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Paul Teale
RAF El Adem 1969-70
I did some work on the Tears Studio, but dates
are a little foggy. Myself and a couple of friends closed it all
down for a week, and rewired all the desk. We bought all new stuff
such as a posh microphone and even trolled round all the Twynhams
rewiring speakers and putting the correct matching transformers in
them. I also vaguely remember etching "on air"etc. in the perspex
between eng. and announcer. Decks were rewired and much earthing was
done to eliminate hum. I also remember that there was mains 240
under the control panel operated switchboard type keys (lethal on
reflection, but acceptable at the time). Buying loads of matched
pairs of valves for the amps. caused apoplexy with the controller of
funds.I would do it all differently now of course, but fun at the
time. The only person I recognise on the site is Ben Lines and his
wife Avril. Long time ago but treasured memories even if at the time
it seemed like a life sentence.
 MEMORIES OF RAF El ADEM 1960-62
By Bill Blackie
The
first time I ever heard the name ‘El Adem’ was in mid summer 1960. I
was on detachment from RAF Halton as the storeman for a tented camp
situated on the top of the hill above a small Army TA camp called
Penhale near Newquay.This was for the “brats” who came down for a
two week ‘holiday’! The duty clerk told me that I was on draft 777C
to El Adem in September. Our CO was a walrus moustached ex WW2
pilot, Sqd Leader Jenkins, who took great delight in telling me that
he had transited through El Adem and it was a 'shit' hole, to quote
him! He described the few buildings mainly erected before the war by
the Italians and the sand strip with its oil can lighting system. I
thought he was having me on but that was just what we faced when
alighting from our charter flight from Gatwick. Our first night was
spent in the splendour of the tented accommodation behind Air
Movements with the luxury of flush toilets and mains electricity. My
nights for about the next six months were in a marquee near the
water tower with six or eight beds and a 60watt bulb run off a
generator in the AMWD yard across the road. After the six months I
got a billet up in J Block but finished up in Newton Block opposite
the front of the Airmen’s mess after Squillions of pounds had been
spent on new runways, messes, a swimming pool and a new NAAFI and
new accommodation blocks. Many memories of the place include the
following:
I
obtained a class B licence from the MT section and became the driver
of the stores wagon, a Bedford RL in which I did many miles around
the camp and in and around Tobruk and also on a couple of occasions
up to Derna to change over 45 gallon drums of fuel for the
helicopters. These trips usually happened on a long weekend and a
few others from the stores compound would come along too usually in
a ‘borrowed’ Land Rover. On one trip we ran out of fuel on the way
back and took the fittings off the air hoses and siphoned Avgas from
the drums in the back, into the fuel tank. The MT sergeant was not
too impressed with our ingenuity as it would have damaged the valves
but, Boy, did it run well! I well remember the MT section taking the
prop shaft of ‘my’ wagon to keep one of the Gharries running and
leaving it with drive through the front axle only. It took about
half a mile to turn it around! Another incident was when pulling up
to the laundry hut after the first rains of winter, a trench
collapsed under the near side front wheel and we took a nose dive in
a couple of feet. Another joy was the unauthorised driving of the
AMWD’s Leyland Hippos around the stores compound. One regret was
that our lads would never leave the keys in the cab of the Bedford
Queen Mary so I never managed a go at that one.
Many
hours were spent at the Astra, probably at least three visits a week
with one memorable Sunday when a Tom and Jerry spectacular was shown
[Good old FRED] and by the end of the show we were too sore to
laugh. CSE shows were few and far between but always worth a visit
just to see the girls in their fishnet tights. Talk about sex
starved Airmen, BINT Whooff!! Bill Maynard now better known for
Heartbeat, on the telly, put on an impromptu show in the NAAFI one
night when his kite went U/S on the way back from the Far East and
that went down very well with the lads. [Lassies were conspicuous by
their absence!]
