RAF DEVERSOIR 1951-53
As Remembered By Brian Waghorne
1st TIME ON GUARD
In 1951 they decided that the Empire needed my help so I was sent to defend the Suez Canal – not on my own – there were a few Army bods there as well. I was sent to Deversoir at the top end of the Great Bitter Lake. After only one week on camp I was put on guard duty and transported to the far side of the airfield, an area I had not even seen in daylight. When my turn came I was told to just walk down the runway and the bod you are relieving will meet you. So I crunched off down the runway about 100 yards and the meeting took place.
Standing alone in the dark I realised that no one had told me what I was guarding. Visabily was about 5 ft and I couldn’t see anything that might need looking after. I paced out 10 steps to my left and reached the edge of the runway. 10 paces back and 10 paces beyond I found the other edge. Back to the centre from where I ventured 20 paces forward and discovered a hanger! That’s it, I thought, this is what I am guarding, so I walked round it feeling important. Then I began to worry that this wasn’t the only hanger I should be guarding. I then realised that if there were other hangers then somebody else would be guarding them.
A slight breeze sprung up and I heard little scampering sounds, then glimpses of flowing white shapes in the limit of the star lit vision. These I began to believe were the cunning local theives I had been warned about. I wasn’t sure what they could be stealing from a well locked hanger but felt that as ‘the RAF and the Kings on the spot representative’ it was my duty to do something about it. Well rather recklessly I thought the RAF had given an 18 year old a rifle-bayonet and 50 rounds. So feeling very foolish I carried out the correct challenge. No reslt. Pehaps they don’t understand English I thought. So I did it again, only louder.
The scamperings and barely viable movements persisted. At the end of the third round of challenges I came to the words “or I fire”. As my other requests had had no response, this I did, twice! Then I remembered my Guard Commander’s advice, if there is any trouble put two shots in the air to summon the mobile patrol. So I did this as well.
The first help to arrive was the Guard Commander who grabbed my rifle and opened the bolt with the result that out popped the one I had up the spout. Don’t bother to look for it he said, I’ll record it as five fired.
My stint being over I returned to the guardroom feeling I had acted correctly.
I wasn’t quite so sure the next day when I heard that the gharry driver
bringing round the suppers had reported a bullet going through his windscreen,
but he was ¾ mile away – how far does a bullet go?
One Guard Post nobody liked was the Water Pump Tower, a small brick building surmounted by a wooden 20 ft high platform about 5ft by 5ft. On this was mounted a small searchlight. The Pump House was right next to the perimeter wire with houses very close by on the outside. The shaky wooden rail at the edges of the platform didn’t seem to present much of a defence against bullets or from a person falling off. They improved things a bit by erecting a double wall of corrugated iron filled with sand round the platform. This made it seem a bit safer but you still had to stand up behind the lamp to swing it about and you felt very vulnerable.
The smart lads soon solved this by tying a piece of string to each side of
the lamp. This meant that you could crouch down safely behind the sand filled
wall and twiddle the lamp to show that you were awake. Very soon no one went
on guard without his piece of string!