Page 9 - RADC Bulletin 2021

800 Army Dental Centre at Moascar, Ismalia Egypt - 1955
Laboratory. There was a test to see just what I was capable of and after a few weeks of further instruction I was posted to Number 10 Army Dental Laboratory at Park Hall Camp in Oswestry. Following my 3rd Class trade test at Aldershot I returned to Oswestry and recall making German Prisoners of War dentally fit before their repatriation.
Malcolm Davis (1949/1951)
Even if you are suffering from dementia in old age there are two things you are not likely to forget, your Army Number and
the first day of National Service. Possibly
at the time of training at the RADC Depot and Training Establishment at Aldershot many of us did not appreciate those things that in later life we came to treasure and recognize the benefit of all that respect for others, good manners, etiquette, loyalty and discipline which would hold us in good stead for the rest of our lives.
Dave Dilley (1950/1952)
I had expected to do my National Service
in the Royal Army Pay Corps as I was a bank clerk in civilian life but when my
call up papers were received it stated RADC. I had no idea what this indicated and my first thought was that it was the ‘Demolition Corps’ but soon realised my misunderstanding when I reported for duty in March 1950 at the RADC Depot and Training Centre in Aldershot to be trained as a ‘DORA.’ I recall we had fatigues quite often with the best task to clean the Sergeants’ Mess and the worst shovelling coal from a lorry into the boiler room.
John Paterson (1951/1953)
During my service with the RADC, I spent eighteen months with 21 Army Dental Laboratory at the British Military Hospital
in Hamburg, Germany, and in October 1953 posted for temporary duty to the Dental Centre at BMH Berlin. Whilst in Berlin one of the Dental Officers visited Spandau prison where German war criminals were housed. He returned with dental impressions of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and Admiral Raeder, Commander of the German Navy. Both were in prison for life having been found guilty of war crimes. I cast models from the impressions, and also made a duplicate
RADC Guardroom
set, which I kept. I then produced partial dentures for both men. The duplicate models have now been donated to the Army Medical Services Museum and are on display.
Ian Tugwell (1952/1954)
With fifteen months of my National Service remaining I struck it lucky by being posted
to the one-man Dental Laboratory at the British Military Hospital at Up Park Camp
in Jamaica. In the process of posting, I was housed in a ‘transit camp’ at Goodge Street Underground Railway station in Central London. Entry to the underground camp was through a concrete ‘Pillbox’ structure with hundreds of descending steps leading to a vast cavern of tunnels lined with single bunks. The deep level tunnels at Goodge Street
have a particularly interesting history; during the Second World War they were equipped as General Eisenhower’s headquarters
and since then had been used as a Military Transit Camp until May 1956 when a fire broke out leaving the facility unsuitable for accommodation; it was closed.
Ruggles Love (1954/1956)
My National Service was not as typical
as many dental technicians as I served mainly as a DCA in small Dental Units.
After a five year apprenticeship as a Dental Technician I was called up in June 1954 for the normal basic training which included ‘square bashing,’ arms drill at the firing range, pressing ill-fitting B. D. uniforms, blanco webbing, polishing brasses and boots. After training as a DCA I was posted to 69 Army Dental Bulford, Wiltshire, and later drafted
to Egypt and kitted out with KD, hose tope, putees, plus lots of lovely ‘jabs’ before boarding an Avro York transport aeroplane for the five hour journey to Malta and then on to Abyad, in the Canal Zone, and to
the British Military Hospital surrounded
by barbed wire with observation posts at strategic points. After a few months, my final posting was to 800 ADC at Moascar, near Ismalia, where there was an ancient dental x-ray unit, reputedly won from the Germans at the battle of Tobruk during the war. Three months before my release it seemed I was surplus to requirements and detailed as ‘off strength’ but I carried my own documents and was able to access pay. I finally travelled
RADC National Servicemen at the Depot in 1957
back to the UK, in a Vickers Viking aeroplane, to Blackbush airport, Hampshire, via Malta and Corsica to be demobilised at the RADC Depot. A very good two years of ’education.’
Doug Baker (1957/1959)
My basic training at the Depot in Aldershot is remembered for one particular event that disturbed my sleep. On the first night in the ABTU block I was rudely awakened by being tipped from my bed at 2 am in the morning only to be informed it was a ritual carried out by the Intake in the next block who had completed their basic training. As all hell broke loose the Corporal i/c appeared and ordered us all back to bed as if it were our fault.
Finally, a poem attributed to A. C. Caradine...
National Servicemen
There once were National Servicemen a sprightly little band
They gathered them in uniform
from all across the land.
They didn’t march for nothing;
they were paid four bob a day
As they wallowed in their billets it
seemed a shame to take the pay.
There once were National Servicemen
they sent some overseas,
They sent some to Korea
to meet the Chinese
Some went to Malaya, Egypt and Cyprus too, Some to meet the Mau Mau
who numbered quite a few.
There once were National Servicemen
who did what they were asked
Who proved on most occasions
they were equal to the task
Perhaps a grateful Nation, a little
‘thank you’ could be got?
But the deeds of National Servicemen
it seems are best forgot
This article was prepared by Brian V. Sims (1957/1959), for the RADC Bulletin
A former Corporal i/c 653 Army Dental Centre, Devizes, Wiltshire
Honorary Secretary RADC Reunion Club - 2007/2019
Note: * National Service -Conscription in Britain 1945/1963 - Richard Vinen BVS
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