The Journal of the Royal Air ForcePhotographers Association

(Formerly RAFBEPA)Edition 46 Spring 2012

Chairmans Chance

Obituary

Comment !

Belfast preservation

The Darkroom Boys

543 Sqn - a photographers memory

Bird Strike - Cow Strike

Palau Babi Kichil

Don McCullin

Humour in Blue

Annual Photo Competition

New Recruits

And finally

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Cover photo - Short Belfast XR371 Enceladus in theCold War Exhibition at the RAF Museum Cosford

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Chairman’s Chance‘Ringing in the New Year’ has al-ready been and gone and we arewell into 2012, a Diamond Jubileeyear and plenty of reasons to cele-brate. Last year, with other mem-bers of the 43rd Entry, wecelebrated our 50th anniversary ofjoining the RAF way back in 1961.From the emails we read on ourwebsite it is clear that many mem-bers (or most) go back even further.The topics of conversation vary butit is quite evident that many remi-nisce recalling those happy days asPhotographers in Trade Group 14often serving in way out placessuch as Cyprus, Singapore, Adenetc. Indeed, the most prolific sup-porters of our website, come fromthose members that have settled inthe current sunny climates of Aus-tralia, New Zealand and South Af-rica and it is interesting andenjoyable to receive their views.They obviously have more timethan the rest of us ‘shoveling snow’and fighting the UK winter weath-er, not to mention the economy!Recalling my early days serving atWaddington as a ‘Photog’, cover-ing duties such as Squadron photos,IDs, R88 film processing, technicalphotos of damaged Vulcans, crashscenes, VIP visits etc got me think-

ing! – What does the RAF Pho-tographer of today do? Howdifferent is it today from thoseearly days? Well, a quick visit tothe website soon brought me up-to-date. The tasks appear to re-main very much the same,though I suspect with less mem-bers of the Photo Section team toget the job done but then theequipment and the imaging proc-ess is very much different. Goneare the days of wet film process-ing (How I miss the smell ofhypo), now replaced with an in-stant digital response as towhether or not you have capturedthat ‘Kodak moment’ ie withVIP eyes wide open! Must beeasy and in colour as well, a realbonus. I specifically rememberthe planning and the runningaround that went on to record asenior VIP visit and the practiced‘norm’ of presenting a finishedalbum at the close of day beforethe VIP left the Station – it mustnow be a real ‘doddle’. Perhaps acurrent serving member will letsus know?

The website reminds us of ourdays in far off places, as men-tioned above, however today’smilitary travel arrangements are

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very different. Iraq, Afghanistan, Italy, Falklands all spring to mind,mostly unaccompanied, but not on my ‘Bucket list’ of places to visit. Sochaps, would we swap our days and fond memories of yesteryear forthose of today’s RAF Photographer – I think not!On the other hand, what a great job today’s imaging expert has, followingthe action and witnessing some golden opportunities to grab some fantas-tic images using the latest digital cameras and lenses. Yep, on reflection,I wouldn’t mind starting all over again. Just a thought!

Yours aye

John Barry

OBITUARYPaul Trent 1946 - 2011

A former Boy Entrant, Paul died on 29th September2011 after a long battle with a brain tumour. A celebra-tion service was held at Weeley Crematorium in Essexon 18th October 2011.

He will be sadly missed by his wife Vanessa, daughtersLucy and Naomi and also his grandchiildren.

If anyone has any memories of Paul, or knew what entrynumber he was, please send the information in toFlashback. It is not believed he was a member ofRABEPA or RAFPA.

Thanks to Jeff White (36th entry) for the notification.

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Comment !Hip, hip, Hussar !

Oooh, no missus, don’t laugh…..it’sonly me dressed up as a Hussar.It was actually taken after I left theRAF and I was attending a WorldSales Meeting for Agfa and we couldall have our photo taken dressed up!Well they didn’t have an RAF uniform!

So another year has begun and al-ready the next reunion plans are un-der way for the 12/13/14th October.Please make sure you fill the applica-tion form out and get your deposit offas soon as possible to Stan Leeds.For the first time for a few years I amnot helping with the actual reunion asI am busy trying to sort out our houseand sell it, ready for a planned moveto the Brecon Beacons area of SouthWales.

I was very impressed with the newfaces at last years reunion as well asmany familiar ones of course. I havefound in the past that some people donot return because they reckon theyonly know one or two people. Wellthat was my situation some 8 yearsago and thanks to Stu Usher coercingme into joining, I have now mademany new friends, knowing that wehave much in common. So do not beafraid that you will not know anyone,once you have experienced a reunion

I am sure you will want come again,if not every year then at least everyother year, not forgetting to bringany wife or partner you may have.

I hope you have all paid your mem-bership fees for 2012, £10 for onlineFlashback, £15 for a printed copy.Unfortunately, it does cost the Asso-ciation to run successfully and wecannot do it without members con-tributing, so make certain you havepaid. Gerry, our Secretary does agreat job but his task is made muchmore difficult with late, incorrect ornon existent membership fees tocontend with. So please help Gerryand for that matter our long sufferingTreasurer, Pete.

