Instead of incurring any possible suspicion of an obligation from the War Office, an appeal was made to the newly-formed City of Norwich Volunteers for their men to put down their names for this work. That loyal, energetic, and patriotic body of Englishmen, which was drawn from all ranks of society, although working at their various vocations all the week, immediately acquiesced, without stopping to reason why, and agreed to go to Bacton the next ensuing Sunday.
The distance from Norwich to Bacton is twenty miles, but the nearest station is about three miles from the fields in question.
By reason of the War Office having taken over control of the railways, these men could, by a simple request from the Admiralty to the War Office, have been provided with free travelling passes. They had expressed their willingness to walk the remaining three miles of the journey, do the work gratuitously (although quite unaccustomed to any such rough manual labour), find their own rations, and walk the return three miles to the station afterwards. Such, however, was not acceptable, nor permitted.
At North Walsham, five miles from the aerodrome site, at least a thousand troops were stationed. They were provided with motor vehicles capable of travelling thirty miles per hour. A few of these vehicles could have carried the whole party from North Walsham station to the fields in under half an hour; or they could have fetched them from Norwich in about an hour. But no; such an arrangement might incur the obligation of a request and a compliance.
_So the Admiralty arranged to send some of their own motor lorries from Portsmouth to Norwich in order to convey this small party of civilian volunteer-workers twenty-one miles to the job_.
It was said that five lorries were ordered, but only three were sent. They were of the large size, extra heavy type, which cannot, with general convenience, travel at a speed beyond ten miles an hour--if so fast; whilst their petrol consumption might be estimated at about a gallon per hour. They arrived at Norwich on Sunday morning November 28th, 1915, apparently after several days on the road. They took part of the small party of enthusiasts to Bacton, who worked all through the Sabbath; whilst other Admiralty motor-cars were ordered specially over from Newmarket which took the remainder of the party to and from the job.