The following story from Ross Singleton-

CANADA 459 Squadron

 

I was on 459 Squadron near Tobruk in 1942-43.  When we went on leave we flew a Hudson or Ventura to Cairo for maintenance, on our return we flew one that had been repaired back to our squadron.

 

On one such leave George Lalor, who was a W.A.G in my crew teamed up with me, we met an old friend of mine, Bob Woods, who had graduated with me as an Observer in Canada. Bob was flying in an RAF Transport Squadron stationed near Cairo.  After celebrating in Cairo, he invited us back to his Squadron.  We continued our celebrations  in the Sergeants mess.  The Squadron had a mascot monkey "Sgt. Shufti Sheifti", who was very highly strung from too much flying.  He was grounded in the Mess and had become an alcoholic.  Each night he went to sleep in a sad state up in the ropes at the top of the tent  that housed the Mess.  He drank only water during the day, but at night he would come down to the bar where people would buy him drinks.  He would also steal food from people's plates.  He did this to me and I became upset, particularly when I thought of the sanitation in respect to monkeys and I threatened to strangle him. This offended one of the RAF Sergeants and he and I had a fairly strong argument.  Someone called the Military Police and I was arrested and put in jail.  The jail, of course, was a tent.  The guard was an Irish L.A.C. with a gun.  My friends bought me a bottle of Cyprus Brandy which I shared with the guard.  We eventually went to sleep.  In the morning we woke up to bright sunlight.  While we slept like two innocent babes, Arabs cut the ropes on the tent, loaded it onto a camel and disappeared into the desert. The poor guard still had his gun and his prisoner, I don’t know how he explained the loss of the tent. When we returned to our Squadron, my C.O., when he stopped laughing, dismissed the charges against me!

 

 

 

 

 

The following story from Kev O'Brien - 454 Squadron

 

BOMBS !!

Also, in Africa, the German soldier was Jerry.  We were very close to the front in Italy and often had Kiwis from the 8th Army visiting us and they called him Ted.  This was an abbreviation of Tedesci (that may or may not how you spell it) which was what the Italians called him.  Also they called anyone associated with the 8th Army Englisi - English, Scots, Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, just about every nationality under the sun (except German).  Get to the point Kev.

 

Right away ------

 

The Italian told this tale - "Tedesci bomb - Englisi run

 

                                      Englisi bomb - Tedesci run

 

                                      Americano bomb - everyone run".

 

Of course over on the west coast where the American army were pushing north Englisi and Americano would have been interchanged in the story.

 

 

 

The following stories provided by Norm Gilham

Pilot - 454 Squadron

 

For a fantastic story of the wartime effort of the girls at home go to Norm Gilham's page

 

[1]  WIN SOME --  LOSE SOME

Shortly after this another side to our service lives began, when the war in Europe ended.  The rumors said we were going to Burma; or going home.  Neither of these came about for several months, and in the meantime the commanding officer asked us to do everything possible to keep all the aircrew and ground staff occupied with organized activities, otherwise we would lose some of them when the time came to leave.  This story relates to that.

 

When the war ended our Commanding Officer asked us to keep everyone together to be ready to head for home, or to further action in the Pacific.  We fitted up trucks with bench seats, and had them doing tours of different parts of Italy, taking about twenty men at a time.  Quite a number of us were running our own “Little Airline” flying VIPS and supplies etc to and from Rome, Florence and Taranto etc.  We flew a spare aircraft to the different cities, where they spent a few days, and swapped over with the next crew and flew their plane back to base.  In this way we were able to see a lot of Italy's cities, including a couple of stopovers in Venice.

 

Another activity was a horse riding school.  Unfortunately it didn’t last long.  One of my crew, Tom Tutin, had a lot to do with horses before the war, so one night we went up into Austria and managed to get two Russian horses into our truck and then headed back to base.  They created great fun around the camp until we had a dinner party attended by a few New Zealanders.  We were far too trusting; in the morning our horses had gone!  We headed over to the Kiwi camp, but too late! They had already sold them to an Italian.  Easy come, easy go was never so true!  At least the Kiwis had something to show for it, a good profit, we did not!

 

[2 -- Norm Gilham - 454]   A Slight Embarrassment

It was quite a dark night on the Adriatic coast of Italy in early April 1945.  One 454 Squadrons aircraft was heading south to base after a successful mission near the Austrian border.  Apart from the engines there was the usual eerie silence of an intruder over enemy territory at night, and then:

 

"Pilot to Navigator"

"Navigator here, go ahead Norm"

"What do you make of that glow over the water at nine o'clock, Ross?"

