My Life in REME
Korea Landfall Dinners, Draining Jeeps and Winter Kit Today, the Korean War is often overshadowed by its more famous relative, the Vietnam War. However, for many REME Soldiers and Officers, Korea was a significant point in their service. In the first of a two-part series, Lt Col (Retd) Denis Redmond shares his experience of being posted to Korea, from sailing there through to surviving winter.
I
t began with a posting order to Southampton to board Troopship Empire Orwell the day before official boarding to assume duty as Troop Deck Officer. With no idea what that meant, I was met by a permanent staffer who took me below to view my new command accommodation; rows of double bunks in a claustrophobic steel lined space below the waterline. There were several Troop Deck Officers covering the entire troop accommodation. As I remember, my primary job was to inspect feet, which seemed incongruous to me; we were not marching to Korea. However, looking after a mixed batch of Regiments did not turn out to be too onerous a task. There was nowhere they could stray. I classed it as light duties and was delighted that on the first night the ship’s Officers threw a party to welcome us on board. It was there I met an RAMC Major and two QARANC Nursing Sisters stationed on the ship fulltime. We remained friends throughout the whole trip. Next day I saw my bunch safely into their space, read out travel Standing Orders and left them in the hands of their NCOs. My accommodation, a four-bunk cabin, was partially filled this day with an Army Air Corps Pilot, probably still Glider Pilot Regiment in those days, a Light Infantry Captain and an empty bunk. We got on well. The ship left port the day after with little fuss. I forget which shipping line manned the Orwell, but they were a grand lot. I remember the Chief Engineer. He looked for REME Officers to show them his beloved engines and so it was I spent a whole morning nodding and shouting my admiration down in the bowels among the familiar smell of hot oil and noise of running machinery. It was then I discovered the Orwell had been a Nazi Strength-Through-Joy ship taken as part of German reparations after World War 2 and fitted with new boilers. “Come down any time”, he’d said, but once down there was enough. After a few days we all settled into the ship’s routine. Mostly it was boring and I was glad of the daily visit to my Troop Deck. I could go on about the ship and the trip but that would take a whole book on its own. Enough to mention the highlights, one of
The Japanese hotel
38 craftsmaneditor@reme-rhq.org.uk
HMT Empire Orwell which was landfall dinners. There were, of course, Officers’ wives on board, sailing to join their husbands in Aden, Singapore and Hong Kong. They made a pleasant change to the mostly male environment. But I digress. Landfall dinners. A device of the Ship’s Officers. Whenever land was sighted it called for a special dinner, a sort of Dinner Night. I swear they had a man on the bridge with a very powerful telescope whose singular job was to search for land. He came up with it with surprising regularity. Then we broke down off Aden, it was the air-conditioning. Parts had to be flown out from the UK and that held us up for three days; it was hot. From Aden, we progressed to plan, calling at Singapore and Hong Kong on-route, finally docking in Kure in Japan. I was collected from the docks and jeeped to Base Workshop Japan, an Australian unit, where I remained for a few days awaiting transport to Korea and the First Commonwealth Division. After about 30 days on a ship with little escape, land seemed almost alien. That, plus a strange new culture and two new nationalities, Japanese and Australian, might have been tricky to assimilate, but luckily another British REME Officer had been waiting at base for transport. He was starting a second tour for which he had volunteered and he knew his way around. Stuck there over a weekend, Drummond, for that was his name, took us to a traditional Japanese hotel in the hills overlooking Kure. Patterned paper sliding partitions, low, coffee-like tables along with Geishas in traditional dress and makeup made for a surprisingly delightful ambience that I soaked up. Nobuko San, one of the two Geisha, played the samisen, a sort of Japanese guitar and sang strangely discordant songs that seemed completetely right for their surroundings. I was sorry it had to end but end it did. Back at base, movement orders for Drummond and I were waiting: “Take the night ferry to Pusan and then by rail to the railhead.” The train journey was under American control and gave me my first experience of self-heating soup. Pull a tab at the bottom of the can and the soup, or whatever else, heats up. A wonderful innovation, I thought, for use in the field; no need for fires or smoke to give your position away. Maybe we had something of the same but I’d never seen it. At the railhead I was picked up by a jeep bearing REME colours driven by a Craftsman, whose name I have long forgotten, and taken
