大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Brighton on behalf of Derrick Hull and has been added to the site with his permission. Derrick Hull fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was in Bari, Italy, in 1945 and I only had a year left of overseas service but still had plenty of adventure in me. Despite the advice "never volunteer," I just couldn't help myself when a great opportunity to travel again came my way. I had heard that a Dakota Squadron was making a move to the Far East, so I took myself to their orderly room and was told to report for take off at 18:00 hours the following day. After a quick goodbye to the lads I reported to 267 Squadron and was allocated to an overloaded plane, with just enough room for us to squeeze behind the cockpit.

The plane took off heading south out of Bari, over the quarry where debris from aircraft crashes was hidden. We stopped first in Malta, El Adem, for breakfast and then flew on to our destination Kilo 26 Cairo West. What a view with the pyramids visible in the distance! Our aircraft stayed for several days and we serviced planes that passed through while we were there. My old unit was up the road so I hitched a lift to say 鈥淗ello鈥�. I was made very welcome and so stayed 鈥榯ill the next morning when I made my way back on the ration wagon.

That evening, before we flew out, I was called to deal with a plane that was about to take off but had a faulty vacuum pump. The vacuum gauge was not showing any suction. So I checked the relief valve, and finding it was covered in Italian mud I gave it a good clean and put it back. Then I had to get the correct vacuum, which was fairly tricky as it involved jumping up and down on the wheel with the engine running, making sure I didn't hit the propeller at the same time! Meanwhile our plane was getting ready for the off, so I grabbed my tools and boarded. With two more airmen on board this time we were even more cramped, but the view of Cairo all lit up was a sight. Towards dawn I headed up to the cockpit and we spotted a large plane heading in our direction. It was a Sunderland and it passed us so close that we were able to wave to one another. It looked rather incongruous flying over the desert.

We arrived at Habbaniya in Iraq in time for a welcome breakfast. Looking around we were struck by the apparent peacetime atmosphere. The whole area was clean and tidy with all personnel spick and span in neatly pressed khaki drill, whilst people stared at our shabby khaki battle dress.
At breakfast the orderly officer and sergeant, extremely neatly dressed including white knees, came to ask us the usual, "Any complaints?" Being the only corporal all eyes fell on me to answer. I explained that we were on our way to Burma, and then the sergeant sighed and went on to mention that as I was a corporal I should be sitting at a different table. This resulted in a coughing fit from the lads, mentioning that such a luxury was not usual in our circumstances. The sergeant and officer turned quickly and marched away, both with a look of disgust.

From Habbaniya we flew east to Bahrain. In the late afternoon after we arrived, we noticed some American planes, "Curtis Commandos" coming in to land. It was then announced that there would be a show at 20:00 hours given by none other than the Glen Miller Band. The concert was held on the sand under the stars and moonlight - it was, as the R.A.F. used to say, "A truly wizard show." I still can see the scene whenever I hear any Glen Miller music. We were back on our journey again by mid morning the next day. We covered more desert area and soon landed in Karachi. This was ideal for most of us and the thought of discarding the battle dress and donning the khaki drill and feeling warm pleased me.

We then flew on to Bilaspur, not far from Calcutta. When we arrived we found a melting pot of old and new ground crew. It was also the place for the forming up of the squadron. It was a week of intense activity and hard work. The instrument section now had a couple of sergeants straight from technical school, three corporals and eight airmen. The sergeants not having worked on aircraft before couldn't contribute much, and so it was down to the corporals to head up the repairs and maintenance work. The actual camp was fairly comfortable with accommodation in Bashas (huts), complete with charpoys (beds). It seemed to be a new drome that had possibly been built in case the Japanese had moved westward. Whilst at Bilaspur we were inundated with Indian school children on trips with their teachers, as they had never seen aircraft close up. They also had never seen Englishmen close up either. We learned that some of the children had walked 40 miles to visit us! After a week the squadron started to move on to Imphal, Assam, and so once again we were on an overloaded aircraft flying east. This time we were to start our real work. We were to start dropping supplies and flying out the wounded, but that is the start of another story!

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