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2 Sound Foundations
South Africa waited for Parliament to decide whether she would enter the conflict or not, but emergency measures could not be delayed. Schemes had to be drawn up in conjunction with the infantry and artillery commanders1 to safeguard power stations, the main communications centres, waterworks, airfields and the Modderfontein dynamite factory, but not a single map existed in the vital Witwatersrand area to show all the vulnerable points. Within 24 hours of the Wehrmacht's crossing the Polish frontiers on September 1, this key map had been completed by the men of 5 Field Company under Lt. C. B. Stewart. Hundreds of copies were reproduced for the use of officers and units concerned.2
As from 4 September 1939 Maj. G. H. Cotton--in company with a handful of officers of other arms--was attached to the Permanent Force and "employed on whole-time service in connection with the war". He was next day redesignated Assistant Director of Training (Engineers) and on his staff under the Director of Military Training, who now became the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, he had Maj. A. Fraser-Lawrie, who had already begun his attachment overseas with the British Army.
On reporting to the War Office in London during August, 1939, Major Fraser-Lawrie had been told that previous arrangements had been cancelled. All that was available to him was an attachment to a Territorial Division. He chose 51st Highland Division, in which he had served as an infantryman with the Gordon Highlanders in 1918-20 while a student in Scotland. Two days later he was attached to Royal Engineer Headquarters of the division.
All mobilisation and training documents of the Royal Engineers were made available to Maj. Fraser-Lawrie, and such information was posted weekly to Maj. Cotton and his staff in time to assist them in working out a comprehensive programme for progressive training and expansion of the S.A.E.C.
On 6 September 1939 South Africa declared war on Germany, and the formation and training of additional Sapper units became an urgent necessity. Efforts were made to bring all A.C.F. units up to full strength. Anticipating a need for mounted troops, 6 Field Company even began part-time training on horses at Roberts Heights, and 2/Lt. Erik Todd recruited and attested volunteers at an office in an old house at No. 1 Artillery Row.
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Defence Headquarters was becoming fully aware of the force's wide-ranging Sapper requirements, which fell into three main groups whose functions, as experience was to show, often overlapped on active service, where nice distinctions drawn on paper were not so easily applied in practice.
Basic Engineer Grouping
The obyious Sapper groups were the Base, Lines of Communications and the Field or Fighting Groups. The Base Group would be responsible for the maintenance and operation of all base installations serving the army in the field. Its units could be sub-divided into Base Stores handling the vast quantity of stores required by engineer units in the field; Base Workshops for the manufacture of spares and special parts immediately required by the army, and for repairs to plant and equipment; and Base Works, to construct the accommodation necessary for troops at base, and to maintain such troops and all works services in base areas. Finally, within the Base Group there would be the necessary highly specialised units such as chemical laboratories, concealment and camouflage sections, compressed gas depots or map printing and other units.
The Lines of Communications Group would have to include all units responsible for the construction, repair or maintenance of lines of communication of any kind other than signals, which had now been entrusted to a special corps. The Sappers had to cope with anything from roads and railways to waterways and airfields. The Group would also have to have its own Works units, to accommodate lines of communications troops, build and maintain hospitals and construct bridges and installations such as workshops and aerodromes beyond the base area. Survey units would be needed to deal with mapping and related requirements, and special water units would have to be formed to provide and maintain the water supplies vital for the survival of any field force, especially when operating in undeveloped parts of Africa.
The Fighting Group of Sappers included the field and field park companies, whom the Americans and others may have called "combat engineers", acting almost invariably in support of troops in contact with the enemy, to ensure the continuance of their mobility and maintenance, including the surmounting or removal of obstacles, regardless of their nature. It was thus essential that such units should themselves be trained in tactics and--as in the old days--in the use of weapons, so as to operate as integral parts of fighting brigade groups, divisions, corps or armies.
With no more than a handful of field companies on peacetime establishments, the S.A.E.C. was faced with a formidable challenge when war broke out.
Initial Steps
Within a week of South Africa's declaration of war the Chief of the General Staff, Maj.-Gen. Sir Pierre van Ryneveld, recommended the
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formation of a Mobile Field Force, comprising a general headquarters, two A.C.F. divisions, G.H.Q. troops--including two mounted and two dismounted brigades--with the necessary lines of communications troops.
No Sappers were included in any of the four brigades in G.H.Q. Troops, but Headquarters G.H.Q. Engineers itself directly controlled four army troops companies, a field survey company, a chemical warfare unit, the headquarters of a railway stores group and, finally, a railway survey company. On the next rung of the ladder came the two divisions, each with its own Headquarters Divisional Engineers and a field park company, a field survey section and a labour battalion--the latter later made a "Q" Services responsibility. With each division there were to be three infantry brigades, each with its own Sapper field company, which meant that six of the existing A.C.F. field companies would be absorbed immediately in the Mobile Field Force, which also required lines of communications engineer units, depending on the length and nature of the lines of communications.
By 9 October 1939 Sir Pierre van Ryneveld was able to inform his Heads of Sections that a Home Division had also been authorised, consisting of three infantry brigades, each with its own field company--which thus accounted for all the remaining S.A.E.C. peacetime field units. In addition, the division required a field park company and Engineer Headquarters.
Lines of communications troops were now defined, and included workshops companies, forestry, quarrying and base workshops units, an engineer base stores depot and the necessary labour. Immediate steps were to be taken to establish and train the Mobile Field Force. Instead of the handful of nine peacetime field companies, it was thus proposed to have a total of 13 field companies, three field park companies, a field survey company plus two other survey sections, a chemical warfare unit, a railway survey company and three different railway unit headquarters in the Mobile Field Force and Home Division, plus a variety of Sapper units among the lines of communications troops.
