RAF ABYAD - 1951-55
As Remembered By 4076503 Ray Clinton
Welcome To Abyad
In the summer of 1953 I boarded an old Dakota at Stanstead bound for RAF Fayid. From there we were moved some miles south to a camp with transit facilities, which must have been fully occupied as we were put in a gymnasium to spend the night on mattresses on the floor. After inspecting the NAAFI we settled down but the heat made sleep difficult as we hoped for the temperature to fall; it didn’t much. Someone drew our attention to a couple of beetles crawling round between the mattresses. They were about ten times the size of the UK models and, for all we knew, injurious to health. That kept us awake for a bit too.
Next day we were appointed to our various establishments. With a small group of others I was transported back by the previous evening’s route through the narrow tract of cultivated land alongside the Suez Canal to within a short distance of the airfield; in fact, to the camp next door, 109 MU RAF Abyad, MEAF 25, which served as a Maintenance Unit and was to be the final posting of my service.
It was possible to familarise ourselves with the surroundings in our bit of Egypt only slowly over the next few months as we gradually explored places that were ‘In Bounds’. The Suez Canal Zone, was teeming with British personnel of the various services, in dozens of individual camps. Some of the establishments were clustered in garrison areas such as Moascar near Ismailia and Fayid, near the Great Bitter Lake. Nobody had briefed us on the reasons for this massive presence and we knew nothing of the political background or animosity to the foreign occupation. We assumed we were there to safeguard the international status of the waterway and to protect our own units, probably not from military action but from the activities of some of the natives who frequently broke into camps to steal things.
Abyad with its familiar collection of buildings such as barracks, stores, NAAFI, cinema, YMCA, cookhouse, workshops and so on, was spread over a large area. New arrivals, identified by the pale appearance of their legs, were accommodated in a permanent tented area, from which it took a year or so to graduate to a brick hut. At a glance there were rows of identical ridge tents, each housing three men. On closer inspection it was evident that efforts had been made by the occupants to give them some individuality. Most had been floored over with discarded boarding from packing cases and some sported signs outside with ‘Mon Repos’, ‘Dunroamin’ or the like on them. Others, including mine - B4, had been taken to great lengths to make them a ‘home-from-home’.
The sand beneath them, which was quite firm, had been dug down to form a square hole the area of the tent and about two foot six in depth which had been lined around the walls as well as on the bottom with wooden panelling. On this floor was laid a carpet fashioned from the thick felt that had once lined the crates of aircraft parts. Three specially made slim cupboards supported the tent poles, so that the tent was at normal height above ground. This increased standing room from not just the centre but the whole interior. Steps up to the surface were cut out and lined and the lockers and beds, with their mosquito nets, arranged in a more satisfactory layout. All this was tolerated by the authorities as long a proper attention to neatness and cleanliness was observed. Cables ran around the site under the sand providing electricity to each tent for the sole purpose of powering a light bulb.
As soon as I had drawn the usual items of bedding from Stores and settled in, I was invited by my two new companions to contribute my one-third share towards the radio. A long time earlier one of the residents had ‘acquired’ this set and it had been sold on ever since. “Where is it?” I asked. “It’s in here, have a look for it”. I couldn’t find it. They rolled back a corner of carpet and prised up a square of the flooring. Beneath was a small excavation containing this highly illegal piece of equipment, connected to the power supply via a cable spliced into the mains somewhere under the sand. It had come out of an aircraft. High across the length of the tent was strung a wire, ostensibly for hanging cloths on but also serving as an aerial. Tuned into the Services Broadcasting Station, only a short distance away, the set’s performance was just about acceptable. It was almost as good tuned into London and we used to listen to “Take it from Here” both direct from the BBC and locally off discs of earlier episodes flown out. There were many locally produced broadcasts. Including commentary on inter-service sporting events, quizzes from various service canteens. Very popular were the ones airing requests received from contacts at home or the forces themselves.
As well as unauthorised radios, in some tents there were also various home-made contrivances such as heaters for water and toast. Some time after my arrival our superiors noticed that the power, as metered into the tented area, showed an alarming usage in excess of that expected from a few light bulbs and ordered an investigation. Who carried it out? Why, us electricians of course! We knew where it was going but we poked about all over the place with our little meters and reported that as far as we could tell the modestly insulated cables must be leaking power under the sand!
I committed two sins on my first evening in my new surroundings. With another newcomer I wandered down to sample the delights of the airmen’s bar in the NAAFI. We came across this single-storey complex with a small garden full of exotic foliage that trailed over trellis arches on an approach path. There were no signs by the door so we marched in, only to be caught under the armpits by a corporal who marched us out again. “Where do you think you are going?” “The NAAFI, aren’t we?” “This is the junior NCO bar. Yours is round the corner. And furthermore, I could put you on a charge for being improperly dressed”. We stared at him. What we had done, apparently, contrary to Standing Orders, was to remain in our day-time shorts when we ought to have changed into long trousers at dusk, presumably on account of the mosquitoes. Our bar was a dingy and completely functional place. The ceiling was completely covered in silvery pellets of some sort. It seemed that it was customary on removing the foil from the inside of a cigarette packet to screw it into a ball, chew it until it was heavy and adhesive and heave it up aloft – disgusting or what!!.
