A Winter Crossing On The North Sea

A Memory of Kingston upon Hull.

I well remember the King George Dock as I embarked here with 33rd Signal Regiment (a TAVR unit formerly known as the Lancashire and Cheshire Yeomanry).

We were en route to Germany having a posting to RAF Gutersloh for annual training and we travelled to and from Rotterdam in rotten winter weather in November 1968. The entire regimental vehicle pool went aboard - everything from fully loaded three tonners to our secret "Comcen" trucks, all escorted by Land Rovers. Each vehicle carried a warning sign on the back saying "Achtung - keine blinkzeichen" (warning - no indicators) and we filled the ferry with our equipment and troops.

It was a particularly rough crossing on our return to Hull. In fact it was so rough that we lost a great many of our vehicle lights. The cause was simple: the Rotterdam ferry staff insisted that we parked our transport on the vehicle deck in the normal civilian style of just a few inches gap between bumpers. They had taken no account of the generous suspension and huge springs on our Army vehicles. As soon as we hit the rough North Sea the ferry rolled alarmingly and with it went our vehicles rocking to and fro to the limits of their generous military suspension. Although each vehicle was "anchored" to a deck steel ring, they still managed to bounce against one another and we had scores of broken headlights. I even lost the Achtung Keine Blinkzeichen sign on the rear of my Land Rover trailer.

When we disembarked at Hull we formed a sorry convoy to the nearest large garage to get replacement lights for dozens of our vehicles before we could continue our journey across the Pennines to our depot in Rusholme, Manchester, and Alamein Barracks in Liverpool.

A memorable experience in Hull - and not one to be repeated thank you!