Christmas Island (Service Conditions)

Volume 582: debated on Friday 14 February 1958 - From Hansard

Picture courtesy of John Adams

Much has been written about the conditions on Christmas Island. Letters home describe the conditions from the servicemen themselves. A debate was held on the 14th February 1958 in the House of Parliament. (Taken from Hansard archives)

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom (Sheffield, Brightside)

I want to make it quite clear that all that I have to say about Christmas Island is culled from letters which have reached me directly from Christmas Island, and there are very few of those, and from the more numerous letters which I have received indirectly from Christmas Island which were sent to me from the parents of the young men who are stationed on this British hydrogen bomb test base. I have never been to Christmas Island, and so my description of it will be culled from letters.

I want also to make it quite clear that in raising this matter I am in no way trying to attack the Ministry. Since I raised this problem with the Minister I have received from him an indication that the first report of bad conditions in the island was communicated to him in September. 1957. I readily agree that since that time I have had no evidence of any complaint at all against the Ministry. Straight away I want to say to those mothers whose boys are serving on Christmas Island and to those wives whose husbands are serving on Christmas Island that since September, at any rate as far as I know and according to the evidence I have received, there has been a big improvement. I want to make that admission to the Ministry right away.

I understand, however, that I am not the first Member to raise this problem of Christmas Island. Only this afternoon—indeed, within the last half hour—two Members of this House have told me that they raised the problem of the bad conditions on Christmas Island prior to the time when I did. Therefore, what I have said is conditioned by the fact that the Ministry knew even before September that some of these conditions were appalling.

I want to sum up the description by reading a letter sent directly to me from Christmas Island. It is in double rhyme, but I do not think the young man has any intention of seeking to qualify as a leading poet of this country. This is what he says:

"Now we are here we all work like blacks And the sweat it runs like a stream off our backs.

The isle it abounds with monstrous ants Which infect our clothing, our shirts and our pants.

And since we came here we have done nothing but curse,

For even Alcatraz could not be worse.

For even convicts do get their rest

But for us it's a ruddy endurance test.

Here's what I'll do when I reach England's shore,

I'll tell you one thing, I'll leave it no more."

That may be humorous, but I assure the Under-Secretary of State for Air that that in its humour indicates very well the disgust of the troops with the appalling conditions there, at any rate those conditions which existed to my knowledge before September of last year.

I raised this matter by Question in the House, and this is the first time, Mr. Speaker, that I have had the opportunity to apologise, as I now do, to you for the length of the supplementary question which I then asked. The Minister then said to me that my complaints about a commanding officer being pelted with food in the airmen's mess really referred to an occasion when there was pelting with beer tins—and incidentally the tins were empty—in the N.A.A.F.I. That is not true according to the information which I have received since. I have received letters which state that the incident actually happened in the airmen's mess and that the commanding officer was pelted with some very bad food.

I made the accusation again at that time that the lavatories on the island were bad and that there was no privacy. In fact, they were in such bad condition that the soldiers preferred to dig holes in the ground rather than use the supposed existing lavatories. I have singled

out two or three letters from the many which I have received to indicate the nature of the complaints before September.

One letter, for example, states:

"In particular he mentions complete lack of privacy in the toilets, which seems quite uncalled for. Shortage of news is all right. Fortunately, my brother is returning home shortly and I am writing to express the hope that when he comes here he will give you the facts that are contained in the enclosed letter."

In the course of the enclosed letter the writer says:

"I shall have to put it in the language of a soldier and say, Mam, it is breaking my heart. You will have to see my M.P. or the Town Hall or somebody else, because this is murder."

I have given the gist of the complaint.

Apparently, airmen went to Christmas Island in June, 1956, and at that time a regiment of the Royal Engineers were also sent there. The task of the latter contingent was to build airways, roads and permanent buildings for the use of what might be called the airfields section of the island. One has to ask why, in the eighteen months that the soldiers were there before the complaint was received by the Ministry, nothing was done in the way of putting up permanent buildings for the canteen, the N.A.A.F.I. or even for accommodation.

