大象传媒

Extract from Cliff Gascoigne's RAF memoirs, 'The Life of an Erk.'

I was a fitter armourer in the RAF when in October 1940, I found myself on my way to the Middle East.

Whilst travelling to our dispersal point we stopped off in London and went in a small cafe for a cuppa. Two ladies came in and went to the counter, but just as they were about to order a man dashed in and asked if they would mind him being served in front of them, as he wanted to get home before the bombing started. The ladies agreed, he made his purchase and dashed out again. Afterwards the ladies looked at us and and laughed, saying "He's lucky , we haven't got a home left to go to."

There was a lot of trooping just then and Uxbridge, our dispersal point, was getting overcrowded to such an extent that people were having to sleep on the floor in between beds.

We eventually set off from Gourock on the Clyde heading roughly west. We were three troop transports with no escort. On the third day, smoke on the horizon caused some excitement and we wondered if we were going to get an unwanted bath! What a relief when we discovered it was three more troopships. Now we were six troopships, but still no escort. Never mind we had six 4 inch guns between us, one on each ship and we only had to go right round Africa!

The ship we sailed in was the M.V. Georgic which was about 30,000 tons. It had been a very good liner on the South Africa run before the war, but had had a drastic conversion. We were in two-tier bunks side by side with a two foot space and then two more bunks, so we were pretty well crowded. The toilets were very primitive and were a sort of shelter built on the open deck with a constant flushing of sea water.

On we went down to Sierra Leone where we were greeted by the divers in their 'bum boats.' People would throw coins from the troop ships and the naked young men in the boats would dive for them. They had a young lady with them (also naked), so I will leave you to guess where the coins were being thrown!

We continued on our travels, towards Cape Town. It was about this time that I started to think about May, a young lady I鈥檇 met before leaving. We had been corresponding ever since then and I was beginning to think it was very unfair to expect her to wait for me when I would be gone for years. I didn鈥檛 even know if we were ever going to get back, after all, the Germans had taken over the rest of Europe, maybe they would get across the channel too. So I wrote and told her to forget me. I had a good address for not receiving any replies 鈥淪omewhere at sea.鈥� So that was that, or so I thought. She, however, had other ideas and wrote to my mother who invited her for the weekend. So in early March she wrote again and I answered, after all it was nice to get mail.

We arrived at Cape Town and were told to go to Port Elizabeth as there was some sort of party on the beach. Off we went onto the beach in uniform. A few people were swimming and sunbathing. No-one came near us or spoke to us, so after about an hour we decided to start walking towards Cape Town. After a short while a car pulled up with two middle-aged ladies in it. 鈥淲here are you going?鈥� they asked.
鈥淭he docks鈥� we replied.
鈥淕et in鈥� they said.
So we did, expecting to be taken to Cape Town but about 200 yards down the road they turned into a drive. 鈥淲e live here, come on in, our husbands will be home soon.鈥� When their husbands returned we were given a very nice meal and taken back to the docks later.

We spent one more day in Cape Town and then left for Egypt during night.

On arrival at Port Tewfik, a small port at the bottom of the Suez Canal, we went to the station but there wasn鈥檛 a train to take us anywhere. On the platform there were sacks of monkey nuts, open at the top, so we helped ourselves and had our fill.

Eventually we entrained for Ismailia, a place near to Lake Timsa which I think is attached to the Suez Canal. Next we piled onto another train to take us to the railhead at Fuka. Railhead sounds very splendid, but there was no platform of any description and no buildings, just a couple of tents. Our aerodrome was right next to the railway but the camp was the other side of the 鈥榙rome. I had arrived at 55 Squadron.

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