RAF KHORMAKSAR

[ian16th]

Zetec2

Were you on 90 or 214 Sqdn?

I was on 214 from Feb 59 - Oct 62, we 1st used Karachi (Mauripur) in 1960. This was a 3 week detachment when we had tankers in Cyprus and Karachi to refuel one of our Valiant's doing the 1st non-stop flight to Singapore, and return.

We ground crew flew out in a Hastings. It took 3 days, with night stops at El Adem and Khormaksar. We stayed in a dump called the North Western Hotel. The orficers were in the Pak Air Force mess, it turned out that we had the better deal!

But, we ALL got dysentery.

On the way back we stopped for 2 nights at Khormaksar, porportedly to rest the Hastings crew, and our MO told us to rest and drink lots of liquid. At this point some wag calls out; 'does that include beer Doc?' To which the MO replied 'Yes, beer is fine.'

So we all spent our day off on the beach with the fenced off piece of sea. Alternatively drinking beer and cooling off in the sea. In my memory, the 'club' on the beach was referred to as some sort of NAAFI establishment. We all thought it luxurious after Karachi.

But thankfully I never visited Khormaksar again. As after that trip, Transport Command always supplied us with a Britannia, which had the range to reach Karachi in 2 days, via Akrotiri.

For my sins I visited Karachi another 4 times though the RAF used a slightly better hotel, The Palace. The orficers also stayed there, no more PAF Mess for them.

My last visit was in slightly humorous conditions. After my almost 4 years on 214, I was posted to Akrotiri, there I assigned to the Green Satin bench in the Electronics Centre. A very different existence to on the line with a Sqdn.

73 Sqdn were going to Mauripur for a 1 week CENTO Exercise in the 1st week of December 1963. But one of their Radar Fitters was tour ex in December, and he might have to go home in the 1st week. So they asked the Signals Squadron to supply a replacement, and I got lumbered.

I was told to report to the Sqdn with my passport. So this nice clean moony from the air-conditioned 'gin-palace', gets a lift to the dispersal and arrives at the Flt. Sgts desk and hands over my passport. He looks up at me while opening my passport and says, 'You know we are going to Karachi, don't you?' At this point he looked down at my passport, he had opened it where it had two pages covered with Karachi in and out stamps!

It turned out that I was the only person on the detachment that had been there before. I immediatly had credibillity and I became the Sqdn Guide!

As for the 'whore's draws' on the Valiant, even as a fairy, I did my time on those bl**dy winches.