Ian coombs
Well-Known Member
you can see the depth of blast and cut on the last section.. The finished road leading up to the first section that was blasted.
Looking now after all these years.. very untidy and a lot of wasted sand.. but we were on a vertical learning curve. In the Royal Engineers we learnt to drive/operate everything plus our core role as combat engineers, infantry, and you normally had a specialty like radio operator.. we had a period where we exchanged some guys for a week with a US Corp of Engineers who specialised in runway repair too.. the dozer op' had a book that recorded his hours on dozers similar to a pilot, he didn't operate anything else which seemed a waste of talent, but then again he was very good at what he did
Probably a sigh of relief that this is the end of the road, literally for us. Im pretty sure another one of our squadrons came back the following summer..
Early on I mentioned what to us was some unusual names..
The last photo is of my best mate at the time..
Al Beaver (very apt for Canada)..