Urgent Requirements
Finality on initial establishments had not yet been reached when Gen. Smuts, as Minister of Defence, sent an urgent note to the Chief of the General Staff. "For military and other reasons," he wrote, "it is imperative that the National Roads from Pretoria to Messina and Komatipoort should be pushed on as fast as possible. I wish C.G.S. and Q.M.G. with Military Secretary to confer with National Road Board and come to an arrangement for rapidly carrying out this policy."
On 21 September 1939 the Minister of Defence received a memorandum from the Chairman of the National Road Board enclosing another from Mr. S. B. Shannon, his Chief Technical Adviser, who gave details of requirements for three routes, Pretoria-Beit Bridge, Pretoria-Komatipoort and Johannesburg-Durban. Already attention
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was directed to a branch of Sapper work for which no provision had been made, but which was to take on increasing importance as the war progressed.
Meanwhile, as a result of investigations initiated before the outbreak of war, the foundations were being laid for another quite different range of units. On 1 September 1939 Messrs. Pieter van der Merwe and J. F. Oldfield of the Irrigation Department had received instructions to investigate and report upon the availability of electricity and water for a large military camp at Premier Mine, about 40 km east of Pretoria, where the farms, Sonderwater and Kaffers-kraal had been acquired by the Department of Defence. They were not far from the railway station at Cullinan, and subsequent references drew scant distinction between the three.
Oldfield and A. D. Hughes, another member of the Irrigation Department's staff, were seconded to the Quartermaster-General's Section as captains to supervise construction by personnel from their own department of a big army camp at Sonderwater, to designs provided by the Public Works Department but, with Van der Merwe as his assistant, Oldfield continued to act as a civilian. The step became a blessing in disguise, as high-ranking army officers were unable to exert authority over him when they wanted to alter various aspects of the agreed layout, on which he was responsible for the installation of water and electrical supplies. Completed on schedule, the camp became one of South Africa's most famous wartime training centres.
Within the Q.M.G. Section, meanwhile, Directorates of Works and of Fortifications and Coastal Works had been formed, with responsibility for all work within the inland areas under the former and the coastal region from Walvis Bay round to Richards Bay under the latter. With no regular Engineer Corps to call upon, both Directorates were immediately faced with the problem of seeking staff, and a solution was found in a manner that was to be applied with outstanding success to the whole of the S.A.E.C. Highly qualified civilians were recruited and absorbed into the growing corps, with rank appropriate to their ability and status in civil life or on the staffs of the S.A.R. & H., the P.W.D., the Irrigation Department, Provincial Administrations and municipalities or industry in general. It was indeed fortunate that among these specialists there were not only men with previous military experience, but also many others of great courage, perseverance and a remarkably high sense of patriotic duty.
With the active co-operation of Lt.-Col. G. H. Cotton, whose designation had become Deputy Director of Engineer Services on 26 September, specialists from existing field companies were transferred to units particularly appropriate to their qualifications, and early in 1940 the new Directorates really began to function. As a lieutenant-colonel, J. F. Craig became Deputy Director of Fortifications, with headquarters at Cape Town, and Lt.-Col. L. A. Mackenzie of the Irrigation Department headed the Directorate of Works, attached to the Permanent Force as from 19 March 1940.
The idea of establishing works companies as such originated with
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Mr. A. D. Lewis, the Director of Irrigation, who had been a major in the Great War of 1914-18, but he would not accept military rank. He remained as a civilian adviser to the Directorate, which soon had on its staff--all still receiving their civil pay as officials of the Irrigation Department--Maj. J. Meidlinger, Capts. J. F. Oldfield and F. C. Ellison and Lt. L. B. Garrett as mechanical engineers. Maj. D. F. Roberts, Capts. D. H. Levinkind--who won had the M.C. and was posted from the Reserve of Officers--A. D. Hughes, J. H. Kleynhans and H. M. Howells and Lts. T. C. Menne, D. G. Fernie, J. L. Stellabras and G. N. Walker were enlisted as civil engineers.
Lt.-Col. Craig was faced with the task of building fortifications at all of South Africa's "defended ports", as they were optimistically called though none but Cape Town and Simonstown had more than two coast defence guns, all obsolete. He soon had representatives at Saldanha Bay, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban,3 with by far the greatest fortification task outside the Cape Peninsula being on The Bluff.
With expansion of the corps only just beginning and skilled artisans, mechanics and operators being enrolled all over the country to back officers who were mostly highly qualified engineers, the S.A.E.C. had so many commitments that it could not hope to cope alone with the immense task of building fortifications costing more than £30,000,000 for coastal batteries,* forward observation posts, harbours and aerodromes within a few years.4 Much of the work had therefore to be done by private contractors under military supervision, except where security demanded a very high measure of secrecy.
Meanwhile, 5 Field Company was partly mobilised during October 1939 and began training courses for Engineer instructors and officers. At a desolate spot at Sonderwater Maj. G. A. Clark, M.C, who had served with the Royal Engineers in the Great War,5 arrived with a small administrative staff provided by 5 Field Company, to establish an Engineer Training Centre--the E.T.C.--to accommodate A.C.F. units as they were called in for their 30 days annual training. An instructional staff was formed from those already conducting courses at Auckland Park, all of them qualified engineers. Among these officers who helped establish the Centre were Lts. K. T. Gilson, C. B. Stewart and H. C. Mullins as well as T. L. Blacklock--seconded from the Transvaal Scottish as infantry training officer to the S.A.E.C.--Geoffrey Joel, who himself furnished the officers' mess, and W.O.I. Charles Hasted, R.E., a British regular seconded to the U.D.F. to help establish the S.A.E.C, to the organisation of which he made a notable contribution. He had been on loan to the Auckland Park unit during the latter half of 1939 and now the growing corps benefited from his experience and advice.
