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At the end of 1941, Jeff Chapman was a newly-trained 21 year old wireless operator and air gunner in a Wellington crew. He had never been outside the United Kingdom. Training completed, the crew were issued with some rudimentary maps of the Mediterranean and North Africa and a brand new Wellington ‘1c’ bomber, serial number DV419. They had never seen a brand new one before, let alone been given a chance to fly one. With it came instructions to fly to Heliopolis. Few details were provided of how they should do this. It appeared that their training was over and they would know how to work these things out for themselves. This is the story of his first journey overseas.

To Biscay, Cape St. Vincent and Gibraltar

So on the very first day 1942, I and the other members of the crew I had joined, blissfully ignorant of any lack of experience, took off happily enough in DV 419 at 14.10 hrs, so my flying log-book says, to see if everything worked and to check our fuel consumption. We flew around for three hours without any trouble. The next day we went along to the Severn estuary and tested all our guns over the water. (A Wellington was fitted with two Browning machine guns in the front turret and four in the rear turret. Each gun was capable of firing about 1000 rounds of .303 ammunition per minute).

On the 3rd January after some minor maintenance we carried out an air test for 20 minutes, landing at Hampstead Norris, in Oxfordshire, and we were ready. From there we were told to go down to Portreath, near Lands End, then make our way to Gibraltar, refuel there for Malta and from there to Heliopolis, which was a tram-ride north from Cairo, they said, impressing us with their local knowledge.

At 1235, 4th January, we set off for Portreath. It was a rainy day with 10/10ths cloud at below1000 feet so we followed the railway line nearly to Bristol and then turned south to give it a good miss in case they had barrage balloons up. This is an example of how, on a one-off flight such as this it was very much up to the individual aircraft skipper how he got from A to B. Despite the weather we felt we were free spirits setting out proudly on our great adventure; a small self-contained entity of the war, and let loose from the tight structure of our service life with no problems other than to keep going until we got to Cairo and completely unconcerned as to what would happen if and when we got there.

We followed the south bank of the Severn estuary flying mostly at cliff-top height, our navigator quietly enjoying himself by map-reading for a change along the coast which was pleasantly exciting as none of us except the skipper had seen this part of Britain before; identifying such places as Weston-super-Mare, Minehead, Ilfracombe, Hartland Point, Bude, Tintagel and Trevose Head. A few minutes after identifying Newquay we found Portreath airfield on the cliff-top, and landed without trouble, 2 hours, 25 minutes flying, and parked the aircraft where we were told next to a couple of other Wimpeys among a motley collection of aircraft types.

We hung around at Portreath. The weather was foul but good enough to take-off. Maybe it was bad in Gibraltar? We didn't know. No one told us anything.

We left after four days. Up very early. Take-off 0638. The runway lights disappeared at the edge of the cliff, wheels and flaps up smartly and kept going, turned onto course and gave the engines a rest at 2000 feet, and 125 knots on the clock. We climbed slowly to about 6000 feet and cruised comfortably south. We were a bit jolted out of our feeling of well-being when somewhere off the tip of Brest and well out to sea someone started throwing heavy flak at us. We were somewhere over Biscay two hours after take-off when the sun came up and we had a nice clear blue sky all the way to Gib.

On our left...out of sight...the Algarve coast gave way to the Gulf of Cadiz and in about another hour and a half the next piece of land we saw was Cape Trafalgar. We were then able to map-read our way along a few miles out from the Spanish coast. The memory of those last few miles stays with me forever. The bright green of the land, the white, yellow and red villas dotted about, the beaches, it was all extraordinarily exotic...especially in the incredible clarity of light that often exists during a winter's afternoon in the Mediterranean. And, of course, more importantly, for this is what we had come all this way for...ahead of us... impressively visible...was the Rock of Gibraltar.

The runway we had to use crossed the narrow neck of land which connects Gib to the mainland .It was only 1200 yards long in those days and quite tricky to land on for that reason and if the wheels didn't touch down at the extreme end of the runway one was inviting a cold bath at the other. It was even trickier to take-off from, fully loaded. There used to be a string of boats at quarter-mile intervals at either end of the runway to fish out the unfortunates who didn't make it.

In the event, we made a low approach over the water from the Atlantic side and touched down in the first few yards of the runway and pulled up well before the end. 8 hours 25 minutes in the air, ground speed about 118 knots. A pleasant and relaxing flight... as it turned out... with no problems.

