- Contributed by听
- Warwickshire Libraries Heritage and Trading Standards
- People in story:听
- Harold Devenport
- Location of story:听
- North Africa, September 1942
- Background to story:听
- Royal Air Force
- Article ID:听
- A4446696
- Contributed on:听
- 13 July 2005
An R and R party (Refuel and Rearm)
From 601 squadron AAF Middle East command, the party of approximately 14 men were sent to Burg El Arab. That was just east of El Alamein. We were there to attend to any aircraft that were damaged and had to land or were getting out of fuel. When you went on one of these missions, you were there for fourteen days. Nothing happened, no aircraft landed so we virtually had nothing to do so we sunbathed. Around midday on about the twelfth day we saw a dust arising in the distance so we thought someone was coming and when they arrived they never stopped which was a good thing as it was a German patrol. We were approximately 5 miles away from Alamein, which meant that the German column had broken through the Alamein line.
Prior to this, the British Army had put in a new water pipeline from Alexandria to Alamein. When the German column reached this water line they were very low of water themselves. So they decided to tap the water line to get some water. The day that this happened the British Army had decided to test the water line, as it had never been used, with salt water so the German column only got undrinkable water and decided to give themselves up.
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