Richborough - the Secret Port

Description: A talk by Dr. Martin Watts (talkabouthistory.org), the latest in a series of online talks hosted by the KAS. In 1917, as the Uboat threat reached its peak and it became necessary to increase shipping capacity to France with the arrival of the US army, a secret port was built at Richborough. By the spring of 1918 Richborough operations were in full swing, making a significant contribution to logistics and supply, including the introduction of Roll On and Roll Off services for the first time. This talk tells the story of Richborough, its secrets, successes and the controversy it aroused within Government and the British Army.

Transcript: Well, it is uh it's 3 minutes past 7, so um I'm sure numbers will trickle in as I'm rambling on, but uh we will get started. So, good evening everybody. I hope you're all well. Thank you for joining us tonight. Uh we've reached double figures. This is the 10th in our series of exclusive online talks for the Kent Archaeological Society. So, thank you all for uh for being here with us. Um, can I ask again if if everyone can turn off their um microphones and cameras while we uh while we speak so that everyone can can hear us and see us perfectly. So, for those of you who may not know me, I'm Craig. I'm the archavist of the society and your online lecture host for the evening. Uh, and I'm joined by my fabulously talented digital manager, Jacob, who is keeping things running in the background there uh for the society. I've had, as you may be able to tell, those of you who know me, my annual haircut. Um, so along with a cold head, I'm also suffering because the trees are attacking me with the waves of pollen. So, if I sound bizarre tonight, I apologize. Um, but it's nice to have the sunshine out, isn't it? So, it's great to see you all again. Things remain busy at the society. So, I hope you're all keeping up to date with things uh online on on our website. We hope to avoid any technical issues tonight, but please do bear with us if there are any problems. Jacob will expertly guide us through if they come along. If you're not a member of the society, please do think about joining us. So, it works out at about £330 a month, which is less than half a party loa here in sunny Tumbr. And for that you'll receive a copy of our yearly journal Archaeologia Caniana full of the most current historical and archaeological research in the county. You'll also receive our bannual magazine, regular newsletters, exclusive access to our collections, conferences and selected events, opportunities to get involved in our excavations and research projects. and you'll allow us to continue putting on these free online talks, do outreach in schools, community groups, seminars, and all sorts that we hope is bringing the benefit of Kent history and heritage to everyone. Do check out the website for details on how you can get involved in all of that. Um, sorry if you can hear children in the background as well. It's it's bath time here. Um, housekeeping. So, the talk will last for around about an hour after which we'll have time for questions if you have any. Please keep yourself on mute with your cameras off throughout so that we can hear our speaker clearly. During the Q&A, you can either use the raise hand feature and we'll unmute you uh when it's your turn to ask a question personally or if you prefer, you can type your question into the chat box and we will read it out for you. I hope it goes without saying, but please be courteous and polite to our speaker and to each other. We will be recording the session and it may be posted to our video channels in the future, but no personal data will be shared. And if you ask a question but would prefer it not to be published, just send us an email, let us know, and we'll make sure it's not included. So, on to our speaker. Dr. Martin Watts is an acclaimed author and historian based and very much focused on our very own county of Kemp. His first career was in the Merchant Navy, where fascinating interactions with people and places of the world stoked a passion for history. Martin pursued a part-time BA honors degree with the Open University and Polytechnic of North London followed by a part-time PhD in modern history with the Open University. He has over 30 years experience teaching modern history at Canterbury Christ Church Uni and as a senior lecturer there and um pre principal research fellow and as an associate lecturer with the Open University. His interests cover a broad range of topics including industrial, military, naval, political, and social history across the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including British, European, and international contexts. He's appeared on Channel 4 and Channel 5, BBC TV and radio, probably more uh media, countless talks, book fairs, conferences, and festivals. And he's known to dabble in freelance marine industry journalism uh as a battlefield guide. He was engaged in the Witstable Maritime Project and his publications include the Jewish Legion and the First World War and the Royal Marines and the War at Sea 1939 to 1945. It's an extremely impressive and comprehensive background and we are incredibly fortunate to have him talking here to us tonight about Richborough, the secret port. So Martin, thank you so much for being here with us tonight. Um, it is over to you, my friend. Thank you. I'm just trying to share my screen. There we are. Okay. Hope everybody can hear me. Thank you, Craig, for that uh in flattering introduction. Didn't recognize myself, but there we are. That's what that's what you get. I'm just an old sailor. I'm just an old sailor really that's nosy which is the which I think is the prime motivation for most historians although they might describe it in more fashionable terms should we say um I'm very pleased to be able to speak to to KS um I've published in your journal before you don't want to see that we need to get straight on to Richbbor and Richbbor is something um we stumbled across because there's been a lot of involvement with the Roman port and I was always interested in its operation. And as a as a mariner, as a navigator, I I always found the the