An Epic Flight

Although it was more than twenty-five years ago it seems only yesterday that my wife and I took our daughter down to Gatwick to catch a Cathay Pacific 747 flight to Hong Kong.  The thing I found remarkable about that flight was that it was non-stop, taking a mere twelve hours to reach its destination.  What seemed even more remarkable was that she would be almost a quarter of the way to Hong Kong before we had managed to return to our home near Cambridge.  Such were the differences between her journey and those that I had been used to that it was inevitable that I should draw comparisons between my daughter’s flight and my own first flight to the Far East in 1958.

 It was early in 1958 that I embarked on a military trooping flight operated by Airwork.  I was instructed that I had to fly in civilian clothes and the Navy, who had supplied the passport, noted my occupation as a government employee.  Together with roughly two thirds of the fifty or so passengers I was scheduled to join the frigate HMS Cardigan Bay in Singapore as a member of a partial replacement crew.   The remainder of the passengers were joining other ships or establishments.

Airwork was a long established company having started in business in 1928 providing pleasure trips in light aircraft.  During the thirties they became involved in setting up United Arab Airways and Indian National Airways whilst WWII saw them engaged in pilot training for the RAF.   At the end of WWII the company acquired a number of Vickers Vikings with which to establish a passenger service.  At the same time they also acquired a number of De Havilland Dragon Rapides for freighting activities.  It was between 1948 and 1952 that Airwork began military trooping flights, initially to the Middle East and then to Kenya.  An increase in trooping during 1952 led to the acquisition of four ex-BOAC Hermes airliners.  Further trooping contracts were agreed during 1952 – this time to the Far East – and this work continued until 1959 when, due to a slow-down in activity, the Hermes aircraft were scrapped.

 The Hermes was classed as an airliner although that title would be considered as rather a joke nowadays.   It was a “civilian” development of the RAF Hastings; although the prototype crashed on its maiden flight in 1945, thereby holding up development work, and it was not until three years later that the aircraft first flew commercially.   With four piston-engines and a cruising speed of 270 mph at 20,000 feet it had a range of 2000 miles, or thereabouts, depending on the payload.   For normal passenger operation the seating was arranged for 40 passengers although for trooping, and other less demanding applications, this could be increased to accommodate a maximum of 63 passengers.   The accommodation was pretty Spartan by comparison with today’s standards.   The seats were rear facing and the separation between the passengers and the crew’s quarters, galley and cockpit, was marked simply by a curtain across the central gangway.    None of the passengers had engaged in a trooping flight before so we were all rather naïve about the protocol and what to expect but for most of us it was a bit of an adventure.  And adventure was what it turned out to be.

Day 1.  The coach brought us to Stanstead airport at about three in the afternoon.  In those days the airport consisted of a cluster of single storey buildings with one a little taller than the rest that probably served as the control tower.   There was very little flying activity; in fact the only aircraft in sight was the Hermes standing on the apron.  Pre-flight formalities were very low key and we drank insipid tea whilst waiting for the luggage to be loaded.   Eventually we were allowed to board the aircraft and after the usual safety information provided by a pretty stewardess we took off for the first leg of the flight to Taranto in southern Italy.    A meal was served soon after take-off  and, with the light rapidly fading, most of the passengers dozed off until instructed to fasten seatbelts for the landing at 11pm.  At Taranto we were served with an unappetising plate of stodgy spaghetti whilst waiting for the re-fuelling and other formalities.

 Day 2.  The aircraft left Taranto at 00.30 and headed for Ankara where we arrived at about 4.00 am.  Again we had to disembark into the airport lounge while the aircraft was refuelled.   The Turkish hospitality in Ankara was fairly indifferent but this was perhaps understandable given the time of day.  There was barely time for another cup of insipid tea before we were herded back into the aircraft which took off for Basra on the third leg of our journey.   Breakfast was served at about 08.00 and, since it was now daylight, there was much to see and marvel at from the windows of the aircraft.  More so at about 10.30 as we came in to land.  I recall seeing palm trees and a couple of haughty looking camels that seemed far too close for comfort as we made touch down.  The aircraft came to a halt on the apron about half a mile from the terminal and the doors were opened admitting a blast of heat.   A swarthy man dressed in what appeared to be a military uniform entered the aircraft and proceeded up the gangway spraying the passengers and surfaces with a Flit gun.   It was then that we learned that we were not to be allowed to disembark.    A vehicle pulled up below both of the aircraft doors from which air hoses were manhandled into the aircraft.   Although the air issuing from the hoses was very warm it was a least moving and saved us from melting as the heat in the cabin built up to an almost unbearable level.    Re-fuelling was completed in short order and by 11.30 we were taking off again for Karachi where we arrived at about four in the afternoon.    Karachi was to be an overnight stop and we were driven from the airport by coach to our accommodation at Minwalla’s Grand Hotel, arriving just after five in the afternoon.   Although it was over twenty-four hours since leaving Stanstead, most passengers on the flight had been travelling much longer than that.  The journey for a number of the Cardigan Bay group, my own included, had started in Plymouth at 8.00am the previous day so we were tired and hot and ready for a bath.    Furthermore, most had found that dozing in a cramped seat in a noisy aircraft is no substitute for a real night’s sleep in a comfortable bed so that too was a priority.  For some of the passengers the introduction to Minwalla’s Grand hotel was not too auspicious.   Having settled suitcases in our rooms a group of us approached the reception desk armed with towels and bathing trunks to ask directions to the swimming pool. The clerk was outraged. “Vorter, vorter! In this country ve do not have enough vorter to drink and you vant to svim in it!”  So we had to be content with the low pressure showers in our rooms – all except the chap who had travelled in drainpipe jeans (all the rage in the fifties).  Twenty-four hours in the aircraft ensured that his feet and ankles had swollen to such an extent that he found it impossible to remove his jeans and had to take a shower with them on.  (He had to have them cut off when we eventually arrived in Singapore.) The rest of our stay at Minwalla’s was uneventful.  We were not due to depart again for Calcutta until the following afternoon so we spent the time stocking up on sleep, under a fan if we were lucky.

