September to November 1954
Having satisfactorily disposed of the caravan, we piled into the Vanguard and set off for Manchester, where we would be staying in Pat and Miles’s new house to spend our embarkation leave. We had a lovely drive through the Welsh mountains, and arrived with the prospect of an exciting time planning our trip out to Iraq together. But what followed was the first and only time that I had what was a rather bitter row with the service authorities. Right from the start of the announcement of my posting to Habbaniyah, it had been made quite clear that an ex-officio married quarter would be available for me and my family to move into on arrival. I had no reason to doubt this, as it was normal practice for unit commanders to be accommodated on the camp in a married quarter. However, on going to London to buy my tropical uniform, I went in to see the Personnel staff to confirm our travel arrangements, only to be told bluntly that the policy had been changed and no married quarter would be available, and I would have to go out to Iraq unaccompanied. To say I was angry would be putting it mildly. How, I asked, at that late stage, was I expected to arrange accommodation for my family in the UK and also to find schools for our children. No answer was forthcoming and no help of any sort offered. The attitude of authority on this occasion came as quite a shock, for I had never experienced anything like it during the whole of my service up to then. No protests had any effect on the decision, so I had to go ahead and make the necessary arrangements to meet the new circumstances. Happily Pat and Miles could take care of the family, and were glad to do so until I could get them out to join me. So with my sincere thanks and gratitude to the Bentons I settled the family down, kissed them goodbye and on 23 September I set off for the Middle East on my own. I took a taxi to Manchester station and then a train to RAF Lyneham, where I was accommodated at Cliffe Pipard for the night. The next day I took off in a Hastings bound for Iraq, staging through Idris in Libya overnight. Thus it was that I arrived at Habbaniyah on 25 September on my own, and on our wedding anniversary, to add a final twist to my resentment. As I disembarked from the Hastings on the satellite plateau airstrip that overlooked the main airfield, I was reminded of the desperate situation that had faced the station in April 1941. Raschid Ali, who had seized power in Iraq at that time with the understanding that he would receive German support, had laid siege to the airbase by moving a strong force of artillery to this very place where I now stood on the plateau. Under constant bombardment for two weeks, the airmen at Habbaniyah put up a spirited defence with their training aircraft, which they had adapted to carry bombs, and carried out constant air strikes on the Iraqi guns. Looking down now from the plateau at the sitting targets of hangars, buildings and aircraft that must have been presented to the Iraqi gunners, I was amazed that they had not been more effective and that the RAF had been able to hold out for so long. The base was relieved by a brigade-sized flying column (Hab-Force) that had crossed into Iraq from Palestine and arrived at Habbaniyah on 18 May. It was only just in time, as German aircraft had already arrived at Mosul in North Iraq and were poised to lend their weight to the attack on Habbaniyah. In the south an Indian division had secured Basra and the other British airbase at Shaibah, and advanced northwards to join Hab-Force to threaten Bagdhad itself. With air reinforcements now arriving in the shape of a flight of Gladiators, the Iraqi leader, Raschid Ali, withdrew his artillery force and fled into Persia. and Iraq support for the Axis collapsed.
Habbaniyah was built in 1934 under the Anglo-Iraqi treaty that allowed Britain to establish a military base in the country. It now stood as a bastion and an important stabilizing influence for Middle East peace, and it became clear that the building up of my Venom fighter wing to operational status would be a task of some importance. However, before settling down to the job, my exploration of the huge station filled me with wonder. Its primary purpose was as an airbase, of course, but its remote position way out in the desert forty miles from Baghdad made it clear that the provision of recreation and sporting facilities was of primary importance to maintain the morale of its personnel. These were provided in abundance, and there was just nothing that could not be done on the base. There were at least seven different units accommodated here, and each had its own mess where regular social activities were held. So at times like Christmas and other holidays, dances and mess balls would be taking place nearly every night for a week, and invitations would come pouring in. Each mess would vie with the rest to produce the finest decorations and transformations, and in truth it was sometimes impossible to believe that you were not in a Chinese heroin den, the cave of Aladdin or a mainline railway station.
For the energetic there was a riding school, a polo club and even what is now termed ‘blood sports’ in the shape of the Exodus Hunt, which met regularly and went out into the desert to chase the jackals that were out there in abundance. There were regular meetings of horse-racing at the station racecourse, presided over by the group captain commanding the RAF Regiment. Most sports were provided for, and the tennis courts and swimming pool were always popular. Lake Habbaniyah, which was only a mile or two from the station and used to be a staging post for BOAC flying-boats on their way to India, provided safe swimming, and there was a yacht club with several dinghies providing good racing for sailing enthusiasts. The ‘Jewel in the Crown’ was perhaps the command gardens, where exotic tropical trees, plants and flowers were attended by a whole army of Arab gardeners, whose system of irrigation was a marvel of ingenuity and consisted of a series of channels criss-crossing the gardens and dug out from the Euphrates river, which ran alongside the station. There was never any shortage of water, and the gardens were flooded once a week to keep the whole station green and verdant, and resplendent with bougainvillea and oleander blossom everywhere. The flooding also included the married-quarter gardens, which was all very nice but could be a little embarrassing, as we often took our beds into the garden to sleep in the hot-weather season and could wake up to find a foot of Euphrates water swirling round our beds.
Having played an energetic game of tennis, cooled off in the swimming pool and fallen off one of the polo ponies, I thought it time I got down to serious work. On 1 October I took over command of the fighter wing, which consisted of Nos 6 and 73 Squadrons. On my first flight I took a Venom and carried out a low-level reconnaissance of the surrounding desert, making note of the few useful pinpoints in the locality. In the afternoon I flew another sortie, going wider afield, and this time experiencing the unforgettable thrill of low flying over the desert. Contrary to expectations, this was never monotonous, and the ever-changing colours and contours were a joy to behold. I soon had my first experience of a desert exercise when we set up camp on the far side of Lake Habbaniyah and slept out under the myriad of bright stars before returning by launch the next day – a magical experience. I was now flying regular Venom sorties, alternating my flights with each of my two squadrons in turn. I would sometimes act as target for their interception exercises, or, flying high, would sweep down on a low-flying flight and try and ‘bounce’ them before they could reach their target. It was not long before the squadrons reached operational standard, but there was a marked difference in their performance, and one squadron was notably more efficient, with the benefit of a squadron commander who could get the best out of his pilots, my old friend Peter. However, at this point I reluctantly feel I ought to tell of a most unfortunate episode that did little towards that squadron’s reputation. The junior flight commander on a night training exercise, his aircraft having gone unserviceable, asked me if he could borrow my own personal Venom RCH. I rather reluctantly agreed but was not unduly worried as I knew Mike was a dependable and reliable pilot. Alas, my confidence was unjustified, and within an hour my favourite aeroplane lay a pathetic twisted wreck on the runway where Mike Hobson had placed it with its wheels still tucked up inside its belly. There was no way that I could excuse Mike’s lapse, and I had to report it to my station commander as a serious but untypical error of judgement by an otherwise reliable pilot. Poor Mike, it was a most unfortunate setback, coming just after he had returned to duty from attending his father’s funeral in the UK.