I have included on the next fewpages, a short article about my oth-er life at the RAF Museum Cosford.This reminds me that we are goingto have a really good attempt atgetting our photographic exhibitsback where they belong by theSchool’s 100th Anniversary in 2015.You can help by pestering the Mu-seum as well.Till the next issue, stay safe,

Editor.

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Belfastpreservation

It seems a long time ago that I decidedto volunteer to work at the RAF Muse-um, mainly because I wanted to see ifI could influence the return of ourbeautiful photographic displays alongwith lots of irreplaceable cameras andequipment. Alas, I had reckoned with-out the bureaucracy of the RAF Muse-um and found out that it would take amuch more high powered discussionto come even close to getting ourprecious exhibits back. I can tell youthat another attempt is being made byDave Humphrey, one time curator ofthe photo exhibits and we must wishhim well with that. It would be a dreamcome true to have them reinstated intime for the 100th Anniversary of theSchool of Photography in 2015. Yes,the School actually pre-dates the Roy-al Air Force by 3 years.

Anyway I am not sorry to still be at theMuseum beavering away helping topreserve our heritage.

I only work one day a week, aThursday, with a great bunch ofguys, not many from the RAF itwould seem. There is much banterand leg pulling but in between wedo get a lot of serious work done.One member says it is better thanValium coming to Cosford one daya week!

For the last 3 years I have beeninvolved with conserving and reno-vating the Short Belfast, XR371,Enceladus, which unfortunatelyused to reside outside in the coldand damp atmosphere of Cosfordfor over 18 years, hence theamount of work needed to bringher interior up to some sort of rea-sonable state. The museum haverecently started holding ‘OpenCockpit Evenings’ twice a year, soall our hard work has been muchadmired and appreciated by hun-dreds of visitors.

Chris Pettman

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One of the worst areas was thecockpit as water had ingressed notonly into the ceiling but into thefloor as well. The ceiling we havecleaned up as best we can andmade a few repairs here and therebut the floor was a different matter.The construction of the floor con-sists of a sheet of balsa wood lami-nated on both sides by a thin sheetof aluminium! This was done ofcourse to keep the weight down, asunladen she weighs in at 52 tons!

The aluminium had started to cor-rode badly which meant that theremaining balsa wood had becomevery weak indeed without the lami-nation complete both sides. So 7new floor panels were manufac-tured and put into place. It waseasier to do this work with the seatsremoved, so while the floor wasbeing replaced the seats were low-ered to the cargo floor and workwas started on cleaning, renovatingand oiling them, so that once morethey would swivel and slide as theywere meant to.

Now our normal working day con-sists of arriving around 9.30 am,checking what has to be done thatday and assembling tools and safe-ty equipment, then going for a cupof tea in the restaurant. So around10.30 we start but as it makes onevery hungry, we usually stop forlunch at 12.30. Back to workaround 1.30 and by 3pm we arevery thirsty again, so it’s off foranother cuppa! After that home fora nice rest! I can thoroughly rec-ommend the life to anyone lookingfor something to do!

Cockpit with seats removed for re-pair and conservation

One of the seats on the bench forrepair

Seats back in place now in workingorder

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One of the first major jobs we tackled was thestarboard crew door. Although this was capa-ble of being opened and shut none of thecatches worked or the locking device, sowhen shut up it was just hanging on it’s hinges

To get at the mechanism, the steps had tocome off and when we saw what a rusted upmess it was, we decided that the riveted sidepanels would have to come off as well. As youcan see from the pictures, the task lookedhopeless and I remember saying as much tothe other team members. However, over sev-eral months we persisted. The visitors at thetime were subjected to a lot of loud bangingnoises as the mark 1 adjuster was called intoplay! (A heavy hammer!). Eventually all 6locks yielded and together with some cut upinner tube from a very old motor bike tyre toreplace the perished rubber, we are proud tosay the door is now functioning as intendedwhen it was made.

Working on the Belfast is a bit like the old jokeabout the Forth Bridge…….we keep findingmore areas to conserve or renovate if neces-sary. The aim on any project is to conservewhat is still there, however if that is impossiblethen the next stage is to repair or renovatewhat you have and if that is not possible thenreluctantly, one has to replace with new. Weare fortunate in that we have several originalpanels which were saved from the MU whenEnceladus arrived at Cosford, so where wehave had to replace material it has been donewith genuine parts! That reminds me of theyoung visitor one day, who asked me if all theplanes were real or just life size models!!!

We are currently trying to finish off repairing 2internal emergency doors, some more ceilingmaterial and some cracked panels before thenext cockpit evening in May. If you are inter-ested, tickets are £10 per person and around14 aircraft are available to sit in or walk in,including the Belfast.

Crew door awaitingattention

It was worse than werealised

After removal of thesteps

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Although this plane was neverused for reconnaissance purpos-es, I have found it fascinating towork on. One cockpit evening weeven had a retired pilot who hadactually flown XR371 and we cer-tainly learnt a lot from him!

I’ll leave you with a few factsabout XR371 and hope that oneday you may feel inclined to visither and see the fruits of our la-bours!

