Unclaimed Baggage

Soon after I was appointed Weapons Training Officer of the 41st Primary Training Centre, Maindy Barracks, Cardiff in 1947, the Commanding Officer, Lieut Col ‘Ianto’ Price, asked me to start training a team of marksmen for the Western Command Weapons Meeting to be held at Altcar Ranges, Liverpool in August of that year. I selected about a dozen NCOs and men from the training and administrative staff and had a trial run on the 30 yards range the following day. A few of them were not consistent enough in their grouping practices and were replaced by others who had shown interest in becoming members of the team. When I had as good a collection of riflemen and machine gunners as I could muster, we went to Porthcawl (Newton) Ranges for a full day’s shooting. The Commanding Officer visited us in the afternoon and was pleased with what he saw.
The team trained most days on the 30 yards range and we spent two or three evening a week in the miniature range shooting with 22 rifles. I was satisfied with the team’s performance and the marksmen looked upon themselves as an elite bunch.
One day the Adjutant summoned me to his office and handed me a large brown envelope. “These are the squadding cards for the Altcar Team,” he said. “Look after them and make sure that each man has the right card when he is called forward to the firing point.” When I returned to my office, I read the rigmarole about what I had to do as Team Captain and paid special attention to one important rule:

‘COMPETITORS WHO ARE NOT IN POSSESSION OF THEIR SQUADDING CARDS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED’.

That was sufficient warning for me to put the envelope in the safe and check each day to see if it was still there.

The team departed for Liverpool on a Sunday morning armed with rifles, Bren guns, magazines in large boxes for the machine guns and personal baggage. We changed trains at Crewe and caught another to Lime Street Station in Liverpool. We then had to march to a branch line that ran to Altcar and onwards to Southport. It was only a short distance between stations but too far to carry the heavy kit. A young RASC corporal, in charge of a 3-ton troop carrier waiting on the road outside, was assisting women and children to climb aboard. When I asked him if he could take some of our kit as well, he kindly agreed. I put a corporal in charge and told another NCO to form up the remainder of the team ready to march to the next railway station.

When we arrived at the branch line, the heavy kit had been loaded on the train to Altcar. The Guard was looking at his watch and asked us to get aboard as he was running late already.
The last lap of the journey took about 20 minutes and the corporal in charge of the kit had taken most of it out of the guard’s van and deposited it on the platform by the time I appeared. The remainder of the team helped to carry the guns, magazines and personal baggage to a 3-tonner waiting outside the station while the Guard did a final check of his van to make sure nothing had been left behind. He was about to blow his whistle and wave his green flag when I realised I had not collected my own baggage. “Hold on! Where’s my bag?” I yelped. I looked up and down the platform and inside the guard’s van, but there was no sign of it. It was not in the 3-tonner and I could think of no other place to look. “Come on. sir,” said the Guard, “I’m later than ever now.”
It was bad enough to have mislaid my personal kit, but losing the squadding cards for each member of the team was a disaster of the first magnitude.
After the train departed, my first duty was to see that the team was accommodated and fed in the camp adjacent to the ranges. When that was done, I retraced my steps to Lime Street Station, Liverpool.
There was nobody about and the RTO (Rail Transport Office) was shut. I found a porter and asked him if he could remember seeing an Army corporal helping women and children board a 3-ton truck about two hours ago. “Yes,” he said. “They were going to Prince’s Landing Stage. That’s down by the river.” Thanking him for his help and giving him a 2/6d tip, I hailed a taxi and drove to the waterfront.
There was a Customs Post on the quayside and I asked a uniformed official if he knew anything about some women with kids who might have arrived at the jetty in an army truck. He nodded his head and said they had embarked aboard the troopship S.S. Orbita. I felt that I was getting closer to my bag and asked him if he had seen a leather holdall with a prominent white strip on both sides. “Yes,” he replied, “I do remember such a bag. Nobody claimed it so I wrote a label: UNCLAIMED BAGGAGE OF PASSENGER S.S. ORBITA and sent it off with the rest.” The next question I put to the official was: “Where can I find this ship?” He pointed seawards in the direction of the setting sun and said: “There she goes, sir. It’s Gibraltar next stop.”
It turned out that the women, with children, I had seen were going to Mombasa to join their husbands serving in Kenya; my bag must have got mixed up with their luggage.
While I was considering the words I should write in my plea of mitigation to the CO the next day, a sergeant in the Military Police came up, saluted smartly and said: “I could not help hearing your conversation with the Customs Officer, sir. If you wish, I can go after the ship in our launch and see if I can find your bag.” I was prepared to grasp at any straw so, without further ado, the sergeant and a corporal, already in the launch, set off down the River Mersey to catch up with the S.S. Orbita.
Eventually, the launch returned with the sergeant in the bows holding up my bag which he had found on the purser’s square with the afore mentioned label attached.

Colonel ‘Ianto’ Price arrived at mid-day on the Monday and was in good form. I cannot remember how many medals and cups we won – if any, but we had a good time and, as far as I was concerned, gained valuable experience about organizing weapons’ meetings.

Post Script: - By a remarkable coincidence, a year later - almost to the day, I lost most of my kit when a porter put my luggage in the hold instead of the baggage room of the S.S. Empress of Australia berthed at Prince’s Landing Stage, Liverpool and bound for Cyprus. The story is told in my book ‘KHAKI SHORTS’ under ‘Mediterranean Merry-Go-Round’