking out and neutralising some of the many terrorists who sought refuge between attacks and killings. They were not alone in these seek and eliminate missions, for my mate Ray Applin of 3 Para and his Parachute Regiment comrades was there too as were 3 Commando Brigade and other formations. Overhead Meteors flew reconnaissance missions taking photographs to advise 'enemy' locations.
Divisional Exercises
The photograph below was taken in 1953 during Brigade and Divisional Exercises,
probably during Exercise Longbow II. It shows Sgt. Tom Jackson's platoon taking
a break in the Sinai Desert. Tom can be seen sitting at the end of the front
row on the right facing.
Sgt Tom Jackson’s platoon in the Sinai Desert
The next two photographs show the contrast between the 3rd Bn. Demonstration Platoon taken at Badajoz Barracks, Aldershot and later No. 1 Company in the Sinai Desert.
3rd Btn Demonstration platoon (UK)
