Walter,
You seem to have been "in the wars !" - congratulations on your recovery, and welcome back ! Just a few points arising from your exciting story (if I may):
...Not a crew - just pals...
And fine figures of young men, too !
...Flying was done by dead reckoning and map reading. No more assistance and "vectoring" from ground station radar...
Same in India/Burma - join the club !
...Our Commanding Officer, Hugh Chater, even came from South Africa!...
In Burma, we had a Wing Commander Chater (OC, 168 Wing). Now from Peter C. Smith's "Vengance !":
...Hugh Seaton, a young Canadian [said]......."Our Group Commander, Group Captain Chater, RAF, seemed particularly partial to our rather small, rather wild contingent of Canadians... we called Group Captain Chater 'The War Lord of the Arakan' "...
This would be the Wing Commander Chater who, by a clever bit of legerdemain, fiddled the inventory in such a way that he had a Harvard for his personal use (which did not exist any more as far as the RAF was concerned). Nice work if you can get it ! (Luckily, we had no careers to worry about in those days - and just as well)....
...Occasionally, we had a respite from the convoy duties, flying at wave-top height across the Mediterranean to keep below the enemy radar defences, and attacking shipping, airfields and supply dumps in Greece, Crete and the Dodecanese Islands...
Not my idea of a respite ! (except in the sense of "A change is as good as a rest" ?)
...Walter on his first camel ride the Sphinx...
Now why does that old poem come back to me ? (you know, the one which ends: "
...and the Sphinx's inscrutable smile ?)...
You appear to have a one-legged camel. Wasn't it rather unstable ?
It's said that there are no wild camels - and no tame ones either ! You take your life in your hands, or so I'm told, when you mount one. Never did so myself (they had plenty of camels in the NW Frontier of India) - nor elephants either.
...The wallet was held to encourage the use of the camel!...
Not a good idea to wave your wallet about in the Levant or any point East ! More than likely to encourage the use of a blunt instrument - you'd awake with a sore head but no wallet.
What was the thing on the side of the camel's face - a Tax Disc ?
Wonderful stories, Walter, just what we need here, More, please
Cheers, Danny.
PS: John,
...'Egyptian PT' was a common expression in the RN, along with 'studying the deckhead rivets'...
Both common in the RAF, too, I heard the second as "counting the deckhead rivets". In India we also had "
charping" (derived fron "
charpoy", the ubiquitous native bed).
Your Dad is an ornament to this Thread. Keep his nose to the grindstone ! Tragic about the logbook, though - it makes it hard to set out a time frame.
D.