December 1960, 10 Belfastswere ordered. XR362 - XR371

14 June 1967 First flight of XR371

3 July 1967 delivered to 53Squadron at Brize Norton. In No-vember 1967 she was involvedwith the withdrawal of Britishtroops from Aden. In 1970 shewas named Enceladus after oneof several mythical giants. Shehas been all over the world andis now one of only 2 left. Theother one was flying in Australiawith a company called Heavy Liftbut it was recently up for sale for$900,000. In September 1976,53 squadron was disbanded andshe was flown to Rolls Royce forrecovery of her 4 Tyne 101 turboprop engines. In October 1978she was flown to Cosford. Ontake off from Rolls Royce atHucknell the flaps could not beretracted so she was flown toCosford in landing configurationand landed on Cosford’s veryshort runway, the shortest a Bel-fast had ever landed on. She isnow comfortable in the Cold Warhangar.

One of our members underneath thecargo floor

XR371’s final flight into Cosford

This is where she rested for over 18years in the cold and wet!

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More to come in the next issue. Ed.

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Number 543 (PR) Squadron wasbased at Royal Air Force Wytonand was the only squadronequipped with the Vickers B(PR)1Valiant, which was a convertedV-bomber, to fly in the full recon-naissance role to include day,night, and radar photography.

I joined 543 Squadron CameraSection as a Photo II, straight outof training of the 29th Entry fromR.A.F. Cosford in March 1958 andrecall the feeling of pride at be-coming a member of an elite andprestigious V-force squadroncloaked in secrecy and high secu-rity. Personal clip-on badges wereto be worn at all times displaying aphotograph of the wearer and anumber code indicating areas,which you were only permissible tovisit Upon my joining 543 thesquadron had on strength just 7Vickers Valiant B(PR) aircraft di-vided into A and B flights respec-tively, out of an initial issue of 8,since just a few months earlier onehad been written off in a hangerfire. Shortly after my settling inground crew were recruited for‘kite cleaning’ prior to the aircraftlosing their natural and grimy met-al finish to be painted with what

became universally recognisedas V-Force anti-flash white. OurValiants also were fitted withlarge under wing drop tanks,which were occasionally stored inour large and air-conditioned andtemperature controlled camerasection, when not in use.

I was only seventeen years oldon my arrival to 543 squadron,and was regarded, as being un-derage since officially I still heldthe rank of Boy Entrant, thus of-ten needing one of the NationalService photographers to coun-tersign the Form 700 on mybehalf. This did not make mevery popular, as there was quitea difference in the pay structurebetween us. If my memoryserves me right my weekly cashpay amounted to something like£5-16s-0d versus £2-10s-0d forthat of an L.A.C. National ServiceR.S. Photographer. It can easilybe imagined that once I had at-tained the status of ‘man service’at 17 and one half years old, andthe rank of S.A.C. the bad feel-ings became less pronounced,particularly as I could then beconsidered as being sufficientlyresponsible to carry out full Photo

543 Valiant (PR) Squadron -A photographers memory

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II duties. During those days Nation-al Service photographers were onlytrained in a singular photographicskill and whilst serving on a PRsquadron were trade described asR.S. (Reconnaissance Servicers).

One thing sticks in my mind wasthat the PR Valiant was then con-sidered to be a photographers’nightmare. In it’s day it carried thegreatest number of cameras andcould only be pre-flighted by a min-imum of two photographers. In or-der for us to perform our duties wewere all issued a personal tool kitcontaining several screwdrivers,spanners, cleaning cloths, and aprecious Selvyt Cloth, which wasintended for register glass cleaning.Monday mornings were regarded as‘Selvyt Parade’ as it was the customfor the sergeant in charge of thecamera section to inspect allSelvyts as being ‘Omo White’ priorto starting the week of pre-flights.Additionally us photographers wereoften mocked by the rest of thesquadron’s ground crew, who hadthe misfortune to be accommodatedin a rather austere hut compared toour spacious and temperature con-trolled section. On many occasionswere informed or reminded thatours was a not trade but a hobbyand our ‘tool kits’ were just plainsilly.

The PR Valiant carried a maximumof 12 day and two radar-recordingcameras. In the night photographyrole it carried either 5 or 6 F89 36”cameras.

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It’s primary day photography fitwas 8 F52 36” and 1 F49 6” cam-eras in a removable camera ‘crate’inside the main bomb-bay. Whilstin a ‘pannier’ located directly aft ofthe main camera crate, containeda trimetrogen of 3 F49 6” cameras.This 12 day photography camerafit could also be modified to ac-commodate either two fans of 4F52 20” or two fans F52 48” cam-eras in the main ‘crate’. The ‘pani-er’ occasionally could be fitted,instead of the ‘tri-met’, with oneF49 6” vertical and 2 F52 obliquecameras.

Within the crew cabin lower cock-pit two radar cameras were fitted.One was the RX110 (a modifiedRX88) 35mm camera positionedabove the Navigational bombingsystem (NBS). The other was aclockwork operated F4757(a mod-ified F73) 35mm camera posi-tioned above the ‘Blue Silk’ radar.This camera required manual fo-cussing onto the cathode ray tubeby means of projecting an imageonto the screen from a piece ofscratched 35mm film illuminatedby a custom bulb and batteryattachment. The lens unit wasrotated and locked once a sharpimage had been obtained on thescreen. This camera also neededto be fully wound before flight.The winding key, focussing kit,screwdriver, scratched film andspare 35mm cassettes etc. werealso carried in our tool kits.

