RAF Gan 1958 and Later
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RAF Gan 1958 and later
I joined 205 Squadron at Changi in August 1958. The Sunderlands at Seletar were being phased out but were still landing in the lagoon at Gan. Aircraft going to the Far East were transiting through RAF Katanayaka, north of Colombo.
In August 1959 there was an "incursion" on Gan from the North Maldivians and things got a bit heated. I went with my boss to Katanayaka. When we arrived there we were told that there was reported a Russian cruiser in Male. We were sent to check, low level, but when we got there the harbour was empty. We carried on and landed at Gan. At that time it was not really open and the HQ and control was an atap hut. We stopped for lunch but the food was awful. We decided that we would bring fresh food in our Shack from Ceylon.
Now started Operation Gay, not what it means nowadays!
This consisted of carrying out a reconnaissance of all the islands every other day from Male down to Gan reporting any signs of military activity and strange ships, landing at Gan and returning direct to Katanayaka. A nice gesture was when we landed at Kat we were met by a pretty Ceylonese girl with a tray of tea! Rack trip to Gan we would take fresh eggs, vegetables etc, and this continued when we eventually moved in and brought food from Singapore.
We carried out these patrols with one aircraft until Gan was opened for business and we kept two Shackletons for S and R at the end ofNovember1959 for two weeks at a time, the relieved Shack waiting until the relief was airborne from Changi.. we still carried out our reconnaissance up the islands, but in the end it died the death. When we moved in to Gan we were given the air conditioned transport command rooms, but we all decided that going in and out of the different temperatures was a bind so we opted for non air conditioned ones. One of the medical officers wanted to specialise in tropical medicine. Elephantiasis was endemic on the islands and he would go over to Hittadu in the evenings as that is when the insects were active. I did take the Sqn leader Admin up to Katanaike one night as he had to have an operation for appendicitis. Poor chap had to climb up the ladder as we couldn't turn a stretcher in the fuselage. He recovered! There was a visit of RAF Javelins, and we positioned off Karachi to escort them to Gan and next day over the Bay of Bengal en route to Singapore. One Shack went on a Jolly to Mauritius, so when I was there we did a lot of flying. My crew did SAR over Christmas 1959. The chieftain gave the OM a turtle as a gift but nobody had the heart to kill it so we returned it to the lagoon at midnight. When I was there our biggest worry was that if a SAA or Qantas a/c went in half way from Perth to Mauritius we would only have two hours on task. The Queen Mum diverted to Gan, not when I was there, saw a Shackleton and said "that is one of ours" but was dissuaded from using it to get home. With only eight aircraft and two at Gan, one on SAR at Changi, we never had a full complement at Changi. Gan did eventually have more facilities, but we left them in the lurch, and I hope they succeed with a Resort.
In August 1959 there was an "incursion" on Gan from the North Maldivians and things got a bit heated. I went with my boss to Katanayaka. When we arrived there we were told that there was reported a Russian cruiser in Male. We were sent to check, low level, but when we got there the harbour was empty. We carried on and landed at Gan. At that time it was not really open and the HQ and control was an atap hut. We stopped for lunch but the food was awful. We decided that we would bring fresh food in our Shack from Ceylon.
Now started Operation Gay, not what it means nowadays!
This consisted of carrying out a reconnaissance of all the islands every other day from Male down to Gan reporting any signs of military activity and strange ships, landing at Gan and returning direct to Katanayaka. A nice gesture was when we landed at Kat we were met by a pretty Ceylonese girl with a tray of tea! Rack trip to Gan we would take fresh eggs, vegetables etc, and this continued when we eventually moved in and brought food from Singapore.
We carried out these patrols with one aircraft until Gan was opened for business and we kept two Shackletons for S and R at the end ofNovember1959 for two weeks at a time, the relieved Shack waiting until the relief was airborne from Changi.. we still carried out our reconnaissance up the islands, but in the end it died the death. When we moved in to Gan we were given the air conditioned transport command rooms, but we all decided that going in and out of the different temperatures was a bind so we opted for non air conditioned ones. One of the medical officers wanted to specialise in tropical medicine. Elephantiasis was endemic on the islands and he would go over to Hittadu in the evenings as that is when the insects were active. I did take the Sqn leader Admin up to Katanaike one night as he had to have an operation for appendicitis. Poor chap had to climb up the ladder as we couldn't turn a stretcher in the fuselage. He recovered! There was a visit of RAF Javelins, and we positioned off Karachi to escort them to Gan and next day over the Bay of Bengal en route to Singapore. One Shack went on a Jolly to Mauritius, so when I was there we did a lot of flying. My crew did SAR over Christmas 1959. The chieftain gave the OM a turtle as a gift but nobody had the heart to kill it so we returned it to the lagoon at midnight. When I was there our biggest worry was that if a SAA or Qantas a/c went in half way from Perth to Mauritius we would only have two hours on task. The Queen Mum diverted to Gan, not when I was there, saw a Shackleton and said "that is one of ours" but was dissuaded from using it to get home. With only eight aircraft and two at Gan, one on SAR at Changi, we never had a full complement at Changi. Gan did eventually have more facilities, but we left them in the lurch, and I hope they succeed with a Resort.