A huge
parade for the visit by the then Princess Royal, when she stopped in
front of me and asked “ and how long have you been in the Air Force,
Corporal? ”biting back the retort ‘ Too bloody long Ma’am!’
Remembrance day in the British War Cemetery with those lines of
sparkling white crosses—the Last Post still makes the hair on the
back of my neck stand up’
In the
early days, swimming down at the beach in Tobruk but this palled
slightly with working outdoors so much in and around the stores
compound that the idea of sunbathing was no longer attractive.
The
Tears set up was usually worth a listen especially for the request
programmes when you always hoped that your girlfriend or family got
you a mention. I have a vague recollection of a late night show
where the presenter was a Scots lass [medical Officer??] who had the
most gorgeous sexy voice and drove us all to distraction!
In
Newton block I shared, with Dixie Dean of whom more later, Jim
Nichols and Dave Huxley. Dave was the POL storeman and at one stage
was extremely worried when MT fuel was going adrift. All was solved
however when they opened up the storage tank and found it had rusted
away and the petrol was seeping into the surrounding sand!
The
day an American Air Force ‘deuce and a half’ turned up with a tank
on the back looking for 300 gallons of MT fuel for a desert exercise
they were on. He was based at Wheelus Field and I will never forget
his complaint that “ they were sure doing it tough” as they had not
had any fresh orange juice for a week! I do not think he believed me
when I told him I hadn’t seen fresh milk for months never mind a
week!
Less
pleasant memories were the night a native driver turned over a 6
wheel AEC tanker just across the road from our billet, fortunately
loaded with Avtur and not Avgas, and the tragedy of the Hastings
crash that took the lives of some Maltese defence forces who had
been training with our Army in the desert. I heard that they were
due to go back by boat but as the aircraft was going back empty
anyway they were given the option of catching the flight! As the
stores driver I had to deliver coffins to the Sick quarters and the
temporary mortuary set up in the Gymnasium.
They
say that time and distance lends enchantment but it cannot remove
the memories of the other side of the place- the millions of flies,
the stench of the thunder buckets, the lack of fresh fruit and milk
[in the first six months at least] and endless supplies of tinned
bacon and sausages served up in the mess, countless hours spent
guarding the Bomb Dump [most of the stock looked well past its sell
buy date anyway] and probably worst of all, the lack of female
company. A thousand fellas and six women is entirely the wrong
ratio!!
Like
most Airmen of my era, when asked to nominate for overseas postings
I put down, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia [having now seen
Woomera at first hand I am glad I did not get that one!] but got El
Adem. Someone told me that meant “The End” in Arabic and if so was
fairly close to the truth but looking back on it now, it was
probably a character forming experience!
The
one good thing that came out of my time there was meeting Brian
“Dixie” Dean on my first day at work in the Technical Stores and we
are still close friends forty years later. He was my best man in
1961 and I returned the favour in 1962 when he married a WRAF girl
introduced to him by myself and my then fiancée, also a WRAF girl
both of whom worked at the MOD in London. A few years after I was
widowed in 1989, Brian and his wife, Margaret were responsible for
me meeting Jan, an Australian lady and when we got married in 1996
he did the best man job again. Not many people can say they have the
same best man twice!
My
memories of El Adem are probably more intense than of my other two
major postings in my five years service, namely Halton and 16 MU
Stafford, probably due to the isolation of the place and the fact
that you lived in each others pockets almost 24 hours a day. There
was no village pub to slope off to, no big city lights with all its
attractions to break the monotony, so mail and newspapers from home
were avidly shared around and a food parcel from home was like
Christmas. French onion soup cooked on the top of an Aladdin
paraffin stove was ambrosia from heaven!
Bill Blackie. Ex Cpl. Receipt and Despatch
Section. Stores compound.
Group Captain
Robert Law
Pathfinder
Mosquito pilot who played a role in developing the
accuracy of RAF
bombing raids.