Our selection of spanners had us-es other than winding over an F52gearbox, which from memory wasnot undertaken very often. Fromtime to time the angles of tilt of theF52 cameras in the main cameracrate had to be checked, whilstinstalled in the aircraft, and adjust-ed when considered necessary.This procedure required a certainamount of skill and care. Theprecise camera angle of tilt couldnot be determined or adjusted un-til the mean tilt of the aircraft atrest and the residual twist of thecamera crate calculated by use ofa micrometer scaled inclinometerand the result either added or sub-tracted to the value of the desiredcamera angle. Locking nuts onindividual camera mounting strutswere loosened, the inclinometerplaced gently onto the subjectcamera’s register glass and thestruts subsequently rotated care-fully until the bubble centred ontoa preset angle. The prevailingwinds on the aircraft structurecould cause the bubble to wander,due to small aircraft movements,thus the few minutes of arc accu-racy expected could be difficult toachieve. Tightening of the lockingnuts also had to be done gently soas to prevent further possible in-accuracies being added.

The toss of a coin determined thechoice of who would clamberaround the camera-crate observ-ing camera functions or who wouldenjoy the comfort of the cockpitand be responsible for the button

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pressing during the pre-flightchecks.

All cameras were T35 controlledfrom a sophisticated and compre-hensive panel located on thestarboard side next to the naviga-tor’s station on the lower cockpitand also from the ‘prone’ bombaimer’s position located via a trapdoor beneath the lower cockpit.The main camera control panelincluded individual cameraswitching, dolls-eyes for camerawindow open confirmation, F49exposure ratio selectors, and redand green camera operation indi-cators. It was also possible tocheck the camera circuitry, in theabsence of a camera by means oflocally manufactured test mod-ule, which accepted the five-wayplug that usually fitted into theF52 gearbox and produced a sim-ulated cockpit indication.

Night photography was only oc-casionally undertaken. The 5 or6 F89 36” cameras complete withtheir individual exposure trigger-ing photo electric cells were ac-commodated in their owndedicated camera crate whichreplaced the crate and electricconnections reserved for the dayphotography role. A separate andalternative F89 camera controlreplaced T35 controls on themain panel for this purpose.

One event I recall, which I sup-pose would cause an outcry to-

day, was the destroying ofunexposed film in large quantities.In those days it was the custom orprocedure that in the event of asortie being cancelled and there-fore not flown no additional photo-graphic pre-flight inspectionswould be undertaken, as only themaximum number of possibleframes was acceptable for thenext flight. Unceremoniouslymagazines and cassettes that hadreceived one pre-flight checkwould be removed and replacedwith fresh fully loaded ones.Those removed unexposed filmswere subsequently incinerated ina perforated 40-gallon oil drumoutside the back of the ‘camerasection’.

However, I am quite certain thatmuch of the Ilford HP3 35mm fromthe radar cameras ended up inhome-loaded domestic cassettesintended for private use.

Of my associations with the Val-iant I will always remember thedeafening roar of Avons aboveone’s head at start up, the odourof burnt kerosene, and that illicitMonday morning whiff of oxygen,from the cockpit, in an effort toobtain some relief from the week-end’s over indulgence. I also re-call the race to be first up theladder and into the cockpit imme-diately after a flight so as to getthe best choice of leftovers fromthe crews’ in-flight rations.

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I have always held a fondnessfor the Valiant, particularly as itwas the biggest and the firstRoyal Air Force aircraft Iworked on straight out of train-ing. Unfortunately the VickersValiant type aircraft did not lastas long as expected because itsuffered early scrapping due tocorrosion and fatigue prob-lems, associated with its mainspar, which was deemed asuneconomic to remedy or re-pair.

In February 1960 I was postedfrom 543 Squadron to 81(PR)Squadron, which was equippedwith Gloster Meteor PR10s,Hunting Percival CPR1 Pem-brokes, and English ElectricCanberra PR7s. at R.A.F. Ten-gah, Singapore.

Maurice Cooper

The Vickers Valiant B(PR)1 aircraft on the strength of number 543Squadron during my posting were:-WZ380, WZ382, WZ389,WZ391, WZ392, WZ394, WZ39.WZ398 was destroyed by a hanger fire on 13th September 1957 to-gether with Comet C(RCM)2 XK663.It is understood that with the fitting of the drop tanks the VickersValiants were also modified to undertake air-to-air refuelling tasksand added the letter ‘K’ to their design type description.The composite photo was assembled from frames taken by a fixedfocus 9.5m/m Pathe’ Baby home movie cine camera.The list of ‘Chaps’ has been recalled from memory and I am surethat there was an another corporal whose name I cannot remember.

