1965 - John’s Story
RAF Khormaksar
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| John TURNER & "Fred" |
Strangely, I cannot remember where we flew from on the way to Aden, but it seems likely to have been Stansted, which was the British United Airways trooping Centre. I know that we were delayed by 24 hours and spent the night at RAF Hendon. We flew out on a Bristol Britannia aircraft, stopping at Muharraq for refuelling. The whole journey took about 16 hours as I recall and for all those who might remember that the Britannia was called ‘The Whispering Giant’, that name only applies from the outside. I sat on the Main Spar for the whole of the journey and that must have been the loudest whisper that I have ever heard, never mind the vibration.
I arrived to find that I was to be employed on the Visiting Aircraft Handling Section (VAHS), which actually turned into a good place to work even though I had very little experience of First Line work. To explain, First Line was actually working on aircraft at the place from which they flew, in other words carrying out Pre and Post Flight checks and fault finding, whereas Second Line was working in a hangar doing repairs and regular maintenance. There are 3rd & 4th Lines of Maintenance as well but I needn’t go into them at this time.
Before starting work I had to do the standard arrival procedure including all the weapon training. In those days, the RAF was still using the Lee Enfield 303 rifle, which, whilst accurate, had a heck of a kick when fired. Most of us used a rolled up beret on the shoulder for protection.
The working shifts on VAHS were from 06.00 to 15.00 and 15.00 to 23.59 plus a ‘graveyard shift’ from midnight to 06.00. This last named shift was a couple of people taken from the evening shift who were there just in case of any aircraft diversions. We worked two days, two evenings and then two days off except that whatever happened on Wednesday was for a single day. At this time Khorkmaksar was an incredibly busy place to work with, and the memory might be a little hazy here, 8 Squadron: Hunter FGA. Mk. 9 & T. Mk. 7, 43 Squadron: Hunter FGA. Mk. 9, 1417 Flight RAF: Hunter FR. Mk. 10 & T. Mk. 7, 105 Squadron: Argosy C1, 84 Squadron: Beverley C1 , 37 Squadron: Shackleton MR2, 26 Squadron: Belvedere HC1 and 78 Squadron: Twin Pioneers. Khorkmaksar was on the main route from UK to the Far East, Australia and Africa, so we on VAHS were kept very busy.
I have to comment on the photo at the beginning of this chapter. The dog, affectionately named Fred, was looked after by everyone in the block and would wander in and spend time with anyone who took an interest. The Arabs hated dogs, which was another reason why we always looked after them.
One of the first things that happened to me after I arrived in Aden was that I lost my signet ring. Having gone for a wash in the public ablutions area, I took the ring off and managed to leave it on the sink, never to be seen again. I think that I have now had a total of four rings which have disappeared, the last one whilst applauding a performance of ‘Starlight Express’ in Torquay a few years ago.
I also managed to leave my wallet in one of the shops just outside Khormaksar. That disappeared within seconds, to turn up a week or so later with no money in it but, fortunately, still containing my RAF Form 1250 - Identification Card.
Looking back on my time in Aden, I realise that I had a very strange attitude to marriage. I remember another married lad in the room who said to me one day “we don’t want children”. I retaliated by saying, “why did you get married then?” I must have based this question on my Catholic teaching which said that ‘Marriage is for the Procreation and Education of children’. There is nothing about love in there. As it turned out I fathered three children and loved my wife but I still think that there was something odd about my attitude on that occasion and, anyway, who was I to pontificate on someone else’s reasons for marriage?
As the year progressed so did our involvement in guarding the airfield with a twenty four hour guard duty coming around once a week. The shift was two hours on and four hours off and we could be almost anywhere on the camp from searching the Arab workers coming in to guarding the aircraft dispersal, the Power Stations and the Bomb Dumps. This latter was particularly stupid because we were armed with a 303 rifle with five rounds of ammunition none of which were allowed to be in the firing chamber. The South Bomb Dump was still being built and about 60 workers would arrive in two trucks and disappear into what seemed like a rabbit warren. We would have had no chance had there ever been any trouble as I think that the maximum number of guards we had there was two.
Almost as soon as I got settled into my billet, I started to write letters to Maria about anything and everything. It was like living each other’s day, every day, as she reciprocated and probably wrote more than I did. Between us, I imagine that we wrote about 600 letters some of which were over 20 pages long. Most of these letters were destroyed for lack of space but a couple of mine still exist although I am not sure that the content is fit for general publication.
A few memorable things happened whilst I was at work, bearing in mind that I was new to this type of work and had never worked on any of the aircraft in transit.
One of the earliest starter crews that I did was on a Britannia and prior to starting the first of the engines, I was told to hold the propeller! Now I wasn’t quite green enough to fall for the ‘long stand’ scenario but I thought that this was a joke until I was reminded that the Britannia Engines were turboprops so the propeller was not actually connected to the engine. Whilst parked the propellers were locked so that they did not turn in a wind. Before the pilot started the engine, he released this lock and it was sometimes necessary to hold the propeller to stop it going in the wrong direction under wind pressure. It still doesn’t seem right!
On another occasion, I was told to be a member of the starter crew on a Hunter and as I went out of the office door someone shouted at me “don’t forget the asbestos glove”; “what for?” said I, to which came the reply “to beat the flames out!’ This particular version of the Hunter had an Iso Propyl Nitrate (IPN) starting system and that fuel was very flammable. Any leaks from the starter could result in a fire and a panel underneath the starter was left hanging open until the engine had started, then, on indication from the pilot, the ground crew would crawl underneath the belly of the aircraft, make sure there were no flames and then close the panel before allowing the pilot to start taxying. I believe that the Belvedere helicopter was rather prone to catching fire on and around its starter, especially in the heat of Aden. Some versions of the Canberra also had IPN starters, but by and large, any excess liquid was vented to air and caused little trouble, during my tour anyway.
