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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0158.PDF
Crossing the harbour on the way in to the Labuan airport. North Borneo. The street and Sultan Mosque in Singapore, where riots first brokt out JOUBNEY EAST . . . Peace—no more Hiroshimas," but one's sympathy is tem- pered by the knowledge that the Japs tortured and drove to death many more people than the thousands that died instantly, with no apprehension of death, in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It is, of course, interesting to see the results of the atom- bomb flash. Polished granite that had faced the explosion is rough and pitted. House tiles show traces of the surface being actually fused except where covered by another tik. A man—probably a beggar—sitting on the stone steps of the Osaka Bank at the time of the explosion has left his shadow outlined where he sat. His body protected the granite from being etched by the flash. At 0710 hr on Friday, December 8th, we started back for Hong Kong. Take-off was delayed for ten minutes because the weather map presented to the aircrew 30 minutes pre- viously was already out of date. Obviously there were some big changes about. The Dakota was soon airborne and up to 8,000ft, but no sign of earth or sea was visible during the intervening hours until we broke cloud at 300ft, at the end of a G.C.A. let- down over Okinawa. After refuelling we could not get clearance for continuing the flight to Hong Kong. On the synoptic chart the lines of isobars followed almost exactly Crew of Hastings TG 531 : Left, F/L ]. A. Martinson (cap- tain) ; bottom left, Sgt. V. R. Rust (navi- gator) ; below, Sgt. N. H. Mullen (flight engineer) ; right, FjSgt. A. R. Lyons (wireless operator). the course we had to take to Kai Tak. A head-wind all the way was forecast, of over 30 knots, so it would be im- possible for the Dak to get in before dark. We were anxious to get back to Singapore by the Saturday because, although an international airport of considerable importance, Saigon is closed by the French for the whole of Sunday. It was therefore decided to stay in what the Americans are pleased to call their "transient" camp, making a fresh start at 0115 hr the next morning, with the intention of completing the whole journey back to Singapore on the same day. This seemed a workable arrangement (though a bit hard on the crew) and most of us lay down for a few hours, listening to Naha living up to its reputation for big winds. , At the time for take-off the weather had cleared consider- ably but the wind was still high. As soon as we were air- borne everyone who was able to do so continued to get in a little sleep in prospect of the long day ahead. All went well until 0700 hr when, about one hour's flying out from Hong Kong, a signal was received diverting us to Laoag in the Philippines. At Hong Kong, apparently, a wind across the runway was gusting up to 60 knots. Later it went con- siderably higher, approaching typhoon force, and seven air- craft were seriously damaged. One of these was another Dakota which had left Okinawa the previous day, 30 minutes ahead of our original time of departure, and was the last aircraft to be accepted by Kai Tak. A qualification of our diversion to Laoag was the request that if we had enough fuel we were to proceed to Clark Field, about 60 miles N.W. of Manilla. Actually we had plenty of fuel on board, because the long-range tanks had been filled at Okinawa and ultimately we finished with suffi- cient over for four hours' flying. At Clark Field there was a very warm welcome; Major McClean of the U.S.A.F. met us and provided shower baths and breakfast when we landed at 0920 hr (0820 local time). In the short while at our dis- posal Major Wachtell, the station public relations officer, took the trouble to show us round the magnificent camp. Clark Field is just as pretentious as Naha is unpretentious
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