Page 16 - Chiron Calling Autumn/Winter 2022

A visit to Ex RAVC
WO2 John Carter
by Lieutenant Colonel (Retd) Chris Ham MBE RAVC
During mid May 2022, I had the pleasure of visiting WO2 John Carter RAVC
in his home at Monmouth, Wales. Aged 92 he was incredibly articulate and could bring to mind plenty of interesting facts and anecdotes of his career, a resume is shared in this article.
John Carter when aged 19 – 20, was fed up with his mundane life and decided to join the Army,
he enlisted into the South Wales Border’s Battalion based at Brecon. In next to no time finding his niche he was soon promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal, however still not fully satisfied with his lot in life he transferred to the RAVC in the early 1950s.
During his National Service he enjoyed his life in the RAVC so much he decided to stay within
the Corps and continued to serve
on as regular. A devoted ‘dog man’ he served in Sennelager Germany, as well Belgium and saw active service in Kenya and Cyprus, also completing several tours of duty in the Far East. The first of which was during the Malayan Emergency. The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti-British National Liberation War, was a guerrilla war fought in British Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army and the military forces of the British
1 Wikipedia.
2 Ibid.
Empire and Commonwealth.1 The guerrilla war spanned June 1948 to July 1960.
He also later served in the Indonesian Confrontation. The Indonesia – Malaysia confrontation or Borneo confrontation was an armed conflict from 20th January 1963 to 11th August 1966. That stemmed from Indonesia’s opposition to the creation of the Federation of Malaysia. After the Indonesian president Sukarno
was deposed in 1966, the dispute ended peacefully and the nation of Malaysia was created.2
His tours in Malaya saw him serving at Kota Tinggi and at the Jungle Warfare School in the state of Jahore, where he handled a tracker dog and separately a search dog which he trained to find articles and weapons discarded by the enemy. For most of his time he was attached to 42 Commando Royal Marines, and he was awarded a Mention
in Dispatches for his handling
skills and was subsequently made an honorary life member of the
RM of which John is justly very proud. When not in ‘the sticks’,
the social life particularly with the Commando’s was very enjoyable John recalls as he smirked.
One of photographs below shows WO2 John Carter being presented with his MiD by Lt Col B I S Gourley OBE MC Royal Marine. When asked what his memorable moments were in Malaya, John instantly recalled the “big shoot outs – with the insurgents”
When I enquired who else did he serve with? John rapidly recollected several names, he said many of these personnel made a lifelong impression upon him “Tony Rossell was a good hand – a RM expression, he knew what he was about and
backed us all the way. Tony was a very handy bloke to have around in a shoot out”.
Going on to further say, “Marsh Revell was a damn good boy” and he recalled Marsh “winning a marathon in Malaya and for this young Revell received two weeks R&R in Hong Kong, of which we were all very envious”.
Whilst this RAVC soldier enjoyed his career on active service he was similarly delighted to be summoned from Sennelager to London to attend the Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation Parade on the 2nd
June 1953. He and ten other RAVC personnel formed a small RAVC contingent led by Captain Hamilton Dick, the Corps RSM, Sgts Jackson, Bill Berridge, John Carter, LCpl Baxter and several other RAVC JNCOs. John asked me to mention that Major George Young “ensured all uniforms that were fully tailored for the prestigious event” and this was plainly “really marvellous”.
He brought to mind the need to march seven to eight 8 miles during the parade, and vividly recalls being halted for some time outside the Cavalry Club, Piccadilly, where he said “they were passed plenty of booze and we were drinking like no tomorrow” until Captain Hamilton- Dick told the occupants of the Calvary Club “no more as his troops still had a long way to go!”
14 / Chiron Calling