BRITISH ARMY’S NEW CORPS OF CRAFTSMEN

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23806, 27 November 1942, Page 4

BRITISH ARMY’S NEW CORPS OF CRAFTSMEN

mechanised warfare

In the last few months a minor revolution has been taking place in an important part of the British Array. Paragraphs have appeared about U from time to time in the outside Service circles, I doubt wh , ther the formation of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Corp> -it will be officially "born a month hence—has so far excited the popular interest it deserves. it R E M.E.—you may pronounce u “Reemie"—marks an forward in Army organisation and a break with a tradition which goes back to Crecy and Poitiers. That tra dition is, as it was put to me, that the man who supplies the longbmv controls the man who fits the new ‘“StoSSS a longbow or Patching up a tank, the principle is the!same. Both are instruments of war and both have to be kept mfightingtrm.rhe job of the R.E.M.E. will be to keep the Army’s machines in order under C Hitherto S the task has fallen largely to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps Some 60 per cent, of their personnel and a vast amount of their equipment will be transferred to the new corns at the outset. They will ne joined by most of the tradesmen of the Royal Army Service Corps and the Royal Engineers. ‘Tradesmen, I would remind you, are men witn a trade at their finger-tips. Corps of Craftsmen “Machines” is an elastic word. R.E.M.E., in fact, will mend anything, from a leaking saucepan to a 40-ton tank, from a broken mess-chair to a predictor. It will include in its ranks almost all the skilled tradesmen ot l th? Army, and the lowest ranks of them will be called “craftsmen (Cfn.), not *Thus the twin functions of the RAOC. provision and maintenance, will in future be separated. The parent corps will in future be responsible only for making* stores, weapons, vehicles, and ammunition readily ava.lable when and where they >are wanted. R.E.M.E. will maintain,, repair, t-na conserve all equipment in use. In a two-day tour m the SouthEastern Command area I have been given some idea of the task whu.n R.E.M.E. is to tackle. Most people are vaguely conscious that the modern mechanised army needs an enormous organisation behind the men who do the actual fighting. Not until you make first-hand -acquaintance with that organisation, discuss a few of its problems with the officers responsible, and tour tne schools, laboratories, shops and factories can you achieve anything like a proper appreciation of the vastness oi itS Even the men engaged in it, 1 except the highest controls, can scarcely comprehend the full scope of the corps. The man who delicately paints in the lacquer on the rims of a pair of binoculars knows little of the man who operates the power-hammer to beat a steel bar into a tank-coupling. They are both to be craftsmen of the R.E.M.E. Finding Faults Quickly My tour took me from a Light Aid Detachment—the most forward of R E M.E.’s operational units., whose motto is “A stitch in time saves nine"—to the recuperation base of che heaviest tanks, where, at regular intervals, they come to be overhauled. I visited headquarters and a great school of advanced instruction, and I also saw the R.E.M.E. workshops and school attached to A.A. Command. Anti-aircraft defence provides the corps with some of its most subtle problems. Specialist craftsmen must be able to diagnose faults quickly in the most delicate and.coynplicjjted instruments and carry out repairs on the site. . . Radio location requires that the R.E.M.E. men actually live with the units—they are, in fact; the resident medical officers for the instruments. R.E.M.E. installs the heavy A.A. guns, often in difficult and almost inaccessible places. It puts guns on merchant ships, inspects them, and, when necessary, overhauls them. It has a predictor hospital where, in dust-proof rooms, these miracle-boxes are opened up, pulled to pieces and reassembled m a space of time which leaves the layman baffled and humble. Resourcefulness in emergency is obviously important in an organisation which prides itself on the fact that only a negligible percentage of fighting equipment is out of action in its area for more than 24 hours. R.E.M.E. men still like to remember the days after Dunkirk when tackle was scarce and they planted guns' in their positions by methods as old as the Pharaohs. They recall also the officer who, finding it necessary to pass a cable through a duct with an acute bend, used a ferret with a string tied to its leg. The string was attached to a rope, by means of which the cable was dragged through. Spare-Time Studies Those days of emergency are past but the A.A. section of R.E.M.E. is still confident that it will be able to meet new emergencies as effectively. Ack-Ack R.E.M.E. trains its own personnel. The school has five wings —radio, guns, fire-control instruments, motor transport, and electrical. I listened-in to some of the instructors. Facts and arguments came over with relentless efficiency. , As an ex-driver-owner I should have liked to stay longer at the lecture on tyre preservation, illustrated with some sad looking examples of rubber wastage. Elsewhere I felt completely fogged. Yet the men listening and making intelligent notes had known 'no more than I do about radio and internal combustion engines a few months ago. They are all tremendously keen. Here and elsewhere on the tour I heard that the men take full advantage of the classroom and shops after the ordinary instruction hours and study in their spare time. Searchlights and sound locators are split into their component parts for classroom study. In another wing the entire range of A.A. guns was being demonstrated. Men leaving this sec-

