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Chapter 6: Spitfires for Disposal
Now to dispose of those Spitfires!
I was to get involved in two such projects, the first was to deliver a Spitfire to the French Navy to an airport just outside Toulon. This journey was relatively simple and uneventful, the French made us very welcome and took us to Nice Airport where we were to catch a Transport Command flight back to Rome and then to our base. The second trip was to prove more of an adventure. We were to deliver six aircraft to Egypt. Having assembled the aircraft and worked out a sensible route taking into account the short range of the Spitfire even when fitted with long range fuel tanks, we set off. Our first stop was to be Malta, but when we were off the heel of Italy one of the pilots reported over the radio that he had engine trouble. We stayed with him for a while and saw him safely down to an airfield and then pressed on to Malta.

We had a good nights sleep and some good food and then set off for Tripoli in North Africa. There was a runway there but the Air Traffic Controllers didn’t want us to use it for some reason and made us land on a dirt strip. This proved full of pot holes and I managed to drop a wheel in one and damaged my wing tip and pitot head, which is part of the Air Speed indicator. So I was stuck there whilst the others flew on and we agreed to meet up in Egypt. After about three days and much chivvying on my part the parts arrived and I could get on my way again.

The next refuelling stop was to be a staging post in the desert, fondly called Marble Arch by the Eighth Army because when the Italians had colonised North Africa they erected a huge arch to commemorate the fact. It had a passing resemblance to London’s Marble Arch. I had never been there before and when I arrived I was struck with how bleak it was, there was nothing there except a few tents and all the inhabitants were totally mad. I spent the night there and was pleased to get away the next morning, even though there was a forecast of sandstorms. My next stop was in Libya at an airfield called EL Adem, which I believe means ‘the last place’, when I was about halfway the horizon began to fade and gradually everything became blurred and I realised that I had very little chance of finding the airfield. I pressed on until the airfield was due to appear and realised that I had been affected by some very strong winds as there was no sign of the airfield.

It was at about this time that I realised that the radio was my only hope. I called up the airfield and to my great relief got a reply! They gave me a course to steer to reach them and as I followed their bearing realised how far off course I had been. It was a great relief to touch down again, by this time you could only see about halfway across the airfield, and if I had been much later in arriving I would probably either not have found the airfield or the engine would have given up the ghost because of ingesting too much sand.

Anyway after about two days kicking my heels, I managed to set off again this time to Abukir, an airfield I remembered from before. Having landed there, I was struck by the huge wall of crates at the end of the runway. On enquiry I found out that it consisted of crated Spitfires there must have been hundreds there. I can’t imagine what they would be worth today.

I travelled on into Cairo and there met up with the rest of the chaps who had started off with me. By now it was August 1945 and news came through that the war in the Far East was over which was the cause of another celebration. Some of the people on the airfield at Heliopolis decided that they needed to mark the occasion, so they towed an old Wellington bomber into the middle of the airfield and fired signal cartridges into it until it was well and truly alight.

When the celebrations had died down we headed back to our squadron.

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