The Site for information on the Inland Water Transport of the First World War

Royal Engineers Inland Water Transport - 1st World war.

During the First World War many of the people involved in either the river traffic or fishing industry were approached to join the Royal Engineers Inland Water Transport Section because they already were familiar with many of the jobs required to help with the war effort in supplying the war materials or with the barge hospitals used during the war in Europe. One such person was W. Beaumont a Marine Fireman on the River Tugs which towed the Tom Puddings down the Aire and Calder who spent 3 years with the unit, first in Longmoor Camp then in Richborough, Kent.

In 1915 the First World War saw the founding of the Inland Water Transport section of the Transportation Service, a division of the Royal Engineers, which operated barges on the canals in France and Mesopotamia. Initialy the base was at Longmoor camp.

In January 1916 because of congestion at Longmoor Camp, the Royal Engineers Inland Water Transport Section established a stores and personnel Department at Richborough, Kent, primarily to relieve Dover of this class of transport. The site chosen was of an expanse of marshland through which the Stour flowed. The work of construction was under the control of the Inland Waterways and Docks Section of the Royal Engineers, and involved the draining of the swampy marshland, the widening and deepening of the waterway, the construction of a dock and jetty nearly a mile in length, equipped with powerful cranes and of docks for the building and repair of all kinds of craft, the erection of acres of buildings and warehouses, and the laying of railway sidings. The work was pushed forward, and at one time 20,000 people were employed forming a small town with all amenities. In the beginning steam ships and barges were used to carry the war material across the channel, until the French ports became congested; then special barges were introduced to take goods direct into the French canals and then as close to the front line as possible.

By 1918 the need to transport material became extremely urgent, and it was decided to establish a roll-on roll-off service; it came into operation at the beginning of that year, and the hoisting of cargoes by cranes into barges was largely superseded. Three ferries plied incessantly between Richborough and Calais and Dunkirk, connecting the railhead in England with railhead in France. In all, 4,000 barge loads of ammunition, 17,818 guns, and over 14 million tons of other stores were sent across. The ferries, specially designed and built at the works of Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. of Elswick, were of 363 ft. overall length, 61 ft. beam and 3,654 tons. Searchlights and anti-aircraft guns at Pegwell Bay protected the base. Repeated air raids took place in the vicinity and there were several bombardments from the sea, but Richborough itself was never seriously damaged, the low-lying, featureless character of the marshland probably affording its best protection, more especially at night.