Description
Object description
British private trained with Regimental Depot, Welch Regiment, Maindy Barracks, Cardiff, GB, 1/1940-4/1940; sapper and NCO served with Railway Construction Centre, Royal Engineers at Longmoor Military Railway and Long Marston Military Railway in GB, 4/1940-1/1941; officer cadet trained with No 142 Officer Cadet Training Unit, Royal Engineers at Aldershot, GB, 2/1941-8/1941; served as officer with Royal Engineer Training Bn at Chester, GB, 8/1941-11/1941; served with 24th Artisan Works Coy, Indian Engineers at at No 3 Engineer Depot, Lahore, India and on Addu Atoll, Maldive Islands, 1/1942-12/1942; served with 18th Artisan Works Coy, Indian Engineers at Dimapur, India, 2/1943-5/1943; served with 24th Artisan Works Coy, Indian Engineers in India, 5/1943-6/1945; served with 65th Field Coy, Royal Engineers in Germany, 8/1945-6/1946
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Ebbw Valley, GB, 1919-1939: family; education; employment; studying at night school; degree of awareness of coming war. Recollections of enlistment and training as private with Regimental Depot, Welch Regiment, Maindy Barracks in Cardiff, GB, 1/1940-3/1940: attitude towards call-up for mililtary service, 1/1940; issue of uniform; opinion of rations and cleaning facilities; drill and physical exercise; emphasis of appearance; weapons training; bayonet training; instruction on Boys Anti-Tank Rifle; field training; opinion of standard of instruction.
REEL 2 Continues: degree of contact with officers; origins of fellow recruits; alcoholic consumption of recruits; recreational activities; recommendation for commission; applying to join Royal Engineers. Aspects of period as sapper and NCO with Railway Construction Centre, Royal Engineers at Longmoor Military Railway in GB, 1940: background to posting as sapper to Longmoor, 4/1940; duties in drawing office; description of centre; character of army rails and signals. Aspects of period as NCO with Royal Engineers at Long Marston Military Railway, GB, 1940-1941: role and duties; description of railway work undertaken; confidence in abilities; working regime. Aspects of period as officer cadet with No 142 Officer Cadet Training Unit, Royal Engineers in Aldershot, GB, 2/1941-8/1941: joining course, 2/1941; background of fellow cadets.
REEL 3 Continues: taking command during daily training; attending demolition course; characteristics of explosives used and methods of handling them; wet bridging training; description of Bailey Bridge; dry bridging; designing bridges; trench construction; exercise to build bridge from random materials; safety factor; transportation element of course.
REEL 4 Continues: Tactical Exercises Without Troops (TEWTS); role playing; practical character of course; training with revolver; frustration experienced during course; nature of 'browning off' sessions; commandant's banning of smoking during lectures; passing out as second lieutenant, 8/1941; opinion of course; mess etiquette session. Aspects of period as officer with Royal Engineer Training Bn at Chester, GB, 9/1941-11/1941: posting to battalion; involvement in Army Film and Photographic Unit film being made in North Wales; preparations for posting to India; attitude towards posting to India.
REEL 5 Continues: Aspects of voyage aboard HMT Capetown Castle from GB to India, 11/1941-1/1942: embarkation; initial concern over conditions for other ranks on board; ashore in Durban, South Africa; conditions on board; initial impressions on disembarkation at Bombay, India. Aspects of period as officer with 24th Artisan Works Coy, Indian Engineers at No 3 Engineer Depot, Lahore, India, 1/1942-4/1942: train journey to depot; description of accommodation; Indian officers; role of British NCOs and civilian officer; Christian character of unit; learning Urdu language; prominence of spoken English in company.
REEL 6 Continues: presence of Anglo-Indians in unit; composition of unit; need for care not to show favouritism; messing and living arrangements; use of bearer; pattern of unit training; trade tests for sappers; social life; divisions in British/Indian civilian life; mess protocol; alcohol consumption; initial impressions of fellow officers and commanding officer; duties. Recollections of period as officer with 24th Artisan Works Coy, Indian Engineers on Addu Atoll, Maldive Islands, 4/1942-12/1942: character of voyage from Bombay, India to Maldive Islands, 4/1942; description of Addu Atoll.
REEL 7 Continues: landing on atoll; military use of peripheries of atoll; tented accommodation and messing arrangements; rations; supplementing rations; story of preparing kippers for Captain Jack Parkinson; effects of monsoon; attempts to eradicate malaria bearing mosquitoes; malarial attacks; threats from dysentery and scrub typhus; presence of elephantiasis amongst indigenous population; relations with local civilians; detachment to construct RAF camp on neighbouring islands; repairing boat.
REEL 8 Continues: story of sapper's construction of pulley; presence of other Indian Army units on atoll; appearance of atoll; degree of vulnerability to Japanese attack; presence of survivors from HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Cornwall in hospital on Gan Island; layout and construction of road system; building water tanks; airstrip construction; destruction of archaeological sites; state of health on leaving atoll for mainland India, 12/1942. Aspects of period as officer with 18th Artisan Works Coy, Indian Engineers at Dimapur, India, 2/1943-5/1943: posting as second in command, 2/1943-3/1943; need not to cause offense to Pathans in company.
REEL 9 Continues: work carried out; clash with commanding officer; story of commanding officer having to apologise to troops. Recollections of period as officer with 24th Artisan Works Coy, Indian Engineers in India, 5/1943-6/1945: return to unit, 5/1943; depot building work; posting to Panaghar to assist in building base; opinion of American engineering methods; relations between Black and white American troops; incident of dealing with Indian officer who went insane; suffering from heat stroke; repatriation of British Army troops; reaction to inexperienced officer taking over company; return to GB, 7/1945; training exercise with Chindits, 1944.
REEL 10 Continues: difficulties during river crossing exercise with Chindits; memories of Brigadier Bernard Fergusson. Aspects of period as officer with 65th Field Coy, Royal Engineers in Germany, 8/1945-6/1946: posting to Germany; posting to unit after initial posting to artisan works coy; bridge building work; duties as second in command of company; problems of billeting; use of German labour; demobilisation, 6/1946; return to civilian employment, 1946.