Picture courtesy of David Stevenson

I have a dozen letters and also a copy of a very well-illustrated publication, the "Port Sunlight News," in which there is a contribution, presumably from the Public Relations Department of the Royal Air Force. Incidentally, I do not know why the Minister allowed this to get out. I quote from it:

"Land crabs frequently sidled into the tents on Christmas Island. On one occasion an airman who slept in David's tent awoke to find two of these crabs sharing his pillow."

According to almost every letter I have received, the men find rats, ants or crabs in their blankets at night. It is no use saying that these are soldiers' pets. The only people I know who make pets of such creatures are criminals, who are only too glad to get away from them when they are released. So I cannot see a land crab bigger than my hand—which is not a small part of my body—being welcomed by soldiers as a permanent bedfellow.

The island has the greatest rainfall in the tropics, indeed in the world. Except for the top of the atoll, the lower parts of the island are almost marshland, and until recently the tents of the soldiers have been pitched in the marshiest part. The rainfall and the winds, according to many letters, are so bad that on two nights out of every three the tents are blown away, and on the third night they are waterlogged. In spite of the fact that the Ministry can probably point to the fact that these young men living in sunshine and in rain are healthy, there may come a time in their lives when, because they have had to sleep on this type of ground, their health will be affected to some extent.

Then we come to the problem of food and the absence of refrigeration. The only refrigerator is on the ship, which brings the food either from this country or from Singapore. Every letter I have received says that it is rotten, and some add suitable adjectives in support. This has been a source of complaint for a long time, although the Ministry may now be doing all it can. It is no use saying that the men will have four days extra leave through serving on Christmas Island and that they can go to Honolulu. The men say that hula-hula on Honolulu is not sufficient recompense for the conditions under which they have to serve on Christmas Island. Prices in the canteen are prohibitive, which offsets any extra pay they may get. For a quarter of a pound of sweets for which people are charged 8d. in this country, the soldiers have to pay 2s. 6d. For a bottle of tonic water or Coca-cola, which costs about 8d. in this country, they have to pay 2s. 2d. The extra money they get soon goes.

Here I should perhaps mention that many men originally on Christmas Island have volunteered to go back. I will not stress that, because I do not want to give the reason why they want to go back. It is not a very savoury reason.

Now I want to ask the Under-Secretary one or two questions. First, why is it that no report was submitted to the Ministry until September, 1957, despite the fact that these conditions had obtained on the island from June, 1956? Secondly, why did not the Royal Engineers who had been building the runways not receive instructions to erect some accommodation for the men to sleep in which would keep out crabs, rats and ants? Even now, although new tents have been placed on high ground since September, if it is true that the island is to be kept for hydrogen bomb experiments, even those tents on high ground will not be good accommodation for the men working there.

Picture courtesy of John Adams

There is not a letter that I have received which does not say that when the man's time is up he will go out of the Royal Air Force—and most of these men volunteered to go to Christmas Island. The conditions under which they have been living destroy their inclination to be permanent members of Her Majesty's Forces. Thus, in this argument living conditions are destroying possibilities of recruitment.

Those are the matters that I wanted to put in my supplementary question to the Minister, but, in spite of the length of it, I was unable to do so. I hope that my questions will be answered today and that we shall be given an assurance that some form of permanent accommodation will be provided in the island, which, it seems, will be permanently occupied by the Royal Air Force, so that parents and Members of Parliament do not receive complaints of the kind that I have described and so that we shall know that the Ministry is doing all it can to provide the very best conditions possible in the circumstances.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

So that the Minister may be able to reply, my intervention will be brief. I merely wish to reinforce what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom). I have with me letters dated much later than September—in fact, written in January—from which it appears that conditions in the island are still very far from satisfactory, although it is admitted that, among other things, plastic mackintoshes have been brought from Honolulu, which is something. Also, there has been an attempt to provide some permanent buildings. Nevertheless, it is clear that the men are still living in very uncomfortable conditions.

There seem to be other forms of neglect. I have a letter which states:

"Most of the lads' kits arrived last week— the first week in January—

in a terrible state. Mine was literally humming. My bedding was rotten through, but most of the other stuff just hummed. I have washed all of that …"

This man is a naval man under the jurisdiction of the Royal Air Force.