If we had waited another half hour or so we should have had no difficulty in identifying the airmen’s bar by the noise emanating from it. There being very little else to do, many men spent their entire evenings in there, getting increasingly incapable and rowdy. Nowhere could there have been consumed greater quantities of the local ‘Stella’ brand of beer, which was reputed to be brewed from onions. I can’t vouch for it myself but it was said that the taste of them began to emerge after about eight pints. So very soon each night the raucous bellowing of vulgar songs would start up.
There were on camp large numbers of native civilians, serving in bars and shops, labouring in workshops and acting as ‘bearers’ in the billets by polishing shoes and other menial tasks. They mainly lived in the village across the road from the main gate, in mud huts with no doors or windows. This village, like a number in the Zone, was not a traditional historic settlement but had sprung up for the convenience of those hoping for employment.
Past this village ran a waterway called The Sweetwater Canal. Even though we were told that should we be unlucky enough to fall into it, we would require hospitalisation and a cocktail of strong countermeasures, it was not uncommon to see a villager up to his armpits in the water, fully dressed, in an attempt at bathing, while another man on the bank crouched with his rear end over the edge. Further downstream someone might be dipping a kettle into the same water for making tea!
The villagers made full use of the clapped-out local taxis. Often one would arrive in the rough space in front of the village. The passengers clinging on the running boards would get off and anything up to six more would emerge from the inside so that several others could alight. All the rest would somehow get back on, with any newcomers, and the vehicle would grind off in a cloud of dust with much waving and shouting. Down the road, at a level(!) crossing, it was possible to see that there was no limit on the capacity of railway carriages either, as trains went through loaded to the windows with more bodies clinging onto the roof.
One of the few options open to us was Fayid Shopping Centre, a mile or two down the Treaty Road. The shopkeepers were native and the whole area was under the watchful eye of the Military Police patrolling at all times. There were a number of good shops and cafes with grandiose English names such as ‘The Grand Auberge’, The Oxford Tailor’, John Bull’s and Freddie Mills’ Emporium, also an excellent camera shop and a NAAFI. On the perimeter, the street traders abounded, with whom we soon learned the art of bargaining. Close at hand was a large army cinema, and, as we soon discovered, a short walk brought you to the shore of the Great Bitter Lake, where a service canteen served cool drinks and food. Here you could swim in an area cordoned off from the lake by several old barges that had been scuttled to form a rectangular pool. Removing your shoes, you had to run like hell for the water to avoid burning the soles of your feet on the sand and when in it you might step on something quite revoltingly squishy. The water in the lake was extremely salty, leaving a taste in the mouth and a white deposit on the skin. But it was so good to cool off in the afternoon sun.
Guarding RAF Abyad
An all too frequent interruption to an otherwise mostly uneventful existence was the necessity of guard duty, which was a serious business, not without dangers. The native workers had to leave the premises by nightfall but they, or others, would occasionally break in later and steal cigarettes, drink, or anything else worth having from the NAAFI or elsewhere. They were incredibly cunning and adept at this, rarely being caught, in spite of our considerable precautions and vigilance. Several possibly apocryphal stories circulated. The occupants of one tent were supposed to have woken up one day in the open air, their tent having been stolen in the night! Another tale concerned an Air Force motorbike belonging to the Motor Transport Section. This section had an area of sand surrounded by garages that had been watered and rolled repeatedly and hardened by the sun to make a yard almost as firm as concrete for the vehicles. With an inventory of all stock due, the transport people had discovered to their embarrassment that they possessed one motorcycle more than could be accounted for in the paperwork, so they wrapped one carefully in protective sheeting and buried it in the yard, flattening the surface again. When they dug for it several days later, it wasn’t there! During this time the yard had been patrolled regularly and was flood-lit all night long.
What I can vouch for is the fact that one night a guard reported a hole in the perimeter fence, another was spotted later on at a different place and in the morning the NAAFI reported the loss of several thousand cigarettes. Throughout this time the perimeter fence was patrolled, with small searchlights sweeping the desert at intervals and extra guards were posted at vulnerable sites like the NAAFI. Then one night, as we looked out across the intervening bit of desert to the perimeter lights of RAF Fayid nearby, they all went out and stayed out. In the morning we learned that hundreds of meters of valuable power cable buried under the ground had completely disappeared. Things had been known to vanish from the mess without the camp’s defences actually being breached. Tins of food were almost certainly passed to the labourers on the toilet wagon, who dropped them inside their fetid tank, to be retrieved later on when they were outside the camp.
Guard duty covered the twelve hours from six pm to six am and, at certain sensitive sites, the full 24 hours, all undertaken in shifts, with two hours ‘on’ and four hours ‘off’ in rotation. The entire boundary was patrolled in modest beats, with the NAAFI and the station’s own electricity generating station being among extra locations. All this resulted in a large contingent every night being on duty, which therefore came round less than every fortnight.