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I am assuming that most, if not all,who have served in the Royal AirForce, are familiar with the term ‘birdstrike’ and its consequences upon anairframe. Modern and high perform-ance aircraft are usually designed towithstand the impact of a featheredprojectile of up to a certain weightand velocity, particularly upon thewindscreen. However, light aircraft,to the best of my knowledge, have nosuch design feature built in andshould a smart contact with a birdoccur all that you can hope for is thata small bird, of low velocity, causesthe impact on anywhere on the air-frame other than the windscreen. Air-fields located in close proximity to thecoast are probably at greatest risk assea and other large birds are to befound and expected both in flight androosting on the ground. It is also fairlycommon for the sound of an ap-proaching light aircraft to startle aflock thus causing them to take to theair thus presenting a risk of an im-pact.I experienced bird-strike whilst flyinga Victa Airtourer G-ASYZ just aftertake-off from Newtownards, a coastalairfield in Northern Ireland on 23rd

September 1967. The impact with aSea Gull was both sudden and dra-matic.

A loud bang immediately followedby blood and feathers plasteredover the pilot’s, my side, side of thewindscreen. Apparently, and fortu-nately the initial impact was on thepropeller, which at take-off powerdid a good job of mincing this feath-ered menace, and thus alleviatedthe possibility of catastrophic dam-age and injury to yours truly. Never-theless, I found the wholeexperience rather ‘pants filling’ andwould certainly not wish to suffer arepeat performance. I gather that atmost airfields identified as vulnera-ble to bird strikes employ somemethod of bird scarring to minimisethis danger, but there is always theunexpected waiting to catch youout, which leads me nicely into asimilar yet more sinister occurrence..The date was Saturday 10th De-cember 1966 when I took-off on thatcold and dark day in Piper ColtG-ARNH on a round trip cross-country flight from Newtownardsairfield to Enniskillen Northern Ire-land. I recall that the sky was com-pletely overcast, but with a cloudbase sufficient to permit VFRflights, and no significant changeshad been forecast.

Victa Airtourer

Bird strike -

Cow strike….!

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At this time I was a serviceman sta-tioned at R.A.F. Ballykelly with aP.P.L., R/T Operator’s License,which was considered a bit of a nov-elty in those days, and about a totalof 100 hours in my logbook. My onlyinstrument ‘appreciation’ then wasabout five hours spent in the flyingclub’s Link Trainer, as this was aperiod shortly before a flight-trainingprogramme would lead to the issuingof an I.M.C. rating.In order for me to journey from Bal-lykelly to Newtownards, which wassome 75 miles distant I would prom-ise to take flying anyone who wouldchauffeur me there and back, since Ihad no transport of my own. On thisparticular occasion mypassenger/victim turned out to be aslow talking ‘orderly-room’ clerkknown for his lack of rapid responsesto life in general.This 2 hours and 10 minute flightseemed to be entirely uneventful untilupon joining the circuit when we wereadvised to use runway ‘34’ for land-ing. The final approach for this land-ing is over the water of StrangfordLough with its runway threshold rightnext to a sea wall. The first section of‘34’ was of bitumen / tarmac con-struction until it met a crossing run-way where it continued on for theremainder of it’s length with grass.Once I had settled onto ‘finals’ Iaimed to land on the ‘black section’,which would reduce the taxiing dis-tance back to the flying club’s parkingarea. The perspective looked justabout right in the failing light, speedseemed OK, and all final checks hadbeen duly completed. I was feelingvery pleased with my self as I closedthe throttle and commenced the

‘flare’, when my passenger utteredslowly“…..eeeeerrrrr!…..there’s…..a…..cow…..on…..the…..runway…..”With the throttle knob nearly pushedthrough the instrument panel anovershoot was initiated. The darkcamouflage was very effective, be-cause I did not see it until almost toolate and by rights a certain cowought to have had tire marks acrossit’s back. As of consequence of thiswake-up call we were required toorbit for a little while the club’s un-silenced Land Rover chased the cat-tle away from the active runway.The lesson I learnt was that a goodlook out is essential at all times, anda flight is not completely over untilone is safely back in the clubhouse.This particular gentleman did fly withme again some months later in thesame aeroplane, when another dra-ma occurred, but that’s another sto-ry.The events recalled here are not inchronological order as I thought thatthe most dramatic account of the ofthe two was that of the latter.

R/T = Radio TelephonyVFR = Visual Flight RegulationsIMC = Instrument Meteorological Conditions

Maurice Cooper

Piper Colt24

Palau Babi Kichil Imagine a palm fringed beach withthe sea gently lapping the white sands, twocoral reefs just off shore with all sorts ofbrightly coloured fish swimming around & it'sall yours for the week for the princely sum of100 Singapore dollars. This was where someof us young airmen from 81 Squadron, RAFTengah spent our holidays during the timewe spent in the Far East 1960 to 1962. During my time at Tengah I took up skindiving which was a popular pastime amongstthe photogs on 81 with trips to the local areaincluding the Johore Causeway, BlakamatiIsland & The Sister Islands just off the port ofSingapore. We were always being told aboutan island off the coast of Malaya near Mers-ing called Pulau Babi Kichil. I do not knowwhen it was found to have a fresh waterspring or by whom but evidently members ofthe Squadron had been going there for sometime prior to my trips, it would be nice if thisarticle might bring out some information. A bloke called Bill Reeves had been ona previous trip so he was badgered to set upa trip with myself, Stan Leeds & Jim Cowanwishing to go. From the details he gave usfour was the best number of people to makeup the group & we followed the system heknew from his previous trip. The startingpoint was $100 per person, from that the costof transport & food would be taken. We ar-ranged with the local taxi driver to take us upthere then on the return bargain with thetaxis in Mersing to get back. The local fisher-men were glad of the ready money for thejourney so we would pay half to get therethen the rest when they collected us. Foodwas just about all tinned, with a selection forthe various meals of the day & some novelideas to bulk it up. A box of cooking pots &pans was available from previous trips so wewhere all set up. Our equipment consisted ofa mask & snorkel , flippers & a weight beltplus a harpoon gun. These had been madeby one of the lads, a wooden frame & attach-