Day 3.  Took off from Karachi at 5.00pm on leg five of our journey.   We were scheduled to arrive in Calcutta at about 11.00pm and, since it was quickly dark, the aircraft lights were dimmed and most settled to doze the time away.   I was occupying an aisle seat this time and found it difficult to settle down.   I knew that there quite a few unoccupied rows of seats nearer the front of the aircraft so I wandered forward and took over a pair of seats over the starboard wing where I could spread out a bit. We were about a couple of hours into the journey when I became aware of a bell ringing somewhere behind the curtain.  It seemed to go on forever so I turned round to the stewardess who was sitting on the port side just behind me and asked why nobody could be bothered to answer the telephone.   In reply she disappeared behind the curtain and, within seconds, the bell stopped.  The next thing was that the flight engineer pulled aside the curtain, knelt on the seat behind me, and looked out of the window.  I did the same and gazed out on the wing that was being illuminated by a spotlight from the cockpit.   Smoke was issuing from the cowl flaps on the outer engine nacelle and the propeller was slowly coming to a halt.  As I watched the cowl flaps closed and the flight engineer went back into the cockpit.   None of the other passengers seemed to be aware of the drama that was unfolding so I stood up to pass the word around.   The stewardess had other ideas though and she grabbed my arm, putting her finger to her lips and shaking her head.    The fact that I was privy to information known only to the aircraft crew was very little comfort.   Neither was the knowledge, imparted by a whispering stewardess, that we would be making an emergency landing at Delhi.   However, the landing was no problem.  As the aircraft entered the approach to Delhi the intercom announced that we were making an unscheduled stop and at about 8.30pm we touched down.   Disembarkation was hurried along by the crew but it did not escape the passenger’s attention that the aircraft was surrounded by fire engines.    When the story of the night’s events was related it was met glumly enough but the gloom was soon overshadowed by the lack of information and the lack of facilities offered by the Delhi airport authority.   The aircraft crew had disappeared rapidly once we were on the ground leaving fifty or so passengers, unwanted by the airport, milling around desperate for something to eat or drink but with no appropriate currency to pay for it.  After about three hours we were offered a soft drink from an airport trolley and it was a further two hours before the problem with the aircraft was sorted and it was able to resume its journey.

 Day 4.  Two hours later we were rounded up by our missing flight attendants and led back to the aircraft.  The captain apologised over the intercom for that “bit of excitement” and assured his passengers that the fault had been rectified and that we were now A1 for continuing our journey.  We took off at about 1.30am and after a relatively short and uneventful flight arrived at Calcutta’s Dum Dum airport at 4.30am when we were given breakfast.  With passengers and aircraft fully fuelled we departed Calcutta at 7.00am for a daylight flight to Bangkok a large part of which was over the jungle of Burma and Thailand.  At Bangkok we were fed again and, after a two hour stop we set off for the final leg of the journey to Singapore where we arrived, in darkness, at 7.00pm.   I will always remember the rich, moist, jungle smell as we disembarked from the aircraft, a smell that I would get used to over the next eighteen months or so.   Because our arrival was way behind schedule we were transported by coaches to the Naval Base at HMS Terror where we were to be accommodated overnight.   It was something of a relief to get back on the ground and know that we would be staying there for some time to come.  Some 83 hours earlier I had begun my journey from Plymouth and almost 40 of those hours had been spent sitting in a cramped aircraft seat.  But apart from being pretty tired there were no ill effects, except of course for the lad who had to have his trousers cut off.  And once his legs had recovered from the encumbrance they quickly reverted to their normal size.  The overnight stay at Terror turned out to be two nights and the time in between was spent in getting wet inside with Tiger Tops and wet outside in the open-air swimming pool – not to mention writing home about our rather more than interesting journey.

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The photographs used to illustrate this account were obtained from other websites.  Every endeavour has been made to contact the photograph copyright holders for permission to use them but without success.  Therefore thanks to them by default.