During the winter it would get very cold indeed at night. Not only were we grateful for the thicker blue uniforms worn at this time of year but at night we put on our pyjamas under them and then our greatcoats over them.
Having been listed for duty, we reported at the armoury to draw a rifle and some rounds of ammunition, then fell in on the parade ground to form the official party to celebrate the daily lowering of the Royal Air Force flag, which was accompanied by a rendition of the Last Post. Duty Buglers were excused other duties, so volunteers abounded, with or without much musical talent, and it was difficult to keep a straight face at such a solemn occasion as some of them struggled to produce a recognizable version. We then marched to the guardroom to be allocated our patrols.
Regularly during the shift you marched back and forth, sometimes meeting your neighbour at the turn-round point, and occasionally stopped to sweep the terrain outside the wire fence with a small searchlight mounted on a tower. Time dragged, particularly on a late shift in the small hours. I used to force myself not to look at my watch, counting seconds in my head to estimate the passing of another ten minutes. The time elapsed usually turned out to be about three minutes.
The biggest problem was how to address the Orderly Officer, who plodded round the entire place at some time during the night to see if there was anything to report or, I suppose, to see if you were still awake. They were all different. Standing instructions were to challenge all comers with “Halt! Who goes there?” followed, if appropriate, with “Place your identification on the ground and retreat”. You then inspected this (in the dark!) and allowed the visitor to advance. If you did this to the Orderly Officer he was likely to explode with impatience and say “You can see perfectly well who I am” and give you a severe telling off. If, on the other hand, you recognized an officer approaching, from inside the wire of course, and said, “Good evening, sir” you had probably picked one of those who expected the full protocol, who would say “But for all you know I am an Arab in disguise” and threaten to put you on a charge.
One night, while staring out into the darkness across the sand, I thought I picked out something white in the distance, moving slightly among the shallow dunes. The next time it appeared to have moved a bit nearer. I didn’t see how it could be anything other than an Arab in his white jellaba, stealing gradually further forward on his stomach. With some apprehension I cocked my rifle and prepared to challenge when a final light breeze brought the object right up to the fence. It was a piece of newspaper.
During the off-shift period we could slip away to the NAAFI or YMCA in the evening but during the night we dossed down, fully dressed, on bunks in the guardroom. Sleep was virtually impossible, and the four-hour break would be interrupted half-way through by others changing shifts. On one occasion, in the dead of night, the whole off-shift guard was roused and turned out for an emergency. A large theft had occurred and the perpetrators were believed to be making off across the desert. Some of us jumped onto lorries, which shot off over the sand.
“Put one up the spout and release the safety catch”, the sergeant ordered.
For the first and thankfully the last time I considered the real possibility that I might be ordered to shoot somebody. We never found anyone.
The small lamps around the wire were very feeble but at one point near the rear of the camp stood a real 90 centimeter searchlight and we electricians were frequently appointed to the patrol where it was. The first task each evening was to start up its large diesel generator, which stood on the back of a lorry. This took some doing as you opened up the valves and struggled to get enough momentum going with the starting handle, before slamming the valves closed again. All this customarily took a number of attempts. At intervals, when you wanted to use the light, you set the two carbons close together, switched on and flinched from the small explosion of the resulting arc, then pulled the carbons apart until maximum illumination was obtained. This powerful beam could light up everything in its path, even the slopes of the small hill some distance away. The movements were controlled at the end of a long arm by a wheel over a semi-circular trench worn by constant use. Strict instructions were issued to keep the beam at ground level, as someone had recently trained it on a plane landing at RAF Fayid, blinding the pilot, who had been obliged to circle until a message had been relayed to the guard.
One of the
sites requiring 24 hour cover was a large gap in the fence on the side facing
the airfield next door, filled with half a dozen portable barriers covered
in barbed wire. This duty fell to me only once, thankfully. The time dragged
interminably throughout the four cycles of ‘on and off’ periods,
day and night. In mid-afternoon I watched a large aeroplane approaching across
the space between the two camps. To my consternation it taxied right up to
me. The pilot, who I could see was a commissioned officer, shouted and gesticulated
at me. I approached, saluted and challenged him. I had no instructions about
this sort of thing. He waved his arms some more and, over the noise of the
engines, mouthed a request to be admitted. I hesitated.
“Open the damn gate when you’re ordered” he yelled.
I quite easily lip-read what he said and yanked sections of the barrier out
of the way. The aircraft duly came through and made its way to a hangar for
some sort of maintenance. I really wish I had been forewarned.
One of the snags about the recurrent spells of guard duty was the danger of omitting to turn up for them, with the inevitable consequence of being put on a charge. It was absolutely essential to scan the official notice board on a daily basis to see whether you were detailed for duties, this being the only source of such information. This board also notified all other important facts, such as examination results and carried a regular Situation Report or SITREP. This document informed us of all noteworthy incidents throughout the Zone. From it we learned, at different times, that a civilian cinema manager had been attacked and badly injured in the theft of his takings and that motorcycle dispatch riders after dark should know that wires had been seen stretched across roads to bring them down (also for what cash could be had) and many other such items.