earlier history of Richbra fascinating. And of course, one of the things about Rich Ridge Richbbor is that it is quite a secret location. It's located off the main the main channel and at the same time that means it's subject to silt which defeated the Romans and later on defeated the Normans and and and other they couldn't carry on with the port. So what I'm going to talk to you tonight about is the port in the first world war and how significant it was as uh the contribution it made towards victory in 1918. So let's have a look. So why Richmondbra? Because of the silk problem. I I would I would think that many of you are familiar with with s with sandwich maybe not from a nautical point of view but certainly from a physical point of view. Why would you pick a port which silts up which needs a lot of dredging and maintenance? Why would you pick it? And that's the very reason why it was decided to pick Richbra as a secret port because the Admiral T the cabinet the war cabinet realized that no professional sailor would pick on this report. Therefore, the Germans wouldn't pick on it either. And the Germans never suspected it. They never flew over it, never put the Zeppelin over it. Never for one minute did they consider well you'd have to be mad to use Richbra. So it's a pretty good reason for picking it. But there were some substantial reasons why we another port was needed. By 1916 by the middle of 1916 there was a logistics log jam. Folkston and Southampton the the primary ports for moving men and material backwards and forwards to France were full. and they they ran ship services across the channel on a 24-hour basis. Of course, depends depending on tide. Southampton, of course, has a double tide, so lots of availability there. Folkston is a has a good tidle range, but it's quite it's quite limited access to to Folkston. And by the middle of 1916, the demands for manpower and material on the Western Front have grown exponentially. So we have this increased demand for manpower and supplies. We've got to send it over from somewhere else. Do was a military port. The Dover Patrol, the North Sea patrol was operated, Southern North Sea patrol was operated from from Dover. So it wasn't an option to expand into carrying supplies and men. So it was a secret. It was a sheltered and secure location. And despite the the silt, it had a low tidal range or it still has a low t tidal range. And this made it particularly suitable for barges. Barges can carry, you know, two, three, 400 tons. And that was identified as the first means of transportation. Let's get barges built and get them towed across the channel and into the excellent French inland waterway system. And the port went on to develop the really the first scheduled row ferry service. Roll on, roll off. The sort of thing we take for granted today. This this was almost a global first. In Scandinavia, there had been experiments with railroad fairies, but nothing like the scale of Richbra and they became operational as we shall see from March 1918. The site also offered access to the mainline railway. Very important. It was only half a mile from the mainline railway. So that spur, that branch could be built very quickly, not like HS2 where you might think, but built very quickly. And the whole site was based on large gravel beds which was ideal for building and there was plenty of space. So apart from the silt problem which could be dealt with by by dredging this was an ideal location and one which the government thought that the Germans would never consider and proved to be right. It's on the screen. It's a bit blurred this picture, but on the on the slides you can see it more more clear more clearly. And you have direct access from what is called Sandwich Haven. Direct access here from the these peers and jetties direct into uh Pegwell Bay and and across to and across the southern North Sea and the English Channel. Okay. So this and you can see the bends and the oxbows in the in the river. So, it's quite quite a feat quite a feat of engineering to open it up and to put the jetties here and use this area to build what was to become a small town that was completely self-contained and built in secret behind a wall. So barges pictures tell the best stories. And you can see here on this on this one you can see that see the depth of the water there feet and you have barges being built and then put down the slipway. You can see uh barges and this and the tugs there ready to take them out to Pegwell Bay. and the first buildings that were put up with these sheds to with in which you could build these barges. So it became a self-contained engineering. It built its own railway. It built its own barges. It built everything on site and it was done very very quickly under the pressure of war. So looking at the construction, the main way points in the construction, it commenced in May 1916. The connection to the main line was completed in a couple of months. The Richborough Railway itself, which ran within the port, had 35 locomotives on internal traffic, and it worked over a million tons in 1917 without major accident. So it was a well-run well built well constructed but swiftly constructed enterprise a magnificent feat of engineering. The workshops were built the barge building there was a power station so it had its own independent supply of power electricity. There was a hospital and a 24-hour canteen for which for those of you if if any of you have served in in the army, you can thank the Richbrook canteen for the birth of the Army Catering Corp. Enough said. There were also sports facilities and some of those sports facilities were still in use by FISA and and today uh when you access the site today you have to go through the existing sports facilities of the site since Fizer have left. They also constructed a salvage plant. This was important because the scrap and salvage bought back from the front was an important contributor to the supply of resources for the manufacturer of weapons and wagons and you know all sorts of materials. And they recruited 800 local women were recruited to sort the salvage. And that salvage w was sent to Birmingham by rail at night. again part of the