POST WAR 1
Flight to England April 1946
We arrived at Ratmalana airbase at about 7 o’clock in the morning, to be welcomed by the base Commander who was interested to hear our story, and why we were travelling with RAF Transport Command. On the runway just a few yards away from the Nissan Huts of the base was our York aircraft. It looked even in those days incredibly small in comparison with the far larger American Skymaster. Basically the York was a high wing monoplane, being a modified Lancaster bomber with a wider fuselage for cargo instead of the normal narrow 10 ton capacity bomb bay. It was fitted with the same four powerful Rolls Royce Merlin petrol engines, that had powered the Spitfires and Lancasters so effectively during the war. We arrived with our baggage at the side door of the plane on the port side, and our bags were thrown onto a heap of other luggage and cargo which stretched about 15 feet from the rear of the cockpit with a small path on the port side to walk past. On top of all the baggage which had a net to roughly secure it, were 6 full large sticks of bananas. In the cockpit to the rear of the pilots seats and under the large radio in its recess every nook was cramped full of pineapples, all of course being taken back to England by the crew for their families where rationing was tight, and such luxuries had long been forgotten. There were 24 seats on the plane at the rear in six rows of two either side of the plane, all filled by service personnel mostly RAF officers returning to England.
Finally at 8 am on a beautifully sunny tropical morning, when we were eventually fully loaded, we took off on what to this day has been the most exciting and interesting flight of the many that I have subsequently had in my life. We headed due north east for Karachi, a 9 hour flight at a cruising height of 10,000ft and a speed of 180 mph. An hour or so later we crossed the Nilgris Hills of South India and were flying over the tea estates which were at 5- 6,000 ft. Below us one could clearly see all the activities on the plantations, the tea pluckers in the green fields, the lorries moving around the tiny roads, and the factories nestling in the hollows. It was hard and virtually impossible to talk even to ones partner in the adjoining seat without really shouting, as the noise and vibration of the powerful Merlin petrol engines was totally all pervasive. So one sat incongruously in isolation in a silence of deafening sound in a manner that today seems incomprehensible in the quiet hum of modern airliners. Also one had a slightly light head due to the sudden elevation and lack of oxygen in the unpressurized cabin. Eventually at about 5 o’clock we arrived at RAF Karachi and had a good welcome with drinks and later a fine meal in the officers mess. We bedded down for the night in a bare clean twin bedded room with plain black iron hospital type beds that were very comfortable. Early next morning after a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, we were off again heading for RAF Shaibah situated near Basra in Iraq. We maintained the same cruising height over the rugged desert terrain of Baluchistan and Persia. In the afternoon as we headed north , we reached the Tigris / Euphrates delta the marshes of which were spread below us like the huge fronds of a giant fern. Ahead far in the distance were pitch black storm clouds, out of which would appear huge dazzling flashes of forked lightening. The whole scene was as dramatic as could be imagined, and I was very relieved that not too soon later we had safely landed at about 4 o’clock onto the dusty airstrip. The casurina pines around us whistled and bent themselves over in the preceding gale as we hurried quickly to take cover from the large raindrops into the safety of the officers mess. The storm then lashed the base with all its tumultuous violence and nothing could be seen out of the window. There was then a roar as a Dakota came into land in the middle of it all, finally ending up safely, except that it had made a mistake in the opaqueness of the storm , trying to reach the base after it had landed, and had swept up a whole wadge of telephone wires that were wrapped around its propellers like two giant huge birds nests! The walls of the dining hall in the officers mess were decorated with the most superb natural pastel portraits of Arab tribesmen with their piercing eyes and hooked noses, as well as a few English officers. Apparently they had all been executed by an officer stationed there during the war, who had made all his own oil and pastel paints from local sands and rocks collected in various parts of that vast country. Once more we spent a comfortable night at the base, and rose very early to have another good breakfast before being airborne just before dawn. Again the spectacular desert scenery as we glided over vast desolate dry wadis, eroded landscapes, and huge drifts of sand. Herders with their goats and camels could easily be followed, all of which I found fascinating as I looked out from my window seat on the port side having a birds eye view. By midday we were at Cairo with the pyramids as a back drop and then after a good lunch and a break for a couple of hours and a refuel we headed for Castel Benito near Tripoli. During the flight I would often go into the pilots cockpit where they would welcome me and show me all the controls. In the afternoon shortly after we had left Cairo I was in the cockpit chatting with them, when the pilot suddenly turned to me and said:
“How would you like to take a close view of the remains of the battle of El Alamein?”
With that he descended to 5,000ft over Sollum and we then passed over the wrecks of tanks, guns and smashed vehicles lying still strewn over the desert sands at El Alamein where the bay gently swings north west. It was a sobering sight to see the remains of the first major British land victory over the Germans, and ones imagination roamed thinking of Montgomery and Rommel slugging it out in the sands 4 years before.
