Duty free trips to Tripoli - Tony Cunnane's Afterthoughts

Written on 22 February 2011

The uprisings in Libya in the last few days, and the totally unexpected defection of two Libyan Air Force jet fighter aircraft from Libya to Malta just yesterday afternoon, suddenly reminded me that the very first time my feet stepped onto any foreign soil it was Libyan soil I stepped onto – the date was 11 December 1954, the time was 19.35 hrs local time, and we had just landed at Tripoli International airport – then known as RAF Idris. While we had been waiting in the Air Movements section at Lyneham there had been an announcement over the Tannoy: "Hastings 339 inbound from Idris is now in circuit". I don’t know why I’ve remembered that for the past 57 years! ‘339' presumably was the tail number of the aircraft  because there was a Hastings with the registration TG339 serving with 24 Squadron.

I came to know RAF Idris much better a few years later when I was an Air Signaller on 38 Squadron based in Malta, less than an hour’s flying time in a Shackleton. We used to make that short hop across the Mediterranean quite regularly because it was a very quiet desert airfield several miles south of the capital Tripoli and our pilots were able to get on with their necessary circuit and landing practices without the delays we always got at our own much busier airfield in Malta. Another reason for using Idris was because several of the Shackleton crew who were not needed for circuit flying could get off the aircraft and do some local duty free shopping for the whole crew while the pilots slaved away. In fact only my second sortie with my new Squadron, on 20 April 1958, was just that – a shopping trip; the sortie lasted only 2 hrs 30 minutes including the shopping! We didn't have time to go down town into Tripoli on that occasion but there was quite a lot you could buy, free of duty, on base at Idris that was not available at the same price, or any price, in Malta. Having spent the previous six months learning about the techniques of maritime reconnaissance at RAF Kinloss in Scotland, that sortie put the whole subject into a brand  new light!

I saw far more of the vast Libyan desert a couple of days later when our complete crew of 10 were airborne for 12 hrs 30 minutes, half of it by night,  for an on-going search and rescue mission involving the whole squadron looking for a missing Canberra  light bomber of 139 Squadron. We flew another 12 hours day/night sortie a couple of days later but we found nothing. There were 5 signallers on each  crew and we took it in turn to occupy various look-out positions in the aircraft as well as operating  the radios and radar. The best position was in the nose compartment, lying full-length face down, face close up to the bomb aimer’s window. From  there, flying at just 100 feet above the ground, there were magnificent views over the limitless Sahara Desert. It is amazing how much there was to see: occasional camel trains, tracks in the desert that suddenly disappeared, even some debris, such as  burnt out tanks and derelict camps, left over from the 1939-45 war, and the occasional large sand dunes  which created beautiful long shadows in the late evening or early morning. Often we saw folk, apparently miles from any habitation, waving to us as  we passed by. During the night hours we flew at about 5,000ft carrying out our searches using various radar and radio equipments but still looking out in the hope of seeing distress flares from the downed crew.

RAF Idris had earlier been known for several years as RAF Castel Benito but was renamed RAF Idris in 1952 in honour of the Libya's King Idris at the request of the Libyan government. The RAF finally left in the late 1960s.