Is that Africa out to Port?

'There's low lying land on the port beam, estimate range about five nautical miles. It must be north Africa!'

When I left RAF Luqa on Monday 18 January 1960 in Shackleton Mk 2 WL744 with my usual crew, Flight Lieutenant 'Happy' Hanmore – captain, little did I know that it would be the start of my final overseas exercise with 38 Squadron and my final deployment as an Air Signaller and a sergeant.

The trip to Gibraltar took 7 hrs 30 minutes and was interesting only because the navigator could not find the Rock when it should have appeared in the pilots' windscreens. To be fair, it was a very murky day. However, there was real cause for concern. The top of the Rock of Gibraltar is 1,396 feet above sea level and, in aircrew parlance, the Rock has a greater rate of climb than a Shackleton! We had been flying over the Mediterranean Sea for several hours at 500 feet above the waves. That was a fairly standard practice; after all we were a reconnaissance squadron. The signaller operating the HF radio had been in Morse contact with the Gibraltar Air Traffic Control Centre for several hours but that was of no use for navigation purposes. The Captain instructed all crew members to man the portholes down each side of the aircraft and the visual bombing position down the nose compartment exhorting everyone to keep a sharp lookout. The pilots in the meantime were trying, and failing, to contact Gibraltar Tower on the VHF radio. That in itself was not unusual in those days.

I moved from the galley to the port beam position and peered anxiously into the thick haze. Suddenly I saw low lying land in the distance on the port side.

'Port beam here, captain,' I called on the intercom. 'What's our heading?'

'270 degrees,' replied the captain. 'Why do you ask?'

'There's low lying land on the port beam, estimate range about five nautical miles,' I replied. 'It must be the north African coastline.'

'Nonsense,' replied the navigator, from his darkened operating position near the front of the aircraft. He sounded outraged that a mere signaller should make such a suggestion. 'It can't possible be north Africa.'

'Well it's definitely land,' I persisted. 'If we're heading due west and the land is about five miles off the port beam it can't be anywhere but north Africa.'

There was a stunned silence. Then, after a few seconds, the captain called urgently for climb power and we quickly zoomed to 5,000 feet. An almost empty Mk 2 Shackleton had quite a respectable rate of climb. There was a much clearer view from up there and very soon the signaller on the starboard beam reported that he could see the familiar outline of the Rock of Gibraltar in our 4-o-clock position. In other words we had flown, at 500 feet above the sea mind you, through the gap, 15 kilometres at the narrowest point, between Tarifa near Algeciras on the southern coast of Spain and Tangier and Mount Sidi Moussa in Ceuta on the African coast. I did not know then, nor would I have cared very much if I had known, that Mount Sidi Moussa is one of the two peaked rocks called by the Ancient Greeks 'The Pillars of Hercules'. The other is Gibraltar.

We flew a left hand turn, the long way round, back towards Gibraltar and landed some short time later. The curious thing is that no-one ever mentioned the incident, either then or later. No-one said 'thank you Tony' or 'thank you sergeant'. I felt rather hurt about that. If the navigator and pilots between them had continued on that heading of 270 degrees at 500 feet above the sea, we would not have hit any high ground – on the other hand we did not have enough fuel to reach Chesapeake Bay on the coast of Maryland, which is the next land along the 36th parallel! NCO aircrew did not rate very highly in the officer aircrew's scheme of things!

That evening the officer members of the crew did whatever officers do on detachment duty while we five signallers plus the flight engineer went off to a night club in La Linea, just across the border into Spain. I remember we enjoyed some Flamenco dancing, some 'belly dancing', lots of alcohol, and . . .  I forget the rest! The following day was free for doing touristy things and on day three we flew a 10 hour navigation exercise about which I can remember nothing.

On day five, the Friday, we flew back to Malta. The flight took 6 hrs 10 minutes and so it must have been a direct transit with no exercises along the way. As we taxied into our dispersal at Luqa, the captain told us on the intercom that the Squadron Commander, Wing Commander Joe Saunders, was waiting.

'I wonder what he wants?' we all thought. I am sure that at the back of our minds, or at least at the back of the minds of the captain and navigator, the suspicion was that the Boss had somehow heard about our non-standard arrival at Gibraltar. However, when we climbed down from the aircraft the Boss came straight over to me.

'Welcome back, Cunnane,' he said cheerfully, holding out his hand to be shaken. 'You'd better go straight to the Sergeants' Mess and start packing.

'Sir?'

'You're posted to Jurby for Officer Training. You fly out on Sunday. Congratulations.'

So it was that barely 36 hours later, at 0620 on Sunday 24 January 1960, I flew out of Luqa as a passenger on Hastings TG530, Flight Lieutenant Kell in command.

I had one week at home before arriving on the Isle of Man, and a new life, on Wednesday 03 February 1960.

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