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ments bought locally were reallygood if your aim was up to scratch.The one exception to this was Bill, onhis previous trip he had seen somuch that he bought an underwaterhousing for his camera so he carrieda large box of flash bulbs & loads offilm to use. The “tent” was made of polythene& black tape carefully laid out on thegrass in front of Gibson block & madeto measure. On arriving at the islandwe would cut down six lengths oftree branches & make three A frameswhich we then anchored into theground then lay the polythene overthem. A fire pit would be dug & astorage area created for our bits &pieces. We borrowed the green can-vas camp beds to sleep on from thesection & that was our home for theweek. The final task was to requestthat the squadron fly over the islandon a daily basis to check that wewere ok. Our leave was booked, the bigday arrived & we made an early start,the journey on the East coast wasquite different to my trip on the otherside of the country. This side wasmuch more natural without all theordered rubber plantations & wepassed through real jungle on a nar-row road with many wooden bridges.We soon reached the small town thatwas our destination, spent some timebargaining the price down & em-barked on the fishing boat, the lastjob was buying some fresh eggs fromthe local shop. The journey passedquickly & we reached the islandwhich was just as we expected fromthe tales we had heard. Looking overthe side of the boat the water wasreally clear & looked far better than

we were used to. Our first priority wasto sort out the area for our camp sitewhich we located just on the tree line& the tent was soon up, beds organ-ised & a fire set up & lit. The freshwater spring was found just up thehilly area behind us & suppliesbrought down. One unusual task wasto sort out the eggs into daily rations& bury them in the sand each layerhaving sea water poured over themtill they were all buried. On both tripsthis kept the eggs fresh for the week,each evening we dug up the nextdays supply & it worked out fine. We had all been waiting to get intothe sea so that was the next step & itwas amazingly clear with the innerreef just off shore full of fish, so manymore than we had ever seen off Sin-gapore. The variety was hard to be-lieve with Angel & Parrot fish all over& many more that we did not recog-nise, different types of coral but allvery colourful We soon realised thatwe had our own little fish who just satin front of our mask & seemed to staythere whatever we did. We swam outto the outer reef which was in muchdeeper water but would be accessi-ble at the lower tide so we left that forthe time being & returned to the shorefor our first meal. By this time we hadbeen on the go for some time sodecided to make a good meal & sitback for a while. Our evening mealwas simple with tins of stewing steak,potatoes & vegetables thrown in apan & heated up & it made a goodfinish to our days. A tin of fruit or ricepudding was our pudding & a cup ofcoffee to round it all off. We watchedthe sunset, on most evenings thiswas spectacular, once it was darkthe night sky just amazed us with so

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many stars to be seen that you wouldnever see normally. It became anevening ritual to just gaze up to the heav-ens. On our first breakfast we found thatthe eggs tasted of fish, obviously thechickens ate the scraps when the fishwere being cleaned but they were O.K.Bill introduced us to oat cakes made withporridge oats,eggs & water which wefried with a tin of bacon grill or tinnedsausage & fishy eggs. We also kept someback for lunch as we didn't bother with thefire then, much too hot to mess aboutcooking so our normal meal was coldbaked beans & oat cakes. The area wascleaned up to save us being overrun withthe huge ants we found there plus anyother nasties. The first thing was to ex-plore the length of the reef whichstretched along most of the beach & getour bearings as to our position whilst inthe water, we did cover some distancewithout looking towards the beach so itwas good to know the landmarks. Thebeach was curved, to our left was a rockyheadland & the right side led onto a fur-ther beach. We found our little fish joinedus quickly & took up station again on ourmask. The reef was made up of differenttypes of coral with gaps here & there, a lotof coral up high & recesses below wherethe bigger fish lurked. We found two largeGroupers in separate places & guessedthat there must be other species hiddenaway. The Sting Rays buried themselvesin the sand with just their eyes protrudingabove the layer of sand & we learnt to seethe circular shape of the body after awhile. When they flew off it was quite asight, there was some larger ones thatlooked fabulous when they moved. Ifound that there was so much to seewhere ever you looked that it was hard totake it all in, we hoped to get some good

