At only section strength in each location, the Redcaps still had to ‘stag on’ along with their other duties, providing local defence from attack on the ground and warning of air attack on the MSR and their own locations.
352 Provost Coy, RMP (V) had travelled from their south London TA centre two weeks before, following route signs placed by another reservist Royal Military Police company. The company had arrived at Harwich where the Royal Navy had transported them aboard the LST, Sir Richard de’ Aquitaine to Zeebrugge where they had driven their long wheel base Landrovers off the tank deck and down the LST’s ramp on to Belgian soil, or rather concrete. Immediately upon arrival they had driven to the German frontier, stopping only to refuel and change drivers.
352 Provost Coy’s war role was that of signing the MSR from the frontier as far as Hanover, where they handed it off to the MPs of the US Army. Until the fall of the Warsaw Pact it had been a role they had practiced every year, as NATO went through the annual motions of reinforcing Europe and resoundingly defeating the Red Army just prior to the scheduled ‘Endex’. Twelve years on from the last time the company had done this there were few soldiers remaining within its ranks with experience in the task.
The military route signs consisted of black boards, and the name of the particular route would either be a three-letter word printed in white, for axial routes travelling between the front and rear area, or a simple symbol — such as a square or circle — for the routes travelling laterally across the theatre of operations White arrows on a black background indicated the direction if travel to the drivers.
Before the first convoys reached the front, thousands of these boards had to be attached to 3’ steel pickets that were hammered into roadside verges or attached to trees and street furniture with wire ties. In the instruction given to young soldiers in how to correctly sign a route they are told to tilt the sign forward a degree or ten, to prevent its being read from the air, which sounds fine in theory and works for those signs on pickets, but just try it on a lamppost, a street sign or a tree.
Back with 352 (V), in the first few days, mistakes had been made and bollockings delivered at all levels before the kinks had been ironed out, but not before one route signing party committed the greatest sin in signing, they screwed up their time appreciation for completing the task by failing to allow for mishaps. Three punctures and still five miles short of the planned release point, one of the signing party sighted the first convoy cresting a hill far behind. Half an hour later it crested another, much closer this time. The junior NCO in charge of the party grew more and more frantic, his people worked like Trojans but it was to no avail, the convoy caught up with them two miles from the release point. The commanding officer of the infantry battalion in the convoy was riding in a Landrover at its head; he stopped beside the RMP vehicle just long enough to obtain the name, regimental number and unit of the junior NCO in charge of the signing task. Then the convoy continued on with, of course, squaddies in the backs of the vehicles leaning out and jeering, derisively making the visual sign for ‘wankers’ as they did so. Fourteen days on and vehicles in the road convoys were running along ‘Nut’ route, ‘NUT (Up)’ with the supplies and reinforcements, then back along ‘NUT (Down)’ to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to collect fresh loads.
No. 2 Section, 1 Platoon, 352 Provost Coy occupied a TP on ‘NUT’. The MSR at this point ran along Autobahn E73 near the British garrisons at Bielefeld and Gutersloh, where convoys were directed to the Bielefeld turn-off to refuel at the garrison’s POL point before continuing to the front or on to RAF Gutersloh, if that was the destination of their supplies.
On 7th April at 2315hrs, 19 year old Lance Corporal Simon Green was in his fifth straight hour on point duty. A trainee salesperson for a large chain of stores selling electrical goods in his civvy job, he had been in the Territorial Arm for eight months. Glancing at his watch he was gratified to see that he had only a mere forty-five minutes to go until he was relieved. His back ached from wearing his webbing, helmet and the SA-80 across his chest without a rest since 1800hrs. His feet hurt from standing on the hard surface of the autobahn, bearing the weight of all his kit, and his throat hurt from shouting instructions to drivers of stationary vehicles who leant out through their windows, smirking and cupping a hand behind one ear and shouting back
“What… what… can’t hear you mate?” whilst revving their engines. It hadn’t been funny the first time, and by the hundredth he just wanted to shoot the bastards in the face at the first utterance of “What?”
It was cold on the side of the autobahn, and a chilly breeze blew along the road unhindered by buildings or natural undergrowth. Hitler had emulated his ancient Roman heroes when he had ordered them built, they were primarily meant for use by his military to get from A to B as fast as possible, there were therefore few bends to act as windbreaks.
Traffic was fitful; nothing had come past for almost half an hour, which was a sure measure of how low supplies were getting for the NATO forces. The tall posts that carried lighting for the autobahn marched into the distance along the central reservation; it had been ten days since they had last been illuminated.
The location’s CP was a green canvas tent, known to squaddies as a “Nine bee nine” because of its 9’ x 9’ dimensions, sat nearer the junction with a long wheel base Landrover backed up to one open side of it. Grey, thermal masking hessian sheet covered the vehicle and attached ‘nine bee nine’, over the top of which was a large camouflage net pegged out and propped up by poles in such a way as to break up its outline; nature hates a straight line. The whole caboodle occupied a gap in the hawthorn hedgerow that lined the autobahn, and at a glance it appeared as if the hedge was unbroken along its length. The camouflage was for the benefit of enemy aircraft rather than its ground forces, because the effect was spoilt somewhat by the countdown signs beside the autobahn that declared ‘TP 300’, then ‘TP 200’ and ‘TP 100’ until finally a larger sign stated ‘RMP TP’ along with a big arrow that pointed out the section of ‘hedge’ that was liable for income tax payments.
The section’s other two Landrovers were parked hard against the hedgerow, merging with it and similarly ‘cammed up’, as were the section's three trailers and motorbike.
The main reason for going to all the trouble of camming-up the TP’s on the MSR is mainly that it is good practice.
Via their surveillance satellites in low orbit, the enemy will not be craning their necks to see what is written on the signs placed by the signing parties; they can see that it is an MSR just by the weight of military traffic using it. No photo interpreter is going to spend hours looking for the well-camouflaged TP at the intersection either, because the 2000lb warhead on the medium range, vehicle launched missile that they may plan to drop on the intersection will take it out at the same time anyway.
Sgt Dick Bolding, the section commander of 2 Section was in the CP, using the military telephone network, with its cables laid below ground in the 1960s that followed the military route network throughout the country.
A large map against the inside wall of the CP had a fair amount of information over-written on its clear plastic cover, showing unit locations, routes and the like. A blanket was rolled up above it; ready to be dropped down should they have visitors who were not of the ‘need-to-know’ category. A second board followed the progress up and down ‘NUT’ of the ‘packets’ of vehicles in the convoys; this also had a blanket in place over it.