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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0664.PDF
(Left) The R.A.F. and R.A.A.F. at Tengah: (left to right) VV/C. M. W. 6. Knight. D.F.C., G/C. C. M. Champion de Crespigny, W/C. N. T. Quinn, D.F.C., R.A.A.F., and S/L D. C. Harvey, R.A.A.F. (Centre) 500-/b bombs moke an acceptable seat on a hot morning at Tengah. (Right) The R.A.A.F. Lincoln in which the writer flew on the bandit strike depicted below. Middle East and Far East . . . store and ice-making plant (ten tons a day); the workshops, which make their own castings; the pattern-maker's shop; foundry; steel workship; sheet metal shop; and the bitumen yard, for asphalting^ pre-cast concrete paving stones, lamp posts. . . . Not inappropriately, we came at last to the 150-bed R.A.F. General Hospital, Habbaniya, commanded by G/C. J. L. Walsh. A matron and a dozen nursing sisters of Princess Mary's R.A.F. Nursing Service do a splendid job here, and the P.M.O., W/C. A. B. Marshall, showed us the wards for officers, airmen and families, and the special ward for cas. evacs. Before we left we called on the A.O.C. to express our thanks and amazement. He himself knows Habb. as few people do. His first tour was with 30 Squadron on D.H.9AS in 1922-24; his second as A.D.C. to Sir Gilbert Clayton and Sir Francis Hum phries in 1929-31; his third as Inspector of the Iraq Air Force in 1940-42; and his present command dates from September last year. We left with the conviction that all the Vampires and Valettas, the foundry and the foxhounds, the Levies and the lamp posts would mean very little without the quickening spirit of personal service, which—nowhere more than in Iraq—imbues the R.A.F. Jackals skulked and flittered in the shadows as we crossed from our quaners to an early breakfast, and a white-robed, rifle-armed figure took shape with alarming suddenness to challenge us. Having contrived to pass as friend, we duly boarded an east- bound trunk-route Hastings, to find that our fellow voyagers included G/C. D. A. Wilson, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., D.M.R.E., D.M.R., and W/C. R. A. Colville on passage to his new command at Mauripur. A fiercesome front materialized instead of the forecast 8/8 (Below) Sequences in a bandit strike: a 500-lb bomb burst, photographed through the bomb bay; bombs and rockets; strafing. blue, and as the Hastings ascended to 14,000ft one of the young matelot passengers collapsed like a sail. A portable oxygen set WAS procured but the group captain diagnosed constriction by waistcoats and sweaters, and appropriate action was initiated. Seven hours went by before the Hastings settled on the dusty Royal Pakistan Air Force base of Mauripur, a few miles north east of Karachi. This is the location of R.P.A.F. Headquarters (whereat the C-in-C. is A.V-M. L. W. Cannon, C.B., C.B.E.), and the station is commanded by W/C. A. Majeed Khan. The Royal Air Force is a lodger formation, and its commander at the time we write of was W/C. J. D. Kirwan, D.F.C. He showed us the staging post facilities, the sick quarters, and the aircraft ser vicing night—all evidently doing a fine job. The sick quarters have 50 beds, a small pathology lab. for the diagnosis of tropical diseases, and a families and maternity section—this last for dependents of R.A.F. officers and N.C.O.s seconded to the R.P.A.F., and for the families of the A.S.T. personnel who run the transport/fighter conversion school on the airfield. The hospital also admits British civilians from Karachi. We rose at 2 a.m. to emplane for the 1,350-mile stretch to Negombo, on the west coast of Ceylon, and that green and red gem of an island greeted us at last with cherubic clouds and a dancing sea. As a staging post Negombo is one of the fairest of havens, and of its potential operational importance it is almost unnecessary to speak, since it overlooks the trade routes of the Indian Ocean. Commanded by W/C. F. G. L. Smith, it was the first of the sta tions on our route to come under the control of Far East Air Force. One of two Hastings and a single York which we saw shimmering like molten silver in the afternoon sun were, in fact, V.I.P. machines, maintained at Changi for the use of the C-in-C. Far East. Also on the island is the base of China Bay, Trincomalee— lair of the Far East Flying-Boat Wing Sunderlands when they exercise in those parts. Around midnight, after too-few evening hours on the exotic lawn of the Negombo mess, we sallied out in the Hastings over the Indian Ocean on the 8 hr stretch to Changi. Our way was lit by flaring lightning and beset by monstrous bumps, and against the thundery dawn the cu-nim sprouted like loathsome fungi. None too soon the Hastings emerged from low cloud on to the wet runway at Changi, and our jaded company descended into the clammy greyness. Our first business was at Headquarters, Far East Air Force, where the anatomy of this vast command was sketched for us. The Singapore area, which is the operational centre, has a chain of headquarters (F.E.A.F., A.H.Q. Malaya, and A.H.Q. Singa pore), three major air bases (Changi, Tengah and Seletar), and a maintenance base. Far-lying to the west is the sub-formation of A.H.Q. Ceylon and to the north-east A.H.Q. Hong Kong. In north-west Malaya is the airfield of Butterworth, serving as an operational base in support of the security forces in that area, and as a staging post for aircraft crossing the Bay of Bengal; and six hundred miles out in the Bay itself, on the island of Car Nicobar, (Story continues after colour illustrations)
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