CHAPTER FOURTEEN

RETURN TO “BLIGHTY”

 

At the time of our movement to Berca in Benghazi I had completed 29 operational sorties. I still had seventeen more to do to complete a tour of operations at which stage it was customary to be posted as an instructor to an R.A.F. training station for a so-called rest. Certainly a rest from operational flying but by no means a relaxation.

My remaining ops were escorting British convoys out of Egypt taking supplies to the 8th Army to be unloaded at Benghazi and later, as the 8th Army continued its relentless pursuit of the German Afrika Korps,escorting the convoys to be unloaded at Tripoli in Tunisia. We also escorted an occasional convoy bound for Malta.

These convoys generally comprised a dozen merchant ships, two or three tankers and up to half a dozen Royal Navy destroyers or corvettes. With the tide of war having turned in the Mediterranean, these ships encountered virtually no interference from the enemy.

I was wearing the rank of Flight-Sergeant Pilot but unbeknown to me I had been commissioned as a Pilot Officer on September 20, 1942. I was not notified until eight months later when my tour of ops was ending. Consequently during that time I was not paid the “hard living” allowance which officers in the desert received to compensate for their living conditions. It was only sixpence (five cents) a day and really it was a quite fatuous payment because in the desert all ranks in the air force had the same living conditions. We slept in tents on stretchers with blankets and no sheets - quite luxury compared with what soldiers had to put up with fighting in the desert.

Food was monotonous. We had mainly bully beef served in an astonishing variety of ways with reconstituted dehydrated vegetables. American margarine which had a very high melting point to withstand the desert daytime heat was not very palatable. Before flying on ops our “special privilege” meal was bacon (a low grade fatty American product) and baked beans.The beans caused stomach flatulence as the aeroplane climbed to a lower barometric pressure.

Water was rationed. A portion of the daily ration for each man was allocated directly to the cookhouse. What we received personally we used for cleaning our teeth and our ablutions. We saved the water used for ablutions and filtered it through a sand bucket to provide enough reasonably clean water for washing our clothes. After that it was filtered again to be accumulated for a shower. We improvised a shower by punching holes in a cake tin I had received in a food parcel from my mother and mounting the tin on top of a broken-down German troop carrier which had been discarded by the retreating Afrika Korps. One man poured the water into the cake tin while another stood under it to be showered. We thought this quite ingenious - and certainly refreshing. It was interesting that sand could be such an effective water filter.

We get an extra ration of water when flying on operations - a water bottle full. The standard water bottle issued to all Service personnel in the Middle East was metal. It had a felt covering which we moistened. Evaporation from the felt chilled the water in the bottle - the result of an elementary principle of physics. Chilled water was a real treat.

Scorpions were prevalent in the desert. One night I heard a scratching on the rubberized material of my Mae West which I was using as a pillow. It woke me and I discovered a scorpion trying to crawl up to my head .Rather discomforting because we always understood that the scorpions had a vicious bite. The Desert rat which hopped along using its tail like a kangaroo, was also prevalent in the desert. Scores of them could be seen hopping clear of our aeroplane as we took-off.

The Mae West, referred to above, was our life jacket, which was worn like a waist coat with inflatable sections across the chest. It was dubbed Mae West after a renowned American film actress of the time who had very prominent breasts.

Recreation was limited in the Middle East. Back at base we had a cinema but at forward desert airstrips there was no entertainment apart from a very rare visit from a concert party. I recall a visit from the all-male New Zealand Concert Party which had established a high reputation among servicemen in the Middle East. Some of the fellows dressed as girls for a dance routine. To men in the audience who had not seen a female for months, the make-up and the breast line created by half a grapefruit with blobs of chewing gum as nipples were quite sensuous. It induced screams of delight.

Sport was mainly restricted to cricket for those of us from cricketing countries and softball for the Canadians. From time to time we would have cricket matches or softball matches against the Canadians. Invariably the Canadians won the softball matches and we won the cricket.

Another game introduced to us by the Canadians was horseshoes in which we threw hoops shaped like and about the size of a horseshoe in an attempt to wrap them round a stake in the ground about twenty feet from the throwing crease. It was good fun.

