More from the Far East – photos

Hi Laurie,
Hope you’ve got all the pics now!

I noticed an odd thing in the group photo the other day. Several of the men seem to be wearing what appears to be a wrist band with some kind of insignia on, and, no, it’s not their watch (visible on the other wrist).

What is it?

Hi James,

Sorry, still missing 4 & 5 of the batch that you sent. No’s 1 -3 arrived ok.

As mentioned by the previous posters, the wristband has the WO’s “Tate & Lyles”, the Royal Warrant insignia on it. IIRC, there were 2 ways of wearing it, either on a leather wristband or a white cotton one. Well spotted, I hadn’t noticed that.

BTW, NJ254/V was the first Sunderland flown here in the Far East by the chap that I am researching. He flew it from Glugor, here on Penang Island, to Seletar after it had an engine change. Date, 31 October 1949, flying time, 2 hrs 40 mins. So i now have photos of the first and the last Sunderlands he flew here.

Regards

Laurie.

PS: Sorry, just realised that, of course, it wasn’t ‘Tate & Lyles” for Master (WO) aircrew, it was a Laurel wreath with an eagle in the centre, topped by a crown. Can be seen in the photo of Bill Whyter on page 2.

It is definitely a W.O. badge. When short sleeves shirts are worn there is no where for the normal badge. So a metal W.O. badge was worn on a leather strap.

Glyn

Could that be the KD equivalent of the laurel wreath badge? Or a Warrant Officer’s badge?
It’s a very long time since I wore KD, but I have vague memories of something like that. I was only a Sergeant at the time, but lived in the Sergeant’s Mess, of course.

I’m with you PL.

Warrant Officer aircrew.

Mark

Could that be the KD equivalent of the laurel wreath badge? Or a Warrant Officer’s badge?
It’s a very long time since I wore KD, but I have vague memories of something like that. I was only a Sergeant at the time, but lived in the Sergeant’s Mess, of course.

Hi Laurie,
Hope you’ve got all the pics now!

I noticed an odd thing in the group photo the other day. Several of the men seem to be wearing what appears to be a wrist band with some kind of insignia on, and, no, it’s not their watch (visible on the other wrist).

What is it?

Hi Laurie,
I passed a print of this thread to Andy, and as well as the photos above, he gave me a Sqn photo (it’s huge, and I’ve scanned it in four sections. The Sunderland is SZ571, and the chap you are researching is second row back, seventh from left. I’ve also scanned him seperately at a higher resolution. Andy says he was in the process of changing his name (from the Polish) and knew him as Marsden. Hope this is of help!

Oh, Andy says he was away from the base when the photo was taken, and so he’s not in it… 😉

Cheers

James,

Many thanks for the photos. They are excellent.

Unfortunately, the pilot is not the one that I am researching. There was another Polish chap who joined 209 during 1950 and this could well be him. I’ll check the ORB and come up with a name.

Also, I note that all the SNCO aircrew are wearing chevrons on their sleeves. That dates the photo as after 31 August 1950, when they reverted to this style of rank badging. For the previous 3 years, the much hated ranks of Aircrew 1, 2 and 3, along with Master, had been introduced. Their badges of rank were based on a laurel wreath motif with crowns inside, as you can see in the photo below. The chap I am interested in had already been cross-posted to 60 Sqn at Tengah by that date.

I include a photo of the pilot I am researching below. This was taken whilst he was attending a Maritime conversion course at Kinloss early in 1949.

BR

Laurie.

PS: The Sunderland at Iwakuni coded ‘Y’ could well be SZ571. That was with 209 from 10 June 1950 until 1 January 1953 and carried the ‘Y’ code.

I was particularly interested in the shot of Sunderland RN303. Circa mid-1950, this aircraft joined 209 Sqn as “X” replacing ML881. It was flown out from Wig Bay to Seletar over the period 3 – 9 May 1950 by Fg Off K J Evans and crew of 209 Sqn.

During its early time with 209 it was flown by a Polish pilot that I am currently researching. In fact, he flew his last Sunderland sortie (Seletar – Kuching – Seletar on 15 August 1950) in RN303 before being posted over to 60 Sqn at Tengah to fly Spitfire FR XVIII’s/Vampire FB5’s & 9’s.

Hi Laurie,
I passed a print of this thread to Andy, and as well as the photos above, he gave me a Sqn photo (it’s huge, and I’ve scanned it in four sections. The Sunderland is SZ571, and the chap you are researching is second row back, seventh from left. I’ve also scanned him seperately at a higher resolution. Andy says he was in the process of changing his name (from the Polish) and knew him as Marsden. Hope this is of help!

Oh, Andy says he was away from the base when the photo was taken, and so he’s not in it… 😉

Cheers

Here are some photos I was recently loaned from the same era.

They are from the collection of Andrew Mielnik of 209 Sqn, 1949 – 52 (FEAF FBW). He was Ground Staff / Flight Engineer, currently a fellow volunteer at the RAAF Museum, though he’s a lot more use than me, and is refurbishing a Merlin engine to go on display.

Hope they are of interest!

Captions:

01: “1951, Singapore” Sunderland SZ566 ‘O’ – note the taped over fixed bow gun positions, Sqn badge above the crew door, and playing card on the nose. Oh, there’s a bod with his head in the astrodome!

02, 03: NJ254 ‘V’ “Singapore, April 1950”.

04: “Sunderland Flying Boat – Minor Snags. Sgt Thompson (o.l.) April 1950.” Can’t quite read the serial. Looks like it ends in xxx68

05: “Seletar, 1950” RN282

06: “Iwakuni 1950 Endley, Summer, Shorpe, Hilton.”

07: “Iwakuni 1950.” Sunderland ‘Y’ no serial visible.