So far, so good. We now hung about in Gibraltar for a few days. Hanging about was a vital part of the war effort wherever one was and one made the best of it. Gib was an interesting place to hang about in anyway and was nice and warm after Cornwall. If there was food rationing we did not notice it and we visited all the sights, saw the monkeys of course, hobnobbed with soldiers and sailors in transit to somewhere or other. Not, of course, that anyone ever said where they had come from or going to, including us; everyone minded their own business. Various aircraft landed, some took-off; we watched them perform these activities with professional interest. We looked at the naval ships in the harbour. We were told that everything that happened at Gib was under surveillance by unfriendly people with large telescopes across the bay in Algeciras and there were spies everywhere. After 4 or 5 days we began to get a bit fidgety and wanted to get on with things.

In Singapore and Malaya the Japs were having their way with us. Malta was being pounded night and day by Jerry bombers, everything was in short supply, and convoys were not getting through.

However in North Africa where we were going our troops were pushing Jerry back in Cyrenaica in splendid fashion and had in fact re-taken Benghazi. Someone at Ferry Command had a bright idea, why not send the next aircraft for the Middle East direct to Benghazi instead of staging at Malta ? This will save much-needed fuel at Malta and the aircraft won't get damaged in the eight or ten hours it will have to be on the ground for the crew to get some rest. We'll put a long-range petrol tank in this one and see how they get on, it was suggested. We were quite excited by this; we would be blazing a new trail to Africa and at the same time not have to land at Malta in the middle of a perpetual air-raid. So they fitted a long, fat, cylinder down the centre of the aircraft which was to hold our extra fuel, about 250 gallons. I don't think anybody at this stage had considered that not only would we be full up with fuel in the ordinary way but we would have the extra weight of the equivalent of about a third of a maximum bomb-load as well. And a 1200-yard runway. It didn't occur to us either for some time but I suppose we thought they knew what they were doing. ('They know what they're doing' became No. 1 in a very long list of Famous Last Words by 1945). Our briefing, if it could be called that, for this diversion into the unknown was, looking back, entirely farcical. It amounted to something like: "Well chaps, the army has taken Benghazi...Have a go at it. Actually the airfield is a bit south-east at Soluch. Get some fuel there and you'll be O.K. And the best of luck.. and try not to fly over Pantelleria...they have some quite effective Ack Ack there." We were, of course, supremely ignorant of what real war, war on the ground, that is, was all about and we accepted these directions quite cheerfully. It never occurred to us to ask such basic questions as...was the airstrip at Soluch actually serviceable ? how far was it, for instance, from the front line, was there a front line ? (there was not, in fact) - will there actually be aviation fuel there, etc., etc,.?

(Indeed, had we had the experience to ask these very pertinent questions nobody at Gibraltar could possibly have known the answers as our experience would show in the next week or two. It is doubtful if anyone, even those close to the action on the ground and in charge of it, knew the location of anything be it troop movements or supplies except at some few hours’ notice; and certainly not our H.Q. in Cairo which would be the only source of information with whom those at Gibraltar could possibly have communicated.)

A lot of sea, and a nice sandy beach

Having been so briefed we hung about again for reasons unknown and eventually took-off for Africa at 21.25 hrs on the 17th January. We taxied to the end of the runway, turned around, did the cockpit drill, revved up the engines almost to maximum against the brakes with the stick right back to keep the tail on the ground, released the brakes and we were away. Our skipper made the take-off of a lifetime. When we ran out of runway he just raised the wheels willy-nilly and kept on flying straight and apparently level because we never hit the sea and kept on going.

It was a long drag along the North African coast with 125 on the clock. The navigation was simple enough, just keep pressing on a bit north of east until Cape Bon was to starboard and then turn right sufficiently to keep Malta well to port. The trouble with this course was that it would probably take us over the island of Pantelleria (occupied by the Axis forces as were the smaller islands of Lampedusa and Lampione further south). As I have mentioned....somebody at Gib had told us that if we flew over Pantelleria they would probable fire at us. He was right - they did - to quite good effect too - but at least we now knew where we probably were and gave us something to think about as up to now we had been in the air for something like eight hours in the dark with nothing to see but the occasional vague glimpse of the coast to the south.