secret operation of this place. So you could go straight from um Richport straight onto the main line and then up to Birmingham. It was also useful for bringing back the the wounded later and able to get them away to a hospital very quick very quickly by um hospital trains off the feries. as a very offered a very quick turnaround and therefore an improvement in survival and treatment and effective treatment accommodation was built for 20,000 people. Uh there were training schools for apprentices and soldier tradesmen. I'll explain soldier tradesmen a bit later because that's one of the um interesting aspects of the of this establishment. Once the trainees were were trained, they trained more than they needed. They use the training facility to train up engine military engineers to work in port construction and dot work in France where they would be receiving the material from the UK and also in the in the Middle East to support a campaign in the in in the Middle East building up docks in parts of the Arabian Peninsula and near the Red near the Red Sea and of course Egypt. very important uh base there for Alan B and his campaign in Pal in Palestine in 1917 to 1918. Okay, so you can see they're building a a town in secret with everything in it and yet how many people have heard of it? Okay, the barge operation. They built 10,000 barges and they carried 1.3 million tons in uh in the two years December 1916 to December 1918. You've got to remember that these operations continued after the armistice because there was an army of occupation and there were people to be repatriated and supplies had to go on. So the port continued operating after after victory in 1918 dur during the period here uh 750,000 tons of ammunition 70,000 tons of supplies from this port alone. So it really supplemented and bolstered and made up for for the restrictions due to the capacity being full at Folkston and Southampton. The only losses of barges occurred to weather. None were lost to enemy action. They imported 50,000 tons of salvage for repair or scrap. All sorted by the 800 women employed locally. I think many of them lived in Ramstate if I remember rightly. But it's they they came they were very local. All swore to secrecy of course. Okay. So the inland waterways department was responsible for of the Royal Engineers was responsible for operating uh Richbra and they recruited an awful lot of local experienced engineers and sailors. people that had been working on ships and boats out of Sandwich, people that were used to operating barges. So they use the local skills and local and particularly people with local navigation skill as well. And these are two such watermen, Horus and Henry, father and son. You can see son is quite young and father is a little bit is a little bit a little bit older. and they were um recruited and there's a good story about their recruitment. Um but Henry the father he had been a skipper and pilot at Sandwich. So his skill was very much in his skill was very much in demand. So the local knowledge was used. You can see how the organization brought in all the skills it needed and put them in the army. It wasn't a case of the army creating the skills. It was the other way round. And this causes bit of constonation with the army a bit later, but I shall come on to that. Here's a Royal Engineers in their I said they have sports facilities. Well, there there they are. When they're not building and operating barges, they have a regimenal uh team at at Sandwich. And this picture was taken on the grounds themselves. And we can see a fine body of men. I can't don't I can't really compliment the pitch though. Pitch looks a little bit uh iffy iffy to me. But I would I would I would imagine having sports facilities available is it's not only very very good for morale. They work lot they work long hours but also of course these men weren't ser weren't serving in France. So it's something to something to bear in mind. Okay, here's a later picture of of barges with more. You can see the tugs quite clearly. Very narrow piece of water. You don't need much water to operate these things and carrying 400 tons at a time. It's a very cheap and effective and efficient way to across to the inland waterway system of France makes a lot an awful lot of sense. So you get to use that horrible modern term, you get a big bang for your buck with barges. And you can see you can see here people watching the launch. And of course this one you've got more cranes available and more tugs. So it gives you an idea with the way they were operating. Now the row fairies, roll on, rolloff feries, these really were the world's first for trains and vehicles. They were ordered in January 1917 and they were in service before the end of the year. Think of that in terms of peace time construction and service. Those those lead times I'm just thinking of these Scottish fairies that have been commissioned that are too big for the port and they're seven years late and overpriced and the rest of it. And I and I well one wouldn't wish the catastrophe of war on anybody but under the pressure of war these I won't call them miracles but these substantial achievements are possible so there were three built altogether two were built on the tine and one on the Clyde and they were commercial they were commercially designed commercially built this caused uh a bit of a row because the admiral of course wanted to have them built themselves. Anything not built by the ambulty was looked down upon but the government and this is I think this is one of the areas and Lloyd George looms behind all these sort of projects his energy um the fact that he'd become you know he was going to become prime minister in 1916 having seen and sorted out the shortage of ammunition. This was somebody very very much in the style of Churchill getting things done you know and this going to these commercial contracts to have these things built it's quite an achievement to build these things and have them in service within within a year remembering the type of technology that was available in shipyards at the time their length overall was over 360 ft they were 63 ft wide. They could carry 850 tons of cargo and