With 1939 drawing to a close, a short course had been held for future Engineer officers, resulting in the commissioning of 2/Lts. R. H. B. Berry, H. J. Clayden, T. N. P. Curry--who was to tackle the
*Col E. Andrews, R.E., put the cost of materials alone handled by the Directorate of Fortifications at "in the region of £52-million."--SA Sapper, January, 1969.
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enormous problem of procuring the technical equipment required by the corps6--J. H. Haviland, J. I. Jammy and Jack Scott. Scott was soon made an acting captain, and was instructed by Lt.-Col. Cotton to recruit 140 cadets from the engineering and allied industries to form an Engineer Officers Training Company. His close business associate, J. C. Mclntyre, who had been severely wounded as a gunner in Flanders during World War I, as the Great War was now being called, was commissioned as his adjutant, while four of the new subalterns became section commanders.
The selected cadets ranged in age from the 20's to the late 30's, and were drawn mainly from those practising or closely associated with engineering in mining, building construction, architecture, supplies, consultancy and allied occupations on the Witwatersrand, as well as in government and public utility bodies. Many were university graduates in civil, mechanical, electrical, mining or chemical engineering. They were provided with khaki working kit but had to equip themselves with boots and khaki drill uniforms made to measure at very reasonable cost by a local clothing factory in a few days.
About three months of part-time parades, lectures and elementary practical field engineering in the evenings and at week-ends was followed in April 1940 by a month on a strenuous full-time course at the E.T.C. at Sonderwater, enriched by temporary membership of the officers' mess. On completion of the course many of the cadets were commissioned and taken on strength by the Centre itself. Others returned to their civilian occupations to await being called up. They did not have long to wait, as the far-sighted arrangement provided an assured reservoir of junior officers for the many Sapper units that were being formed in quick succession.
Units in Training
Maj. H. D. Ward Smith, a locomotive superintendent on the S.A.R. & H. in peacetime and a former Commanding Officer of 6 Field Company in Pretoria, had become Deputy to Lt.-Col. Cotton but had been recalled by the Railways and sent to Britain to inspect and pass new railway equipment already ordered. However, he rejoined the Engineer Staff at D.H.Q. on his return.
In February 1940 Maj. A. Fraser-Lawrie was recalled to South Africa. Promoted lieutenant-colonel, he became Assistant Director of Engineer Training and then Officer Commanding the E.T.C. at Sonderwater. His Second-in-Command was a retired Royal Engineer, Col. G. H. Turner, D.S.O., who had been Chief Engineer, Middle East and insisted on helping the U.D.F., until D.H.Q. finally appointed him in the rank of major. The adjutant was Capt. J. C. Mclntyre and the staff consisted of eight instructors, all of whom were enthusiasts. Discipline was good, and administration remained under Maj. G. A. Clark.
Early in 1940 the 16 Field Company was formed at the Centre7 by Lt. K. T. Gilson, and on 5 February 1940 the unit officially began full-time training with Maj. R. D. Henderson--from the peacetime Bloemfontein field company--as Commanding Officer. (See
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Appendix 2.) In so specialised a corps as the S.A.E.C. there were few inhibitions in regard to the justifiable granting of rank during its formative World War II period. Professional ability and leadership naturally counted for more than mere length of service.
As its name implied, 16 Field Company was established as a fighting unit, but by the end of March 1940 Col. P. de Waal was already in Nairobi to arrange for the reception of South African troops in Kenya, and it was clear that it would be necessary to speed up provision of the necessary accommodation and base camp installations to cope with the 19,618 men who were expected to join East Africa Force from South Africa. What was most urgently needed was a lines of communications works company, and serious thought had to be given to the role 16 Field Company was likely to play.
The Sapper cadets had only been back at their normal peacetime jobs for little more than a week when the Luftwaffe dropped its first bombs on Britain. Next day, 10 May 1940, Germany invaded Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The Germans were already masters of Denmark and Norway and on 11 May Defence Headquarters issued orders for the mobilisation of the Dukes, the Royal Natal Carbineers and 1st Battalion, Transvaal Scottish. Two days later the 1st SA Infantry Brigade Group was formed,8 and on 15 May the 19 Divisional Field Park Company entered the E.T.C. camp.
Mobilisation
On 20 May the 1 Field Company also came into camp commanded by Maj. H. Mill Colman from Durban. In 5 Field Company, Maj. Couchman had been recalled to civil life on the death of his replacement as managing director of a large firm, but the unit began training the same day under Maj. R. W. Kewley, and within 24 hours they were joined by four lines of communications companies-- 33 Works Company under Maj. D. H. Levinkind, who had been resident engineer at Kalkfontein Dam, 34 Works Company under Maj. C. W. J. Sandrock, 35 Works Company under Maj. A. D. Hughes, and the highly specialised 36 Water Supply Company commanded by Maj. J. F. Oldfield. Soon one section of 35 Works Company was on its way to Barberton to construct a camp for the Transvaal Scottish and other units. Lt. D. C. Midgley followed with another section.
On 23 May 1940 2/Lt. L. T. Campbell-Pitt was called up as a bridging instructor and found that the latest available Engineer textbooks were dated 1934 and still based on the requirements of the 1914-18 war. However, mobilisation of the S.A.E.C. had begun, and the policy of forming units from personnel already trained in specialised capacities in civil life was soon to show that South Africa, with its large numbers of highly skilled mechanical, civil, mining and other engineers, could rapidly build up a corps of engineers as well--or better--qualified for their tasks than the professional soldiers usually found in other armies, in which they lacked the
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wealth of day-to-day practical experience that can only be gained in non-military occupations in peacetime.
The E.T.C. became a hive of activity as news from Europe grew daily more ominous, with the development of the Germans' "Blitzkrieg" in the west. An advance party left by air from Swartkop to set up a G.H.Q., Mobile Field Force in Nairobi on the day that 1 Field Company and 5 Field Company marched into camp.9 Holland and Belgium had both surrendered to the Germans by 28 May, the S.A.A.F. already had its first squadrons in Kenya, and at Kabete hurried preparations were being made to receive South African troops.
