RE CE BRANCH GHQ
"DIARY EXTRACTS - AT THE START OF THE TROUBLES"
As Remembered By Murray Brazier
On Monday 15th October 1951, the army children’s school bus had been stoned by some local hooligans. That same night the NAAFI in Ismailia was burnt down. I was on duty as Orderly Cpl in the Company office on Tuesday 16th October. The reason behind the troubles of the previous day became clear – the Egyptian government had abrogated the Suez Canal Treaty of 1936, in effect telling us to get out of the Canal Zone. We were now, to all intents and purposes, on a war footing. Instructions were issued that all troops were to travel in fours and army families were moved into the military cantonment. By Wednesday, 17th the army had taken control of Ismailia and things had quietened down somewhat. We could still go out into Fayid and have a meal and beer at Alice’s bar, but we had to be careful.
All official contact with the Egyptian government ceased. This meant that, among other things, the Egyptian money we used could not be banked, replaced or supplemented from outside and so it remained in circulation within the military bases. As a result the paper money became even more tatty. To make up any shortfall in loose change the NAAFI introduced its own coins in the form of green and red plastic tokens.
On Saturday, 20th we were each issued with a rifle and 5 rounds of ammunition. I noted in my diary that the next day, the 21st “one bloke in 2 Coy has shot himself in the leg already!”. As rifles were not so convenient as defensive weapons in the confines of a vehicle cab, drivers were issued with 9mm Sten guns and a full magazine of 28 rounds. All the officers carried their side arms and all leave was cancelled.
By Friday 26th I noted that the NAAFI was getting short of provisions. There were no eggs and not many vegetables either. On 29th I noted that locals were drifting away from the area, this included the dhobi, the tailor and the barber and so we had to fend for ourselves. The English language ‘Egyptian Gazette’ had been banned because of the scurrilous reports it carried. By 1st November the local labour had all but disappeared.
Fresh arrangements had to be made for the disposal of the waste matter from our latrines. Immediately we were put to work digging deep trench latrines and similar waste disposal pits. As they became full, fresh ones had to be dug and the sappers in 35 Eng. Regt, at Moascar, were kept busy fabricating corrugated iron supports for the trenches, the box seats and frames for the Hessian modesty screen walls. From time to time, the trenches were ‘fired’. Occasionally, some unfortunate would still be enthroned when the match was thrown and he had to make a hasty retreat. By February 1952 we were digging latrine trench number 3. For urinals ‘desert roses’ were constructed – these were nothing more than soak-aways with a metal funnel.
On 1st November the first issue of the ‘Canal Zone News’, produced by and for the British troops was published. About A3 in size, 10,000 copies were printed three times a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays. It was free and provided the plain facts to the troops The final issue, No. 44, was published on Tuesday, 12th February 1952. By that time the supply of UK newspapers, including air mail editions of the broadsheets, had been boosted to such an extent that the need for the Canal Zone News had come to an end.
The arming of us did give rise to some hairy moments. When I was on duty in the Company office, I heard a shot, and soon after the garrison RSM came running into the office complaining loudly that “some effing erk” in 4 Coy had just taken a pot shot at him, and he wanted him found. The RSM was a rather short round gentleman in the Northumberland Fusiliers, who was in the habit of riding around camp in the heat of the day on an army issue bicycle which was rather too big for him. He would be wearing not much more than a singlet and shorts and his beret, with the red and white hackle of the NFs and his badge of rank on a leather strap around his wrist. It turned out that during the cleaning of his rifle, one of our Company had indeed loosed off an unaimed round from his rifle. It seems that after cleaning his rifle the poor fellow had replaced the loaded magazine before closing the bolt, thereby placing a round in the chamber. He then pulled the trigger to release the hammer and BANG! A .303 bullet, after passing through a uniform hanging there, passed through the tent wall, missed the nearby tents and then whistled across the next compound and by the RSM’s head. Although we saw the funny side of it, “rotund RSM falls off bicycle at sound of a gun shot”, the RSM was not amused in the slightest. The poor unfortunate squaddie was rather surprised too.
On another occasion, a driver came off duty cursing his Sten gun as a useless
piece of kit. He threw it on his bed, whereupon it started firing and did not
finish until all 28 rounds of 9mm ammunition in the magazine had been fired.
In our tent we all dropped to the floor, thinking it was an attack from the
Egyptians. In the tent where it happened, Mo and Derek lay petrified on their
beds as 9mm bullets zipped around them. It was a miracle that no one was hit,
though some property was damaged.