they had a service speed of 12 knots which is which is quite good. In this latit in in our latitude 12 knots is about 14 and a bit miles per hour. Okay, just for those of you that are not not seafarers, a knot is a minute of latitude per hour. So it's a different distance depending which latitude you're in. Okay. And if that if that has a if that has bamboozled you, don't worry about it. It just mean it it just it's a good steady service speed. It's quite economical for fuel as well. They could carry and in addition to the cargo, they could carry 54 fully loaded vehicles and they had a,080 foot of track, railway track. And you'll I'll show some pictures shortly where you can see how that was used. So they carried in addition to trains and cargo wagons, they carried trucks and ambulances as well. Okay. Here's a picture of one at Sandwich Haven. As you can see, they're right on the verge of uh Pegwell Bay. Here's Peg. Here's Pegwell Bay. There are a few bits and pieces left of some of the steel work in the foundations of the railway track and the jetty here. Um, and I investigated them with a archaeologist which you may be who you may be familiar with, Andrew Richardson. We we did a program for Channel 4 called Britain at Low Tide and we looked at Richbbor and he was able to look at the at the few remains. Um and while I while I explained the importance of the report and how it operated and the key to operating these railroad railroad fairies was the span bridge. What you see at do today is is very similar and this was is a very expensive piece of kit but it meant they could sail at all states of the tide. It's a low tidal range and it meant that vehicles and trains could just drive on straight straight and level. So that makes a lot of sense. And to give you some scale um chap in a rainboat here so you can see get an appreciation of the size. There's one just departing and you can see railway railway track. There's no train on this one. I don't I can't see a train on this one. Lots and lots of trucks and wagons and there's different areas for carrying cargo. And again, as you can see, it's straight out into Pegwell Bay. So, it's a really good situation. There's a picture now with the rail tracks. Yeah, you see the railway lines there and different types of cargo. tremendously versatile, very flexible. I'm I'm an old sailor and I and I did my apprenticeship on New Zealand shipping company. All our ships had Maui names which were very delightful. And I just can't get over the fact that they came up with the with the romantic sailors names for train ferry number one, train ferry number two, and train ferry number three, which you can see here. This was the one that was built on the Clyde. And you can see in all her glory there. Again, this is a good one on board because you can use a scale by looking at the gentleman here, the the officer here. Ambulances on the on the roadway and there's a and then you got the railway track as well and the lifting gear available. So, well, yeah, it's a really efficient operation and using using the state-of-the-art technology at the time in terms of cargo handling. Okay, before I go before I go on to that, I want say the the great thing about the best advantage gained from the use of these vessels was the fact they could turn around in 20 minutes. Now, a normal ferry carrying cargo and troops from Southampton or Folkston, it could take half a day, a day, two days, three days depending on what they were doing. These were doing it every 20 minutes. So it wasn't just um these are modestly sized ships but the important thing was their fast turnaround enabled them to do more trips. So they were able to contribute contribute more in the way of delivery of supplies and men and the return of the the wounded and scrap than before. So, I think you should think about that. You're going from half a day or or perhaps up to two days to turn a ship around and now you can do it in 20 minutes. Right? You don't have to do much math to work out how efficient that is. Right? Now we move on to the sort of the human side of this and the political side of this and the military side of this. So we've got all this wonderful achievement and it is a magnificent engineering achievement very much needed. The army was desperate for supplies and men in uh in France. But who's going to command it? Who's going to command this secret port and everything that goes with it? Under the under the normal means of operation, it would have come under the general office of command in eastern command in in in England. But it comes apparent when you start researching the port, it becomes apparent that the war office has got its size nines all over this. And by size nines, I mean David Lloyd George. He's not he's not particularly mentioned but it's obviously he it is his he's his he's driving in other words he's saying whatever organization we need we'll do we worry we'll worry about the paperwork the governance and all the rest of it later but this does cause as I'm about to discuss some controversy the important shipping priority particularly In 1917, by the time these barges and ships are, you know, re on the in into their stride, the the the fies don't come on until a little bit later is we must get US troops and supplies over in late in the mid 1917. The the renewed yubot campaign and shipping losses as in the Second World War were the greatest threat that Britain faced. And this meant that any other shipping shipping had to be diverted or maintained on the transatlantic trade. That's why having these specially constructed railroad feries for this secret port made such a difference. It couldn't be supplied or used by other ships because other ships were needed elsewhere. So you've got to always think of the war cabinet taking an overall strategic view and then you've got your the demands of the troops in France. Then you've got the then you've got the way in which the army is organized to do it. And one thing I should mention here, yeah, which you may or may not be aware of is that when the decision was uh was made to bring over the American troops, France and Britain said, "Don't bother bringing over any supplies. Just bring