Robert Law was a
Mosquito pilot in 109 Squadron involved in operating the Oboe blind
bombing system used by Bomber Command’s Pathfinder Force to achieve
new standards of target marking and bombing from early 1943 onwards.
Oboe, invented
and developed at the Telecommunications Research Establishment,
required pilots to fly absolutely steadily, and for several minutes
often under enemy fire, along a radio beam transmitted by a ground
station (the ‘mouse’) that emitted a pure note reminiscent of an
oboe. On reaching their target, they would receive a further from
another ground station (the ‘cat’) on which they would drop their
flares enabling the following ‘main force’ bombers to hit their
targets with an accuracy not obtainable with Oboe’s predecessor
systems.
Oboe and H2S, a
radar apparatus completely self-contained within the aircraft,
transformed Bomber Command’s bombing accuracy during the second half
of the war.
Law flew 93
sorties for 109 Squadron between July 1943 and May 1945. Of these
82 were flown with C.W.(Billy) J. Falkinder his Australian
navigator. Among their targets during 1943 were munitions dumps and
gun batteries around the Pas de Calais, the Krupp works at Essen and
chemical works at Leverkusen, north of Cologne.
In 1944 targets
included the V1 sites in the Pas de Calais and oil depots at
Geisenkirchen, and on March 1st Law piloted one of two
Oboe Mosquitoes that led a formation of Lancasters to attack a V1
site in the Pas de Calais in daylight from 20,000 feet, the first
time Oboe had been used in daylight. From mid-March until D-Day
most raids were directed on the main railway yards of Northern
France.
On June 6th
Law learnt that his mission, late the previous evening when he was
the first to take off at 22.10 and mark the massive gun battery at
Crisbecq in Normandy with flares, had opened up the air offensive
for D-Day.
In late 1944 and
early 1945, by which time he was commanding the Squadron, raids were
directed at targets mainly in Germany, including one on April 25th
1945, on Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest and the SS Barracks at Berchtesgaden.
Law’s final sortie was on May 4th as part of Operation
Manna, which was launched to relieve a desparate food shortage in
The Netherlands. Between April 29th and May 5th
Lancasters and Mosquitoes dropped more than 6,650 tons of supplies
for the Dutch.
Law was awarded
the DFC in 1944 for ‘gallantry and devotion to duty in the execution
of air operations’ and the DSO in 1945, the citation praising ‘a
fearless pilot whose courage and determination in the most hazardous
circumstances have set a fine example to all who have served with
him.
After the war
postings included Paris, 1951-54, where he was involved in early
attempts to form a European Defence Force, and the command of RAF El
Adem in Libya, 1957-59, some 18 miles south of Tobruk on the edge of
the Libyan desert. El Adem was, in those days before the overthrow
of King Idris by Colonel Gaddafi, a staging post for transport
aircraft, a Vulcan bomber base and was also used by the RAF Regiment
to hone desert fighting skills. It was also a visible deterrent to
a potentially aggressive post-Suez President Nasser of Egypt.
One of Law’s
first acts was to plant acacia and eucalyptus trees and within two
years El Adem had been transformed from an arid desert air base into
an oasis and a resting point for all manner of birds on their annual
migrations between Africa and Europe. Law made the medical
facilities at El Adem accessible to the few local and semi-nomadic
tribesman and their families. If during the long and hot summers
their water ran out, a bowser would be sent to ensure they and their
herds were not without water.
Group Captain
Robert Law, DSO, DFC, was born on November 2 1917 and died on
February 11 2008 aged 90.
