Those of us privileged enough to have been on 48 Sqn in the Far East were very lucky to have been part of a truly globe trotting period in the history of RAF air transport.
Part of this globe trotting involved a crew from the Far East Air Force, a crew of which I was lucky enough to be a member.
The RAF were asked to open an airfield, as yet unused on an Atoll in the Pacific some miles northeast of Fiji in what is now known as Kiribati.
The planners thought this through and it was decided that a Herc stripped of all unnecessary kit was to fly the task with a second aircraft rigged for air drop to be based in Fiji with spare tyres and engineering support. We carried our own techies as this was long before G/E's.
The island airfield was planned with the view of opening up the area to trade and possible tourism.
Tabitewea as the airfield was then known had been built by a small team of British Army engineers. They arrived with their landing craft and off loaded all the kit required to clear, level, drag coral from the lagoon, grade and roll the very short strip.
Our arrival was more than a little exciting as the locals, and there were many, some having travelled a couple of days by canoe had never been introduced to any aspect of aviation so an aircraft was unknown, unseen by most and presented no danger. That was shortly to change. On our arrival they had no awareness of propellers, jet wash but were certainly terrified by the noise.
Tabitewea was governed by a council of male village elders, I think eleven in total and the elders together with a wonderful line of well proportioned young ladies sang and serenaded us as we shut down. The young ladies to cover their naked attributes were asked to wear ex army white vests as the elders had been briefed that the Brits were sensitive to nudity, damn shame I say.
I can see your bored eyes glazing over so I will post a couple of pics of the strip and then a few of the event.