I reinforce what my hon. Friend has said, and repeat that, clearly, conditions are still not as they should be. I understand from The Times of today that someone of high rank is being sent out there, and I hope that this may bring very real improvement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) and the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) upon the way in which they have dealt with this matter. The hon. Member for Brightside has raised it in most reasonable and carefully chosen terms.

The debate serves as a useful opportunity both for hon. Members who are present, and others who have been disturbed about this matter, to learn some more of the facts. Much of the present anxiety, I think, arises from a letter quoted in one of the national newspapers last month, a letter to the hon. Member for Brightside. It is fair to say that that letter was written rather early after the corporal concerned arrived in Christmas Island. It is true that there are still some complaints, but the great majority of them, as the hon. Member said, date from last year.

Many colleagues of the corporal who wrote the letter were genuinely distressed because of the worry it caused to other people, to the relatives of other men and to wives of other men who were out there, because it painted a very lurid picture and was given very wide publicity. I welcome the opportunity of putting things in perspective by giving the House a rather fuller account than was possible at Question Time. This very day I have had the advantage, by a fortunate chance, of discussing conditions with the officer who was commanding out there. He left the island only on Tuesday—he did not come here specially—so the information I am able to give the House is right up to date.

Let me say at once that no one for a moment pretends that conditions on Christmas Island are easy or luxurious. A tropical island has its attractions, but the torrential rain is certainly not among them, and Christmas Island has had a period of rainfall very much heavier than its average. In addition to the rain there is the damp. The humidity is very high, ranging from 80 to 90 per cent. That humidity, combined with high temperatures, means that it is difficult to maintain a temporary camp in good condition, or even in reasonable condition, and gives rise to problems of storage of food and equipment and, to some extent, of pest control and sanitation, thus making life very much more difficult.

There are other factors as well. There is no permanently resident native population on the island, and not only the camp, but all essential access roads and temporary docking facilities have had to be specially provided. Moreover, we have had to bring in our own labour force and that has had to be housed.

When it is remembered that Christmas Island is about 1,200 miles from Honolulu, and more than 6,000 miles from our own base at Singapore, the problem can be seen in its true proportions. What we have had to do is provide a camp in extremely awkward climatic conditions, at the end of a very long supply line and against very real practical difficulties.

The hon. Member said that he was not criticising what we are now doing to improve conditions, but rather protesting because action was not taken sooner. He rather suggested that we knew nothing of the conditions on the island until we had a report last October. En fact, we have had Royal Air Force reports in the Air Ministry from officers in command since the task force was first employed there and, particular attention has been paid to the conditions under which the men were living.

Flooding on Christmas Island (IWM)

Mr. Winterbottom

The Minister himself said that the Air Ministry first received complaints about conditions on Christmas Island in September, 1957.

Mr. Orr-Ewing

I was about to explain how that came about.

I was saying that we had some special difficulties in building up the camp. We have had a few more complaints recently, as the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East said, but those are probably partly because the Royal Air Force contingent, which was originally entirely composed of volunteers, is no longer completely a volunteer contingent, and deterioration in the tents and equipment is of more recent date. It is because of that, and not because of earlier ignorance or any complacency in the Air Ministry, that some of the remedial measures have been put in hand only fairly recently.

I will briefly refer to the build-up on Christmas Island, as the hon. Member did. The first contingent went there in June, 1956, and the Royal Air Force portion of that was entirely made up of volunteers. In May, 1957, the first bomb was exploded, and thereafter the task force was largely dispersed. In August, 1957, a new build-up was started for the further tests, and it was then decided that the very temporary camp and very temporary equipment which had been there for earlier tests would no longer serve, and we started to provide much better equipment and more permanent accommodation.

More flooding (IWM)

So much for the general points. I should now like to deal with some of the detailed points which the hon. Member raised and if I do not have time to deal with them all, I will certainly write to him on specific matters. I will deal, first, with accommodation. Some of the tentage put up for the original tests has deteriorated in these conditions, but over 200 new tents and ten marquees arrived in the island last December, partly for replacement and partly for repairs. A new tented camp for 400 men has been built on raised, prepared bases to replace old accommodation, and this camp has been provided with new sanitary and washing facilities, showers, and so forth.