While in the Middle East all Allied servicemen were issued with a free cigarette ration. The cigarettes were V brand made under contract in India. They were quite vile. We used to say that they must have been made from dried elephant dung which, of course, they were not. But certainly they were made with very poor quality tobacco. Few of us would smoke them. But at first they were a good trading commodity in buying eggs from the Bedouin Arabs. The eggs were tiny, like bantam's. We began by getting a dozen for a pack of ten V cigarettes. But after a while the Bedouins found the quality of the smokes wanting. Eventually we were lucky to get one egg per packet. We could, of course, buy English cigarettes from canteens and I was treated well by Johnny Devine's mother in Calgary , Canada , who from time to time sent me cartons of Canadian cigarettes which I reckoned were the best in the world.

Throughout history foreign words have been added to the English language by soldiers and sailors serving abroad. Baksheesh is an example. It had been borrowed from a Persian word for give. It was used in the Services for something for free. We referred to our laundry as dhobi which originated with British servicemen in India , the word meaning an Indian waterman. I still often refer to my laundry as dhobi. We picked up a number of Egyptian words which we used regularly in our conversation and which , to this day, recur subconsciously in my conversation. For example, I often say “give me a shufti” which means let me look at it. “I'm ala-kee-fick”(I don't mind one way or the other). “Quoise” (good), ”Kateer”(a lot) thus “Quoise Kateer”(very good) “Emshee”(bugger off), ”Bint”(female). I'm not sure of my spellings.

British forces in Egypt had an irreverent regard for the Egyptian King Fouruk. We were required by service discipline to stand for the Egyptian national anthem when attending a cinema. This we did but servicemen could be heard murmuring to the tune rather bawdy lyrics referring to the king.

One great lesson in human relations was learnt from service in the Middle East, particularly during extended isolation in the desert. That was the strength and value of comradeship and the dependence man had upon his fellow man. Teamwork was an essential ingredient of survival. There was no room for trivial or petty disagreement. Strong and abiding friendships were cemented. Indeed I saw, when men returned to England , existing relationships with girls being broken off because a girl deigned to suggest that her boy seemed to think more of one of his service mates than of her. Without any suggestion of homosexuality, of which I saw nothing, the bond of comradeship was indeed strong.

Navigator Johnnie Devine, radar-wireless operator Danny Daniels and I had this strong bond. We completed our tour of 46 operational sorties at the same time in April 1943 by which time the 8th Army had mounted its final offensive in Tunisia and was already planning the invasion of Sicily and the Italian mainland. The fact that we three became tour-ex at the same time meant that we had flown together on every one of the operational sorties.

By the end of the tour I had logged a total of 809 hours 30 minutes since joining the air force. Of this total 451 hours had been logged since we were posted to the Middle East - 247 being flown at night and 204 hours at day.vOperational sorties totalled 354 hours of which 237 were at night and 117 in daylight.

On leaving 38 Squadron I was assessed as an above average pilot.

The three of us were posted back to England.We were elated but surprised. Generally Middle East Command aircrew on completing a tour were posted to Rhodesia as instructors. To make it still more unusual we were given a category C priority flight back to England, a priority usually reserved for service commanders.But when we reached London and reported to Air Ministry that we had arrived on a C priority no one seemed to know of us or why we had been given a priority. So we were issued with a leave pass to await a posting.

To get from the Middle East to England on a priority posting we were booked to fly by British Overseas Airways (which was just before then known as Imperial Airways) which staged through Portugal, a neutral country. To go through Portugal we needed a passport and we had to be in civilian clothes. The passports described us as British civil servants which meant we were ostensibly non-combatants. We were sent into Cairo to buy a civilian jacket and trousers, for which the Air Force paid. We had passport photos taken in this garb.

After spending some weeks in a transit camp at Helwan, just south of Cairo we flew out of Egypt on June 19, 1943 as passengers on a BOAC Lockheed Hudson aeroplane. From Heliopolis airport in Cairo we flew to Wadi Halfa in Sudan just across the Egyptian border. The next stage was to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, a country then controlled by Britain. The flight from Cairo had taken 5 hours 40 minutes. We stayed overnight in Khartoum .

The next day we flew across central Africa to Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, refuelling at El Genina in Chad and Madueri in Nigeria. This sector took just on eleven hours.

We had a couple of days in Lagos. We slept under mosquito nets because malaria mosquitoes abounded. One of the unique experiences in Lagos was going to a dance where there were only negro girls.

