Maj Gen John Groom
Sapper who served in Aden, Malaya, Cyprus and Germany
MAJOR GENERAL JOHN GROOM, who has died aged 90, was a highly experienced sapper officer who became Chief Engineer at HQ Rhine Army.
In May 1964, Groom was commanding 3 Independent Field Squadron at Tidworth when he was given a week’s notice to move to Aden in support of 39 Infantry Brigade Group’s operations in Radfan. The squadron flew from Lyneham to Aden by way of Cyprus and Bahrain and then by road to the brigade area about 50 miles to the north. He described the base camp at Thumair as “a nightmare of enormous slag heaps”.
Air strips had to be built and roads into the operational area constructed to relieve the helicopters. Water supply was equally important, and with a force of some 3,000 and temperatures around 100F, the demand for about 20,000 gallons a day was met by tapping into streams, wells and cisterns.
The most hazardous task was finding and clearing mines laid by dissidents along the tracks. Much of the terrain consisted of volcanic rock and the detectors gave an almost constant warning signal.
John Patrick Groom, the son of a bank manager, was born at Hagley in Worcestershire on March 9 1929 and educated at King Charles I Grammar School, Kidderminster, before going on to Rugby College of Engineering. In his youth he was a keen scout and became a King’s Scout.
He was granted a Short Service Commission in the Royal Engineers but surrendered his “pip” and went on to RMA Sandhurst, where he gained a Regular Commission. He was a troop leader with 22 Field Regiment RE in North Africa and then with 35 Corps Engineer Regiment in Egypt. Postings to Singapore and Malaya were followed by two years in the War Office.
After a spell on the directing staff at Staff College, Camberley, he became Commander Royal Engineers of 4 Division and commanded 26 Engineer Regiment in BAOR. He served at the Ministry of Defence for three years before being posted to Cyprus as Colonel AQ (Operations and Plans) and commander of the Episkopi Garrison.
There were two invasions by Turkish military forces in 1974, resulting in the partition of the island. In addition to coping with a greatly increased workload imposed by the emergency, he was responsible for the welfare, discipline, provisioning and quartering of all Army personnel and their families in Near East Land Forces.
In 1976 Groom was promoted to brigadier on his appointment as Commander Corps of Royal Engineers at HQ 1 British Corps in BAOR. From 1979 to 1982 he was Chief Engineer at HQ Rhine Army. In that last year, the Army Board commissioned a radical review of Army training; Groom led the review and it was published under his name.
After retiring from the Army, for the next six years he worked as director general of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.
He was Colonel Commandant RE from 1983 to 1991. Appointed MBE in 1963, he was advanced to CBE in 1975 and appointed CB in 1984. As a younger man, he played rugby for the Corps and represented both the Corps and the Army at sailing.
He learnt to sail with the help of brother officers and went on to skipper many adventure training expeditions on Sapper Yacht Club boats, sometimes with one of his daughters among the crew. After retiring, he and his wife, Jane, enjoyed many years cruising in their yacht, Anahita, with friends from the Royal Lymington Yacht Club.
In addition to his love of sailing, he was a keen golfer and ornithologist, and a proficient watercolourist.
John Groom married, in 1951, Jane Miskelly, whom he met when she was a physiotherapist at the British Military Hospital at Benghazi in Libya. She survives him with their three daughters.