Besides this, work is going ahead on temporary hutments. These will include messes and kitchens for all ranks, and a number of the marquees formerly used for messing have already been replaced. Some of the furniture brought in for the first test has also deteriorated, and this has been replaced. The damp has affected the safari beds which were used at first. These have been replaced by metal framed beds, of which 1,000 have recently arrived.

Sanitation is a difficulty. There is no water-borne sewerage, and we have to rely upon sanitary fluids of one kind and another. The medical officers with the task force are available to ensure that the temporary facilities installed are maintained to a safe and hygienic standard. A senior medical officer from one of the commands here is today returning from a routine visit to the island, and I shall certainly examine the report that he provides.

The incidence of sickness is well below the average for an overseas station. There has been no trouble from malaria, dysentery or any of the skin diseases which are so prevalent in tropical climates. The most serious trouble has come from men cutting themselves, when swimming normally or taking part in underwater swimming, upon the sharp and jagged coral which exists round the island. There is a station sick quarters on the island, and this has proved fully adequate for the numbers there. I am not saying that there are not bad conditions, but they are not so bad as to cause sickness.

As for pest control—apart from flies, which we try to keep down by spraying insecticides, the island is fairly heavily populated with land crabs and rats, known as jerboas. I used to keep two of these rats when I was small, and I can vouch for the fact that I used to share my bed with them, quite voluntarily. They were clean and were also very timid. They did not stay long, but rushed back to the place where they lived. I am not saying that the ones on Christmas Island are all pets, but they are treated by the airmen in a fairly kindly manner. I understand that the crabs have the numbers of their tents painted on their backs, and that a certain amount of jealousy is caused if a crab migrates to the next-door tent; and I know of cases where names have been given to the jerboas inhabiting the tents.

I do not deny that the jerboas can be a nuisance and unpleasant. Unfortunately, they are natural scavengers and it is difficult to keep them away from the camp. Poison is not very effective in the open air, and wire netting around the living quarters is useless, because both crabs and rats can burrow and climb. Spraying from aircraft is proving something of a deterrent to the crabs, because it kills the flies, the crabs eat them and do not like the taste, and they either die or skedaddle. We are tackling the problem, and have been well aware of it.

I now turn to food, though I am sorry to have to do this straight after talking about pest control. First, I should say that the ration scale is the highest in the Service. The principal difficulty is the need for everything to be imported. Fresh vegetables and fruit are flown in from Honolulu, and the fruit is of first-class quality. It is just not true to say that there are no refrigerators There are thousands of cubic feet of cold storage in the port area and also alongside the airfield, and refrigerators are being supplied to every mess. I am glad to be able to correct that side of the story. The N.A.A.F.I. has been improved, and when it is put into permanent accommodation it will be improved still further. It now provides cooked suppers, and has an infra-red grill. Even in that temperature grilled food is extremely popular.

Floods (IWM)

Life might get boring on the island, and it is, therefore, right that plenty of amenities should be provided. There are a dozen football and hockey pitches, three or four cricket pitches, and a sailing club, which is used almost entirely by the men. Until recently only one officer was a member. All the men can indulge in swimming, both ordinary and underwater, and there is also first-class fishing.

Mr. Winterbottom

In view of what the Minister is saying—which conflicts with the evidence that I have in my letters—will he give an assurance that his right hon. Friend will consider sending out a responsible person—I do not want to go—to examine at first-hand the conditions on the island?

Mr. Orr-Ewing

I should certainly welcome a suggestion that I should make the trip. But I am not sure whether the Whips or the House would allow me to be away for so long.

I am glad that the hon. Member has raised this matter, and my right hon. Friend and I will certainly look into each point. I hope that the hon. Member will agree that, whereas there are some bad features, we are making determined efforts to improve the conditions out there and to provide decent amenities. I am glad to have had the opportunity to put right some of the misrepresentations which have been made on this issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Four o'clock.

Conclusion

How many of you wrote home complaining about the conditions? Do you remember rotten food? Captain Flit and the flooding? It was certainly not the best conditions to live in.