From Lagos we flew the rest of the journey as passengers in a BOAC flying boat piloted by an Australian, Captain Anderson. This journey involved flying up the African west coast, then through Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and on to Eire and then to England. The first stage was an 11 hours 35 minutes flight to Freetown in Sierra Leone. We spent the night there at a BOAC transit camp. While having a drink that evening Captain Anderson told me that he was not very happy with his second pilot who had been seconded to BOAC from the R.A.F. I told him that while I had never flown a flying boat, his Empire Class had the same motors as the Wimpy except there were four of them and, since one aircraft was the same as another to control in the air, I would be happy to give him a hand. `He took me up on my offer.

Next day we flew from Freetown to Bathhurst in Gambia. We refuelled there and went on to Port Etienne in Mauritania, a total of just on seven hours for the day. I did a good deal of the flying with Captain Anderson sitting in the second pilot's seat. Another overnight stop at an airway's transit camp then on to Lisbon in Portugal, a flight of 8 hours 45 minutes. Captain Anderson must have felt confident with my flying because for most of this leg he went back to the passenger seats and snoozed.

As we entered the gulf leading up to Lisbon I was still flying. The navigator directed me to turn to starboard and fly up the gulf. Captain Anderson was apparently still sleeping. We were now in darkness. When I could see the lights of Lisbon I sent a message back to the captain that we were approaching the circuit and did he want to take over. The wireless operator had already received permission to alight. The captain sent back a written message. It read: “I thought you were an operational pilot. Can't you land an aeroplane?”

I, of course, had never landed a flying boat let alone try to put one down on the water at night. I did know, however, that the approach was normally more shallow than with a land plane because the alighting area on water was longer than a land-based runway. I flew a circuit over Lisbon and, somewhat apprehensively, lined up on the flare path for a final approach and was down to 500 feet wondering why on earth the captain was not taking over when I felt him tap my shoulder as he slipped into the second pilot seat and announced “I've got her.”And a few seconds later he had the boat on the water.

After going through customs in our civilian clothes and showing our British passports declaring we were civil servants, Johnnie, Dannie and I were driven to the British Embassy in Lisbon in an embassy car. There we were issued with a small amount of Portuguese money and given a firm warning not to talk to strangers or even talk among ourselves about the war, especially not to mention we were in the Royal Air Force. This was because there were many German agents in Lisbon. Then we were taken to a first class hotel.

Apart from German agents probably keeping an eye on us, there were British agents also watching us to make sure we didn't get into trouble or blabber about the war. We saw evidence of this the first evening we were in Lisbon. We were having a drink in a bar at Captain Anderson's invitation when a young lady approached and took a bar seat beside me. Aha, I thought here comes a German Gestapo agent to chum up, get a drink from me and hope to get me talking. Not so, she simply indicated three people sitting at a bar table and whispered a warning that they were German intelligence.Then she asked if I would buy her a drink so that the Germans would think she was a “bar fly” girl. She drank it quickly and then disappeared. The German agents she had pointed out did not approach us but I guess they were trying to listen to our conversation which was quite innocuous.

Coming down a wide staircase in the hotel next morning for breakfast I was amazed when a young fellow coming up the stairs gave me a Nazi salute and exclaimed: “Heil Hitler”, the customary German greeting in homage to their nation's leader, Adolph Hitler. I was hoping he did not think I looked like a Hun. Then I realized that coming down the staircase behind me was an aggressive looking amazon lady who must have been a ranking Gestapo officer.

After the overnight stay in Lisbon, which unfortunately did not give us time for any sightseeing in that historic city, we rejoined the flying boat for the journey to Foynes in Eire, which was, of course, also a neutral country although the sympathy of its people was definitely anti-German even though the Southern Irish had been at loggerheads with the British for many years. The flight to Foynes took seven and-a-half hours, traversing a route frequently patrolled by Luftwaffe long-range Conder reconnaissance aeroplanes. Only 27 days previously a BOAC flying boat had been shot down on this sector. The British film actor, Leslie Howard, was among those lost. It was presumed at the time that German intelligence agents had mistakenly identified Howard as a senior British army commander when he boarded the flying boat in Lisbon.