One day we had four Hunters arriving from UK but when we went out to marshal them into the dispersal, only three arrived even though we had seen four land. On one of the aircraft the Brake Parachute had failed and then the hydraulic brakes had also failed, resulting in the aircraft running off the end of the runway into the sand and destroying a couple of approach lights. This closed the runway for some time whilst we dragged the aircraft out backwards using the winch on the back of a Tugmaster.
To be able to drive RAF vehicles on camp, we had to have a ‘C’ Class Licence and at Khorkmaksar, despite holding a civilian licence for three years, I was required to take a test. The name of Sergeant SALT comes to mind because he failed me for taking too long to ‘turn about in the road’. The trouble was that the tarmac road was very narrow and on either side was hard baked sand, or what we called ‘Bondu’. I tried to stay on the tarmac when, apparently, I could have used the Bondu. I didn’t try again.
I once got as dirty as I have ever been whilst changing a thermocouple on a Beverley engine.
One day I abandoned a tractor on the dispersal because it had run out of fuel. By the time I got to the office someone had switched to the reserve tank and was following me in!!
I made one mistake on the first weekend that I had off when I was persuaded to go down to the NAAFI. I then found out that drinks were extraordinarily cheap and proceeded to imbibe far more Rum than is necessary for any one person. It was a mistake, as I found out the following morning and it was the last time that I did that although I enjoyed a drink now and then.
There was plenty of sport available if anyone was interested so I took advantage and started to play Squash, Basketball and Ten Pin Bowling. This was, of course, in addition to my hockey, which still took precedence over everything. The early games were difficult because I was not used to the heat and after the first half of the first game I realised that I was going to have to slow down or not make it to the end of the game and there were no substitutes in those days. In the end however the body got used to the temperature and I thoroughly enjoyed playing. I was awarded my AFME colours on 20th February 1965 when we played the Army.
I played Ten Pin Bowling for the section team, averaging about 140 in the first season, which, because we all had handicaps based on a score of 180, was OK, however in the first match in the second league, I managed to average 180, including a game of exactly 200, which is the best score I have ever achieved. This meant that for the second match, I had no handicap; it took some time of poor scoring before I got back to a sensible handicap.
A comment on dentists about whom I have had a vested interest for many years. The one at Khormaksar had the worst case of halitosis that I have ever known; mind you, he probably had to suffer the same way from many patients.
On the medical front, I was diagnosed with a hernia in about June 1965 and had it repaired at Steamer Point Hospital soon afterwards. At about that time, I was due to take my annual leave and I chose to take it in Kenya at the Silver Sands Leave Centre, which is just to the north of Mombasa. It was only after I returned home in December 1965 that I told Maria that I could have come home instead of going to Kenya. My honest thought was that to go home and then say goodbye again would be a tremendous wrench for both of us. We flew out and back in an Argosy and it proved to be a much better flight than I thought it might be.
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| Elephants at Tsavo National Park |
The Kenyan climate seemed about perfect at that time of the year; yes it rained, but only at night. The Indian Ocean was lovely and warm but did have jellyfish, one of which got me with a tentacle wrapped around my arm from shoulder to fingertip. That stopped me swimming. A group of us went on safari to the Tsavo National Park. I had only seen Africa on films and I was amazed to find this desolate landscape with hardly anything green in sight. We did see elephants, giraffe, wart hogs and a tame baby rhinoceros but overall, the trip was rather disappointing.
All too soon however it was back to Aden and the thought of the increasing number of guards. Thinking of the trouble that was around, I was never in particular danger but one or two things happened during my stay. A Bazooka shell penetrated the outer wall of a married families hiring in Maala but fortunately failed to explode. A hand grenade was tossed over the wall of one of the open air cinemas, but I don’t remember details of casualties. Something that materially affected us was the bomb that destroyed an Aden Airways DC3. They had another one, designated KN453, which we on VAHS were subsequently tasked to look after.
Speaking of cinemas, ours at Khormaksar was one of those that was open-air. There were a couple of problems with cinemas without roofs, apart from the fact that grenades could be lobbed in. The first was that films could not really be shown in daylight, but because Aden is close to the equator, daylight and darkness come along in fairly equal measures so that films could start as early as 19.00. The second problem was aircraft noise. The worst aircraft for noise was the seemingly innocuous Twin Pioneer. If it flew at night, it took about 20 minutes to get from one end of the airfield to the other and the film could not be heard (probably exaggerating a little on the timescales). Considering that we were surrounded by sand and Arabs, what was one of the top films of that year? - Lawrence of Arabia!!
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| Maala Straight |
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| Conquest Bay |
Eventually my tour came to an end and, on 3rd December 1965, I flew home, non-stop, to UK in a VC10, which was a definite improvement on the Britannia. When we landed, the temperature was close to zero but it felt fresh and good after a year when the lowest temperature was probably about 55˚ F. I sent a telegram to Maria from London at 08.35 and settled back on the train for the journey back to married life. There was no-one to meet me at the station so I walked up to DER to find that Maria had no idea that I was on the way and therefore was extremely flustered and insisted on finishing work at the proper time. I had to go home to Oakroyd alone! I still have the telegram, which I believe was delivered after I arrived.
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