Hapmat?

Don’t quote me but I think Hapmet N and Hapmet S are code words for Murmansk and the Persian port Basra respectively…the entry points for Spitfires and other lend lease material to Russia.

Mark

It could just be a code name more than anything used in secret communications.

We’ve had things like “Picadilly” and “Leicester Square” used as code names for places in the Middle East before.

Yes, it could be an abbreviation but from experience it’s probably just a made up code name.

What a mystery. There are no airfields which I know of along the L-L path to Russia with such a name. Aircraft on the Persian route arrived in Abadan for assembly / erection, then were flown to Tehran-Mehrabad where they were collected by Soviet pilots. Then on to various destinations, often through Baku.

I suspect this could be an acronym. ‘MAT’ could certainly be ‘Military Air Transport’, and could ‘P’ stand for ‘Persia’? What could ‘H’ and ‘A’ be? The RAF’s Land Route for aircraft shipments passed through Alexandria and Habbaniya (as major stops), not to mention Al Basrah.

Habbaniya – Al Basrah – Persia – M? – Abadan – Tehran ????

Fascinating…

I think it’s “Hapmat” – at least according to this page:

http://www.spitfires.ukf.net/p107.htm

From what I can tell it was an undisclosed Middle East airfield where they were picked up by Russian pilots and flown back to the USSR.

Reference: http://colonialfilm.org.uk/node/3432

Hmmm… I can’t think of anything. I don’t see a connection on the Russian side, so perhaps it is a British notation?

Is the word capitalised, like an acronym, or given as you have it here? Where does this term appear on the aircraft card?