Having entrained at Ladysmith, Natal, 28 Road Construction Company under Maj. J. McLennan on May 28 arrived at the E.T.C, and on the last day the month Maj. H. D. Ward Smith succeeded Maj. R. D. Henderson in command of 16 Field Company which, in view of the urgency of preparations in East Africa, was to become a lines of communications unit for the time being. Nice distinctions drawn on paper were already blurred.
On 9 June 1940--after 126 days of full-time training--the company left Cullinan for Durban, on its way to East Africa with an advance party from 36 Water Supply Company under Capt. M. E. Church, the unit's Second-in-Command. Next day Italy declared war.
More Appointments and Moves
True to the peacetime practice of using civilians where possible, the U.D.F. had appointed Mr. William Whittingdale, Director of Trigonometrical Survey, as the military Director of Survey as early as 7 January 1936 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and after the outbreak of war he simply continued in an advisory capacity for months, without even wearing uniform. Others had also been pulled in from many walks of life, not only to expand the numbers in the S.A.E.C. but also to get on with urgent work.
Maj. N. G. Huntly was Assistant Director of Survey, and under his guidance the first Survey Company was formed. In May, 1940 the unit was mobilised, and on 3 June the men concentrated at Premier Mine for training. One week later Italy entered the war and South Africa herself became directly threatened in Africa. Maj. Walter F. Short soon took over command of the Survey Company, and on July 1 an advance party left for Nairobi. Four days later a Survey Depot was formed at Premier Mine under Capt. A. G. Bain.
More than ten days passed before the next Sapper unit moved out of Sonderwater on its way to Kenya, when 1 Field Company--as part of the 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade Group--left on 16 July to embark at Durban under Maj. H. Mill Colman. Meanwhile 2 Field Company had been mobilised at Port Elizabeth under Capt. J. Burnie on 10 July, and two days later arrived at the E.T.C. On July 14 they were followed by 4 Field Company under Capt. G. Eave.
At the same time as 1 Field Company, three of the lines of communications units formed since the outbreak of war also left
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Sonderwater, to embark in the Rhona for Kenya. They were 35 Works Company, the main body of 36 Water Supply Company, and 37 Forestry Company, who had only completed their recruiting under Capt. F. S. Laughton of the Forestry Department at Knysna a month earlier and reached the E.T.C. on 17 June.
All these units were very soon hard at work, building up a base for a force which would include more than 5,400 South African Engineers.*10 The troops in the Rhona were soon followed by Maj. J. McLennan and his 28 Road Construction Company, which was part of the S.A.E.C. Roads Battalion, of which Lt.-Col. S. B. Shannon had been appointed Commanding Officer on 9 June, when finality had been reached on the formation of eight roads companies with a total of 1,124 all ranks. Battalion Headquarters was to be at Pretoria, and Lt.-Col. Shannon, one of South Africa's topmost experts on the planning and building of roads, who had been serving only part-time, thus became employed full-time as an officer of the S.A.E.C. and left the ranks of those who remained in a peculiar "twilight" position.
Such a one was Col. J. M. Greathead, whose appointment as Director of Fortifications had been merged with a new post as Engineer-in-Chief of the U.D.F. The appointment was confirmed by the Adjutant-General on 2 July even though Col. Greathead had not yet been formally released by the General Manager of Railways.
Having bade farewell to these two senior officers and Lt.-Col. Fraser-Lawrie, 28 Road Construction Company entrained for Ladysmith, where its experiences were characteristic of the rest of the Roads Battalion, consisting as it did of men with long experience not only of this branch of engineering but also of the equipment they were to handle. They overhauled and spray-painted their plant and marshalled all their tools and equipment in the Workshops and Depot of the Natal Provincial Roads Department, with which they were already familiar, then left for Durban to embark in the Nevasa for Mombasa on 17 July.
Before any further units left Cullinan, complications arose regarding Lt.-Col Shannon's position, as it was obyious that in an undeveloped country like Kenya, increasing road construction would be necessary to ensure mobility for the South Africans, who were building up the first fully motorised army ever seen in Africa. Someone would clearly be needed to control and direct the activities of more than one road construction company, and Col. Greathead, as Engineer-in-Chief raised the matter with the Quartermaster-General on 26 August, pointing out that unless there was already a post as Deputy Director (Roads) on the Mobile Field Force establishment, then one should be created. Though Lt.-Col. Shannon was O.C., Roads Battalion, there was no post in the field against which he could be borne. At the same time, it was obyious that a highly qualified officer was needed to supervise the work of a number of roads companies in East Africa, where military objectives would
*Altogether 43,730 South Africans served in East Africa and Abyssinia in 1940-41, including 5,422 Engineers, whose numbers exceeded those of any arm of the service other than infantry (7,983) and 'Q' Services (7,120).
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dictate the number and locality of roads which would have to be built.
There was already provision for a Deputy Director (Works), for which post Lt.-Col. L. A. Mackenzie was now designated. Road construction and maintenance was something quite different. There would be hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of South African road construction equipment in use in Kenya, and on 28 August 1940 Acting Lt.-Col. Shannon was duly given temporary--which meant paid--rank and a new post of Deputy Director Works (Roads) was created on the Mobile Field Force establishment, with his promotion effective from 8 July.
This problem had just been solved when, on 26 August 1940, 34 Works Company left Cullinan, not for Kenya but for Broken Hill. There they arrived three days later and tackled a number of local projects before they could leave for Mbeya, where one of their own detachments had constructed a blind flying station. It was already 11 December before they continued their overland journey to Nairobi,
Increasing Numbers in Kenya
Meanwhile, 6 Field Company had also been called up for full-time service, but after reaching Sonderwater under Capt. J. I. Erasme, on 26 September its personnel began to be transferred to other units at a stage when Maj. H. A. Coetzee had taken over command. Thus one of the pre-war A.C.F. companies ceased to exist.