"Navigator to Pilot.  Looks like a fire, could be a ship."

"Pilot to Wireless."

"Wireless here, skipper."

"Break radio silence Geoff. Request base permission to investigate what appears to be a burning ship."

 

Silence once more except for the engines, and then:

 

"Wireless to Pilot, permission granted."

"Thanks Geoff".

 

I then turned out over the Adriatic Sea.

 

"Turret to Pilot."

"Go ahead, Tom."

"I get a good view from up here, Norm.  Certainly looks like a fire and getting much bigger."

 

All watching in silence as we go further out towards that glow.

 

"Turret to Pilot".

"Go ahead, Tom."

"I hate to say this Norm, it's the moon coming up!"

"Pilot to Navigator, I'm afraid he's right Ross. Have you got a course for base?"

"Navigator to Pilot. It is the moon Norm.  Course to base 210 degrees."

"Pilot to Navigator, thanks Ross.  Turning onto 210 degrees now."

 

We returned to base safely, and we were commended for our initiative, but other crews did not let us forget our "burning ship" for quite some time.  The bonus of course was a little humour at a very serious time in our lives.

 

Another thing I should mention is that most people have the impression that the Air Force operated from established airfields and buildings.  In war time of course, that is not he case.  You simply make airfields as you go along, and live in tents.  454 Squadron was considered to have the best equipped mess under canvas; due to our scrounging in towns as they were taken from Germans.

 

 

The following speech was given by R Jay Christensen

 459 Squadron [Canadian] at RCAF Reunion in Ottawa on 15th May,2006.

 

His Aussie friends in wartime called him "Young Canada" in 1944.

 

THE ILL-FATED DERNA MISSION

by Royal Jay Christensen

 

While stationed with  454 RAAF Baltimore Squadron in Benghasi, Libya, one of our aircraft was severely damaged on 27/2/44, on its return from Melos in the Aegean Sea by two German ME109's.  In the running battle, the Baltimore was riddled with 26  cannon strikes but managed to crash land at the landing ground at Derna, Libya.  F/O Ray Crouch was the British RAF pilot and was awarded the DFC for his airmanship.  We were notified at Berka 3 of the crash, and a crew of Aussie ground crew were dispatched to Derna to pick up the air crew and also usable parts from the demolished aircraft.  Our crew included an Australian Motor Transport driver, an Aussie Aero-engine Mechanic,  an Aussie fitter, and a British RAF armourer, and a Canadian radar mechanic.  This multi-national group boarded the truck transport and headed for Derna, some 200 miles to the east.  We reached the Derna landing ground and found the uninjured air crew billeted at 278 AMES on the airfield.

 

We were immediately busy salvaging equipment from the crashed Baltimore when an urgent radio message was received at the AMES office.  It stated that one of our aircraft had just crashed about 10 miles east of Derna and that the crew were injured and required immediate first aid assistance.  We could see the black smoke rising to our east; and since we had the only truck, we were dispatched to the crash scene. There were no real roads, so it was necessary to follow old tank tracks to stay safely away from possible land mines. A deep ravine prevented us from reaching the crash site, so we left one member of our crew to guard the truck and the remaining four men with only first-aid kits walked the remaining distance.

 

As we came over the last hill, a shocking panorama stopped us in our tracks, and we dove behind some boulders.  A huge Swastika on the burning tail of a German Junkers 88 was not what we expected!  An open parachute was on the hillside, and an individual was walking on the far side of the smoking debris.  Our rifles were being carefully protected back at the truck, and we only had our first-aid kits and equipment in our hands.  The individual turned out to be a British Army soldier who had just reached the wreck and was afraid we were German.  Two of the German aircrew were dead in the burning aircraft, the third member was killed when his parachute hit the nearby hill.  We later learned the Junkers '88 was on a routine reconnaissance flight and was shot down by a British RAF Spitfire aircraft.

 

The vital moral lesson we quickly learned was NEVER PUT YOUR COMPLETE TRUST IN RADIO COMMUNICATIONS.

 

 

 

 

Kev O'Brien - 454

 

The comments about desert lilies

from 'Lilies of the Desert - author unknown' ---- see Poems page

 

brought back to me not-so-fond memories.  They were not cutting-edge technology by any means, being petrol drums sunk into the ground with a second one on top.  Over time seepage and inaccurate usage resulted in the surrounding area becoming wet and dust sticking to it, which built up to form a cone-shaped mound.  One of these structures was not far from our tent, and I thought an extract from a poem rather inappropriate:

 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean-bear

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.