The tradition of a bomb bay pannier full of fruit and veg to Gan continued on the 205 Shack changeover until late 1970 (ish), equally distributed between the messes and paid for 'at cost' - the crew paid for everything and got their money back on arrival. An equitable and much appreciated service. This all came to a halt with the arrival of a new NAAFI manager. When he 'discovered' this trade he played the 'NAAFI is the only 'allowed' importer' and complained to the Stn Cdr, all done behind closed doors. So when the next Shack arrived he appeared on the pan and insisted he bought all the fresh goods - the crew had no choice (he was backed up by the CO) - but assumed it would then be distributed as normal. However, nothing appeared in any of the Messes, but the NAAFI shop suddenly had fruit and veg for sale at astronomical prices - individual apples, oranges etc for more than the crew had paid (and sold) per pound, and the Messes complained they couldn't afford his prices. His excuse - he had the right to cover transportation costs for all his goods evenly! Funnily enough, most of the stuff rotted on the shelves or in his storeroom. And that was the end of the fresh food delivery.
PS - No mention yet of the water from the artesian wells (which had a taste all of its own), or the Wave Victor, the RFA permanently anchored in the lagoon with tanks full of fresh water for visiting vessels but not for Gannites!
PS - No mention yet of the water from the artesian wells (which had a taste all of its own), or the Wave Victor, the RFA permanently anchored in the lagoon with tanks full of fresh water for visiting vessels but not for Gannites!
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Losing the annual 2 weeks leave to the joys of the far east would have been, well, demoralizing to say the least. Pity the poor CO tasked with that announcement to the troops...!
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
I used to pick up a suitcase full of fruit from the Greens Shop at Akrotiri and deliver the same day to Gan. The padre was the one who college if from me.
As for the aircon accommodation was actually paid for by Bomber command for Blue Rangers, the Blue Steel soryiexy to Woomera.
As for the aircon accommodation was actually paid for by Bomber command for Blue Rangers, the Blue Steel soryiexy to Woomera.
I used to pick up a suitcase full of fruit from the Greens Shop at Akrotiri and deliver the same day to Gan. The padre was the one who college if from me.
As for the aircon accommodation was actually paid for by Bomber command for Blue Rangers, the Blue Steel soryiexy to Woomera.
As for the aircon accommodation was actually paid for by Bomber command for Blue Rangers, the Blue Steel soryiexy to Woomera.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
TC, was the regular user as they were there more often than the Bomber crews. I did my first OCU with a Wg Cdr as my plotter. He told me, he had flown to Oz single Nav on one of the ferry flights.
Last edited by Pontius Navigator; 26th Mar 2017 at 10:35.
Opening of the crew bar for one hour after the arrival of a Transport/Air Support Command flight at Bahrain Airport, Gan Blue Lagoon and the Changhi Creek Hotel was an official requirement. According to the medics crews needed to rehydrate after longhaul flights. With a bit of luck another arrival before the hour was up would ensure we were properly watered. During far east resupply excercises they could be open 24 hours non stop.
Happy days.
Happy days.
BRAKEDWELL
Not to forget the chips and sausages!
I don't think I had ever had a beer before lunchtime until I became an Ascoteer.
If you were a slip crew at Gan, you just had to call in at the Blue Lagoon half an hour or so after an arriving aircraft and catch up with the gossip. It would have been rude not to have a beer with them as well wouldn't it?
Not to forget the chips and sausages!
I don't think I had ever had a beer before lunchtime until I became an Ascoteer.
If you were a slip crew at Gan, you just had to call in at the Blue Lagoon half an hour or so after an arriving aircraft and catch up with the gossip. It would have been rude not to have a beer with them as well wouldn't it?
Not to forget the manic table football games !
Hercules eye view only minutes away from the first beer.
Hercules eye view only minutes away from the first beer.
Last edited by ancientaviator62; 26th Mar 2017 at 09:05. Reason: spelling
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Hi Warmtoast and Everyone else thats been to Gan.
We run a flying school in Gan at the airport. The airport has recently been upgraded and now boasts a 3.5 km runway.
The name of the school is Asian Academy of Aeronautics. Flight Training | Flying School | AAA
Warmtoast thank you for the beautiful history.
Please do get in touch with us - Flight Training | Flying School | AAA - if you can come over for a few days. We can take you up for a scenic aerial view of the island and some of the luxury resorts that are situated around us.
