Page 21 - The Constructor 2017

The Company

airport. Ron left British Steel at the age of 59, and set up his own practice as a consulting
engineer. Ron was a member of the Council of the Institution of Structural Engineers, and a Visiting
Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Surrey University. He was Master Constructor
1985/86 and he continued to work into his eighties, passing away in 2002 at the age of 86.
Thirty years ago, in April 1987, Ron took part in a special conference held under the auspices of the
University of Bolgna, at which he described some of his SOE work during WWII. The mission he was
on was arranged to drop into an existing mission in Friuli with the special duty of carrying out acts of
subversive activity and sabotage in the zone. The mission consisted of Lieutenant Ronald Taylor,
Lieutenant R. David Godwin and Corporal Mickie Trent (Gyurie). Corporal Trent, a Hungarian by birth,
could speak twelve different languages reasonably fluently.
His paper to the conference said “The drop took place on 13 August 1944. The landing ground was
sited at the summit of Mount Joannis and although the line of fires was locally shielded by the
uneven terrain their glow could be seen for miles. It was quite certain therefore that everyone,
including the enemy, knew what was happening. The flight was in an unarmed Dakota aircraft on a
perfect night and the pilot dropped us all within a few metres of the fires. My arrival was greeted
with enthusiasm by an Italian partisan who kissed me on both cheeks. I was glad it was dark — that
had never happened to me before!
At first light, we descended to Canebola where we became objects of interest and curiosity. Arms,
ammunition and plastic explosives were dropped at the same time.
Lieutenant Godwin spoke fluent Spanish and was able to communicate reasonably well with the
partisans whereas my initial effort at instruction in the use of explosives was largely by sign
language. This did not hinder our efforts and to assure our HQ of our safe arrival several kilometres
of high tension pylons were cut down in the first week throwing a large area of Friuli into darkness,
as, in our ignorance, we had cut the weak link in the electricity supply grid.
We then set about the formal training of saboteurs. Training courses lasting three or four days were
held in village schools or in the open at various centres in the zone. After that the successful
students would be given a job to do and having passed the test were entitled to wear with pride the
appropriate badge. We received a message from our HQ stating that “From this day onwards the
RAF will keep the Brenner Pass closed to through traffic. Kindly do the same to yours.” Such an
order could not have been more appropriate to the disruption of the Pontebba line which at that
time carried enormous quantities of supplies to the front and, additionally, was the route by which
much war-booty was to leave Italy. Partisans were trained, in complete darkness, to place prepared
charges on the railway lines in a matter of seconds. The first attempt failed when the explosive cut a
hole in the web of the rail and a troop train passed safely over it. There are probably a few hundred
Germans alive today who do not realise how lucky they were. No mistakes occurred after that and
the number of disruptions was so great that instead of reporting each one as it happened we sent in
a weekly summary of sabotage. Apart from the railway line, other targets were hit, on occasion, by
reporting them to the RAF as suitable targets for fighter bombers. So intensive were these activities
in the area of Reana that the railway line was fully patrolled by the enemy between strong points at
regular intervals but without success. The areas around any derailed trains were planted with
delayed action time-pencil explosives which, on detonating, in the following days caused all the Todt
labour force to down tools. By those means the line could be kept closed for longer periods.
The enemy began patrolling the front line of our zone with irregular but increasing force, using
Cossacks, one detachment of which based themselves at Nimis. This was a hindrance to road

Autumn 2017 | The Journal of the Worshipful Company of Constructors | 21