Extracts From Letters Written By Coporal W M Arnett

Johannesburg, Privately published, 1941. Only edition. Near fine blue cloth gilt covers. Contents fine. Top edge marbled paper. Frontis and black white ills, 125 pages. Rare.

A privately published homage by the author's daughter of letters written by her Father Corporal Arnett of the 1st Battalion South African Engineering Corps on active service in Abyssinia, 1941. Corporal Arnett was accidentally drowned in the Daua Parma river while swimming. 

During the period 1940 - 1945, the SA Army Engineer Corps which had started the war with a strength of 54 officers and 585 sappers, rose to the strength of approximately 16,000 men belonging to over 70 different companies or units. In the development of the Corps, three aspects of military engineering had to be considered and the obvious sapper groups were the Base, Lines of Communication and Field or Fighting Groups, each with its own particular tasks but motivated by the basic requirements of maintaining the mobility and comfort of the ground forces.

Hence, the 70 different units covered the whole spectrum of military engineering, such as: close support Field Companies and their Field Park Companies, Road Construction Companies, Railways, Harbours and Tunneling Companies, Survey Companies, Water Supply and Treatment Companies, Workshop and Engineer Stores Units and Chemical Warfare, Bomb Disposal and Camouflage Units, in all, 31 different functions and disciplines.