By the time 34 Works Company reached Nairobi, East Africa Force was almost ready for its first small operations to clear the frontiers. Three more units had left the E.T.C. during September. Maj. L. W. B. Proctor's 21 G.H.Q. Field Park Company had come into camp on 20 June, but remained behind when Maj. Coetzee-- who had taken over 3 Field Company--received orders for his unit to proceed to East Africa in a week's time. It was already 13 June, and the company recruited up to strength as quickly as possible. They moved into camp on 22 June and were then plagued, first by an epidemic of flu and then by isolation owing to a case of cerebro-spinal meningitis, which was followed by another.
With Maj. Coetzee transferred to witness the dissolution of 6 Field Company, Maj. P. Swarts took over 3 Field Company on 2 September, shortly after the men had come back from embarkation leave. They had returned to an outbreak of German measles, and only on 14 September did No. 1 Section eventually leave by train for Broken Hill. They were soon followed by the rest of the company, though two N.C.O.'s contracted scarlet fever at the last moment and almost put the whole unit back into isolation.11
A few days later Sonderwater bade farewell to 19 Div. Field Park Company under Capt. A. M. Steel, and they also left for Broken Hill by train. Only a week passed before 42 Geological Survey Section, one of the corps1 most highly specialised units, who had been in camp for just over a month, left under command of Maj. F. H. Frommurze, to offer whatever assistance they could to the Water
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Supply Company in its search for water in East Africa. Embarking at Durban at the same time was 26 Road Construction Company, who had come into the training camp on 15 July under Maj. W. R. Greathead, namesake of the Engineer-in-Chief.
With 1st S.A. Infantry Brigade already in Kenya and with the G.O.C. of 1st S.A. Division flying to Nairobi on 20 October to arrange for the concentration of his division, it was a busy period for the Sappers. No fewer than four companies left Cullinan for the north, where preparations were being pushed ahead for action against the Italians. But a tussle was in progress for the services of Col. Greathead, who was seriously missed by the S.A.R. & H., who were also playing a major role in the war effort. On 23 October Sir Pierre van Ryneveld eventually succumbed to requests from the Minister of Railways. The whole matter of top-level organisation of the S.A.E.C. was being reconsidered, and the post of Engineer-in-Chief was abolished.
The New Dispensation
Lt.-Col. G. H. Cotton, formerly a Deputy-Director, now became Director of Engineers at D.H.Q. with the rank of colonel12 and assumed responsibility for organising and training the S.A.E.C. for the far-flung operations which its increasing number of units were to become involved in during succeeding months.
Still officially acting only in an advisory capacity though he was Director of Survey, Lt.-Col. W. Whittingdale visited various camps in the Union and during September flew up to Nairobi to assess requirements in East Africa, where Maj. N. G. Huntly was already in Nairobi as Assistant Director of Survey.
On 26 September 1940 the 1st S.A. Division Engineer Headquarters was formed at Sonderwater. Capts. E. S. Howard and F. G. Zeppenveld, and Lts. D. V. Ellis, C. Macaulay and J. Puntis were posted to the new headquarters, and on 1 October Lt.-Col. A. Fraser-Lawrie became Divisional Engineer Officer--a post which soon became more familiar as "C.R.E.", which was the abbreviation for Commander Royal Engineers, the term commonly employed throughout the British and Commonwealth forces during the war.
At the E.T.C, Lt.-Col. Fraser-Lawrie was succeeded by Lt.-Col. G. H. Turner, but Maj. G. A. Clark remained Camp Commandant and 1st S.A. Division Engineer staff were temporarily lent offices until their embarkation. An advance party left at the end of October, followed on 2 November by the rest of the headquarters staff, who embarked in the Llanstephan Castle for Mombasa.
On 23 October 1940 the 2nd S.A. Division had been born under Maj.-Gen. I. P. de Villiers, with the 3rd, 4th and 6th S.A. Infantry Brigades as its infantry component.13 The division soon claimed the services of Kenneth Ray, who had been born in England and served as a trooper in King Edward's Horse from 1913-17 before being commissioned in the Royal Engineers. During the last year of the Great War, Ray had served in France and during the Rand Revolt of 1922 he had been a captain in the Rand Light Infantry, serving on
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the staff of Brig.-Gen. P. S. Beves. He had joined the S.A.E.C. shortly after the outbreak of World War II, and was posted initially to the staff of the Deputy-Director as a humble lieutenant, but by February 1940 Ray was a major, in which rank he continued to assist Col. Cotton until being appointed Divisional Engineer Officer in 2nd S.A. Division with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Among others posted to Lt.-Col. Ray's staff was L. T. Campbell-Pitt, now a captain, who had designed the prototype of a 30-metre suspension bridge built at Sonderwater and checked Capt. W. S. Garrett's design of another, 45 metres long built by 10 Field Company across the Wilge River at Spitskop under supervision of himself and Capt. Jack Scott.
No serious thought had yet been given to major operations in Kenya, where preparations for anything beyond minor skirmishes were far from complete. Facilities for the movement of troops and supplies were painfully short, and the primary problem was therefore really one of road construction rather than road maintenance such as might be required in a more developed country.
Shortly after being formed from personnel in the Cape Provinsial Roads Department--as was the case with 29 Road Maintenance Company--25 Road Construction Company moved into the E.T.C. on 17 September commanded by Maj. W. P. F. McLaren, who handed over to Maj. F. J. Hugo only two days later, to take up an appointment on Lt.-Col. Shannon's staff. However, the new Cape roads construction company was still at Cullinan when Maj. E. D. S. Fergus's 29 Road Maintenance Company on 13 October left for the north after ninety-six days in training. Maj. Hugo's unit followed them nine days later, travelling in the same ship as 33 Works Company, who had built a camp for one of the mounted brigades at Piet Retief and was a closely knit unit of men mostly from the Vaalhartz and Kalkfontein irrigation schemes.
