107 MU KASFAREET 1953-55

As Remembered By Les Netherwood

After being trained as a Bomb Armourer and spending two years on a bomb dump in Lincolnshire, in August 1953 I was posted to 107 MU Kasfareet. The journey was a very long one – Troop Train from Weeton in Lancashire to London, overnight at Hendon, then at 4am taking off in a DC3 from Southend Airport stopping at Nice, Malta (overnight), El Adam (Libya), then into Fayid and finally El Hamra. My posting from there was a much shorter journey – Kasfareet was right opposite El Hamra on the other side of the road. I found myself working in the Armament Repair and Service Workshops servicing hispano cannons – so my bomb experience did nothing to help me! ARS Workshops were a happy place to work with lots of friendly and funny workmates. Kasfareet was a very big camp (nine miles of perimeter fence) with search light towers with nine separate guard rooms around the perimeter.

Everyone had a pushbike to get to work and back, and on asking where I could get one I was told to see “Murray” (he was an Arab working in the airfield battery room). He said he could have a working one in a day or so, and sure enough he had one for me – I paid £5. He told me to paint it a different colour immediately and not to mention where I got it from. From then on it was green with white mudguards – and my name “Scouse” was lettered on the frame. You can see this on one of my photos (against the signpost). I can remember the locals riding bikes with the wrapping still on the frames (they looked like paper bikes).

We had a good Lido just down the road through the village – it had a NAAFI and a jetty into the Bitter Lake. We finished work each day at 1pm (after a 6am start) and would usually pass through the village in a group and spend time in the water – and watch or play water polo. I would occasionally spend a couple of nights in the Station Armoury as Duty Armourer and some weeks in the Armament Section down at the airfield – where the aircraft were serviced (Meteors, Vampires and Austers for the Army Observation Unit who would patrol the Canal by air).

I look back on it now with nostalgia and wonder how many of my workmates are still around – I would love to meet and talk with anyone who recognises me. Most of them are named in my photos.

I can still smile when I think about the Christmas’s there – the home-made Roman chariots with six Roman soldiers pulling them, each section built there own chariot with most of the materials stolen from various other sections – crates were removed from stored aircraft wings and formed the biggest part of the body of the chariot. Where the wheels came from is another matter – I think the M.T. section may have been targeted for spare wheels. It was a race across the sports field and the prize of a crate of beer for the winning section. Our section did not win – but we had a really good laugh at the races, and the next day there were damaged and broken chariots all over the place. It was informal racing after a session in the bar at the NAAFI that inspired some night time racing – I suspect wagers were placed.

My mother’s elder sister lived with her husband in Alexandria – she came to visit me at Kasfareet, and told me she had been refused permission for me to visit her in Alexandria. She was, however, a volunteer at Dumbarton House in Fayid (who remembers that?). It was a club for service men to visit for tea and cakes etc. The ladies behind the counter always made us very welcome – including my Auntie Nellie!!

I was initially in one of the tented areas (four to a tent) and moved to Billet 16 sometime later – I can’t remember how long I was tented – I was there for my first Christmas so possibly six months or so – and quite happy there too.

In February 1955 I returned to Blighty – much faster than my journey to Egypt – breakfast in Fayid – lunch in Malta – tea in Hendon after a bus ride from Stanstead Airport. The transport this time was a York. I was de-mobbed in March 1955.

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