We knew it was to a warmer climate we were being sent as we were being inoculated for tropical diseases as 'Yellow Fever'.
Also they issued us tropical clothing, bed roll, a .38cal revolver with belt, holster and six rounds. We waited in Blackpool for orders. I don't remember which port we left from. The ship we finally boarded was the American ship USAT Cristobal.
This peacetime cruise liner, converted to troop transport originally carried 250 passengers, but for our crossing, was crammed with 2500 troops. Although as officers, we were crammed 12 to a cabin that normally held two, we at least had some ventilation unlike the enlisted troops below decks. After four or five days at sea we passed through the Straight of Gibraltar, all we could see were a very few lights. The officers and commissioned R.A.F. nurses from the British No.1 R.A.F. General Hospital were the only one's allowed on deck. The nurses made it a very pleasant seven day crossing. We landed in July 1943 at Algiers North Africa. It was about one month before the British eighth army defeated Rommel. I soon discovered that the 'Hollywood' image of the Arab world in my mind was not in any way based in reality. I thought it was a hot, fly infested, odoriferous part of the world. It especially reeked if the wind first blew over the cemetery. The native Arabs appear cruel and rarely, if ever, smile. We were marched to a warehouse where we camped for a week on straw laid over the concrete floor. We were then shifted to some decent quarters overlooking the Mediterranean. The first day we spied a french dammé sunbathing and clambered down to try out our high school french. With the aid of sign language she warned us about sunburning, us with our english fish belly like pallor. I did horribly burn and by that night was in agony and hurt all over. To this day I never have hurt as much. I stayed in these temporary quarters for most of two weeks till I was posted to a British holding area for aircrews at Hamman Lif, near Tunis.
We were the first to occupy the facilities that showed some battle damage. As the area was a malaria zone we were instructed to take quinine tablets. I had never swallowed a pill to date, not even an aspirin and after that first quinine tablet disintegrated in my mouth while trying to get it down, I found out how bitter and unlike gin quinine is. Being invinceably young, I never tried to choke down another dose. I had a 'ball', we would wander the nearby hills looking for abandoned enemy ordinance. Even without leaving the beaten path so as not to stumble into a minefield, we found loads of abandoned german rifles and ammunition to bang away with. I kept a nice german mauser during my stay that after a british armorer sighted it in for me, was a very accurate rifle. We also collected italian grenades to use for fishing. Gathering kitchen food scraps we would row out and in about an hour after dumping scraps in, you could see the fish roiling at the surface. A couple of the concussion grenades later the concussed fish would either float or sink. We would dive for the sinkers. On one fishing expedition a man found himself holding onto a grenade he had pulled the pin on but hadn't tossed. Looking around he counted everyone present and tossed it overboard unbeknownst that a south african pilot had swum out from shore to help dive for the fish. When the grenade exploded, to our dismay his body was lifted right out of the water. He ended up in hospital with blown eardrums that healed quickly and a particularly stunning pair of black eyes, the C.O. put the kibosh on explosive fishing.
Besides captured guns and ammo, I and two buddies found an abandoned German D.K.W. motorcycle. We painted a false number plate with CAP followed by a three digit number. The CAP stood for captured enemy vehicle. Getting caught by the military police for using the motorcycle would have resulted in three court marshalable offenses. Using a motor vehicle without proper authorization, using a unregistered enemy vehicle and using petrol for pleasure.
After about five weeks in North Africa, which coincidentally is the incubation period after being bitten by a infected mosquito, I woke up with a fever. The fever would progress into the shakes and chills. Even wrapping up in a blanket, and sitting on a sandpile in the 120° heat I still felt cold. Then the fever would return and the cycle would continue. We had no medics in camp so one of our men accompanied me to an American P.O.W. camp for Italians a short distance away hoping they had medics there. A medical clerk confined me to bed in their sick bay. The next day my C.O. located a British hospital which dispatched someone to drive me there in one of our vehicles. It was some distance away in Carthage, and upon arrival, to my joy, learned it was staffed by the nurses of the No. 1 R.A.F. General Hospital who had accompanied me on the voyage here. I was bedded in a ward with 20 other patients whom were a little curious why several nurses would come and visit a new arrival. After two weeks of four doses of quinine a day I learned how to swallow pills. After two weeks I was discharged back to Hammam Lif. With the reestablishment of contact with the hospital staff, the motorcycle came in very handy. I made a regular run through Tunis on the way to Carthage to see Sister Bray who I was then dating. Mainly entertainment was swimming in the Mediterranean with sometimes a picnic lunch Sister Bray would coax out of the kitchen staff. As the journey back was generally in the dark and as the motorbike had no headlight, I would wait for an American convoy and ride in front using their headlights. On one moonless night after waiting an hour with no convoy coming along, I ventured out by myself. The highway was blacktop and the shoulders were white sand so traveling was not too difficult. Suddenly a black wall loomed in front, causing me to swerve. It was an Arab with a donkey cart full of firewood that had fallen asleep. The donkey, probably sensing that the master was out had wandered onto the hardtop from the soft shoulder where the pulling was easier.
Being young and foolish this wasn't the only near miss. On another occasion, also traveling in the dark, I suddenly heard a whoosh and felt a blast of wind. Looking backwards I saw the tail light of another motorcycle that passed me without either of us seeing the other. Another time after passing through Tunis, I felt the rear tire going flat and pulled over. A jeep with four M.P.'s stopped about 20 yards past me. I thought they had me for sure, but one of the M.P.'s opened their hood, made some adjustment and off they went to my relief.
In the middle of September I was posted to Setif, a town midway between Tunis and Algiers inland from the coast. The posting was for a refresher course before being posted to an operational fighter squadron. Traveling by train and having to put our gear on an open sided flatcar, some of us decided to ride with the gear to prevent it from evaporating. In the middle of the night the boys who had elected riding in the passenger car joined us, as apparently the passenger car was lousy. Falling asleep, I awakened to find myself filthy as sometime during the night we had been shunted to a position immediately behind the coal tender that followed the engine, and were covered in ash and soot from the engine smokestack. The train made stops at towns but one never knew for how long. In one instance we knew that immediately out of town was where the train took on water for the boilers, these being steam engines. So some of us hiked to the water tower and were able to take a refreshing shower before the train appeared. Even though it didn't stop for water the top speed was 15 m.p.h. so we had no difficulty clambering back aboard.
The aerodrome in Setif also served as the repair depot for operational aircraft. Spitfires from squadrons in Malta were ferried to Setif for overhaul. I did quite a bit of flying and practice in air-to-ground firing using bomb craters full of water as targets. I was in Setif for two months and was a good opportunity to get the lay of the land. This is where I flew a Hawker Hurricane for the first time