At the end of another week they were followed by 12 Field Company, who had been commanded by Maj. I. J. A. Diamond, who had won the Distinguished Conduct Medal in East Africa in World War I but had handed over to Capt. A. S. Postumus, who briefly held the fort until Maj. G. Newby became Commanding Officer on 5 September. The company, in its proper fighting role, was attached to 2nd S.A. Infantry Brigade Group. So the flow of units to Kenya continued, with Maj. A. F. Steven's 27 Road Construction Company joining the northward stream on 1 November, to be followed by 21 G.H.Q. Field Park Company on 9 November after having been 143 days in training.
Maj. G. B. Weale's 30 Road Construction Company--the third unit of its kind raised in the Transvaal--consisted of men from the Eastern Transvaal mobilised on 25 October 1940, and by 11 November they were also on their way north, just four days before the last of 1st S.A. Division's field units--5 Field Company--left for the same theatre under Maj. C. J. Venter, with 180 days of training behind them.
Maj. H. E. Saffery's 32 Road Maintenance Company was heading North by 17 December to swell the ranks of roads units controlled by
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Col. J. F. Craig as Deputy Chief Engineer (L. of C), with Lt.-Col. Shannon as Deputy Director Works (Roads), in command of the S.A. Roads Battalion.
Already the S.A. Survey Company, which had arrived on 3 August, was operating under the East African Survey Group in Nairobi, where the company had its headquarters section offices at "The Gables", to control five field sections at widely scattered points throughout the colony.14 Though operations in East Africa had not yet seriously begun, some 4,175 officers and men had passed through the E.T.C. on their way to Kenya, where the forces were becoming increasingly mechanised. Back in South Africa, expansion was still proceeding, but not all the Sappers were motorised. Nor did they all pass through the Centre at Sonderwater.
Sappers on Horseback
The only field squadron at Cullinan was 1 Field Squadron, intended for operations with the mounted brigades--with an eye to operations in bush country. The unit had come into camp under Capt. A. J. Archibald on 3 July 1940, and its Sappers were all artisans and first class miners, mainly from the Brakpan, Springs and Nigel areas. In the words of Spr. S. Webster, who was one of them, "95 per cent of us had never ridden a horse".15
At one stage, the company was commanded by Maj. Cliff Linsell, a rather stout graduate of the Royal School of Mines, who was to make a name for himself in quite a different role and win the M.C. in Italy. At the time, however, the horsed engineers were a source of some hilarity among other Sappers at Sonderwater, where uniforms were in short supply. The fitting out of a squadron in full riding kit, complete with breeches, riding boots and spurs led to the appearance of some quite extraordinary horsemen until the quartermaster's stores could get itself properly sorted out.
The introduction of these miners to saddles, bridles and, eventually, to horses at Voortrekkerhoogte led to more than one injury before Permanent Force instructors managed to turn out a reasonably well-trained unit. In January 1941 when the squadron was invited to visit Springs, the men rode all the way, camping at night near a dam at Bapsfontein, but it was only with some difficulty that order was restored when a band struck up behind the line of horses on the Olympia Park rugby ground. Nevertheless, the Field Squadron got safely back to Pretoria, and at last set out on its 320 km ride to Ladysmith to join the mounted brigades there.
It was probably with some relief that these horsemen, after spending only a short time at Ladysmith, heard that the mounted brigades would no longer be required. The men constructed a little monument on a nearby hill to the memory of "The First Field Squadron, S.A.E.C.--a unit born to die before it lived!"16
Secret Activities
In quite a different category and destined to outlive the war in unexpected form to the great benefit of South Africa's chemical
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industry was another unit engaged in far more highly specialised activity, partly as a result of discussion originating between Col. F R. G. Hoare--then Director of Air and Technical Services--and the Chief of the General Staff as long ago as October 1937, when they considered the possibility of manufacturing in South Africa mustard gas or "H" by the sulphur dichloride process (H.S.) or the thio-diglycol process (H.T.). They came to the conclusion that it would be easier to make H.S. Poison gas had been used in World War I, and mustard gas had been employed by the Italians against the Abyssinians in 1936. Since World War I, the British General Staff was confident, Germany had unremittingly pursued her research on methods of chemical warfare, and it was assumed that she was in a high state of preparedness for the use of gas. The Allies had to be equally prepared to retaliate.
On 16 March 1940 Sir Pierre van Ryneveld informed the Ministry of Supply in the United Kingdom that South Africa would develop its own local manufacture of war gases. Since he was determined that this undertaking should be under military command, he asked Lt.-Col. Cotton to select the most suitable officer to take charge of developing a process and to build a pilot plant and a production plant to produce mustard gas. He selected 2/Lt. W. Bleloch, a newly commissioned officer ex the E.O.T.C. who held a doctorate in the new discipline of Chemical Engineering and ten years' experience in industry.
Lt.-Col. Cotton recommended that 2/Lt. W. Bleloch should be appointed as Chemical Engineer on a board containing both military and non-military chemical, technical and tactical advisers to go into the matter. Bleloch's initial research in organic chemistry had been carried out in the laboratory of the University of the Witwatersrand a dozen or more years earlier before continuing his studies in London, and a small committee was soon formed consisting of himself, Dr. Taberner and Mr. King of the Modderfontein Dynamite Factory, and Prof. H. Stephen of the University of the Witwatersrand.17
On 5 June the Chemical Research Plant was established, and the outcome was the successful construction of a small plant in October 194018. Here the production of ethylene (ethyl alcohol) was first developed.