over the troops. If we don't have to have any heavy cargo in the ships coming from the States, we can have more men because it's men you need." You know, this is a war, brutal war of attrition on the Western Front and it's men you you need. Britain and France supplied all the armorament, transport and in lots of cases even uniforms to the US troops. Quite often you'll see pictures of US troops on the Western Front um in in 1917 18 particularly in 1918. There's lots of pictures of them when they were in action and you'll see them wearing British style helmets and that's that's the reason why these are big decision. These are big decisions to make but they make an awful they make a lot of lot of sense. Why bring over stuff we already have? uh Bin's manufacturer was uh was gather roof and although although France had lost a third of its manufacturing capacity uh to ground occupied by the German army on the western front it was still had enough industrial capacity to significantly supply the uh American troops as well as it as well as its own. So I think I think that's another another way of of looking at it. Okay, the inland waterways and docks which I referred to before with the pictures of the football team etc. the Royal Engineers they appointed a dep they appointed a deputy director of the department a chap called Brigadier Alan Williams. He was appointed on the 5th of June 1917 to control this and like so many officers of that who were bought in at that rank he was a civilian engineer. Yeah. Get the the huge railway undertaking in particularly in light railway built on the western front and to support the British army on the western front. You know tens tens of thousands of miles of little light track. The whole the whole railway situation was run by a chap called Gettis who was a railwayman that was bought in as a uh as a brigadier initially and later on became he became a town chancellor checker after the war. But you had lots of people bought in who were not you know not soldiers. The ar the army had expanded exponentially. They had a very small army in 1914. H they could send a force of a 100,000 only to France. Two reasons for that. Uh one Britain had a professional army not conscriptbased and also the money was spent on the navy. The navy was twice the size of any other two major navies put together and controlled nearly all well controlled all of the world's oceans. something that was going to come to an end in in 1918. All the money, the treasure and the manpower had been put into the navy. So to be confronted with having to put raise a continental style army, introduction of uh leading to the introduction of conscription and also the employment or putting a uniform on people at all sorts of levels throughout the organization became a um an essential part of that expansion and managing managing the army. You you you can there is an argument you you I've read several arguments but there is a there is an argument to say what the hell was Britain doing sending an army to France. It's not a military nation. The army was for policing the empire and also of course 30,000 troops had to be maintained in Ireland throughout the war because of the because of the situation in southern in southern Ireland. Um but what we it we just didn't have the level or the depth of reserves that uh was extant in Germany, Austria and France for example. So it's a very you're looking at a naval power. We're an island and it's a naval power. Forgive me for saying we are Freudian and slip but it's a naval power versus these vast continental landbased armies sort of reflects you know I I often I often think I of I often think that part of the failure of ultimate failure of Napoleon and of Hitler was the fact they had no understanding of the sea but that's another argument okay now eastern command were concerned that what was going on nominally under their control in uh in Richbbor with all this secrecy and Colonel WHB Briggs who was a regular staff officer was appointed by Eastern command to investigate the port in September 1918 by which time the ships have been running the fies have been running for eight months and we we're about 20 months into running the the largest. So the whole thing was well under was well underway. Briggs, I've said here, was a regular staff officer, but he previously commanded a battalion of the Durham Light Infantry on the Western Front, so he knew all about what was going on in France and what the army needed. So he was appointed to investigate. And here's Colonel Briggs, archetypal staff officer. And here's a civilian engineer, now Brigadier, Alan Williams, who is actually running the job in uh in in Richbbor. It's always nice to put a a a face to the names, I think. The government sort of counteracted this re this report by asking the top civilian engineers in the country, the institution of civil engineers to examine Richbra and comment on its value. And the three three leading members of the institution soritz Morris R. Elliot Cooper and Basil Mott made this made this statement and the statement is as a war undertaking the services rendered at Richmond are of great national value. There has been no undue extravagance or waste of public money. Okay. it. I think Briggs would have regarded that as a as a whitewash and as a PR um state as a PR statement to say look you know it's it's the place is working it's applying the army let ignore everything else that's going on and Brigg's report uh which is his official report was quite comprehensive and in fact when you when you read it it's so heavily it's well structured it's a typical army staff officers report very detailed and covers all aspects and it's done quickly. So on his on his observations between September and October 1918, he acknowledged it's quick effective construction. Who wouldn't? 20 a town of 20,000 people and it's up and running in such a short time. He described the obstruction he received when he was asking questions from incumbents and anomalies in pay and classification. And what had happened with pay and classification was that skilled men were being recruited to go to do these jobs in the in the port. And of course, if they were being