RAF ABYAD 1951-54
'Another Worst Job in the Canal Zone'
As Remembered By Geoff Blore
In reply to Neill Evans article last issue, I certainly would not have wanted the unfortunate Major’s job, but one of my regular tasks was unwanted, unsettling and very unpleasant. I was the first General Mechanic (new trade structure) to be posted to RAF Abyad in 1951, much to the amusement of the ‘Chiefy’ in charge of the workshops who immediately delegated me to any unusual jobs that came along with the words “you’re a general mechanic. You can do that surely?” and, of course, everyone nearby had a good giggle.
One of the best tasks I was lumbered with was to break into a safe in the officers mess, ‘cos the duty officer had lost the duplicate key, the original having already been mislaid. Fortunately for me, it was a small mobile safe weighing about 2 cwt which I was able to get transported back to the workshops, the young panicking officer following on his pushbike. No-one, me included, had any idea how to open the thing and ‘Chiefy’ sardonically grunted “Shouldn’t be a problem for General Macarthur here!” and left me to it, my only company being the young National Service Pilot Officer getting more emotional by the minute. “Can you open it? Can you open it?” he implored me. “Dunno Sir!” I said very honestly, “I no nowt about safe breaking, I’m not a bl**din’ burglar!” I looked at the recumbent and very uncooperative safe for a few minutes and decided the lock must be fixed to the inside of the door, my technical training see! I triumphantly reported that supposition to Pilot Officer Wetpants. “Of course the lock is on the inside of the door” he shouted “Any fool can see that” “Well I can’t see it” I thought to myself . I recommenced my examination of the door itself, it’s smooth green enamel painted surface steadfastly staring back at me through it’s one eye, the keyhole adjacent to the handle which will only turn when the key has unlocked the mechanism. My few rare active brain cells were desperately trying to imagine what the lock might look like and how would it most likely be fixed. Of course! It’s got to be fixed right behind the keyhole, bolted on or riveted.
I got a piece of rough emery cloth and furiously rubbed at the paint around the keyhole at various distances from the hole. Just nothing at first, only a smooth shiny surface of steel. Pilot Officer Worried-to-death anxiously and closely scrutinized my handiwork every time I paused, I thought about inviting him to have a go, but knocked that idea on the head straight away. It was my only piece of emery cloth and he’d already lost a key! Then Bingo! Success at last. The faint half circles indicating ½” diameter rivets began to emerge, four of them spaced around the keyhole at about 3” centres. I drilled through with a drill only slightly bigger and the lock came loose allowing me to turn the handle and open the safe, enabling a much relieved young officer to retrieve whatever it was that he desperately wanted and scarper. “Hope you can repair that now” quoth ‘Chiefy’ when he’d heard I’d got it open and came to investigate. “You’ve got about 3 hours to do it and make 2 keys”. Grinning, he went back to his desk where he spent most of his time with planning schedules relating to the station cinema and camp shows, he being I.C. camp entertainments.
The safe was standard issue and there was a considerable stock of blank keys in the stores, also small special files to shape and cut the keys to suit whatever lever movement was required. Removing the cover from the lock case was straightforward and revealed the simple lever movement. Being able to see the separate levers moving at the turn of the key quite clearly, it was a fairly easy, though painstaking , job to shape two keys that worked just fine. Fixing the lock back to the door was just a case of securing with appropriate size rivets secured with a ‘Brummagem’ screwdriver (big hammer), filing the outside part of the rivets down and finishing them off with emery cloth. The door was then repainted and I returned the safe and two new keys to the much relieved young Pilot Officer, who, rather worryingly, gazed at me with unmistaken, but misplaced, adoration.
Unwittingly, I was now suddenly an expert safe-breaker and key maker. Well, I knew more than anyone else at RAF Abyad and soon I was ordered to make duplicate keys for all the camp safes as required. Even got a few nice jobs with door locks in the married families block. The occasional sustenance I received was a very welcome change from the muck passed off as food in the cookhouse.
Another pleasant job was engraving.
Yep! Me again! There was plenty of camp sport and numerous championships for
which cups and medals were presented, also special celebratory gifts for officers
wives – watches, bangles, lockets etc. I engraved them all and sometimes
made a few bob doing it, if in my own time. This newly acquired skill brought
me to the attention of the department responsible for deceased servicemen in
need of a quick burial because of the hot temperature. Didn’t matter how
they died, by enemy hand, accident or suicide. A quick post mortem to check
everything was normal (normal?!) in the box and in the ground, preferably with
24 hours! Coffin plates! That’s right! Not many people die at convenient
times and my really bad moments were when I was woken in the middle of the night,
handed the service particulars of the crew recently killed in a plane crash.
The most I had at one go was seven and I’m quite sure no one was above
23 years old. Sitting at my engraving machine alone in the workshops, which
were well away from our living quarters, was eerie and bad enough, but sorting
out the guide letters to suit rank, name and number, d.o.b. and death Egypt
(Canal Zone) forced me to think about their last moments. I hated it!