At the end of June Capt. Bleloch, as he had become, submitted a report to the effect that the United Kingdom method based on H.T. would be unworkable in South Africa unless based on the import of the necessary thio-diglycol from overseas, which was too uncertain under the war conditions of the time. He advised construction of a pilot plant for the H.S. process, as all materials were locally available other than about 200 tons of graphite electrodes which needed to be imported only once from the United States. About 100 men would be needed, and the explosives factory at Modderfontein had placed an adequate site at his disposal with sufficient electric power and other services.
By the end of October, Bleloch submitted another report on the materials, buildings and costs involved and stated that the plant had
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been completed, and although the Ministry of Supply expressed surprise that South Africa was tooling up to make H.S. instead of H.T., which they considered superior, the Chief of the General Staff was able to defend this decision on 18 November on the grounds that all the materials for H.S. were obtained locally. Though adhering to their original view, the Ministry then requested details of the South African process and--in the words of the later White Paper--"the despatch of samples resulted in the Union being requested to carry out a large manufacturing programme on behalf of the United Kingdon".20
With a works force of some 2,000 men, it was reckoned, South Africa could produce ten long tons a day, and on 12 May 1941 Sir Pierre van Ryneveld approved an establishment for a unit of 18 officers, 80 N.C.O.'s and 24 privates under a lieutenant-colonel, with production already proceeding while construction of the new plant went on. The special unit was formed round the pioneers of the work and was called the Chemical Warfare Company, S.A.E.C. until November 1941 when its designation became 99 Technical Works Company, S.A.E.C.--a change for which approval had already been given five months earlier.
Two factories were constructed, one at Klipfontein where the S.A.R. provided rail access from Kempton Park, with Lt.-Col. Bleloch heading the design and construction team. Mustard gas was produced in the last quarter of 1942, and a smaller H.T. plant was designed, constructed and commissioned at Firgrove near Somerset West on behalf of the United Kingdom authorities.21 Constructional work was almost completed when it was decided that the successful operation of these factories could best be achieved by employing civilian personnel and administering them through a Board of Directors responsible to the Chief of the General Staff. With nearly 2,000 men needed for full production, 99 Technical Works Company was demilitarised at the end of 1942, with the unit finally disbanded on 26 July 1943.
The production plants became known as the Chemical Defence Factories (U.D.F.), of which Lt.-Col. Bleloch was General Manager, with Capt. A. Q. Harvey, who had been attached to the company since its inception22 as Works Manager at Klipfontein, and Mr. T. B. Lewis, seconded from the Ministry of Supply, managing the Firgrove plant.23
The whole operation thus passed out of the sphere of the S.A.E.C, but the personnel involved continued with their dangerous tasks, luckily without fatal accidents. Orders for gas munitions were fulfilled during 1944, by which stage it had become clear that the enemy would not risk a resort to chemical warfare. The chlorine plant at Northrand was working only to 20 per cent of its capacity, and in April 1944 it was decided to install a dichloro-diphenyl-trichlorethane (D.D.T.) plant at Klipfontein and also to make B.H.C. But by the time production got going, the war in Europe was over.24
The development of this noxious but necessary weapon, involving a hazardous task of production, would never have been achieved but
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Lt. R. P. Poole (mounted, extreme left) and his section of the XV Corps Signals Company, which sailed from South Africa as the S.A. Signal Company. RE, in October 1915 and served in France. The Section Commander himself had won the DSO as a major in South West Africa before voluntarily relinquishing his rank to serve in France, where he won the MC.
The only mounted SAEC unit of World War II, 1 Field Squadron, which marched into camp under Capt. A. J. Archibald--who later won the DSO as a major--on 3 July 1940, marches past before its long ride from Pretoria to Ladysmith, where it was subsequently disbanded.
Sappers on a course conducted by Lt. C. B. (Sandy) Stewart at Auckland Park in December 1939, construct a "stick and string" bridge.
Members of the Engineer Officers Training Company constructing a trestle bridge over a gap somewhere between Sonderwater and Pretoria early in 1941.
for the exceptional contribution made by seven key officers in support of their Commanding Officer, Lt.-Col. Bleloch. They included six Sappers, Capt. A. Q. Harvey, Lts. S. G. Craven, N. J. Abrams, T. Higman and C. Whyssal and 2/Lt. A. C. B. Jacobsen as well as the attached Medical Officer, Capt. J. P. Dalton of the S.A. Medical Corps.
At least two members of 99 Technical Works Company, Sgt. W. C. Hockley and Cpl. J. L. Oliver, were decorated with the B.E.M. for their outstanding devotion to duty at Klipfontein between January 1941 and the end of 1942. Both were called upon repeatedly to expose themselves to great personal danger in plant operation and maintenance, especially during the pioneer work in large-scale distillation of dichlorodiethyl sulphide. Sgt. Hockley, notwithstanding repeated injury and severe deterioration in health, insisted on remaining at his duties until ordered away by the Medical Officer. Yet on recovery he willingly returned to work, and much of the success in achieving the most stable L.C. bomb charging material of this nature yet recorded was attributable to his efforts.
Cpl. Oliver was repeatedly injured and suffered severe deterioration in health but remained at his task and contributed greatly to the successful manufacture of such a satisfactory product.
Fortunately, few of the injured suffered any permanent disability, due to the excellent medical facilities25, and equally fortunately the war gases produced by these factories were never used in conflict. D.D.T., which was in heavy demand for combating typhus in the Naples area after the invasion of Italy and for use against malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the Eastern Pacific area, was being produced shortly before the capitulation of Japan, so that great benefit accrued to the country from the efforts of what had been a unit established purely for war purposes.