recruited as soldiers, their pay was going to be a lot less than they were earning in in their civilian occupation, which was also contributed to the war effort. So the pragmatic decision was made that to give them the rank so that they could keep basically the same level of pay that they'd enjoyed in civilian life. So somebody would be coming out of a workshop and he'd be made a sergeant, you know, because that would give him the pay and allowances that that were more in in line with his previous earnings. That's the sort of thing that and of course you could say the same thing about about Alan Williams. He was brought he was commissioned as a brigadier because that would have given him the status and um pay broadly that was more commensurate with his profession. So Briggs made very detailed recommendations for efficiency training and reorganization to trim it all down. Yes, it's running now. So we don't need all these people. We could we could do this with a lot less. Okay. And one of the things he noted was that there was luxury work. This base was supposed to be temporary, you know, for the war, for the duration of the war, but it was built as if it was going to stand forever, you know, bit like the permanent way was a term used on the railway in Victorian times. And he noted how, you know, how like well put together it was and some of the luxury items. I think one of the one of one of the things he commented on was u the shap carpets in the mess. Why would you need a shap carpet? You know, our soldiers are living in mud in France. You know, this sort of thing. But when you get of course to the bottom of the behind the report, you see that really the objective and the offense taken by the army against what was going on in Richborough was they needed to comb out officers of men for France. Every able-bodied man was needed in France. 1918 was a very heavy year of casualties. It was a year of victory. But those last 100 days, you know, half a million casualties in the mobile war. The trench war until you until you undertook a setpiece attack was safer than mobile war when you're out in the open with um under under fire. And those 100 days which I personally I would rate as the greatest performance of the British army sweeping and def sweeping across France and thoroughly defeating the German army. it. One of the one of one of the challenges I have with students is is is explaining to them that yes, it was an armistice, but in actual fact, it was a defeat. An utter defeat. The German army was routed. And of course, there was all the trouble going on at home too with the blockade. But it's never it never sort of came across like that because it finished in an armistice. And of course, the German army was still in France at the time of the armistice. it hadn't been driven across the right. Hence, of course, that that that also helps to explain the um objective of unconditional surrender, an occupation of Germany in 1945 in the next war. Interestingly enough, I have read I have read letters from soldiers of all ranks saying that they wanted to go on to Berlin to finish the war because if they didn't then their sons would be fighting it. very it's a I I found that very moving when I read read that that these men would rather risk their lives going on to as they saw it thoroughly defeat Germany otherwise they thought that their sons would have to finish the job. How precient was that? So the objective coming back to this the objective was to comb out officers and men for France. However, Briggs wrote a confidential private report and I found a copy of this in the archives in the Imperial War Museum and he he had adds depth. He gives you he gives you the real story behind the comments I mentioned on the previous slide. So this is some of the details. He gave the he gave the history and the comments on the lavishings and anomalies, the timberlined uh accommodation, the uh when I say timberlined, I mean, you know, wood panels, shag pile carpet here, carpets, you know, you he had a thing about carpets, but I imagine they were pretty short in France. and he saw that the war office role in allocating more and diverse tasks to IWD was a way of getting round the usual command structure of the army because he's obviously saying that if this if this had been uh subject to normal military command then these things wouldn't have happened but of course one could then argue that the place wouldn't have been up and running so quickly either. So you can see the interesting part of this story is seeing both sides. He noted the recruitment of new army technical officers for the construction, the surveyors, the engineers, right? And he said after it was built they were retained on site and he found a lot of them loafing around which he thought was an insult to the young troops being sent through Richbra in order to proceed to the front while they're watching these these people you know having um an easier time in Richborough whilst they're on the on their way to the shooting war. You also said officers seem to have a direct line over their commanding officers heads to the war office and this is bad for discipline. This is another one where I think that Lloyd George fingerprints are all over this. Let's get this done. It's expediency and it needs to be done. And one could argue that it it was the right thing to do because the important thing is to get the manpower and supplies over and the scrap and the wounded back. Are we going to be bothered about doing it this way or that way? I don't know. But but the whole uh controversy, the whole both sides of the argument are apparent through the two reports. He noted that many junior officers who are laying around are either surplus or NS, which is military jargon for not satisfactory. And again, he enforces let's get them all to France. get them out. He thought it was bad for morale and discipline and that the soldiers place was in France. Okay. So given given his first um when his first report the not the confidential one but when the official one was published all of a sudden what happened? Briggs found himself posted to Ireland before the report was fully completed and we don't hear of him again