A Spitfire Pilot - Part 29
Disembarkation at Gibraltar, November 1942
We’d left Liverpool on 20th October and we disembarked at Gibraltar on 6th November. We were given our billets, which turned out to be Nissen huts on some part of The Rock, quite where we could never find out, but we weren’t too enamoured of the food, everything seemed to taste of oil, and you could smell oil for mile, it was quite a sickly business. One or two of us managed to get down into Gibraltar town, which wasn’t too bad. The main street had lots of bars in it, most of them seemed to be up on the first floor and you’d start going up the stairs, to meet some chap hurtling down because he’d been a bit too drunk and had been thrown out by the local bar-tenders.
It was quite often the case, you’d walk along the road and a chap would shoot out from the doorway in front of you and collapse on the pavement. I had a meal with David Cox once, which was sold as steak and it was very, very tasty, but we learnt afterwards it was horse, but it still tasted alright.
We had very little money with us, but what little we had we changed into French Francs and sat around, waiting to hear what we were supposed to do. Well after a little while we learnt that they’d invaded North Africa and we were to fly up to Algiers. I managed to send a cablegram off to Mum, to say that we’d arrived somewhere, I obviously couldn’t tell her where, but I did mention that I’d met a chap from our old swimming club. Now I hadn’t actually met him, but it had been said that he was in Gibraltar, and so I thought that Mum would add two and two together and work out where I was. But she knew somebody in Cable & Wireless and they managed to track down that my original cable had come from Gibraltar, so at least Mum did have some news and she sent a cable out to me, which was the first communication any of us had when we finally got to Souk el Arba.
A long transit to Maison Blanche
We spent a few days wandering around Gib, most of the time in bars or going to the local cinema and finally were told to collect some flying gear and get down on the airstrip, which we did. Now none of the aircraft had any registration numbers or lettering of any kind on them and they were also the tropical mod type Spit, which means they had a great
big airscoop underneath the propeller boss and they were also fitted with long range tanks. Now none of us had ever flown an aircraft with a long range tank and we had no idea of how they’d fly or what we had to do to get them off the ground, we were just told to get to the end of the runway and follow your leader. So we undid the armour-plating behind the seat, stuffed our parachute bags in the back, put the armour-plating back, got in the aircraft and sat and waited and eventually Bob Oxspring took off and we all followed one after the other. But by this time all sorts of other squadrons were taking off and there were Spitfires right, left, and centre, and as I say, none of them had any markings at all, and it was more by luck than judgement that we managed to get in some sort of formation and head for Algiers.
Now, I must admit, even to this day, I have no idea how a long range tank works and whether it takes you off and when it finishes you go on to your main tank, or whether you start with your main tank and then transfer to the auxiliary tank. But in any event we flew very gingerly and we all managed to find our way to Algiers, which was like an ants nest. It’s a large aerodrome, but it was packed solid with every kind of aircraft you could think of, from B-17s to practically Tiger Moths, little tiny aircraft that the French had been using and the circuit was another mass of aircraft going round and round. Anyway, we all managed to land without too much difficulty and not knowing where to go we just taxied to a spare spot off the runway and sat there. Eventually some character came up and took our details and we were told to find somewhere to eat and sleep.
Well the only thing we could find in the way of a restaurant, was a small sort of café on the edge of the aerodrome, where we all piled in and had a rather greasy meal and then we had to try and find sleeping accommodation and we couldn’t, so we finished up, wrapped up in whatever clothes we’d got, on the floor of the hangar and it wasn’t too comfortable, particularly as they used to bomb Algiers, night after night, although fortunately nothing came near us.