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photography from Bill once he got organ-ised. We had our first visit from thesquadron in the morning, a Meteor PR10flying very low, if you were in the sea thenoise was deafening. During the week wewould see at least one aircraft,sometimestwo, & we were treated to some very lowlevel flying with the Meteor T7 showing offwith the wheels & flaps down at very lowspeed, quite a sight. There was a storydoing the rounds that one aircraft landedwith palm fronds stuck in the undercar-riage bay after visiting us , but no oneever came forward to confirm it. I mustadmit that the low level runs over thetrees by some of the pilots were very low. We had a simple lunch & an hour orso out of the sun, followed by an walkround the rocky area from where wecould see one of the other islands in thegroup. Our intention was to see if wecould get around the island but it waspretty rough ground so we left it for now.The next area we looked at was up the hillpast the water hole & climbed to the topof the island. The palm trees had beenplanted in lines but very overgrown on theground so the machetes we brought withus came in handy. Once we reached thetop the view was limited through the treesbut worth the climb. We quickly settled into a routine & rosewith the sun with little regard to the time.I think our watches lived in the film tin thatwe each had with our personal posses-sions. The early morning was spent inthe sea, on each dive we seemed to seesomething new & it was just amazing tous with all the activity in the reef. A spellashore for lunch & let the heat of the daysubside then a journey to the outer reef .Alarge area of sand between them & evenat low tide this reef was hard to reach, wedidn't really know the depth of water butwe could not spend a lot of time on the

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had gone. When we approachedthe Ops room about flying over theisland we were issued with a book-let showing the various signs wewould need to display, the only oneI recall was “Alls Well”, a double Lon the beach which needed to bequite a size. I know it was for ourown good but seemed a far cry fromthe “wave & let us know” from theearlier times. This time as we ap-proached the island we saw a Yshaped fishing trap, the boatmanindicated that a Malay family livedthere & soon we saw the hut whichwas on the far end of the beachfrom where we wanted to be so noproblem there. Once we got organ-ised we went to see the family &said our hellos, the husband, hiswife plus three young lads so wehad some company this time. It was good to see Fred & Rex'samazement at the clear water &abundance of fish which we hadtold them was the norm here & weenjoyed showing them the sights.Some of the coral had been dam-aged which had created more ac-cess points to the reef & createdmore hiding places for the largerfish. On one dive to the outer reefwe were just coming into one ofthese gaps when Stan saw some-thing in one of these places Wetried to see what it was but it wastucked away & barely visible. Onthe off chance Stan fired a harpooninto the area & much to our surprisethere was a crayfish on the point.We got it ashore, took it to the Ma-lay lady who was very pleased, lateron the lads brought us some of themeat & it was very tasty. On aboutthe third day Fred decided he want-

reef before needing air. We tried to getBill to use his expensive camera hous-ing, after one trip he seemed to loseinterest in diving at all & was unwillingto let any of us use it so it was a matterof great regret that our visions of allthis underwater photography came tonaught. A bit of light relief came fromusing the dinghy we had scroungedfrom Safety Equipment & foolingaround in that. After our evening mealwe would chat about the day's events,watch the sunset & see the night skyin all it's glory before turning in early.The week passed by very quickly & alltoo soon it was time to pack up, ourfisherman friend turned up & off weset. A bit of bargaining with the localtaxi drivers to take us back to Tengah& home. At this point Bill split up whatmoney was left in the kitty, on theproceeds of that we went to the village,had a haircut & shave then into Ten-gah Bar. A cold drink of Tiger followedby a hot Prawn curry & life was veryrosy. It had been a great week & thor-oughly enjoyable but good to be back. Recently I have found out that the realname of the island is Pulau Babi Hu-jung but to me it will always PulauBabi Kichil. That was the name I wastold back in September 1960 when thistrip to the island took place. In early 1962 I took part in anotherisland trip with Stan, Fred Douglas &“Rex” Harrison. This was Stan's & myswan song as we were tourex in theAugust. We followed the same princi-ples that worked so well before &, withjust a few differences it was just asgood as we remembered.The first thing that changed was theSquadron, our previous time we oper-ated Meteors, by now we flew the Can-berra PR7 & the earlier informal ways

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ed a coconut & off he set to climb atree that had probably fallen down atsome time but carried on growing sonow it went out level with the beachbefore going upwards. He was a fairdistance up the tree when the antsattacked him in their hundreds & hecame down very quickly & straight intothe sea. What he didn't realise was thathe had skinned his inner thighs & armsin his haste so the salt water just blewhim away. The damage was superficialbut did stop him diving for the rest ofthe time & used most of our antisepticcream in one go! The Malay family really enjoyedthe low level flights by the squadron &it was impressive to see the Canberradown so low, we just never got hold ofany of the film that was taken whichwas disappointing. Most evenings theyoung lads would visit, I'm sure we didknow their names but my memory hasfailed as to what they were. The nightsky was just as amazing, we plannedto find out what stars we could see butnever got round to visiting the library tocheck on this before the trip. Thestrange thing we noticed on both tripswas how the beach would be coveredin crabs of all sizes once night fell yetwe hardly saw any during all the timewe spent in the water. We carried ourharpoon guns but my aim was poor &what I managed to hit was always sosmall. One day I did hit a fairly largefish which turned out to be a Puffer fishwhich had puffed itself out so by thetime I got to the surface it had shrunkback to a much smaller specimen. Onmany dives I just spent my time lookingat the variety of fish to be seen, withoutthe gun they seemed to be easier toget close to so that was a bonus. It isquite common now to see programs on

