The Army's Helping Hands on Islay
Thursday, October 25 2007
39 Engineer Regiment recently conducted an exercise based out of HMS Caledonia (Edinburgh) with squadrons conducting tasks at Meigle, Dunblane, Paisley and the Isle of Islay. The Exercise on Islay has taken nearly a year to plan and finally came to fruition when 10 Field Squadron (Air Support) deployed from their home base at RAF Leeming with 108 personnel and 28 vehicles for a four week task here. Based in a tented camp at the Port Mòr campsite (picture) the squadron have been involved in three main construction projects. These include the replacement of the elevated walkway at Finlaggan, the construction of a bridge on the Dunlossit estate and the renovation of a building to be used as student accommodation also on the Dunlossit estate. These tasks have provided excellent trade training opportunities for the soldiers as well as experience of living and working in field conditions and some challenging weather. In addition to this the soldiers have become involved in the renovation of War memorials at Port Ellen and Port Charlotte as well as assisting with the the provision of power to the Pharmacy in Bowmore. The Squadron football team have played against the local sides every weekend and the Portnahaven chess society have provided an ‘education in chess’ to some of the soldiers on Tuesday evenings. Everyone made us feel very welcome. Our time on Islay has been an experience that could not be beaten. It’s a unique opportunity for a squadron like ourselves and been far more than just a few construction tasks. We’ve all thoroughly enjoyed our time here. By Captain Chris Hulme RE
Task One: A Bridge at Dunlossit Estate
We left RAF Leeming for Islay at 05:00hrs on a cold wet Sunday morning. It was a 16 hour journey which should have been 6 if we hadn’t had to stop at every service station on the way. At least we had the excitement of a ferry crossing in which the entertainment was provided by Spr “Daz” Hentall going green trying to find his sea legs. When we eventually arrived at the newly constructed Port Mor campsite at 2130hrs, we had the duty arrival brief and were shown the way to our leaking tents which just so happened to be 3 inches underwater. 2 Troop were given the task of constructing an NEB (Non equipment
bridge) complete with a timber crib pier. After breakfast on the first day we sorted out the stores for the task then headed out to site. It soon became apparent that it would require considerable graft to get the stores to the bridge as it was half a mile away and down a very steep and muddy hill. Not accessible by vehicles funnily enough! This resulted in a few heads dropping on day one. The home and far banks were marked out and it wasn’t long before the Plant Operator LCpl “Pogo” McKernan got stuck into the digging. We learned very quickly that the main problems of the task were going to be getting the stone down to the bridge site for levelling the ground and the fact that the plant operator wasn’t very experienced! The abutments were constructed using Gabion baskets filled with river stone and went in relatively easily, while the timber crib pier proved to be more tricky. The river had to have a horseshoe dam constructed in order to get a level base from which to work on. Thankfully by this stage LCpl McKernan was starting to find his feet and proved to be a valuable attachment to the troop. After the abutments and pier were complete, the steel girders (x8) arrived and after some precision gas cutting from LCpl “Lee” Mellor they too were carried down the hill, luckily they only weighed 180 kg! The bridge was then decked with timber and the kerbs were fixed in place above and below the timber decking. All that was left to be placed onto the bridge was the wearing surface which our top chippy Spr Daz Hentall will be putting in within the next few days. The task will be completed ahead of schedule in just 16 working days, and overall everyone enjoyed the exercise. The troop is now looking forward to returning back to RAF LEEMING and the epic 16 hour bus journey. By LCpl J Taylor 2 TPRoyal
Task Two: Dunlossit Estate Student Accomodation
The Dunlossit Estate is an 18,500 acre privately owned estate on the Isle of Islay which has an initiative to provide a local rural experience for young students. A redundant and semi-derelict barn lies within the confines of the Dunlossit Estate Management Complex and has been identified as proposed student accommodation. The barn conversion was designed by the client’s structural engineer, in liason with the Military Design Authority. However only the replacement of the existing roof and opening up of several windows were carried out by the Military Construction Force during the project. The works were carried out by 3 Troop, 10 Field Squadron (AS) RE. 3 Troop, 10 Field Squadron arrived on the 12 September and moved into the tented camp at Port Mòr. It didn’t take long for us to slot into the exercise routine of living in tents, with limited hot water and eating in a field cookhouse. The first day on site was spent orientating ourselves, unloading stores and removing vehicles from ditches! LCpl Des Sloane was the section commander for the first phase, which was mainly brickwork. We had to knock out seven new window frames, raise the existing brickwork by three courses and place lintels over the new windows. The first week went by without any real problems apart from the weather! The second phase was commanded by Cpl Steve Green who undertook the carpentry. We have 39 trusses to be placed on the new brickwork and after designing a cunning way of lifting them, and by spending a little time levelling and marking the first few trusses, it helped us get the rest in without any problems. It has not all been hard work, our soldiers have been adventure training, climbing, duck shooting, representing the Squadron in the football weekend, and utilising the 14 mile trip to the site to brush up their fitness. LCpl Jon Lord is now ready to complete the task by fitting the roofing panels and flashings before we hand over our site after a successful exercise and a good training aid for our trade skills. LCpl Jon Lord.
Task Three: A new Walkway at Finlaggan
1 troop’s task was to construct an elevated walkway through a marsh and partly through Loch Finlaggan. The site is of significant importance to Scottish history as the seat of the Lords of the Isles.The walkway is of a wooden construction and not being a chippy myself, it left me mainly labouring, carrying wood, (lots of wood), back and forth up and down the surprisingly muddy hill, made worse by the DAF getting stuck! The main carpenter on site is Cpl Hadfield and with his surprising love for wood he seemed to be in his element every day. His experience helped us to build the walkway to a high standard. The first part of the build was to strip out the existing walkway which was rotten and quite precarious to walk on, as some parts were submerged. This is where all the wood carrying came in, as all the wet and rotten material had to be lugged up to the top of the hill. Once we had stripped out most of the walkway, we then realised we had nothing to walk on, leaving us to wade through the increasingly rising water level as it did not stop raining for the best part of a week. We started the walkway in the middle as this was the deepest part and was our datum point. It involved people getting into dry suits because the water level was up to neck height in places so safety ropes were paramount. Once the bridge was in place, the walkway really started to fly in, with everyone working together. I was involved in making the framework with a few others; we had the pleasure of trying to work in the boggy mud, sinking and getting stuck every other step. All was going well until we ran low on screws due to minor changes in design. When we were told we had to do cross bracings on all sections it looked like we were going to be staying in Islay for a bit longer than we wanted. But with the screws ordered and the chippies working on overload, we managed to get it done. At the end of every day we were able to go back the comfort of our tents, which had the most annoying habit of trying to blow away at the slightest gust of wind, and leaking whenever it rained. Luckily the campsite we were on had a brand new complex which had internet access and Sky TV, as well as warm showers so we couldn’t really complain. Spr Stubbs.
This story was published with kind permission from The Ileach - Community Newspaper of the year.
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