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RAF fitter two, stationed at airbase’ 47 Jam. (390 maintenance unit). I Arrived on the airbase, dropped off my kit and went into the billet to chose a bed. Ten mins later my brother (Jack Fairey) took the empty bed across from me. ‘It was fantastic I couldn’t believe it I thought I’d seen a ghost’. We were together for 12 months it was nice to see him. It had been 3 years since they had seen each other, in England.

Dakotas (Burma) rebuilt engines and flew them to England to sell as scrap to the Americans to make pots and pans. In 1945 I joined RAF before war ended and trained as a fitter at Locking Airport, (Weston) and left England in 1946.

I was coming home from Singapore late in 1948 in a Dakota aeroplane (I was the fitter). As I come over the Persian Gulf there was oil streaming down the side of the fuselage, the engine seized leaving only one engine to fly and 8 tones of freight. I pushed 4 out into the sea and had to land at Sharja (in Saudi Arabia). I radioed Egypt for an engine, but they wouldn’t send one (Middle east land forces) and they came from South East Asia command so I waited 6 weeks for an engine to come from Singapore. I was 23 and had to fit the engine in the desert.

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