T.V. showing all these sights but forus it was all very new & quite stun-ning. With the clear water we divedin here we were able to see so muchevery time we entered the water & itwas such a pleasure each day spenton the island. I know it put me offdiving round Singapore, where evenon a good day the visibility was lim-ited & on many times the amount ofsea life to be seen was poor. All too soon this amazingadventure came to an end & wecleared away giving many items toour neighbours but keeping thecooking pots for any further trips.Once again we spent some timebargaining with the taxi drivers final-ly reaching an agreement & wewere on our way home. A quickshower then a haircut & shave, Ialways remember the way the bar-ber massaged your head more likea good slap than a nice massage.After that the Tengah Bar beckoned& we enjoyed the first cold Tigerbeer & a good hot curry to round offthe week. Looking back after all theseyears I think we were very lucky toexperience this & the memories arestill pretty vivid. I do have quite a fewcolour slides & some black & whitephotos to remind me of both trips Iwas involved in. Once I know whenthis article will be published I will adda set of these to the web site & hopeyou enjoy them.

Ian Evans

Thanks for that Ian,great stuff. ED.

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Don McCullin started his photographic career as a National Serviceman being trainedas a Photo Assistant, processing ariel recce photos. There is currently an exhibition ofhis work at the Imperial War Museum in London. Our thanks to Rick Rickwood forpassing this on and the RAF News for reproduction.

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Humour in GREY!

One day there was this Japanese tourist sightseeing all around London. Finallyit was time for him to catch his plane home, so he hailed a black cab and askedthe driver to take him to Heathrow Airport.As they are travelling along the A4 out of London a Honda goes past them. TheJapanese suddenly shouts out “Ah, Honda, velly fast, designed in Japan”.A little l;ater a Toyota passes them. Again he shouts out “ah, Toyota, velly fast,made in Japan”. Yest again a bit further on he shouts again “ah, Mitsubishi.Velly fast, Japanese you see”. The taxi driver was by now very fed up with hispassenger and not a little annoyed but he kept quiet. Finally they reached theterminal at Heathrow. “That will be £150 please” said the cab driver.The Japanese said “Wah……..so expensive!”The driver simply yelled back at him, “meter very fast, made in Japan!.”

********************************************A surgeon an architect and a politician were discussing the question of whose[rofession was the oldest. The surgeon said he thought his was as Eve wascreated from Adams rib and it sounded like surgery to him.The architect was not so sure and said before Adam was created order wascreated out of chais, so he must be the oldest profession.Then the politician piped up and said that his must be the oldest professionbecause someone had to create the chais in the first place!

*******************************************Ancient time lines

525 BC and the first Olympics are held and were similar to the present dayexcept that the Russians didn’t try to enter a six footer with a moustache in thewomen’s shot put!

1 BC and calendar makers find themselves with a problem of what to call nextyear!

AD432 and St Patrick introduces Christianity to Ireland thus giving the nativessomething interesting to fight about for years!

AD 1755 and Samuel Johnson publishes the first English Dictionary at lastproviding young children with a book they can look up dirty words in!

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2012Photo competition

Entry is free and the photographs can be of any legal subject. Ifphotographs are of recognisable people please ensure that youhave their permission for the picture to be reproduced. Entriesmust be submitted as UNMOUNTED 10” x 8” prints on anypaper surface. The competition is only open to members andtheir wives/partners. The prize winners will be announced at theannual reunion on 13th October and the ‘Joe Oliver Award’ willbe made to the best overall picture. The judges decision will befinal. Please submit as much detail about your picture(s) aspossible. Photos should be taken after the 30th September 2011and must be submitted by Saturday the 1st September 2012.

Send your entries to: Mr Dave Newham, RAFPA Photo Comp,10 Hughes Close, Northway, Tewkesbury,

Gloucester, GL20 8SA.

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NewRecruits

The Association is pleased to welcome the following:

Peter Jackson:

Peter started his career as a National Serviceman in1947 at West Kirby and on 501 squadron at Filtonfrom 1947 - 1948.He then did his photographic training at WellesbourneMountford on course 67 from 1948 - 1949.

Brian Bundock:

Brian entered National Service in November 1951 andwent to RAF Melksham near Bristol for basic training.He trained as a Photographer in 1952 at Welles-bourne Mountford and was subsequently posted toBallykelly on 269 Squadron’s Shackletons.Brian then transferred to 240 Squadron, also Shackel-tons until the end of his service in 1953. During thistime he went to France and Portugal on NATO exer-cises. He also did a 6 week detachment to RAFBentley Priory photographing radar screens.

Telephone: 01223 - 565244

Mobile: 07754 - 891846

Email: secretary@rafpa.org.uk

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“It’s life Dave but not as we know it ”

“Warp factor 10 Mr Zulu please”

“It’s the safest way I know of flying”.

Dave Ketcher being enterprising!!!

Captions please

for this

intrepid rodent

photographer

and finally….……….……….……

All contributions for the Summer Edition of Flashback must beforwarded to the Editor by Monday the 14th May 2012. Picturesand Text to sent on separate files please. Original photos and hardcopy can be scanned and returned usually by return.