12.  Final Days With The British

This time, we found our ship, the “Ascania” in Liverpool, which was in the midst of a strike, so loading was done by us. We had a very rough passage, around the Bay of Biscay, few of us going for meals, and then the dishes would fly off the table and crash on the floor. We landed at Haifa, after an interesting passage past Gibralter, Algiers and the coastline I had flown over before.

We had to take an armoured train, with a small self-propelled vehicle running in front of the train to detonate any bomb that the Jewish terrorists might have placed on the track. Our trip was uneventful, though there were men throwing rocks and bottles.

The American Press kept saying that the British, with all their guns were only up against crowds without weapons, and our people were quite anti-American, because they claimed the press was controlled by wealthy Jews. Our general was on the “Black List” and had to be carefully escorted when in public. We had an armoured car, with a Red Cross on it, at our field ambulance, with barbed wire around our officers’ mess, to keep others out, not to keep us in!

Life in Palestine was as different as night and day from previous service. A British officer whom I met on first landing said, ”You don’t have to be crazy to be here, but it helps!”

Gaza was a small town on the coast, part Jewish and part Arab, and we tried to make friends with all. Our officers’ mess funds were in the Tel Aviv Bank, while our other funds were in the Arab bank, and the two were so different, the first being like any Canadian institution, while the latter was pure Middle East.

I looked after the funds, and when I entered the Arab bank, the teller immediately invited me to come behind the counter. The ordinary citizenry lined up outside!  One day, an assistant teller, dressed in their clumsy garb, with a large seat, in case the male wearer might give birth to the next messiah, dropped a bag of coins. They flew under the desks and chairs, and I wondered if they found them all.

During our first weeks, we saw all the holy sights, the Wailing Wall, the Dead Sea and the Jordan.

We had to train, of course, but keeping fit was important, and we swam twice a day. There was often quite an undertow, but we were pretty good swimmers. Unfortunately, about a week after leaving my unit to move to an airlanding unit as second-in-command, one of my friends was drowned after being caught in the undertow.

It was sad to leave my parachute unit, however after spending the entire war as a captain, I was promoted to “Major Kerr”, which somehow didn’t sound as good, however that was to be changed again.

My new unit was in Nathanya, a town half-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa, famous for its diamond cutters and for the nearby port, Caesaria. The Mediterranean at that point had changed its level by about twenty feet, and the harbour of the old Caesaria could be seen by diving down in the brilliantly clear water.

The Commanding Officer was quite a character, an alcoholic who had been an Italian P.O.W. for two years and hated the Italians, some of whom were our P.O.W.’s there, as much as he hated the Jews. Being an anti-semitic in Palestine was not the best thing!  The 2 i/c, whose place I was to take, was a New Zealander, who had just been told he could go home and so we had to organize a farewell party for him, when he let me know all about the commanding officer.

After only a couple of weeks, it was obvious that my C.O. was hopeless, so I went to the Senior Medical Officer in Palestine whom I had known before, and told him that something had to be done. He told me to just declare him mentally unbalanced, send him to a psychiatrist, and have him admitted to a hospital. The nearest psychiatrist was in Cairo, so there he went and we never saw him again. I have often wondered if he was still there. Anyway, the result was that Ashton was promoted to Lt-Col, and made C.O. Colonel Kerr sounded much better!!

We had a good time. The sights of Palestine could  be seen, Haifa being a fine town, not unlike Montreal, with its Mount Carmel. I arranged an educational trip for the boys to all the holy places, and I was able to take an educational trip myself to Beirut, then a lovely city, though now devastated.

We stayed at the Normandy Hotel, quite deluxe. People spoke French mostly, though there was a lot of arabic. We drove up to the Cedars of Lebanon Ski Club where we were welcomed by the G.O.C. British troops, an incredible ride up thousands of feet, with the temperature falling until we were driving in snow. The view can’t be imagined, looking straight down to the Mediterranean and its beaches. We put on skis just to be able to say that we had skied, and drove down again, with a night in town, going to the Chat Botte (Puss in Boots) Night Club.

