RA 73 HAA, GENEIFA 1950-51
"I REMEMBER IT WELL"
As Remembered By Elwyn Jones (but Taff Jones 634 to you)
Imagine my surprise when I saw the article from Dennis Baker
regarding 73 HAA, Geneifa in the last issue
– I was beginning to think that it was a bad dream that I’d had,
but after all there were others there!! The regiment had three Batteries –
191, 196 and 197 – I was in 196. The regiment came to Egypt in October
1950 from Malta. I was rushed to Malta in 1949 for internal security which never
materialised, previous to that it was at Zabratha, North Africa.
I was on the Battery Advance Party and sailed on the LST ‘Evan Gibb’
with guns and wagons and stores
(one LST per Bty). The Med was like a mill pond with the mermaids (or were they
porpoises?) following astern, the journey took 5 days – Monday morning
to Saturday morning – arriving at Port Said of course.
It was indeed a wide awakening to a naïve (own admission) Welsh speaking North Wales country lad – Arab Culture at its best – imagine stores being unloaded and ‘Wiley Oriental Gentlemen’ milling around seeing what they could lift, where rifles were stacked two sentries posted and told in no uncertain terms that if any disappeared they would be for it – to put it mildly, none did! Eventually we got underway, I was in the back of a 15 cwt with a load of valuable stores and a loaded rifle of course. I saw my first camel (we didn’t have zoos in Wales).
We arrived in Geneifa to a virtually empty camp, just a few Mauritian &
Seychelles Pioneers. I presume that they had erected our tents, they were very
polite and helpful. I had a festered toe nail and saw their medic –
he applied some witchcraft, ointment and bandaged it for me and it soon healed.
Yes, I remember the flies – who can’t, in my old age I forget a
lot of things but not those filthy flies – you drowned them in the gravy
and pushed them to the side, and attempted to eat the rest before they did!
I also remember the washing up facilities, if there were any – it was
often better to rub with sand until clean. When one thinks of hygiene of today
it makes one think how we coped and actually came home.
We had RASC Mule Transport Coy next door on the north side and RAOC 10 BOD
about half a mile on the south side. Just outside 10 BOD was our only cinema,
open air of course – the sky for a ceiling, where occasionally a bored
homesick, lovesick, disenchanted ordnance sentry in the audience would dispatch
a
bullet to reach for the sky. The only other entertainment was swimming in the
Little Bitter Lakes where I learned to play water polo which was good fun but
strenuous.
There was a CABS service to Fayid, 14 miles away, manned by service personnel
armed with a loaded revolver. We had a conquering Soccer team when we came to
Egypt, having a certain Irish lad who seemed
to know where to put the ball, Tommy Welch, and other names that come to mind
are Danny Mitchinson and Hawthorn from South Wales.
I spent Christmas in Cairo as a civilian of course. I remember be pressurised into having my shoes polished but only had a high value note – in a foreign city just who do you trust?
I came out in June 51, just 3 months short of being awarded the Canal Zone
medal – shame! Also at that time all National Servicemen had to compulsory
do three and a half years Territorial Army service so there were many evening
drill parades, a couple of weekends and at least 8 days annual camp. I quite
liked it and completed 18 years.