My first trip overseas after 3 years as a Halton brat, as a new corporal, was to RAF Butterworth to service our detached Sqdn of Canberras sent from Binbrook to bomb the Malay Communist rebels in the jungle. Half-way thru' we were sent back to UK as the Suez Canal epic was brewing. I flew on the jump seat of a Canberra all the way back as one of the servicing crew.
Soon after bombing the airfields in the Suez we were returned to Binbrook where I had a notice of an overseas posting...to Singapore. I went on the maiden voyage of the Oxfordshire and, after landing in Singapore, a group of us were given a train ticket and told to go to Butterworth....alamat!
I served at Butterworth on the 'transit aircraft servicing flight' and occasionally went to Penang (Glugor) to work on visiting Sunderlands. The Australian Air Force took over Butterworth and the later leader of the "Baron Knights' (another story) and I drove my 'pride and joy' Riley one and a half litre to Singapore...we stopped at RAF KL for a night. The road then was hairy and full of twists and we saw a few accidents, where we took some people to hospital.. There was also a possibility of hijack by rebels so they gave us machine guns, unfortunately, they didn't instruct us how to fire them so they lay in the back seat.
My post was to RAF Tengah to be a seconded member of the Malay Aux Air Force. We had a couple of Chipminks and would fly them at weekends. Our two RAF pilots instructed the potential aircrew while we lectured the ground crew during a couple of weeknights at Paya Lebar and then practical at Tengah on the weekend..I flew on the Chipmunk so often I was able to return to UK and easily get my PPL.
I think that must have been when Tengah started to get more active with fighter aircraft as we were sent to Seletar to do the same job on the far side of the runway...which had traffic lights.
Exciting times for a young 18-21 year old.
Last edited by Davita; 25th May 2018 at 14:35.