Canal Zoners - RAF Abu sultan

The whole camp at Abu Sultan was 32 miles square. The Ammunition Dump was 8 miles away. It was obviously far too big for the RAF to guard on their own so the Marines and Army helped, although I do not recall any troubles there whilst I served.

The bombs were loaded by crane onto cabless trucks every day for a 12 noon detonation. The reason they were cabless – well all the bouncing in the desert shook the cabs off. The bombs were held on with tornekey and if a bomb fell off during the journey there was no way of re-loading it so it was buried in the desert for later disposal. Any bombs that did fall off during transit were detonated by our Warrant Office using cordite and dynamite, with a 5 minute fuse.

At the bomb disposal site in the desert, the bombs were rolled off the lorries forming a large pile. Our Warrant Officer (Waring) lit the fuse and we all had 5 minutes to leave. Bedouins came from out of nowhere to collect the scrap brass using magnets to check that they had all the brass. 4000lbs of bombs were also loaded by crane onto barges to be dumped into the Red Sea.

(There was a tannoy inside the tent for early calls such as Cookhouse duties etc. - but we disabled it)

At Work

Rolling bombs for loading	Bombs on lorry
Cabless lorry with 20 bombs on board	Loading bombs onto Landing Craft
Loading the Landing Craft	Landing Craft loaded
Our Bomb Dumping Team
Our team on one of the lorries	The Bedford Tippers

At Play

Our Open Air Cinema	The Green Valley at Fayid
Roller Skating and funfair at Fayid	Roller Skating at Fayid
With the tame ravens at 128 MU

RAF Fayid Bus
Called the Camp Convenience Bus. The seats were hard wooden ones and every time you hit a bump or rock your head would hit the roof and bang your bum on the way down. When you came to a railway crossing, the driver would put his foot down because of snipers. We did get shot at a few times but nothing serious. The rails were just covered with sand like a ramp. I am sure a lot of Canal Zoners remember them.

128 MU Football Team

128 MU Football Team – we won the Canal Cup in 1954
Back Row: Bob Campbell, J Walker, Dartnell, Jones, Len Stiles, Me (Ivor Cook) & T. Griffiths
Front Row: Ernie Stone, Nat Burrige, J. Meakin, J. Cole, M. Master & our mascot “Snowy”
Dartnell Jones came from Llanelli and I think he either played football or rugby for them. Both he
and Taff Griffiths were very good footballers. Ernie Stone was “the hard man” and came from
Leicestershire. I wonder if any of them ever made the “big time”?

Sports Day

I came first in the diving competition for recovering 8 sunken plates

Out & About

The Chapel	The Guardroom
Cinema	Christmas Day 1954
The Green Valley was in Fayid. We used to get steak and chips here and very nice there were too! Pictured here is Bill Tollin from Glasgow - he was a good clarinet player	This Egyptian mummy was in the Green Valley Shop. Someone had pinched a finger off it for a souvenir - anyone want to buy a finger in a match box?!?

And Finally -