Oh, yes, thanks lauriebe, especially when we were detached from Bahrain to Sharjah and had to pack everything into an Argosy, on arrival we found a suitable sand dune to put the radar on, living in a tent next to it for the 2 weeks of an air defence exercise – we drank so much pop (non-alcoholic of course) that the money back on the empty bottles paid for a really good alcoholic night out afterwards!

We were a static “mobile” radar. The unit had been in place at Terendak for around 2 years to plug a gap in coverage at the bottom end of Penisular Malaysia during the latter stages of Confrontation.

Previously, it had been in a couple of locations on the east coast in the Kuantan/Mersing area.

Only had to move the kit when we disbanded in April 1968.

There were a couple of other sets here in the Far East, one at Western Hill, Penang, to cover for the TPS 34 that was always throwing a wobbly and packing up. The other, IIRC, was in Singapore.

BR,

Laurie.

Oh, yes, thanks lauriebe, especially when we were detached from Bahrain to Sharjah and had to pack everything into an Argosy, on arrival we found a suitable sand dune to put the radar on, living in a tent next to it for the 2 weeks of an air defence exercise – we drank so much pop (non-alcoholic of course) that the money back on the empty bottles paid for a really good alcoholic night out afterwards!

Nice to see the old UPS-1 “sweatbox” – around the same date I was responsible for the one at Hamala camp, Bahrain, even with 2 air conditioners running full blast it was the same temperature inside as outside: 140F! Of course it was valve technology – no transistors or integrated circuits in those days.
Never thought I would see one of those again!

Papa Lima,

Does this bring back memories?

Knew I had some photos somewhere but can only lay my hands on one at the moment. The others will no doubt turn up in due course.

BR,

Laurie.

Laurie,

Lovely photos, many thanks. The Javelin had such a strange reheat system, as can be seen from the four-ship formation. They even flew the circuit in reheat quite regularly.

John,

Yes, Bill Whyter is well, I last saw him only a month or so ago.

Far East Air Force

Interesting seeing these pics from Bill Whiter, a Navigator on 205/209 Squadron at Seletar when I was on the squadron in 1958. I have met Bill at Duxford at a reunion and wondered if anyone has heard from him recently. His photos are top rated as they portray the last flying boats in RAF service a group of us ‘webfooters’ are hoping to get a Golden Jubilee disbandment reunion together in May 2009 50 years after ‘paying off the pennant’.

If anybody knows anyone who served on 205/209 Squadrons (Flying Boats only) then I would love to hear from them. We are toying with the idea of a reunion at either Hendon or Duxford, there wasn’t many ‘bombers’ flying in 1959 where you could still lob the odd bomb or two out of a window by hand, but Operation Firedog did just that!

I have loads of photos (colour and B&W) on

http://community.webshots.com/user/hastingsgan of various Far East Air Force Bases including those from Bill Whiter

There is also my other site dedicated to 205/209 Squadron Seletar at http://splashdown2.tripod.com/id12.html

Nice to see the old UPS-1 “sweatbox” – around the same date I was responsible for the one at Hamala camp, Bahrain, even with 2 air conditioners running full blast it was the same temperature inside as outside: 140F! Of course it was valve technology – no transistors or integrated circuits in those days.
Never thought I would see one of those again!

A few Belvedere shots.

These were taken on the 9 April 1968 at Terendak Camp Malacca, when XG476/P of 66 Sqn was lifting out a UPS 1 radar cabin and its associated comms setup.

First shot, setting off to pick up the cabin
Second shot, lifting the cain into the AAC helipad.
Third shot, positioning the radar cabin on a trailer for road transport to Singapore.
Fourth shot, about to lift the Comms cabin onto the lowloader.

BR

Laurie.

Laurie, yes somehow the Bill Whyter photo didn’t appear (probably finger trouble on my part). Here he is.

Steve,

Thanks for posting Bill Whyter’s photo. It’s nice to be able to put a face to the person that supplied most of these great photos.

Would also very much like to see the disbandment shots when you have time to post.

Meanwhile, here’s a few of mine from the same era. The 2 colour Jav formation shots were taken on the evening of 1 April 1968 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the RAF and the disbandment of the small mobile radar unit I was serving on at the time. The location is Terendak Military Camp, near Malacca.

The black and white shot is of the final Jav line-up taken the morning after 60 Sqn’s disbandment at Tengah on 30 April 1968.

Sorry for the poor quality. The colour shots were taken at sunset and the main formation of 7 aircraft made 2 passes before the 4 aircraft broke away and performed a further 2 passes with reheat on. There was also a Lightning from 74 Sqn but, because of his speed, I was unable to get any usable photos.

BR

Laurie

Laurie,

Thanks for the info. Sorry that this thread and the 1920s and 30s one have got jumbled up, so here are a few more for this one, all taken at Gan by Geoff Mann:

Don’t apologise Steve – that’s my fault! I started posting FEAF shots on this thread, not realising you have started two similar threads. You should combine the two and call it ‘RAF overseas’.

Good Lord, I’m going to wear out my mouse button clicking on all those wonderful color shots! 🙂

Keep up the GREAT work guys, this is a real treat!

Lynn

Bograt,

Good stuff. I have a series of disbandment flypast photographs if anyone would like to see them. Not 34 Squadron unfortunately, but I do have the 205 Squadron Shackleton formation and 74 Squadron Lightnings.

Top images guys; takes me back to my own days in Changi as a youngster. Dad was posted there from 67-69, and we lived at the end of the runway.

Enduring memories…..the 34 Squadron disbandment flypast of twelve Beverleys around the island; riding in the nose of a Shackleton at low level over the sea; the first C-130’s arriving; an RB-57 at the Tengah airshow (that wing… 😮 ) Bristol Freighters!!