We run a flying school in Gan at the airport. The airport has recently been upgraded and now boasts a 3.5 km runway.
The name of the school is Asian Academy of Aeronautics. Flight Training | Flying School | AAA
Warmtoast thank you for the beautiful history.
Please do get in touch with us - Flight Training | Flying School | AAA - if you can come over for a few days. We can take you up for a scenic aerial view of the island and some of the luxury resorts that are situated around us.
Thread Starter
synthia331
TVM - Very interesting.
When I visited Shangri-La's Resort in Villingili a couple of years ago I recall seeing a Cessna flying around Gan - one of yours I assume?
Regards
WT
TVM - Very interesting.
When I visited Shangri-La's Resort in Villingili a couple of years ago I recall seeing a Cessna flying around Gan - one of yours I assume?
Regards
WT
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Yes that was ours
Hi WT, Apologies for the delayed response.
Yes, that was our Cessna.
Are you planning to visit GAN anytime soon. I would love to plan a history lesson with yourself and our students to teach them something about the Island.
Yes, that was our Cessna.
Are you planning to visit GAN anytime soon. I would love to plan a history lesson with yourself and our students to teach them something about the Island.
Thread Starter
synthia331
Sadly no. My 2014 visit was courtesy Shangi La's Willingi Resort - there is no way I would pay £450 per night for half-board accommodation, even though the villa I occupied for five nights was absolutely superb.
WT
Are you planning to visit GAN anytime soon
WT
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Stay with the flying school
Hi WT, I do understand the rates at Shangri-La are ridiculous.
We have an in-house accommodation facility, with beach side rooms. You are welcome to stay with us. Have a look at our flying school at Flight Training | Flying School | AAA
Please do let me know. Would love to have you over.
We have an in-house accommodation facility, with beach side rooms. You are welcome to stay with us. Have a look at our flying school at Flight Training | Flying School | AAA
Please do let me know. Would love to have you over.
wonderful stories about Gan, the old Maldives and your RAF staging post
My experience first to the Maldives (where was that i thought? although I did see a nice article in the London Evening Standard in 1979 and thought yes, Mmmm) was in March 1979 or 1980 when I had over a months leave to use up after working on the PIA 707 contract we had in KHI before going home to BMA at LHR where I was a D/O
(BMA British Midland Airways and we had 707 leasing contracts all over the place)
PIA kindly offered us BMA staff free tickets anywhere they went so I thought lets go to Ceylon on an old PIA Boeing 720B!
Landing at katunayake Colombo airport at around 0100 in the morning was a very spooky experience indeed in the pitch black with nothing to see below you knowing that Loftleiğir Icelandic and Martinair had both pranged DC8's on Hadj flights on approach to there in the recent past with total or huge loss
- had a fab 10 days at CMB Mount Lavinia Hotel and down to stay at Hikkadua and Galle and I got to meet the then new Air Lanka SM who said why not go to the Maldives - we have just started a weekly 737 flight - I cannot give you a free standby as its always full but a 50% firm came my way and I duly booked myself on for a week at first.
the 737-200 was not new but the new Air Lanka crew and service was amazing - we landed at Hulule (MLE) which was not much more than a coral strip and was rough for a 737 and the terminal was an open air affair with a tin roof and fans going around with a line up at the jetty of dhoni boats
Hmm what next I thought - no hotels here - but after passport were checked there were a line of resort owners lining up like the Greeks do at ferry ports shouting at you if you need rooms but in the case of Male 'do you need an island'
well yes i do - a charming Ozzie guy called me over said he and his Scottish wife had a new island 2 hours north by dhoni boat called Gasfinolhu (very long and flat with two tall palm trees in the middle) $15 a day full board - Hmm that's quite alot for young lad from London but I thought Hey Ho Ok lets go and off we sailed into the sunset after first a supplies stop at the then very old fashioned crazy and traditional harbour at Male to pick up beers cokes fruit veg etc etc
well there followed an amazing 'no news no shoes' 3 weeks experience of sand floors in delightful thatched huts with a new shared clean ablutions block with water pumped up from the ground which no soap would ever lather and wonderful lazy days eating al fresco with chilled beers and cokes ( they had a generator for the honesty-bar big fridge and a few light bulbs that went off at 11pm then it was lanterns)
grilled fish cooked over the sand and fresh pineapples tiny bananas and coconut juice
I actually stayed 3 weeks and had the most amazing Robinson Crusoe desert island holiday swimming snorkelling and watching baby sharks play in the lagoon
we took dhoni trips to local and to the then few new resort islands but never got to Gan as it was so far down south although I asked about it
my love affair with the Maldive began then and I went back a few years later only to find the airport now with Air Lanka and LTU Tristars, Condor and Balair DC-10's and an Alitalia 747!
