Day 3: Habanniya to Mauripur, Pakistan - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

We took off from Habbaniya at 0915 local and straightaway disappeared into a layer of cloud. We soon climbed above that and found brilliant sunshine on top. It wasn’t to last. Soon after passing Kuwait and going over the Persian Gulf, for that is what it was called in 1954, we ran into more cloud and got rather shaken about. I was well on the way to being sick when, after about two hours of it, we ran into clear skies once more and our troubles (or mine at any rate) were more or less over. After that the flight seemed to pass very quickly. We put our watches forward another two hours and we landed in Mauripur, on the outskirts of Karachi, at 1857 local time (1357 GMT).

As soon as the plane doors were opened, and that was only after a lengthy delay, a Pakistani civilian came into cabin and walked up and down the gangway spraying the interior and its occupants with some vile smelling disinfectant. He was followed by an RAF Movements Officer who told us that the doors had to be kept closed for five minutes. They were apparently protecting themselves and the Pakistani nation from any Yellow Fever we may have brought in with us. While we were waiting in the aircraft for any bugs to die off, the Movements Officer informed us that we were on a Royal Pakistan Air Force station and that the conditions were very poor because of that. I remember thinking that was not a very polite way of putting it. We began to wonder if Mauripur could possibly be any worse than Habbaniya.

When we eventually climbed down we were taken into a building where we had to produce our Yellow Fever inoculation certificates for examination and then we had to pass the Customs Officer. One of the NCO aircrew had five bottles of spirits which he had bought at Idris and Habbaniya confiscated. He was told he could have them back the next day before we took off. He seemed to know the score so he’d probably done the run several times before. We could change money in that same building but we were advised that most things we might want to buy were very expensive so no-one bothered.

That night Mick Harley, ‘Tombstone’ Gaunt and I shared a room in a barrack block. We had a Bearer to clean our shoes and make our beds for us – that was a first! We packed our blue uniforms away into our large kit bags and got out our Khaki Dress tropical kit ready to wear tomorrow but first we tried it on.

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