Middle East

54A Flight, RAF Kirkham

Joined the RAF on 30th September, 1951 at RAF Padgate near Warrington. After kitting-out we then went on to RAF Kirkham for square-bashing, eight weeks drilling & schooling for assesment of our future job etc. After a passing out parade I was selected to be an Aero-Fireman which was one of the choice of three, chosen only because of the training for this I knew was done at Sutton, which was close to home. The other options were to be Painter & Doper or Administration clerk or something of that nature.

Home on leave before my next posting, not to RAF but to the Middle East u/t Aero-Fireman, on the job training, so much for thinking of having time near home.

So next to the transit camp at RAF Lytham where I spent several weeks. Trips into Blackpool and Preston as well as the odd weekend pass home, special buses ran from the camp to us as far as Leeds (cheaper than rail) but these were the days before motorways.

The journey over the Pennines through Huddersfield past Holme Moss TV mast was tedious and slow in bad weather. Both Blackpool and Preston had First Division footbal teams and there was the Tower Ballroom and Winter Gardens.

It was quite a cold winter in '51, the huts had these cast iron coke burning stoves in the centre with the chimney up to the roof, you could get them glowing red hot and you could keep them very warm just gathering the fuel for them.

Trips home, it was after one of these trips home (without a pass) we must have heard a rumour about moving I'm sure, that turn into an hectic last minute scramble. We used to parade each weekday morning at 08:00 normally for post or any other instructions etc. Then provided you could keep out of the way of the station W.O and dodge any others looking for volunteers (“you, you and you!”) for fatigues, time was your own; it paid to learn quick. This morning when we arrived back into camp about 06:00 we were informed that the morning parade had been re-arranged for 07:00 – and so the move abroad started, the trip home being the last for 20 months.

Catching a special train from Kirkham we travelled down south to arrive at St Pancras station, London, from where RAF trucks took us on to RAF Hendon (today it's the RAF museum). An overnight stay then into coaches for another southern journey. It's really strange and funny trying to work out what your destination is when no-one tells you where you are going, except the Middle East – not much to go on. You're looking at signs to see which road you are on, names of places etc; across London, A4, A30, Sunningdale, Sunninghill, Bagshot, Blackwater, Blackbushe, everybody out, we had arrived.

Our early evening departure was in a four piston-engined Avro York aircraft by civilian charter, over the English Channel, France and to the Mediterranean Sea. Dropping in at Luqa airport, Malta in the early hours of darkness. A re-fuelling stop and change of air crew, you could tell be the performance of the aircraft – steep banking and turning – that the pilot was now RAF.

So on to Egypt and the Suez canal zone, landing at Fayid, it was noticeably hot when we disembarked. After clearance, we boarded RAF trucks for the journey to the transit camp of RAF El Hambra, to await posting anywhere in the Middle East. Accommodation – tents in the dusty desert.
No rest on the first evening here, got caught for guard duty, so ended up in the late and early hours of darkness marching up and down the main road outside the camp, orders don't let anyone in or out.

It is the time of the uprisings against the monarchy of King Farouk, because of the riots other camp duties included armed escourt on the ration trip runs into Cairo. Persons on these duties used to end up coming back to camp with other extras, chocolates, canned drinks, fruit etc.
A week here soon passed, before a flight out in an Hastings over the Gulf of Akaba to the Middle East Air Command HQ RAF Habbaniya Iraq, 55 miles from Baghdad. In transit camp a few more days before posting to the Hashamite Kingdom of Jordan, flight back over the desert in a Valleta along the oil pipeline to RAF Mafraq near the borders of Syria.

RAF Mafraq was a small base, a collection of nissen huts and tents just outside the Jordanian village of that name. Just nearby was a petroleum pumping station being part-owned by BP, it was situated 50 to 60 miles from Amman the capital of the Hashamite Kingdom of Jordan (to give the country its correct name). The runways were only hard-baked earth, but their size and length and flatness enabled any size of aircraft to land or take-off. Only on very rare occasions, in very wet, wet, wintery weather was it closed down. We had a cinema in the camp NAAFI (nissen hut) several times a week, there was an Arab cinema in the village which did show Hollywood American films and the foreign ones nearly always had English subtitles. A shai-tent with a trailer which was managed by an Arab, between the camp and the village, near enough to go for a break, used to make delicious fresh baked cake sandwiches.

Toilet facilities were not too good, water at times used to be rationed – showers could only be taken between certain times (imagine having soap on you in a shower when the water gets turned off). Out on the airield learning about the foam tender, water bowsers, extinguishers, lay-out of flare paths etc. etc. most mornings. Tried riding one of the camp horses, a beautiful white Arab one, not really for me.

A hot afternoon out at a ruined Byzantine town of Um El Jemal – where there was a Roman bath swimming pool – only to learn on our return that swimming in the pool was out of bounds.
Went to a native wedding in the village, some of the fire-crew were civilian arabs, both Muslem and Christian, they were friendly to us but between each other there seemed to be a little tension. This friendly feeling even extended to the ordinary people of the country, on a trip into Amman by ration truck, saw the markets and King Hussein's palace, came back by civilian bus, very crowded, an interesting experience.

Most memories of this time are cheerful, happy ones, nit one sad occasion did occur one evening. A detachment of Army lads, from the Signal Regiment football team, having been playing a match in Amman, whilst returning back to camp were involved in a serious road accident, in which several of them were killed. Life is so precious.

Other trips out included visits to Jerash (ruins of a provincial Roman city), and Irbid on the road to Damascus, travelling parallel to the borders of Syria. I was disappointed at missing a visit to Jerusalem we had planned, but having spent three months in Jordan, I was moved again back to RAF Habbaniya in Iraq.