How things changed in the few years - One highlight was sitting on the beach at Bandos an LTU Tristar did a low level fly by twice at around 500' over the lagoon - their party trick to show their pax how beautiful the islands were.
I will go back to the Maldives one day but only if i can find a remote island that does not charge 450$ a day and one that has a ''no news no shoes'' ethos - does any still exist?
rog
PS
flew home CMB-KHI on the oldest DC-8 flying (was a Swissair ship HB-IDB) which by now was op'd by Cargolux and leased to PIA - goodness that was quite a flight leaving CMB at 0100
braking was poor or failed on landing at a very dark KHI and the full power thrust reverse saved us from going off into the sand - we taxied in with the FD crew not saying a word but they looked very white or green when they came out of the cockpit on our deplaning !
LX-IDB was retired a month later
then i jumped on a PIA 747-200 ex TAP ''all stations to LHR''
dep KHI at 0700 which then called at DXB(just a pile of sand then) FCO FRA AMS CDG (or was it ORY) then LHR by late evening
what a trip home
My experience first to the Maldives (where was that i thought? although I did see a nice article in the London Evening Standard in 1979 and thought yes, Mmmm) was in March 1979 or 1980 when I had over a months leave to use up after working on the PIA 707 contract we had in KHI before going home to BMA at LHR where I was a D/O
(BMA British Midland Airways and we had 707 leasing contracts all over the place)
PIA kindly offered us BMA staff free tickets anywhere they went so I thought lets go to Ceylon on an old PIA Boeing 720B!
Landing at katunayake Colombo airport at around 0100 in the morning was a very spooky experience indeed in the pitch black with nothing to see below you knowing that Loftleiğir Icelandic and Martinair had both pranged DC8's on Hadj flights on approach to there in the recent past with total or huge loss
- had a fab 10 days at CMB Mount Lavinia Hotel and down to stay at Hikkadua and Galle and I got to meet the then new Air Lanka SM who said why not go to the Maldives - we have just started a weekly 737 flight - I cannot give you a free standby as its always full but a 50% firm came my way and I duly booked myself on for a week at first.
the 737-200 was not new but the new Air Lanka crew and service was amazing - we landed at Hulule (MLE) which was not much more than a coral strip and was rough for a 737 and the terminal was an open air affair with a tin roof and fans going around with a line up at the jetty of dhoni boats
Hmm what next I thought - no hotels here - but after passport were checked there were a line of resort owners lining up like the Greeks do at ferry ports shouting at you if you need rooms but in the case of Male 'do you need an island'
well yes i do - a charming Ozzie guy called me over said he and his Scottish wife had a new island 2 hours north by dhoni boat called Gasfinolhu (very long and flat with two tall palm trees in the middle) $15 a day full board - Hmm that's quite alot for young lad from London but I thought Hey Ho Ok lets go and off we sailed into the sunset after first a supplies stop at the then very old fashioned crazy and traditional harbour at Male to pick up beers cokes fruit veg etc etc
well there followed an amazing 'no news no shoes' 3 weeks experience of sand floors in delightful thatched huts with a new shared clean ablutions block with water pumped up from the ground which no soap would ever lather and wonderful lazy days eating al fresco with chilled beers and cokes ( they had a generator for the honesty-bar big fridge and a few light bulbs that went off at 11pm then it was lanterns)
grilled fish cooked over the sand and fresh pineapples tiny bananas and coconut juice
I actually stayed 3 weeks and had the most amazing Robinson Crusoe desert island holiday swimming snorkelling and watching baby sharks play in the lagoon
we took dhoni trips to local and to the then few new resort islands but never got to Gan as it was so far down south although I asked about it
my love affair with the Maldive began then and I went back a few years later only to find the airport now with Air Lanka and LTU Tristars, Condor and Balair DC-10's and an Alitalia 747!
How things changed in the few years - One highlight was sitting on the beach at Bandos an LTU Tristar did a low level fly by twice at around 500' over the lagoon - their party trick to show their pax how beautiful the islands were.
I will go back to the Maldives one day but only if i can find a remote island that does not charge 450$ a day and one that has a ''no news no shoes'' ethos - does any still exist?
rog
PS
flew home CMB-KHI on the oldest DC-8 flying (was a Swissair ship HB-IDB) which by now was op'd by Cargolux and leased to PIA - goodness that was quite a flight leaving CMB at 0100
braking was poor or failed on landing at a very dark KHI and the full power thrust reverse saved us from going off into the sand - we taxied in with the FD crew not saying a word but they looked very white or green when they came out of the cockpit on our deplaning !
LX-IDB was retired a month later
then i jumped on a PIA 747-200 ex TAP ''all stations to LHR''
dep KHI at 0700 which then called at DXB(just a pile of sand then) FCO FRA AMS CDG (or was it ORY) then LHR by late evening
what a trip home
Last edited by rog747; 3rd Aug 2017 at 08:30.
