CHAPTER ELEVEN

HOLY LAND REVISITED

 

Upon discharge from hospital I was supposed to go to a convalescent camp on the Mediterranean shore between Benghazi and Tobruk. My crew was back at the squadron's base at Shallufa near Suez. When I went to hospital they had been flown back in an aeroplane returning for maintenance. It was piloted by one of our Squadron-Leaders. Midway back one engine caught fire. The pilot could not get it extinguished. He crash landed in the desert and the aeroplane burnt out. The crew had to walk for a couple of hours to the Western Desert military highway where they hitched a ride back to Egypt in an army transport. They lost all their kit when the Wimpy burnt out. Johnny Devine had earlier lost his revolver presumably stolen from his tent by an Arab. Loss of a firearm would normally have been a court martial offence but, fortuitously, he was able to get it written off as lost in the crash.

My crew was going on leave and I, naturally, wanted to go with them to Palestine. I pleaded with the Medical Officer to be allowed to do that rather than go to the convalescent centre. He said I was being sent to the centre so that I would not have any alcohol while recuperating. It apparently was not advisable after jaundice. I promised not to drink so I was given permission to go on leave. I stuck to the promise. While the rest of the boys drank beer, I drank only pure orange juice which, being a product of Palestine, was cheap. I was able to buy it for two shillings (20 cents) a quart. It was delicious.

For the crew to go on leave together made for a happy crew which improved efficiency. So that we could do everything together with no one left out because of being unable to afford the cost, I suggested that each member of the crew give me what he thought he could afford to spend on leave and I would then pay for everything from the pool. This was agreed.

It was general practice that if aircrew wanted to go to Palestine on leave a Wimpy that required an air test after coming off maintenance could be flown up there, the leave personnel dropped off, and the aeroplane would return immediately to base. So, with a pilot who had an air test to do, we flew up to Lydda, the airport of the Jewish city of Tel Aviv .

At Lydda airport we decided we would get a taxi to take us to Jeruselem. It had to be ordered from Tel Aviv by phone. We were advised there would be a half-hour wait. Just then an American aircrew arrived at the airport. They asked our advice how to get to Jeruselem. We suggested they order a taxi for which they would have to wait half a hour. Would we like to fill in the waiting time with a game of crap they asked. Crap is a dice game popular with Americans which we had seen the Canadians playing but we were not familiar with the rules or the technique. In short we did not feel confident to take on the Americans at their own game. So we replied that we were just beginning a game of slippery sam (a gambling game with cards rather heavily favouring the one who was banker). Why not join us, we suggested. Sure, they brashly replied. I began the game as banker and in the half- hour we were waiting for the taxi we took enough money off the Americans to more than pay for our planned seven days leave. So we could afford some luxuries.

There was no need to stay on the cheap at a service hostel in Jerusalem. Instead we booked into the Rockfellow Y.M.C.A. which had been built by the Americans before the war as a high-class hostel for tourists. The roomy bedrooms, good food and hot showers were a luxury. Furthermore the western-style sit-down toilets were comforting after having to become use to the customary Arab-style hole in the floor over which one had to squat by planting the feet on footmarks to achieve the correct position. The Rockfellow had two or three private dining rooms apart from the main dining room. This gave rise to an idea. It was to telephone the nurses' home at the British Military General Hospital in Jerusalem. I spoke to the matron and said we were an R.A.F. aircrew staying at the Rockfellow who would like to entertain six nurses to dinner. She agreed provided we called for the nurses and took them by taxis to the Rockfellow and observed a curfew time to be back at the nurses' home.

I suppose she assumed that because we were at the Rockfellow, we were senior R.A.F. officers. When we arrived at the hospital she looked more than a little surprised to see that we were all non-commissioned officers. The “girls” she had chosen for our party were all senior nurses of the Queen Alexandra Nursing Service with the rank equivalent to an army brigadier. They appeared to be in their late thirties or early forties. But it turned out to be a great dinner and dancing party with no inhibitions due to the age difference.The nurses obviously enjoyed it because when I happened to bump into one of them in Cairo some months later she recalled that evening with delight and suggested that as those nurses were now all in Cairo why not another dinner party. The crew was with me in Cairo so we all went to the stylist Cairo restaurant , the Kursaal. That was another good night with nurses who were almost old enough to be our mothers.

The rest of the leave in Palestine was spent sight-seeing. We became immersed in historic sites of the Holy Land. One of our first pilgrimages was to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of Christ's tomb from where, after the crucifixion, he rose for his ascension to Heaven. The church is the focal point of Roman Catholic Christianity in the Holy Land. There are other branches of the Christian religion there also including the Armenian and the Greek Orthodox.

Jerusalem is also a focal point for both the Jewish and Muslim religions. We went to the Dome of the Rock where, according to the Muslim faith, the prophet Mohammed made his legendary ascension to heaven. It is known as the Harem esh Sharif (the Most noble sanctuary). A great Muslim mosque, called Al Aska, is built over the rock dome. It is on the site of the Temple Mount of Solomon built before the founding of the Muslim faith. A high stone wall surrounds the plaza on which the mosque stands. Orthodox Jews pray at the wall which is called the wailing wall. They wail there in prayer because they cannot gain access to the Dome of the Rock which is held sacred in their faith also. As they pray they rest their hands on the wall and over the centuries they have been doing this quite distinct hand marks have been worn in the stones.

It is astonishing on visiting the Holy Land to realise there are so many similarities among the various religions yet there are deep-seated antagonisms between them, particularly between the Jews and the Muslims.

We visited the Garden of Gethsemane. We also took a bus from Jerusalem down the Jericho Road which descended through bleak, barren landscape of the Judean wilderness to the town of Jericho. Jericho is one of the oldest cities in the world. It is said to be 10,000 years old. Mark Anthony, emperor of Rome, once gave it as a gift to Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, with whom he was deeply in love. At the the time of our visit it was an Arab town.

A short distance from Jericho is the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth. The water has a high saline content due to the extreme evaporation of the desert heat. The salty water is so buoyant that I was able to sit in it with a sun umbrella in one hand and a book to read in the other. When swimming the buoyancy supports you almost on the surface. But the swim was not enjoyable even though the water was very warm because the excessive salt stung the eyes.

At the end of our leave we made our way back to Lydda airport to connect with a pre-arranged Wimpy on a test flight to take us back to base. As I had been on sick leave after the jaundice, I had to go to Cairo to the Kasr el Nil Barracks, headquarters of the Middle East Army and Air Force Command to go before an Air Force Medical Board to determine if I was fit for flying duties. When I first joined the air force the medical examination was very stringent. But aircrew were always saying that once you were in the Service you would be kept flying as long as you could breathe. Maybe. The medical examination I had in Cairo was certainly very perfunctory. The three medical officers on the panel simply asked me if I felt all right. Upon my affirmative my report was stamped “fit for flying duties''. In fact, I did feel well after the leave.