Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

The two images show extracts from my flying log book. Note in the lower image that I got the month wrong in the left hand column and never corrected it - although the faint lines put in by the Flight Commander at the month end should have reminded me!! I have deliberately crudely obliterated the pilots' names for reasons which will become apparent when you read the story (I have not heard from, or of, either pilot since 1963).
NB. The story was originally written up early in 1963 for my diary but never before made public. Here it is unedited.

December 1962 saw me return to UK after a splendid three-week trek to the Far East and back in 18 Squadron Valiant, WP211. We had set off from RAF Finningley on 23 November 1962 for the first of four daily legs, staying overnight at: El Adem near the north coast of Libya; Embakasi near Nairobi and just a few miles south of the Equator; and Gan in the Maldives more or less 2,500 nautical miles due east of Nairobi so our route straddled the Equator for the entire leg. That was a very long leg across the Indian Ocean with no land to look at after crossing the Kenyan coast north of Mombasa, and no airfields to land at should we have had an emergency. There was not much talking amongst the crew during those five and a half hours! We arrived at RAAF Butterworth in northern Malaya on 26 November about 5pm local time.

El Adem is an RAF airfield in the desert about 50 miles south of Tobruk at the eastern end of Libya. It is mainly there for aircraft staging between UK and the Far East. RAF Marham in Norfolk is known as “El Adem with grass” because that part of Norfolk is almost as desolate and remote as the Sahara Desert (well, it is to those airmen who know both stations!) I can't speak for other crews who fly this route but we took a short cut across what is known as Nasser's Corner - the point in the desert where the borders of Libya, Egypt and Sudan join in the middle of nowhere. Strictly speaking the airspace of Egypt is out of bounds to RAF aircraft but there was no-one around to see us cut the corner and it saved us about 20 minutes flying time.

There has been an airfield at Embakasi since 1958. Most RAF activity is based nearby at RAF Eastleigh but the runway there is not long enough for Valiant operations. I had no chance to visit Eastleigh, which was a pity because I had regular contact with that base when I was serving as a wireless fitter at Gangodawila in Ceylon and it would have been nice to meet some of the chaps there.

We had a rather unconventional approach to the landing at Embakasi. The airfield is about 5,300 feet above sea level but pilots routinely set their altimeters to read height above sea level and not height above touch down. I have no idea why! The weather on the long straight-in approach from about 10,000 feet was superb: not a cloud in the sky and unlimited visibility – and no other traffic. Our pilot and co-pilot (who shall remain nameless to protect their embarrassment) lost contact with the runway at about 20 miles from touchdown – presumably whilst admiring the superb views. The Air Traffic Controller told us to change to Local frequency for landing instructions when we had the runway in sight. Eventually our navigator told the pilots that they should be able to see the runway as we were only 6 miles from touchdown. (For those not familiar with the Valiant, the three rear crew members have no forward visibility from their cabin.) Then the awful truth dawned on the pilots, who had presumably been admiring the marvellous view during the descent: we were now flying at about 5,000 feet, well below touch down height. A burst of full power to enable us to zoom-climb and then the runway came clearly into sight and we made a safe landing. The terrain short of the runway is well below runway height and it is, apparently, very easy for unwary or unfamiliar pilots to misjudge the approach path. I imagine those watching from Air Traffic Control must have been interested to see a huge RAF V bomber zooming into sight from below runway level!! The three of us in the rear of the aircraft were less impressed.

Butterworth, a former RAF base located directly opposite Penang Island in the north of Malaya, had been handed over to the Australians in 1957. The purpose of our visit was to take part in Air Defence exercises with the RAAF, using our electronic jamming equipment to make life difficult for the defending fighters.

After several entertaining days, including shopping and touristy visits to Penang and Singapore, we returned to UK by the same route arriving back at base loaded up with duty free goods for Christmas, knowing that Customs Officers never turned out to meet RAF bombers returning from operational overseas detachments.

Total transit flying time outbound to Malaya was 19hrs 20 minutes; inbound to Finningley was 19hrs 55 minutes. As our navigator said when we got back home: it is much easier to find Embakasi in Kenya than Gan in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

NB Sadly there is no narrative in my diary about the rest of that epic journey.