We stayed overnight at Foynes before flying on next day to Poole Harbour, near Southhampton. It had become the BOAC flying boat base in England after Imperial Airways moved there from Southhampton shortly after the outbreak of war. Southhampton was a target of German bombing and had been severely blitzed. Poole, incidentally, is historic as the base of the first English navy established by King Alfred the Great.

From Poole we journeyed by train to London. We were in the same compartment on the train as a mother with a young child. I had brought some bananas from Portugal. I offered one to the child. It would not take it because, as the mother explained, there had been no bananas in wartime England and naturally the child did not recognize it as food. Only essential foods were imported. When the mother took a bite and indicated how nice it was, the child accepted it and enjoyed it.

On arrival in London we reported to Air Ministry. It did not seem to know why we had been flown back to England as civilians on a priority air passage. So it sent us on ten days leave which was customary for operational aircrew returning from overseas service. We telephoned some of the aircrew fellows we had trained with at Cranwell suggesting that if they could get leave they might care to join us in London. Then I went out to buy my first No 1 Blue officer's uniform at Simpsons of Piccadilly. Nine of our mates joined us and the twelve of us stayed at the Regent Palace Hotel just off Piccadilly Circus .

I had to go to the London headquarters of the Royal New Zealand Air Force to tidy up a pay situation. As I mentioned earlier, I had been commissioned as an officer nine months previously. In that time I had been paid as a Flight Sergeant. On arrival in London Air Ministry decreed that I must refund that nine months pay before I could draw any pay as a officer.Then I would get back pay as an officer. I did not have enough money to pay back anything let alone nine months pay. It sounded like a typical Service cock-up in which some bureaucratic-minded pay clerk was going by the book instead of exercising logic. So I exercised an advantage we had as New Zealand Air Force personnel seconded to the R.A.F. That was to go to our own headquarters. The pay officer there was dumfounded. His rank was only Pilot Officer but he spoke very firmly to a Group Captain at R.A.F. Records and next day through a contra account adjustment I received the difference between my Flight Sergeant pay and Pilot Officer pay which was only sixpence a day for nine months, plus my first pay as an officer.

During the sojourn in London, while we waited for Air Ministry to make up its mind what to do with us, we managed time for exploring the sights but I must say that we usually gravitated to a pub. I sometimes popped into a pub just off Cambridge Circus called the Sussex which had been “adopted” by New Zealand servicemen as their pub. The Sussex served Younger's Scotch ale but the pump handles were labelled “Waitemata”, “Lion” and “Speights” just to make the Kiwis feel at home. The senior barmaid was a mine of information about Kiwi airmen. She obtained the casualty lists from New Zealand Air Force Headsquarters in London and was able to tell you if a fellow you were inquiring for had “gone for a Burton”. This air force euphemism for a casualty arose first from a superstition to avoid saying directly a comrade had been killed and secondly to soften bad news by implying the missing one had simply gone to the pub. Burton was one of England 's principal beers.

Pub hours varied in London. For example, at the markets - such as the Covent Garden produce market and the Smithfield meat market - the pubs opened at 5 o'clock in the morning because the workers and the buyers there started very early. Those pubs closed early in the afternoon. But West End pubs did not open until 11 a.m. and closed at 11 p.m. I never encountered a shortage of beer in wartime Britain. I suppose that despite very stringent food rationing it was reckoned that pubs had to be fully supplied because they were an essential factor in maintaining the morale of the people. Tradionally they were a social focal point.

When in London I visited from time to time the New Zealand Forces Club in Charing Cross Road. Before Italy came into the war the building had been the Italian Fascist Club. Women voluntary workers provided meals at the New Zealand Club. I could get a sausage, potatoes and peas for one shilling. A shilling was the equivalent of ten cents but of course our pay was only the equivalent of $1.20 a day. Such has been inflation in the postwar years!

One of the fascinations of visiting the markets was to hear the Cockney accent of the workers and to listen to their talking in Cockney rhyming slang. For example they referred to the mouth as north and south; the head as a loaf of bread (which was usually contracted to simply loaf), the wife as trouble and strife, a liar as a holy friar, a lot of talk as rabbit and pork, a bottle as Aristotle, gin as needle and pin. To listen to a Cockney haggling over a business deal showed just how shrewd they are. I suppose it was bred into them during the centuries London was the trading capital of the world where barterers from virtually every country congregated to do business.