From small beginnings under S.A.E.C. guidance and control, a great industrial undertaking had developed. The decontamination of plant and the destruction of deadly mustard gas stocks was itself fraught with danger, but both D.D.T. and B.H.C. plants could be taken over by the Department of Commerce and Industries and run on a commercial basis. They provided but one example of the difference between some Sapper activities and almost all other military tasks, in that they could contribute as much to peacetime progress as to warlike operations.
The Railway Companies
Notable efforts in the engineering field were made by the railways and the gold mining industry, quite apart from the great part they played in actual war production. The Railways and Harbours Brigade had been disbanded in 192626 but on 1 April 1940 it was re-established with headquarters in Johannesburg. Apart from two infantry battalions and four armoured trains--the brigade was to have an Operating Group whose activities lay almost exclusively in the engineering field, just as they had done in World War I.
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No fewer than seven companies were originally provided for under Operating Group Headquarters, and they included construction, marine, operating, mechanical and maintenance, stores and docks units. Sub-units of the Operating Group were organised and personnel earmarked by the Railways administration. Just a month after its establishment, the new Brigade Headquarters was placed under Col. T. H. Watermeyer, with the Operating and Construction Group (as it was now called) under Lt.-Col. J. D. White, with Lt.-Col. E. X. Brain as Officer Commanding, Field Companies.
The question of control of these railway engineering units in the field soon came to the fore. In fact, Col. Greathead--the Engineer-in-Chief and himself a railwayman--had already drawn up establishment tables for four railway companies which, as the Adjutant-General could see, would have the effect of withdrawing these units from the Railways and Harbours Brigade. At a meeting on 1 August 1940 this ticklish problem was considered, and the Chief of the General Staff told Col. Watermeyer that the Railways and Harbours organisation could not be fitted into the Mobile Field Force unless three construction companies and an operating group became part of the S.A.E.C. It was finally agreed that the companies would be attached to the S.A.E.C. as Railways and Harbours companies, who would be permitted to continue wearing their R. & H. Brigade badges. Barely a week later it was confirmed that 200 men of the operating company would be called up for full-time service. In addition, 100 other ranks at a time would undergo continuous training for periods of thirty days, so that trained men would always be available at short notice.
The R. & H. Brigade had its own training centre at Mapleton, about 33 km outside Johannesburg, on the railway line to Natal. On 10 September 1940 No. 1 Railway Engineering Battalion--to become better known as the Railway Construction and Maintenance Group--was established, its headquarters being set up on 1 October at the Rand New Works Offices, Germiston, when Maj. W. Marshall Clark, the Second-in-Command, went on full-time service with Lt. A. F. van Heerden as Adjutant, Lt. W. N. G. Soderlund as Mechanical Officer and Lt. E. L. Janisch as Stores Officer, with three other ranks.
The battalion was to consist of 38, 39 and 40 Railway Construction Companies and 41 Harbour Construction Company, S.A.E.C.--and if there were any who felt sensitive about their Railways and Harbours Brigade identity, they appear to have kept tactfully quiet about it in official circles. On 27 September the 38 Railway Construction Company under Maj. J. G. Pauling was mobilised, and on 8 October they moved into camp--not at Mapleton but at the E.T.C. Maj. G. H. Deas's 41 Harbour Construction Company followed on 13 November, and 12 days later Maj. W. H. Evans brought in 39 Railway Construction Company.
By that time another Engineer training camp had been established on Sir Pierre van Ryneveld's farm "Spitskop", and there 2/Lt. E. Todd was in charge of the small training staff. The end of 1940 found the railway units still there or at Cullinan, together with 17,
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18, 20 and 22 Field Park Companies, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10 and 13 Field , Companies, 23 Anti-Gas Laboratory, 24 Workshop and Park Company and the 86 Concealment and Camouflage Section, the function of which had not yet become clear in training circles. More than 7,600 men had already been trained or were in the process of being trained at the E.T.C, but there were still more men in Engineer units and formations such as the Mines Engineering Brigade, whose members never went near Cullinan. The brigade's two battalions already boasted nine companies of keymen from the mining industry, with their own camp--at Maccauvlei though under control of the E.T.C. It was yet too early to predict how their special skills would be employed in the common interest of the country's Sapper effort, but there could be no doubt that they represented a wonderful source of specialised knowledge and experience on techniques hardly likely to be better understood by anyone outside the Rand gold-mining industry.
The S.A.E.C.'s sound foundations had been laid, and it was already on the way to becoming one of the largest and most efficient corps in the South African forces.
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Contents
Previous Chapter [1] ** Next Chapter [3]
ANNOTATIONS
1. The History of the Transvaal Horse Artillery, p. 53.
2. Nine Flames, p. 2.
3. S.A. Sapper, January 1969.
4. South Africa at War, p. 27.
5. Nine Flames, p. 3.
6. ibid, p. 4.
7. ibid, p. 10.
8. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 8.
9. ibid, p. 9.
10. The South Africans with General Smuts in German East Africa, 1916, p. 12; East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 222.
11. Militaria, No. 6/1, 1976.
12. The Story of the Ninth, p. 8.
13. East African and Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 58.
14. Nine Flames, p. 43.
15. Rampant Horses in SA. Sapper, June 1978.
16. S A. Sapper, July 1978.
17. Journal of the SA. Institution of Engineers, December 1946. p. 135.
18. White Paper, The Manufacture of War-Gases in the Union and the Subsequent Diversion of Plant to the Production of D.D.T., W.P. 7--*46. p. 1, para. 2.
19. ibid. [No footnote marker in text.]
20. ibid.
21. ibid, para. 4.
22. Journal of the S A. Institution of Engineers, December 1946. p. 138.
23. White Paper, para. 6.
24. The Journal of the Chemical, Metallurgical and Mining Society of SA., April 1947. pp. 353-354.
25. White Paper, p. 2, para. 9.
26. South African Railways and Harbours in Wartime, p. 40.
Transcribed and formatted by Roman Hruska for the HyperWar Foundation