Page Eighty-seven

The following day SQMS Docksey told me that the OC had agreed that the Sergeant's Mess could be located outside the Kaserne, and that the task to turn it into a working facility would be mine. He concluded with the not forgotten words - "Sergeant Chester, you have two days to do it - or else!" Ignoring the implied threat, having successfully set up two Greyhound Inns in Austria, I agreed to the task with the proviso that I remain as Mess Caterer for an additional month and I would have complete freedom staffing the facility. Shaking hands, the die was cast.

Transforming a Gasthaus

North Irish Horse Sergeants, Warrant Officers and Honorary Members

Looking at the above photograph as I write, today I wonder how ever did I have the temerity to undertake the task of keeping nearly a hundred North Irish Horsemen happy. Such is the brashness of youth!

Staffing the Facility

For the task I had the existing permanent crew, Corporal McKee of the Army Catering Corps, and his two German POW assistants who had been with him since Italy. Plus on a temporary basis, the services of a Lance-Corporal and Trooper, both of whom had been with the mess for the month. As rooms were available this group and I took up residence in the Gasthaus.

As it had been abundently made clear that the services of troopers, who had been periodically press-ganged for service in the current mess, would no longre be available the urgent task was to find people to staff a much larger well equipped facility.

the first step was easily and speedily accomplished. With the German population desperately short of food, both Herr Herrman and his wife readily agreed to come on board, he to the pastry cook and his wife to recruit and manage a female staff to perform general duties.

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