Mine detection in the Suez Canal

Heroes Remember

Mine detection in the Suez Canal

Transcript

Every night, they would wheel great big nets across the canal from one end to the other they had these huge drums and they would run them across the canal and in the morning they would go and see where there were holes in the netting where bombs had been dropped or mines and then they would fish them out of the canal before they could do any harm. That's how they kept the canal clear of mines.

Description

Mr. Beall describes how the Suez Canal would be covered each night with netting. Holes in the netting would then reveal where German mines had been dropped overnight.

Herbert Beall

Herbert Beall was born in 1908 in Ottawa, Ontario. He attended Lisgard Collegiate, where he commanded the 94th Cadet Battalion, and also joined the Governor-General's Footguards. He entered the Canadian Officer Training Corps at university, and received his commission in 1931. In 1932, Mr. Beall joined the Royal Canadian Signal Corps. In February, 1941 he transferred to the RCAF as a Flying Officer with the rank of Lieutenant. His service in England saw him at radar stations in the Orkney Islands and the Isle of Wight. He later went to the Middle East, where he set up and maintained portable radar systems in Egypt, and to a lesser extent Kuwait and Jordan.

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