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Alan Tatchell Conrad 1478237 RAFVR MID: “The RAF Tourist” In any research project, it soon becomes clear that some terms are very specific to the topic. Apart from the obvious “211 Squadron” and “Bristol Blenheim”, there are many such in the Squadron’s history. For example, repeated Internet searching on certain place names will find new material from time to time. And so it was with “The RAF Tourist”. Searches on Wadi Gazouza used to find nothing of relevance to the 211 Squadron story. Then in late 2001, a fresh ”find” emerged. In Florida, John Conrad had been busy drafting some web pages to share his father Alan’s photos and story with the family in england and elsewhere. On enquiry, both surprised and pleased that their project had been spotted, they each replied in very kindly terms. This page is the result. Called up for service in 1941, Alan reported to 3 Recruitment Centre Padgate on 24 May. Enlisted as a Group IV Clerk (General Duties) in the entry rank of AC2, by September 1941 Alan found himself aboard ship bound via South Africa and Aden for the Middle East. Arriving at Port Tewfik on the Suez Canal that October, he was sent straight to the sand and scrub of the Sudan, where he was posted as a clerk to 211 Squadron at Wadi Gazouza. As well as his 211 Squadron days, Alan spent time with 230 Squadron and at Lake Koggala, where 205 Squadron were stationed both before and after their part in the Java debacle. Alan summarised his RAF experiences neatly as follows: “My connection with 211 squadron and Wadi Gazouza was very brief. I was posted there in October 1941 and when the squadron was moved to the Far East shortly after the Japs attacked, I was transferred to 72 OTU. At the time I was very fed up being transferred from an operational squadron but about 45 years later I read what had happened to the 211 ground staff I was thankful I had been posted. Wadi Gazouza was a very dry, dusty, sandy place and I as a lowly AC2 orderly room clerk with a total service of about five months, was about the greenest thing around. About April 1942 72 OTU was transferred to Nanyuki in Kenya (a green and pleasant land) and in June 1943 I was posted to 230 Squadron at Dar es Salaam. Their Sunderlands evacuated many from Greece in 1941 and I hope this included a lot of 211 bods [it surely did - see CFR Clark Operations in Greece]. We later moved to Lake Koggala in Ceylon and then on to Akyab and Rangoon in Burma where I left them in July 1945 having completed my four years overseas service.” Among Alan’s comrades were two photographers Messrs Condor and Fletcher, who appear with him photographed by a Blenheim. They took most of the photographs of Wadi Gazouza that are shown on the Conrads’ site (and were the source of the “unofficial” aerial shot of Wadi Gazouza). They remained with 72 OTU and transferred to Kenya. When Corporal Alan Conrad left the RAF in November 1946, his long and distinguished service overseas and in the “back office” had been rewarded not only by steady promotion but with a Mention in despatches (London Gazette 1 January 1946). Photographs
15 aircraft here. On the flightline, 12 of them twin-engined and almost certainly Blenheims. With equal confidence, of either 211 Squadron or 72 OTU. Sun, sand and circuits. This vertical shot was taken at about 11:30 in the morning sometime towards late (Winter) 1941, from the clock record and the shadows cast by the Southerly sun. The usual marginal notes are not to be seen on this scan, so no exact date. Men bound for 211 Squadron at Wadi Gazouza mainly travelled by train or by truck from Port Sudan, the line running up through the Red Sea Hills and on South towards Kassala, some 300 desolate miles away. The line and the old road twisted and turned about each other for some 80 miles as they ran up into the Hills and on through Gebeit and Sinkat before reaching Summit, the railway halt and road junction well known to the 211s. There they left the train, to travel by truck along a desert track for some five miles over the sandy and usually dry floor of Wadi Gazouza to reach their airfield. The track, since sealed in part, now passes through the old site and on to Carthago and Erkowit in the Red Sea Hills. Searching the Sudan hill country around Gebeit, Sinkat, Summit and Erkowit, it took a number of attempts with Google Maps, ultimately successful, to find what remains of the original airfield at Wadi Gazouza. As a result, the aerial image above has now been re-oriented correctly, with North to the top.
Taxiing, hatch open and LSCs bombed-up. No squadron code or individual letter but, with virtual certainty, a 211 or 72 OTU aircraft. A mixture of Mark Is and Mark IVs were available to 211 Squadron when operating as 72 OTU.
www.211squadron.org © D Clark & others 1998–2010 |
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