Back on duty in Palestine again, training is not remembered as much as the parties that we had. I would send ambulances to the British hospitals to bring some nurses, and trucks to Haifa and Tel Aviv for young ladies. The only disaster resulting from our parties was on one occasion when my sergeant-major must have had too much to drink and passed out briefly, to find that his favourite nurse had just left in an ambulance to return to her hospital. He jumped on a motorcycle, to catch up but forgot that there was a T-junction down the road. He ran into a barbed-wire fence, and we had to send another ambulance, which we fortunately had standing by, to pick him up. When he came back, he looked fine, but his face was like a jig-saw puzzle.

As mentioned, we had to keep fit and so there were all kinds of sports. One day, the officers were playing rugger against the sergeants and a staff-sergeant fractured his clavicle. Collar-bone fractures are easy to treat, so we just put a figure-of-eight strap on and didn’t send him to hospital. If we had, since he had only an acting rank, he would have been reduced to sergeant. He didn’t break his clavicle, officially.

I remember filling out a form sent to all medical officers by the War Office. They wanted to know what branch of medicine we were interested in, just in case...

So, I wrote down “civilian”. In any event, not long after, a message came saying “GHQ 02E MEF have authorized the release of acting Lt-Col. A. Kerr, who states he is a Canadian subject on loan to the British Army”.(!!!)  I was to return to London.

My instructions were to report to the transit camp in Alexandria. Since the occasional train was still bombed, and it would be a miserable trip, I thought it better just to take one of my small trucks for the journey. Two other officers wanted to go to Cairo, so we planned the trip, taking a driver who would have a tommy-gun and plenty of cans of spare gas.

Another farewell party, and we left Nathanya at first light, the first week of February, 1946. The drive across the desert was pretty deadly, with the odd camel and nothing but dry sand for miles and miles. Finally the Suez Canal, where we had to wait for some barges to be pulled through. Once on the other side, we stopped at a nice little restaurant, with a garden and grass all around. What a change. We had been warned that there might be trouble in Cairo and were surprised that we saw nobody in uniform.

We found the Officers’ Club after asking our way, where the manager was surprised to see us, since the city was “out of bounds to British troops”. He said we shouldn’t have driven through Cairo, and said we could spend the night sleeping on couches or phone the military police, which I did. The provost marshall, or whoever I spoke to, said we should have dinner, then drive straight to the transit camp in Cairo, without stopping. After an enjoyable meal, we departed and found our quarters for the night.

The next morning, we visited the pyramids and a camel station, then headed for Alexandria, everything being peaceful in Cairo by now. However, when we reached that beautiful city, we were stopped at the entrance by a police corporal, who told us that we proceeded at our own risk, since they were having an anti-British day. However, as long as our driver waved his tommy-gun at them, we should have no trouble. But he mustn’t shoot anybody, or we’d be at war.

Alexandria was most interesting, much more civilized than Cairo, and with a fine harbour. Incidentally, since it was the largest naval base for the British, there were some fine stories, the best being of the huge battleship that was sunk there by a midget Italian submarine. The two submariners came to the surface after fastening their bomb on the bottom and were made prisoners. The ship sank only about ten or so feet before settling on the bottom, so when the Germans flew over, they thought it was still active, and although it couldn’t move, its presence was still a threat to the Germans. One of the submariners went to the U.K. as a prisoner, worked as a bomb disposal expert for them and was awarded a medal for some dangerous jobs that he did. They managed to find the admiral of the battleship he had sunk, to present the award!!  This is a good city for shopping and I bought a beautiful prayer rug, which now hangs in our living room. I sprinkled sand over it, before rolling it up, so it would go through Customs.

The trip back to Toulon, France, on the “Empire Mace” a funny little boat, was quite rough, and we passed between Sicily and Italy, with fond memories.

Then a miserable train ride to Dieppe, shades of the unfortunate Canadian raid!  There wasn’t time to view the historic battle ground, before crossing to England. No time for more sight-seeing and my return at last to Canada, after four years and nine months. So that is the end of my war story, but a post-script might be of interest.