A Story of War

I go to the ‘Badia’ after Tommy’s Bar on Saturday night, but am not much impressed. The mantlepiece with my name on has been wiped away at Tommy’s Bar. Met McDowell, a Major now, in the Continental. On Sunday we leave Cairo on a truck and come down here to Shandur where 6 squadron’s training flight is stationed, and with whom we are to train. The same road I took from Geneiffa last year. It is dark at 5.20pm here nowadays and we arrive after dark to find plenty of drink in the bar. Accommodation in tents, and bloody awful ration food. They root out some beds and blankets, and I manage to scrounge two sheets off the sick quarters, but the M.O. says this morning that he wants them back next week, so I shall have to find something else.

160 squadron Liberators here, and also 7 squadron S.A.A.F., plus ‘tank busters’ with 6 squadron. 6 squadron bust about 80-90 tanks in the battle (El Alamein, fought in November), and only lost one pilot, though several aircraft got shot down. The morning spent on Hurry (Hurricane) cockpit drill.