Snippets
from EI-Adem 1960-62
By Bob Bertie, Safety
Equipment Section, RAF El Adem, 1960-62
There was great joy on the tent site when told new accommodation was
to be built and the 'Campers' were to be re-housed in prefabs, four
bods to a room and four single rooms for corporals. The numbers of
blocks were limited and allocated to each wing. There were not
enough rooms to accommodate everyone in the new blocks consequently
volunteers were called from the bods in the tents who wanted to stay
put. Amazingly there were plenty of volunteers, some whose time was
almost up at EI-Adem who thought it was not worth the trouble of
moving, while others with the bravo/macho attitude wanted to stay in
their tents in order to boast to the 'Moonies' back home how they
had survived the hardships by completing their full tour in El
Adem's notorious tent lines. Being at an age where comfort was a
priority needed no persuasion. I relished the thought of a move from
the tent lines to the comfort of brand new accommodation fitted with
all mod-cons. I could not get out of the tent lines quick enough.
When all the accommodation had been filled, my job as NCO i/c block
started and, as the saying goes, 'This new broom swept clean' and
with a vengeance, which did not go down at all well with the bods
who had conveniently forgotten how to make up a bed pack and viewed
a sweeping brush as an offensive weapon. What hurt them most was the
return of the one thing all airmen detested, the dreaded 'Bull
Night'. After a few choice phrases and some old fashioned
discipline taught as a wartime soldier and a few little skirmishes
they began to lose that 'Happy Campers' attitude. In recognition of
my efforts and to show their respect, I was awarded the honour of
being mentioned on the walls of fame, namely the toilet walls.
Bless ‘em, how could they have known my parents weren’t really
married. (I wonder where they got the brown paint).
At one stage the tech ‘Wing discip' sergeant had to return home on
compassionate grounds. I was detailed to stand in until a
replacement arrived. One of my duties was to march escorts and
accused to face the Presiding Officer whose office was up a flight
of steps. Originally an old time control tower, it was quite a small
room with a very highly bulled up floor. On one occasion as I
marched them in, 'left, right, left, right’ in quick time, five
paces then 'Right Turn', as they turned right the accused feet shot
from under him. He ended up on his back, feet facing the Officer.
Naturally there was some concern but the lad was no worse for wear,
perhaps a loss of dignity. However, it turned out to be his lucky
day - the Officer feeling benevolent due to the mishap, dismissed
the charge.
During one Tech Wing inspection day by the Station Commander (who
ran a tight station to put it nicely), I had to accompany the
inspection party on the rounds. We arrived at the Tech Wing
airmen’s' accommodation site where two of the new blocks which
housed the airmen faced the full extent of the bondu. Suddenly, the
station commander shouted, "What is that Arab doing there?" as he
pointed out into the bondu halting the inspection party in its
tracks. The object of his outburst, about two hundred yards away was
an Arab squatting down obviously adding his homegrown silage to the
sand. "Go and investigate corporal," he ordered. I walked a little
way towards the Arab, returned to the party and announced, "He's
having a shit sir!" The O.C. showing his anger said, "Then take his
bloody name corporal and get rid of him." - or words to that
effect. Away I went, waited while the guy had finished his muck
spreading, looked at his I.D. then escorted him to the guardroom and
handing him over to the police with an explanation of the incident.
I did hear later he had been deprived of his work permit on the
station. That little episode saved me from doing the rest of the
rounds of inspection.
A few days later when I was in Tobruk I heard this voice shouting
"Hello Corporal". It was the Arab muck spreader - he came to me
beaming all over his face and greeted me like his long lost brother.
Had Allah answered his prayers and sent someone to save him from
having to work for a living - namely yours truly ? It appeared I had
made a friend for life. I got this acknowledgement each time we met
in Tobruk.
On a long weekend some of us 'living in' Corporals, half a dozen or
so, would team up with a civilian worker who worked for an oil
company and who was very familiar with the surrounding desert. He
would provide the transport and camping equipment and we the vitals.
He would then take us to various interesting sites, the Kalansho
Sand Sea and Petrified Forest being a favourite run.
Here we would collect small mementos of petrified tree for ourselves
and also for the guys who, when they knew where we were going would
ask, "Bring us a bit back". We would camp down when and where we
felt like it. On occasions we would catch sight of a desert fox or a
gazelle, a protected specie by royal decree of King Idris.