[By J. E. SEWELL In the “Dally Telegraph."]

tion can tell how many more ioim, gun can fire before it become* S* They can diagnose and cure aUc ordinary ills that guns are heir to **

Mobile and Base Workshop* I find it difficult in describin* a. activities I have seen to avoid* £ obvious analogy of the R.A.M.C servicing of the Army’s equips runs parallel with the maintenanw? the health of the men. u InvobS routine precautions, constant v2r ance, quickly available attention sis' right time and highly orgeat 3. specialised attention when tmgQ dition of the patient is serious The Light Aid Detachment-then^' which serves with the forward ttoS! and provides the more fcWnk” kind of servicing and the siaSS kinds of recovery apparatus T vehicles—links up naturally with Z 2nd Echelon, with its mobile shops, its heavier recovery lorries aS its function of removing faulty ponents and replacing them with or reconditioned ones. Behind jS Echelon are 3rd and 4th Echelons. pared to rehabilitate the faulty (ST ponents passed back to them anfii undertake the major overhaul* . That , short description of the on nisation takes one from the thrfe shop, which can be erected ininS with a team of eight men, to theiS central repair depot, where major,? pairs and replacements to tanks w heavy guns are carried out m anti mosphere reminiscent of a major & mament plant. That atmosphere is £ haneed by the presence of. a om number of civilian workers— it i* om» in an expeditionary force that the Su workshops are fully manned R.E.M.E. , * A tour of the base workshop* is hj fact the best high-speed introduction to the weapons and instruments rf the modern army. They are all them, with men busy upon them. ■ Within a short, walk of;the tank shops you will find watchmakers!* uniform at their benches, . and i whole agglomeration of delidqte io> struments for the testing o! the app*. ratus which is nowadays essential hj battle—telescopes, binocular*, ;ran». finders, theodolites, ' , At another shop Home Guard rjflei are being specially strengthened for grenade firing. Worn, paftear* being electroplated back to cfflclon in another shop, typewriters. art being reconditioned next dobrj sod not far away Diesel pumps are being : tested to' an altogether improbable standard of accuracy. ' Most impressive of all are the vast halls in which the tanks are Ajib, jected to their periodic overhaul*. Each vehicle as it come*, in M stripped of its gear, which is stow' in a special cubicle. Every siujla item is tested, overhauled; and,#, necessary, reconditioned or replaced,'' Engines are rigorously tested and te* conditioned elsewhere. - , i 't Radio > equipment 'undergoes; * similar overhaul in ' wire ; cage* organised to prevent interruption* pj the testing. 1 . When the tank leaves the workill is virtually a new one—every sing* element in its complex organisation has been certified efficient. Rescuing a Matilda Behind all this operational acting i lie headquarters and the,, traltdf.' schools, which are officers and men with some teamtofc qualification. From this trainiMai tablishment come the officers and the staff-sergeantMp ment artificers who wiU-sqjyp#. the teams of . engineers in thor’fpf shops and in the field. Hert MigM' find all the British tanks, nical descriptions painted-: of each installation and parti picked in gay?'£6lourt foe identification. ’ v?' ‘S : In a field close by are deep trends and bomb craters—twb -’hsvfe been provided gratuitously by.fjenetj bombs and have .preyed 'useful-lDtt which tanks and other- vehicles hi expressly driven so that the trains* may: exercise their ingenuity’ in «* covering tnem. I watched a heavy Matilda, set at aii awkward angle in the trendy being hauled out by a team with an 11-ton recovery , lorry, ’ Addition*! hazards' of barbed wire had bee* placed to make the operation non difficult, but . the job was dom scientifically and ’ quickly. .On another stretch of heath operation! of a similar kind are carried out ot night. 1 The courses are “intensive”—uJ that means that an incredibl* amount of practical and theoreliw knowledge has to be absorbed:» really high speed. An' officer to* structor told me that his best pupul were the “28-and-overs.” Teachers from libya “At first they are absolutely baffled,” he said. “That’s beciifit they have been away from tin atmosphere of pure learning" for * long. Then they begin to connect f the information they are getting w* their, actual experience in civil at It begins to mean something, after that they go right ahead. T» older men are, if anything., keen* than the youngsters.” The system of supervision and ports ensures that no man can be, f«U» on his written work alone. ThrouT* out the courses the trainee. 1* aware that the R.E.M.E. is not a non* combatant force; there is weapon training, p.t, and unannw combat exercises. . The courses are kept 'up to daw Officers and men have been flog back from North Africa to teach w trainees all that they have Jaw®* of the recovery and repairing d®" culties which can only reveal' than" selves in the field and in action. I have been able to sketch only* small part of the activiw formally taken over by RJUjJ* Its reputation as a will probably depend not so much » spectacular achievement as. on P steady reliability in all emergence It is safe enough to guess .that it start its career with the good wi® 9