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The year opened with a search for landmines and a 48 hour sandstorm. Later in the month he took out a small party to erect road signs in the area carrying the sharp warning "DANGER KEEP TO TRACK". In order to do this they had to blow holes in the ground with sticky grenades so that the supporting angle irons could be driven into the rocky surface.
On 23rd January 1943 with Sgt. "Titch" Jarman he went to the Middle-East School of Military Engineering at Gebel Mountain to begin Officer training. There he attended lectures on wiring, mine laying and mine clearing but he was also required to give lecturettes . One of his was on “Shadows” Full notes from all the lectures had to be kept and evenings spent studying for the exams on February 13th.. He thought he had done very well until he realized that he had omitted the questions on the back of the paper. Nevertheless his mark of 53% was above average.
On February 19t he moved to the Royal Engineering Training .Depot at Moascar, where hours spent polishing bayonets and boots. Now as a Cadet he was required to remove all badges of rank and wear a white band around his hat and epaulettes. The training continued with the writing of essays and more five minute lecturettes. The subject of his first essay was "Will there be another war?". In between taking his turn to become acting Company Commander there were assault courses, drill and P.T. Following a passing out ceremony on 13th March he received his report which noted "Leadership good, has worked well, excellent results.
On 25th March he moved to the Middle East Officer Cadet.Traing.Unit. at Acre. On the first day of the course he had interviews, T.A.B. injections, and was issued with K.D. (khaki drill) uniform and new boots. The boots, were dull and rough, so the first task was to start polishing them until the toe caps shone. For training he was placed in No.1 Platoon of No.1 Company under a very fierce Sergeant Major Gribble, who always addressed him as “Sir”
On 30th March he rose at 5.00 am., was vaccinated, had an intelligence test and then went out on an Infantry exercise returning at 8.30 p.m. On other days, he would be up at 5.30am for intensive drill, then straight out on a ten mile route march. On the 24th there was a ceremonial parade at which a minute speck of brasso was noticed in the crevice of his ceremonial buckle. This led to a period of extra drill on the parade ground in the blazing sun with the orders being given by a Sergeant standing in the shade. That same night, he was out digging slit trenches. His training nearly came to an abrupt end on 29th April when he lost an important notebook, containing five weeks work. Attempts to find it failed, but fortunately, with the aid of another notebook borrowed from a friend he managed to produce a new set of notes. This process took five nights.
The rest of the course was spent on patrols, ceremonial drills, mile runs field work, forced marches doing 8 miles in 1 hour 50 minutes, assault courses, etc. On 22nd May, there was a ceremonial passing out parade after which he left by train for the School of Military Engineering at Ismailia. From there he moved to the nearby Royal Engineers Training Dept. from which he emerged as a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant on 19th June 1943.
After a week’s leave in Cairo at the end of June he returned to the Royal Engineers Training Dept. to be issued with an Officers camp kit comprising, folding chair, wash basin, stand and a valise. Together with four others he shared a tent, and a batman "Achmed", an Egyptian.
On 20th June he learned that with Titch Jarman he was to be posted to No 3 Troop of 622 Squadron part of the 10 Armoured Division in Syria. He left Ismailia on 4th August and finally reached 3 Troop who were building a water point at Slenfe on August 7th. Slenfe was a village reached by truck from Lataquia,.. At Slenfe he became 2 I/C to a Lieut. Sage
The natives seemed to think that he had been responsible for the arrest of a bandit who had been terrorizing their village so when he stopped in the jeep driving along a road they would insist on kissing his hand and giving him fruit and wine. His particular task was to recruit men to work on the track to the water point, through a contact who spoke French. When Lieutenant Sage departed he became O.C. of 3 Troop, which on the 18th moved north of Slenfe to begin building a cableway of 130 feet span over a gorge using a 3" steel wire rope. On 21st the Troop took a jeep and a 6 pound anti-tank gun across in 3.5 minutes in the presence of the Colonel Royal .Engineers. and other high-ranking officers. Though he was in charge he attributes much of the success of that operation to his Troop Sergeant On 30th August, with the Sergeant he climbed a 1200 foot mountain on a reconnaissance for building a 'go and return' cableway. Stores were taken to the top of the mountain by loading rocks into skips at the top. This was dangerous, because if the steel wire rope snapped it could have done a lot of damage.
The period from 28th September until the end of October was spent either traveling, on reconnaissance 40 miles south of Suez looking for water, or as Sports Officer building a football pitch and a boxing ring. The first fight in the ring was between Vasek Fladr, a Czech Officer attached to 3 Troop and himself but it did not last long because Vasek got sand in his eye.
On 2nd November he left for leave in Cairo but the planned trip down to Luxor, Thebes and Karnak, never took place because he was taken ill and admitted to hospital Fortunately the illness was not, as was first thought, malaria. On November 16th, he was moved to Lady Lampson's Convalescent ��ѿ��ý in Cairo. It was during this time that his wallet containing £20.00 and his identity card were stolen on the tram back to the home Fortunately he was able to borrow £5.00 from the Squadron and have his photograph taken for a new identity card before his official return to the Squadron on 26th November, which by now was based at Mena preparing for a conference at which Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were expected. On 6th December he had lunch at the Mena House Hotel; at the next table was General Marshall who subsequently became famous for the Marshall Plan. The rest of the month was spent taking down the wire and other defences from around the Mena House Hotel,
On the 16th December he took an advance party back to Ferara, to prepare for the arrival of the rest of the Squadron. They were unable to erect the tents because of a sandstorm but he did manage to get hold of some bricks to build a fireplace. Because no wood was available fuel for the fire was a telegraph pole. On the 23rd they moved off into the desert to form up standing for two hours to be inspected by General Maitland Wilson, the Commander-in-Chief. He was by now a Lieutenant.
On Christmas Day in accordance with tradition, with the other Officers he took tea to the men in their tents at 7.30am and cleaned the Batmans shoes. After a church service there was the final of the inter-troop football. There were originally twelve troops competing, four from each of three squadrons. His troop reached the final and won. Each member of the team got a bottle of beer and ten cigarettes. On December 27th Derrick Townsend arrived to become his 2 I/C.

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