The Sand Sea was an amazing sight; among the huge sand dunes one
could listen and swear an aircraft was way overhead, when in reality
it was the sound of shifting sand. It was fun kipping down under the
stars after a good cooked meal which we all helped with one way or
another. A couple of cans of Amstel beer helped to induce a good
night’s sleep.
Another great favourite destination was Giarabub a little oasis
approximately 300 kilometers southeast from Tobruk where we met a
friendly Arab weatherman who manned the weather station. None of us
could speak Arabic apart from the few swear words which the English
serviceman always latches onto quicker than anything else. I had
picked up a few words of Italian, in which the Arab was quite
fluent, learned from when the Italians were there. We picked up a
little bit more information from him, not much I'm afraid for I did
not know as much Italian as I thought I did. (Clever sod)
There was a standpipe with a water tap right in the middle of
nowhere in Giarabub and that is where the 'Cheeky Club' was formed.
So christened because we used to gather round this tap in a group to
wash ourselves down, no inhibitions, each and every one of us
‘starkers’. It was inevitable a photograph would be taken at our
'ablutions' and that photograph founded "The Giarabub Cheeky Club".
I wonder how many of the members still have their copy of that
photograph ?
There were times when we would go off for a day on a weekend to
Bardia. There we would have a few hours swimming in the sea and
working on 'that sun tan'. A bit of grub and a few
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cans of Amstel, some skylarking in the sea - a great day had by all.
Of course there was the Bomb Dump security guard duty to contend
with, a necessary evil from which there was no escape although it
can be said that one hundred percent of personnel on that duty
roster did try to skive off from doing it - the rate of success was
minimal, very minimal. I know I used to make out the guard roster.
The highlight of that guard duty was hand feeding the Jerboas, a
desert rat (kangaroo rat) that would come into the guard hut looking
for food. They were likeable little creatures and over the years had
got used to the free handouts and so were quite friendly but only
while the food lasted, then away they would go returning only when
they smelled food.
The worst part of the duty was a Saturday or a Sunday. These two
days would mean a twenty four hour stint stuck in the bomb dump,
very depressing. Could it get any worse? Definitely ….. to be
detailed for that duty on a long weekend or public holidays. The
living-in personnel suffered then but did not have the torment of
the guys in married quarters. That is when money changed hands,
duties would be swapped or a straight deal arranged. Who could
blame either parties, the married man in quarters wanted to be with
his family with perhaps a trip in the offing while the living-in
guys most of whom would settle for a booze-up in the N.A.A.F.I or
just flaked out on their 'pit' (bed). When there was a chance to
make a few' Ackers' and why not, it worked all right with no harm
done.
Shortly before ones tour was up you would receive a pro-forma asking
you to fill it in and join the RAF Lottery. You were asked to name
by choice, in order of preference, three RAF stations you wished to
be posted to. Where this request failed was, how were you supposed
to know that 'Records' was staffed by sadists whose only
qualification was to draw a bent line with a straight edged ruler?
Needless to say you lost in the lottery stakes and funnily enough
you never heard of anyone who had won !
One of the best sights of the tour was to see the mail plane
arriving living in hopes there would be mail for you. Its route was
a round trip, Malta, Benghazi and EI-Adem. Besides carrying the mail
there would be spare parts of various descriptions, food, which
would be very carefully divided, not shared, between the different
messes, also there were passengers, probably people returning from
leave perhaps spent on Malta.
The very best sight of all was the Viscount carrying leave
personnel, postings in and married families to join their loved ones
but most important of all, your replacement. It caused great
excitement to the guys waiting for their families and the tour-ex
guys waiting to board the aircraft back to the UK. As it taxied by,
the only smiling faces to be seen gazing out of the aircraft windows
were the family ones. You looked at the other faces and said to
yourself, Poor Sods !
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