Continued - Part 6
As the bulldozers and earth-movers cleared the trees and scrub, Costains the main contractors built a 'batch plant' to crush the coral and sand dredged from the lagoon into aggregate to be mixed with cement to make tons of concrete daily (below).
Construction proceeded apace with the laying down and concreting of the runway and aircraft parking area.
The new runway takes shape.
I took this photo from the top of the temporary 'batch plant' (see above). This view from the top shows the cleared aircraft parking area being laid with concrete. The wooden palettes were originally laden with the hundreds (thousands?) of tons of cement required to make the concrete.
Meanwhile, a permanent water tower had been built and this shows me admiring the view from the top.
Pakistani building workers hard at work building the new permanent accommodation blocks.
First Jet to Visit Gan — 12th March 1958
12th March 1958: A Photo Reconnaissance Canberra (PR7) jet of 58 Sqn from RAF Wyton, temporarily based in Singapore and detached to RAF Negombo (Katunayake), Ceylon (Sri Lanka) took survey photos of Addu Atoll on 12th March 1958, aircraft WJ815, Pilot F/O Mudge, navigator F/O Lister. Photo runs were flown at 9,000ft. Although it didn't land this was the first visit of a jet to Gan. The mission report stated that one camera was unserviceable. Survey photos are “© Crown Copyright/MOD”.
12th March 1958, survey photo of the full island. Streaks on the right between the island and outer reef show where sand and coral aggregate was dredged from the sea to make concrete for the runway etc. Photo “© Crown Copyright/MOD”
Original tented domestic site is shown including some tents still visible (to the right of the original short WW2 jetty). New buildings are shown too. Concrete laying machinery is at work on the future aircraft parking area / dispersal. Photo “© Crown Copyright/MOD”.
This is the 58 Squadron photo reconnaissance (PR7) Canberra that took the survey photos above. After he’d flown his survey runs at 9,000ft we asked the pilot to do a low fly-past for our cameras, which he did as seen here.
More to come
WT