The train stopped at various towns and villages on the way, As Samawa, Ad Diwaniyah, Baghdad, Samarra and lastly outside Mosul. At no stop did we venture far from the train we were guarding. The journey was interesting; except for the towns the land was light brown and mostly barren; in the open country flocks of sheep roamed with their attendant shepherds and this presented an almost biblical scene. To our western eyes there was one noticeable difference however, in the west the shepherd would be behind his flock, driving them but here he was in front, leading. Perhaps in this land of sparse vegetation the sheep relied on him to find the best grazing. We reached Mosul in the evening and our train drew up alongside an army camp, the lads there were enjoying a movie; the translucent screen lay between us and the audience and from our wagon we saw one hour of Mrs Miniver, back to front and soundless.
Discharged from our escort duty we boarded a passenger train heading for Baghdad and enjoyed the luxury of slatted wooden seats. I was quite excited with the anticipation of what lay ahead and could hardly wait to see more of the mystic land of the Caliphs. The train drew into Baghdad and as it slowed we could see more of the city, fine buildings mixed with mud brick homes, the Ishtar Gate and the minarets of mosques, the strange clothes, music discordant to my ears, porters bent double with unbelievable loads on their backs and the smells. At that time I had to be content with a passing impression because I was bound for Al Musayyib, to No.5 Advanced Base Workshops. That designation in the middle of Iraq puzzled me and it was not until many years after the war that I discovered the reason for it and the reason for my being there.
The workshops were some 40 miles south of Baghdad and a mile or so from the Arab town; the town was out of bounds to us but a metalled road from there passed between our camp and the workshops; we only ever saw military traffic on it. Both camp and workshop compound were separately surrounded with barbed wire, three coil dannert and apron was the official name for it. Individual shops were scattered within the compound, seemingly haphazardly and they contained equipment for which any contemporary British engineering firm would kill for.
Accommodation within the camp consisted of huts similar in design to Nissen huts but were built of local materials with low brick walls and pre-cast arches supporting curved roofs of straw reinforced baked mud. The floors were of course bare earth. Outside the end doors of each hut stood a large urn of unglazed earthenware, a chatty, kept full of water laced with salt to make sure we took our daily dose to ward off heat exhaustion. The water was cooled by the evaporation of the small quantity of water that seeped through to the outside of the chatty and it was very pleasant to drink. Non-potable water for ablutions and laundry was brought in through underground pipes from a source unknown to me, the river Euphrates perhaps, anyway the pipes could not have been buried very far beneath the surface because in the summer the water was quite hot. Again, using local materials, the screens around the unroofed showers and latrines were made of woven palm leaves
We started work early in the morning, reveille was sounded by an Arab bugler (we didn’t have one) at 6am, we marched off to start work by 7am, finishing at 2-30pm to take advantage of the cooler part of the day. Most of us were classed as tradesmen though we were constantly reminded that we were soldiers first and tradesmen second. Except for mounting guard at the officer’s quarters we were exempt from guard duties, these were carried out by Indian troops within the workshops compound and by the Royal Sussex Regiment around the workshops and camp environs. At night they patrolled the streets in lorries equipped with twin Bren guns. One report had it that they once fired on one of their own corporals, hitting him in the legs. Often we would see them in the morning marching back from their duties whistling or singing Sussex by the Sea. Venturing into the workshop compound at night in pitch darkness as we were sometimes required to do was a different matter, quite an eerie experience in fact; the Indian guards were silent and one never knew exactly where they were though their presence could be detected by the faint clinking sound of the chain that attached their rifles to them To ensure that we were not mistaken for intruders we tended to announce ourselves by whistling. One would think that with all these guards the place would be impregnable. Not so. Frequently at night when we were at the mobile cinema sounds of gunfire would be heard coming from the workshops and sometimes there were bodies.
Heat I think was our greatest problem followed by sandstorms. The highest official shade temperature I remember seeing was recorded in Baghdad, 121°F, though inside the workshops I’ve seen the mercury register 128°F but this was enervating and little work was done then. In severe sandstorms we protected our eyes with goggles but exposed flesh was stung by blowing sand; although the lenses of the goggles were not tinted it was like viewing the world through the yellowish amber of Golden Syrup. In 1943 or perhaps it was 1944 I saw the nearly total solar eclipse through a sandstorm, with goggles but with no other eye protection.
During the summer months the prevailing winds came from the north-east, sweeping in over the Iranian plains, by the time they reached us they were bone dry, this was a good thing really because we sweated profusely in that heat and were rapidly cooled by evaporation. Occasionally for a couple of short periods in the summer humid winds would blow in from the Persian Gulf and then it was most uncomfortable, shirts would be sodden and dark with sweat and if they dried before being washed they would be stained white with salt. We had our laundry done twice a week by the dhobi but that was inadequate so we did our own in between times; in the bone dry air a pair of slacks could be worn 15 minutes after washing. One of our lads, mimicking the dhobi by bashing wet laundry on a flat stone was put on a charge for damaging government property; he was acquitted after enlightening the officer who obviously had never done his own laundry.
One piece of equipment supplied by the army for which I was very grateful was the chargul, a water bottle made of a coarse canvas similar to fire hose canvas that worked on the same principle as the chatty. Drawn new from the QM stores it would not hold water but had to be soaked until the canvas had swollen; filled with water and hung outside in the air it provided a beautifully cold drink in a fairly short time. This evaporation principle was also adopted to lower the temperature inside ambulances by means of a cuscus tatty; this consisted of a four-sided wooden frame with chicken wire front and rear, the cavity was filled with what we called camel thorn. Water was pumped up from a tank and sprayed over the unit; air passing through the moist camel thorn was then directed into the body of the ambulance to cool the interior.
No.5 ADVANCED BASE WORKSHOPS
The compound covered quite a large area the exact size of which I can’t say but it was spread out over a vast expanse of desert with the various workshops located in no apparent order. There were no metalled roads but between the buildings a hard travelling surface was obtained by putting discarded engine oil over the loose sand and traffic soon firmed this up For heavier loads a two-foot gauge Decauville track was laid between the main buildings and trucks were hauled by a Lister powered locomotive. For off-loading really heavy equipment within the compound a metre-gauge spur line branched off from the main line linking Turkey with Basra.