54 Fld Support Sqn

Unusually until someone can tell the story of the beginnings of 54 Sqns contribution to Op Crown, we have to start at the end. Not only the end of 54s involvement but also the end of the Op Crown project. I'll let Mick Norton tell it his way. "At Bangkok harbour on 1st May 1968 the remaining Crown contingent sailed out and onto Singapore. All plant and equipment was on board Sir Galahad, (the one that was bombed some 14 years later in the Falklands), and we were soon back in Singers with the Engineer Base Workshops lumbered with a mammoth repair programme. After the road was completed we left the Thais 1 x Michigan shovel loader, an Agricultural tractor, (Massey Ferguson right) and a compaction item. We drove the entire fleet of plant all the way from Leong Nok Tha to Bangkok and it took 3 x days. The modifications en route were amazing in order to get the kit there in time. Jim Parker continues thus "The leaving ceremony took more than an hour with a British Official in attendance. It soon turned into a good natured genuinely friendly affair". As the pictures show the, Thai band started with their own cap badges but the 'sappers' soon started a 'swopshop' decades before the term was invented. (Quayside ceremonial pix courtesy of Jim Parker)