during the war. His summary was sent to the Secretary of State at the War Office on the 3rd of November with a covering letter from Eastern Command arguing for the removal of command ambiguity and the reinstatement of the normal chain of chain of command. The War Office wrote a memo to Bricks. Basically, I think they're just not interested. And they I I put this quote in from it because I think it's quite useful. Nobody belonging there too has any concern with the mysterious work which was being carried out behind the concrete wall that hid it from public view. I think I think I think that says it all. Expediency versus Yeah. the normal state of affairs, the status quo. Okay. Now um this was this was also reinforced by the fact that um Brigadier Alan Williams was made a KBE on civil division the 5th of June 1920 and his uh the supporting paperwork the announcement says work in connection with military transport at the port of Richbra. So that puts the seal on it. So the war's done. Still got all this business with the army of occupation still being used. So what do you do with this port? It cost a fortune to maintain it. So uh set up a parliamentary select committee. They agreed to keep the Rorow train ferry with a 10-year transition period to be managed by Southeastern Chattam Railway. In 1919, the Richmond Railroads carried 50% more than in 1918 because of what was going on. In December n 1919, the port was transferred from the war office to the ministry of munitions and put up for sale. This is in light of the growing depression of the econ of the British economy at the end in 1919 and 1920. Now the government owned the buildings and all but 205 acres of land owned by independent land owners. I think it's a solid it's a Sully family and uh but they there was no buyers but the port was offered in parts and there was an agreement reached with the company set set up it was called Queenra Company Brackets Sandwich Haven closed brackets on the 24th of March 1921. There were other suggestions later of setting up a cruise terminal or having um a terminal for exporting the or transporting the coal from the Kent coal field. But this deal collapsed like all the others. It's just a fantasy in 1922 because we're back to the problem of silt. The cost of dredging made the port uh a commercial liability, not a going proposition. Okay, the ships. What happened to the ships? TF uh one, two, and three were laid up in 1922. They were purchased by the Great Eastern Railway in 1923, and they were set on the Harage Zebra route in 1939. So that's um you know over 20 years later u from when they were built. Requisition by the Royal Navy. The TF2 was sent to St. Valeron Co to pick up the Highland Division, but it was sunk by Shellin and there were 50% crew casualties. For the second uh the the other two ships, TF1, TF2, uh TF3 were converted to landing craft carriers as HMS Daffodil and HMS Iris. And they actually took part in D-Day where uh daffodil was lost to a mine whilst the iris was refitted in 1946 and continued on the Harry Cebu route as the Essex Ferry until it was scrapped in 1957. An astonishing 40-year career. Well, that says something about its design and its build and its operation, does it not? A 40-year career. very unusual for a merchant ship to go beyond 21 years for technical reasons I won't bother you w with now but uh an incredible contribution they made and a long career they had so in summary at at its peak rich housed and fed 19,000 men and 800 women it had it it had its hospital its fire service power station it accommodating telephone exchange. There were 200,000 tons of export cargo and 160,000 tons of imported cargo to the end of 1918. That ferry span cost 98,000 in 1918, 1917 1918, which created that turnaround time of 20 minutes. That's probably broadly equivalent to the cost of one of the spans. uh over today. I think they cost like 15 million something like that. 10 to 20 million depending on their size today to put in a a span. They're about the same size. They're about the same price as a container crane. But there we are. Um and one thing I'd like to finish on which we should uh acknowledge is that uh Phil Marshall Hey in writing acknowledged the the fact that Richbra had made a significant contribution to victory in the west. So it came in just in time. I don't mean that in the modern logistical sense. It was literally life or death. One has to remember the pressure the yeah the British army was nearly defeated in March 1918. If the French if the German army had split the French and British army and got to amon the British army would have had no no um there was no alternative but to evacuate to leave France. It was very difficult and having this resource once the army held the Germans and the Germans started to fall back it then needed more men and more supplies to take the casualties and expend the ammunition that was going to be required to defeat the German army which it did. So there's no doubt in my mind that Richbra, the secret pool, was made a significant contribution to victory on the Western Front and one that's been largely because of the secrecy um not unrecognized in the years between. Thank you. Greg, do you want me to stop sharing now? Yep. Hey, sorry about that. I just had to wait uh for Jacob to let me unmute there. Martin, thank you so much. What a fascinating story and what a curious and um intriguing part of the the world there. Um it must have been I think very moving because when you were saying about reading those letters from the soldiers who were saying we want to get get the war finished so our sons don't have to continue to fight. I mean that kind of research must be very very moving um and phenomenal and the I was surprised by the the loads that were being carried there. You said some I think did you mention 3/4 of a million tons of ammunition. Yeah, that's just a phenomenal amount. Um, I did love the uh the mustaches throughout there and the the Well, you have to you have to remember that in the army having a mustache was compulsory at this period. Yeah. Okay. You had to if you could grow one, you had to have one. It was not uh you know this this was this was it. So it wasn't