BEWARE OF THE DOG!
As Remembered By Charles Agar
The following incident which occurred around the summer of 1949 at Kasfareet. I was then at RAF El Firdan but word soon got around to us as we knew all the dog men concerned.
At 107 MU RAF Kasfareet in 1949 there was a spate of break-ins at night in the vicinity of the hangers always in sheds where there wasn’t a dog running loose so the-powers-that-be decided they would ask in the Sgts. Mess for volunteers to do the odd night patrol together with some new ‘green’ dog handlers fresh out from the UK Dog Course. The idea was that there would be an experienced Sgt with two new dog handlers, one with a dog and the other with a Verey pistol. Now this particular night a Dog School Sgt (Paddy) was doing the honours, carrying a Sten gun. When entering the road between two hangars he saw a line of wiley oriental gentlemen jogging across the gap at the far end of the hangars carrying stolen goods. Paddy shouted for the lad to fire a flare and ran forward firing his Sten. There were bullet holes in the hangar walls (corrugated iron) but not in the thieves so, still running forward, he shouted “Release your dog!”. The dog duly leapt forward as trained and brought Paddy down with a brilliant tackle. Naturally the dog had tackled the nearest person it saw running away ahead of it. We never let Paddy live that one down!!
Footnote: Only two usurpers were caught, one was held at gunpoint by Cpl Taff
Parsons, a dogless handler with a jammed Sten gun and the other was caught next
morning by the Auxiliary Police while trying to leave camp as if he had just
finished night duty. As thefts were always from sheds that didn’t have
a ‘barker dog’ running loose in them it suddenly occurred to our
O.C. that maybe someone at the Dog School was reading orders and advising this
gang of thieves where the dogs were being posted that night. It was eventually
found that a Cpl was telling one of the School’s Egyptian staff and he
was passing it on. The Cpl was removed immediately as I’m certain the
rest of the lads would have lynched him. At one stage that year someone supporting
these thieves was out on the airfield with an automatic rifle, believed to be
an American Garrand taking potshots at any RAF personnel trying to stop the
Egyptians. Life was made easy for him as the hangar area was floodlit while
he was in the dark. I would have expected the RAF to have set a trap for him
but I don’t think he was ever caught. But it did teach the patrols to
stay in the shadows.