Sharjah. OLD airport

[l.garey]

Al Mahatta Museum, ex RAF Sharjah

I was very interested to read the piece by Sandy Hutton about the Anson at Al Mahatta Museum, Sharjah on which he worked. Although the Anson is not in its original markings, like the other 3 aircraft in the museum, it is great to see these planes preserved in such good condition.
http://l.garey.googlepages.com/rafsharjah,almahattamuseum

Another aspect of RAF Sharjah is its involvement in the Jebel Akhdar conflict in the late 1950s:
On 20 July 1957 four Venoms of 8 Squadron flew from Aden to RAF Sharjah to take part in the campaign against “rebels” in the Jebel Akhdar mountains of Oman. The day after their arrival, the Venom pilots were flying in Shackletons to see the area in which they would be operating. The next two days were spent flying the Venoms, accompanied by Shackletons, to drop leaflets to warn the population about impending attacks. Dropping leaflets from the Shackleton was not too difficult, but for the Venoms they had to be stored in the flaps from where they would fall out when the flaps were lowered. On 27 July 1957 the Venoms attacked enemy towns. The same day 6 Venoms of 249 Squadron arrived at Sharjah from Nairobi. 8 Squadron returned to Aden a month later, only to fly back to Sharjah from October to November 1957. The squadron was back again for various detachments throughout 1958, finally leaving Sharjah on 3 October 1958. The pilots found life difficult. The runway was hard sand, which blew up clouds of stinging dust as aircraft took off. The accommodation and other facilities were bad. It is still possible to see parts of RAF Sharjah to this day. Some of the buildings of the old fort are used as the Al Mahatta Museum, and the control tower still exists, though rebuilt. The runway is now covered by King Abdul Aziz Road in the centre of the town! For whatever reason the Venom squadrons suffered many accidents, and stories abound of the number of wrecked aircraft that could be seen around the airfield in the late 1950s. Altogether 8 Squadron Venoms flew 1315 sorties, and 249 Squadron flew 163 sorties. They fired 3718 rockets and 271,060 20mm shells.
On 30 August 1958 a Venom failed to return to its base at Sharjah. It was reported that the aircraft had crashed and that the pilot had died. In October 2003 I visited Jebel Akhdar to find the site. We searched the area around the main village of the plateau, Saiq. Villagers still tell stories of the bombing by the “Americans”. In one village we came across a basin shaped piece of heavy steel casing with a tight screw-thread at one end, which I interpreted as being a piece of a 1000 pounder. We found the Venom, by the roadside at GPS coordinates N23 04’33.4, E57 39’36.4 Only the engine, the central parts of the wings (with the main wheels still retracted in them), and part of the fuselage remain. Records mention that Venom FB4 WR552 of 8 Squadron went down on 30/8/1958, and Colin Richardson, author of the excellent book Masirah, Tales from a DesertIsland confirmed that this was the Venom in a letter to me in December 2003. He was a former Venom pilot on 8 Squadron himself, and a friend of Flight Lieutenant Owen Watkinson, the pilot, flying from Sharjah. It is said that he was strafing goats, and that he was not shot down, but misjudged the pull out from his attacking dive. Alongside the wreck is a small stone cairn, marking the grave of Owen Watkinson.
A fuller text and illustrations can be found on
http://l.garey2.googlepages.com/home
or by a link to The Jebel Akhdar War from
http://l.garey.googlepages.com/home