Yeah, they were they were very very good with sachets. And that football pitch, like you say, I'm not sure about it. I think they be it reminded me of Derby County in the 70s, but there we are. I'm a Derby County fan, you know. Baseball. We are the base but the baseball ground. My home. Yeah. Yeah. That was my was my upbringing. My football upbringing. Um I think because we had a talk on Rich Dre but about the Roman period and and it it is striking how much of a sort of military node that the the area is and has been throughout history. Um so this is brilliant like keeping the story. Um, one thing I did wonder about the Rorow feries, and it might not be that relevant, I suppose, because the the opposing forces never sent too many um ships the the other way in the other direction. But did they have sort of equal technologies or was this this 20 minute turnaround? Was this something absolutely brand new? This was this was something completely revolutionary and like so many British inventions you know it's lost or other people take it over later and make more of it but one is always it's very difficult when speaking about one's own country but as a se as a as a seaman that's been all over the all over the world you you just see the effect of British inventions everywhere and they're very heavily acknowledged by other people but we don't seem to be as good as exploiting them if that's the right term uh laser you know we invent stuff but we don't want to play with it um so I have got a few questions in already far away so um Thomas has asked just what was what is the uh what was the eastern command eastern command well the army was divi Britain was divided up into districts each commanded by a g a general officer uh for administration and for running all the operations in that there the all the training the recruitment and everything else. So Eastern Command was on the east of England from East Anglia down to Kent. Thank you. Thank you. Um so Les um he put two in the chat there. One of them says 100,000 to France in 1914 more than the 2021 army. So, um I presume that's more of a a comment on the the army now. Yeah. Yeah. Spice of the army now. Um a question, but he asked um was it reactivated for World War II? No, no, it was sold off. It's it was disposed of and it's been uh it's been a state it's been in a state of disrepair and unused since 1921. Okay. So, yeah, that's interesting. Actually, you mentioned the silt because um presumably that's not a new thing. You know, that's not a a modern history thing. The silts must have been a problem throughout. So, yes, it stopped the Romans using it more extensively and it also interrupted proceedings when they were taking trying to take the uh the stone that built Canterbury Cathedral. They were trying to take it up the river there. Some was transported, but every time over a period of time, the silt was just to Yeah. I mean, it was The dredging is just enormous. Yeah. Yeah. It must have really um I mean choked up the the shipping lanes there. So not much was probably able to get through throughout history I imagine. Um another question from Richard says asked, "Was the loading ramp relocated to Haritch?" Harage. Yes, I think what I Yeah, I believe it was. Yes. Yeah, they weren't they weren't going to scrap that piece of kit. They'd spend that money on it. It was dismantled and it was I think it was part of the deal with Great Eastern Railway. Fantastic. Um I think unless there's any more questions in the chat then there's just a lot of um people saying what an excellent talk it was and thanking you for um for giving that talk to us tonight. Anytime. Anytime. Oh, brilliant. Martin, thank you so much. Um thank you everyone for attending. Um, and yeah, Martin, thank you so much for that engaging. You're welcome, everybody. Thank you. Thank you for listening. You know, you're very welcome. I've heard this one before, so it's all right. Very good to do. But yeah, I I'd be happy. You've seen you've seen the range. I have, so I'd be happy anytime you need a I'd be happy to talk to your association anytime. So, thank you so much. So, you can find more details of Martin's talks on his amazing website, which is talkaboutistory.org. So, uh, if you enjoyed what you saw there, check it out and see what other talks Martin um is is giving and and check out his books as well. Definitely worth a read. Um, so for the society, we've got lots more coming up. Please keep your eye out for our upcoming talks. Um, we will have a talk in May, but it's uh still to be confirmed. So, keep an eye on the website for that one. In June, we will hear from Jazelle Kirilly on Trapped in Time, a closer look at Star Car and the not so primitive early people, which also will explore some of the uh discoveries of early humans here in Kent as well. So, that should be a very interesting one. Very, we're going all the way to the other end of the prehistory spectrum there. Um in July, Isabelle Diggle, the finance leazison officer for Kent, will be discussing a step in the right direction, further discoveries of the limb lamp. Uh this is the Roman copper alloy footshaped oil lamp, first of its kind in Britain, found in our very own county. So that should be an amazing talk as well. We also hope to have talks coming up from Maidstone Area Archaeological Group on the amazing Roman site at East Ming, from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust about their work at Eastear Bay, and an update from Lee's Court, and much much more. So, keep an eye on the calendar for updates, and we're also trying to put out as much as we can about all of the other heritage and history groups um around the county. So, it should all be up there for you. As I mentioned earlier, if you're not a member, do think about joining us. It's um about £3 pound30 a month and you'll get the journal and be able to interact with all of our um exclusive events and opportunities. So keep an eye on the website for that. Um and that is it. Uh so I look forward to seeing you all again um next month. Martin, thank you again. Thank you everybody. Thank you Craig. Good luck everybody. Very welcome. All right. Good night everybody. Good night. Okay.