大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Graham Lewis for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr Cyril Creswell and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Creswell fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

At the age of 21, I was called up to the Royal Air Force. I went first to Cardington for kitting out and then to Yarmouth for basic RAF training. I had been a lorry driver in civilian life and went to an RAF establishment in Blackpool for driver training after my basic training.

Trained men were asked to volunteer for overseas postings; we were 60 in number on our training course and 50 men were wanted. Single men, of whom I was one, were encouraged to volunteer. We were issued with tropical kit and sent on embarkation leave. Soon afterwards, however, the overseas postings were cancelled and our tropical kit was taken back. As far as I remember, this was about the time that Singapore fell to the Japanese, so I believe that Singapore was the destination that had been intended for us.

Two months later we were issued with tropical kit again. We sailed from Gourock in Scotland and went in convoy around the Cape to the Middle East. We had to go to boat stations from time to time to practise leaving the ship. We were told to watch for any glint near the surface of the sea which might be the periscope of a submarine. We were also told that smoking anywhere on deck at night and especially when we did boat drill at night was strictly forbidden as a lighted cigarette could be seen from many miles away through a submarine鈥檚 periscope. Officers with loaded revolvers were said to have been told to ensure that this order was enforced with the utmost severity.

We arrived in Egypt just before the end of the war in North Africa. The first task was to assist in setting up what was called an AMES 鈥� an Air Ministry Experimental Station, which was a mobile radar unit. After we had driven the equipment to the required location in Port Said, we drivers were redundant. We were sent to Helouan 30 miles from Cairo and told to find ourselves a tent to live in. We were required to appear for only one parade a day A bell rang to call us out for this.

After a call for volunteers 鈥渢o go anywhere鈥� I made my first trip, which was 1,500 miles to Tripoli in Libya via El Alamein and following the 鈥楧esert Rats鈥� battle zones.

The next long distance trip was to Aleppo in Syria to deliver a fire engine to the Turks.

I then went to Cairo West aerodrome, the biggest in the Middle East. Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt landed there. I rode in Roosevelt鈥檚 car. We had to stick strictly to the roads, such as they were, because there were still mines at the sides, and we had to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front, in case of enemy aircraft straffing.

We made a very long trip in a convoy of trucks to Basra in the south of Iraq. We had trucks carrying our rations and water. The roads across the desert areas were marked with 55-gallon oil drums filled with sand. We delivered the trucks in Basra and returned to Cairo.

The next assignment involved taking part in driving four trucks to Luxor on the Nile south of Cairo. We were like tourists and visited the Valley of Kings and other places of great interest. Driving alongside the Nile one could see people using the same types of simple tools and equipment which must have been in use there for many centuries.

Throughout this time we never knew what was going to happen or what we were going to be required to do from one day to the next: you just did what you were told to do. For reasons of security, we were rarely told of destinations; officers in charge of convoys etc. obviously knew. We normally got our information of where we were by asking local people.

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