But there was something else now to think about and that was fuel. The wing tanks were getting a bit low and it was thought this would be a good time to see if we could get the spare fuel from the inside tank we were carrying into the wing tanks. If any problem arose over the transfer of fuel we would have an hour to decide what to do as we would by then be passing Malta to port assuming we kept on our planned flight path. By mutual consent of the rest of the crew this turned out to be my job. I clambered over the main spar and sat down beside the thing with my torch. It was cold down there and dark and rather draughty unlike my place between the engines. There were valves to be opened and closed in the right order. The skipper read out over the intercom from the written instructions he had been given. After I had completed each specific action I repeated it back to him. If I did it wrong there could be an air lock. Then I had to pump the handle backwards and forwards. I pumped for a while. There was no comment from the 2nd pilot who was watching the fuel gauges. I kept pumping. After a bit he said, "I think the needle's moving skipper." There was a faint and disembodied "Thank goodness for that" in a Scots accent, presumably from the rear turret. "Keep pumping" said the skipper. I kept pumping. It was exhausting work at whatever height it was we were flying. I kept stopping to get my breath. After I had half-filled one tank I had to reverse the valves to feed the other wing-tank and half fill that, and so on until I had emptied the thing. There are many things I have forgotten but I have never forgotten that tank and those valves and the pumping and sweating and feeling cold at the same time and being out of breath. I felt sorry for myself, exhausted and sick, and went back to my seat and as we droned on and on I think I must have dozed off for a bit, ..and I didn't know this till afterwards...I missed hearing a crew discussion about the fuel position and the navigator had reckoned we might not make Benghazi and in fact the skipper went and checked the auxiliary tank for himself and found no more could be squeezed out of it.

After eleven hours and fifty minutes flying time from Gibraltar the sun had come up and we were still over the sea. There was nothing in sight, and the fuel gauges showed zero. I was dwelling on the possibilities...and trying to remember our ditching drill. It was quiet with both engines now throttled back so far that we just about hung in the air, slowly losing height. Five minutes later we saw a low coastline ahead with what appeared to be a sandy beach. Bill Gunning who was at the controls did not mess about. He just put the wheels and flaps straight down and drove us onto the beach with assurance born of desperation and we made a surprisingly good if bumpy landing on a reasonably hard surface and parallel to the tide line. I would say that this was indeed the landing of a lifetime and airmen sometimes tell these dubious stories about not having to switch off the engines because they just stop - but never, with a straight face to another flyer and expect to be believed - but this did actually happen to us. We had landed. All in one piece. And presumably in Africa.

We got out of the aircraft. The first thing was to gather around the tail-wheel and pee. We stretched our legs a bit, and wondered what to do next. After a few minutes in which there had previously been nothing whatsoever in sight except a scrubby beach in either direction we saw some khaki clad figures approaching slowly and very cautiously. They proved to be a group of Arabs, 20 or 30 of them, from very young to very old, all male, some dressed in cast-off uniforms (stripped from the dead ?). We went towards them uncertainly and an old man came forward. It was obvious that communication was going to be tricky but our skipper pointed to the U.K. on one of our maps. His caution disappeared somewhat at this. Maybe they had confused our blue uniform with German grey. They all started smiling which was helpful. Our navigator now took the initiative, feeling no doubt that knowing where we were on the ground was just as important as knowing where we were in the air, and showed him a map of Cyrenaica. If we didn't know where we were, perhaps he did, he was implying, putting his professional pride in his pocket. The old man certainly did know where he was. He put a finger on the word 'Tocra' he found on the map and kept saying it, "Tocra, Tocra".

I don't know about the others because I never discussed it, but this was my very first contact with any foreign person. With all the arrogance, and the patronising Kipling-esque attitudes one could acquire at an English grammar school in the thirties it never occurred to me that a wizened, elderly Arab in makeshift clothing could read a map as well as I could. My education became somewhat born again at Tocra.

It was decided by the skipper that he and I should go inland and see what we could find. Tocra appeared to be about 40 miles north of Benghazi and seemed more evident on the map than in actuality. If it did exist we did not find it. Nevertheless the slight error in navigation, insignificant in terms of the distance flown, had certainly been in our interests and possibly saved our lives as we would never have made the extra distance over the sea had we been on our proper course and would have had to ditch. We knew later that had we more fuel and made those extra miles to Soluch probably the best we could have hoped for was to be taken prisoner.

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