Memories of Libya 1956 to 1959

Contributed by Trevor STUBBERFIELD 52A

Libyan Extras Continued.

The Dolphin Yacht Club, run by the services for the services, based on Tripoli harbour. I was very surprised to find that I had volunteered to fit a new power unit to the club rescue launch. After several attempts to repair the original engine it was decided to fit a new one which had been won from an unnamed Ordnance Depot. It was the whole unit from a pickup truck. Much longer than the original, it became a knife and fork job to fit it. I volunteered a couple of lads as fitter’s mates. Much of the work was done in the afternoons, bent over the engine locker, under the hot sun. That was my excuse when I was sea-sick, on a mill pond sea, tied up to the jetty. It all went fairly well, up to the first sea trials that is. The engine had been given a good run up and we cast off, put it in first gear and let the clutch in. We quickly found we had four reverse gears and one forward as we crashed stern first into the jetty. The original set up had been just a simple gear train, but now we had the extra shaft and gears in the truck gearbox. The problem was solved by the club having a new propeller cast with reverse pitch. The next trials didn’t fare much better. Confident we would go forward, we cast off, the engine was gunned and we went forward quite quickly, coming to a sharp stop. One crew member had untied the rear rope but left it on the jetty as he jumped on board the moving launch. The rope dropped between the slats of the jetty and wrapped around one of the legs. We stopped suddenly and then went forward again, tugging the jetty along the bed of the harbour. The Club Commodore was not best pleased. That should have been the end of my career as a skipper but strangely we ended up as the crew of the launch which had to be available at all times whilst the yachts were sailing. There were several mishaps before we got the hang of seamanship, including running out of fuel twice in the middle of the harbour. The first time we were towed back by the harbourmaster’s launch which didn’t please the Commodore when he got the bill. Second time we had taken the precaution of shipping a pair of oars and had to row back. It must have been one of very few launches where you actually drove it like a car, using the clutch with a lever and changing gear. My Master’s ticket was revoked by my wife who had arrived from the UK. She wasn’t best pleased when she found out I was spending my afternoons hauling scantily clad, nubile young maidens out of the drink and sitting them in the boat whilst we righted their yachts. And all before the invention of the wet T shirt contest. I never liked boats anyway.

I was called to clear away the body of a dead cat and her kittens from the cab of a truck where she had got trapped. One of the kits had the faintest signs of life and I rushed her home where we mounted a 24 hour vigil to try and save her. We were rewarded with a most remarkable cat who won us over. Fairly tame with us, she carried all the traits of a wild cat, which her mother was. Very eerie to be woken in the middle of the night by a howling banshee, only to find out it was the cat howling to the moon. She would think nothing of running up behind you and burying her claws and teeth into the back of your bare leg, probably practising her hunting skills. On our next posting she was flown to Germany to await our arrival, spending her time in a cattery where she caused quite a lot of havoc with the other inmates. In the end she was taken into the house away from the other cats to give them some peace. Finding out what regulations were involved in exporting her to Germany found me in a rather bizarre situation, sitting on a couch, in the German Embassy with the Ambassador, in his study, drinking coffee and biscuits, whilst his aide looked up the rules and we talked about the strange Englishman’s obsession with his cat.
	I had a thing about picking up stray creatures and bringing them home. The odd praying mantis, a lizard or two, dung beetle, and Horace the chameleon who lived in the spare bedroom. The cat would often give him a whack at which he would swell up and let out air with a loud roar. He was so loud on one occasion that the cat shot up the curtains into the pelmet and wouldn’t come down till Horace was removed from the room. My biggest find was a jerboa, or desert rat. I got it all the way home in a cardboard box. When I opened the car door it had eaten its way out and shot off up the road at a furious pace, startling an Arab or two.
A typical set-up of a desert camp, this one following a live firing exercise we had done in support of the Libyan army. RAF Vampire aircraft from Malta, guns from 3 RHA, tanks from the Queen’s Bays, transport from the RASC, spotter aircraft from the Air OP, and signals communication from the Royal Signals. The target was a building at one end of a long valley. We were parked up out of the way on the top of the hillside, looking down into the target area. It was a fantastic sight, looking down onto the Vampires as they flew in low and released their rockets, pulling up and away immediately to avoid shooting themselves down with their own weapons as they ignited and quickly reached speeds in excess of the planes own speed. The building was pounded by the artillery and tanks which were out of sight, lobbing shells over the hillside into the valley. The ground attack followed, carried out by the Libyan infantry advancing with fire down the valley. Some of them got it wrong, they stood up as the troops behind them fired. There were several serious casualties who were evacuated pretty smartly by the RASC ambulances, on stand by for just such an occurrence. At the end of the exercise we were rewarded with the gift of two sheep which were slaughtered and ended up as mutton stew for our main meal. Within a very short time about eighty per cent of the camp had made for the thunderboxes, which quickly became fully subscribed. The dreaded Tripoli Trots had struck with a vengeance. We didn’t have enough fit personnel left to get all our equipment back to base, most had been evacuated back to town by ambulance. Training of the Libyan Army was undertaken by the British Army through the setting up of a Military Mission in 1951. Soldier Magazine published an article on the training program that was put in place, and the report can be accessed from the first link. The second article reports on the early days of the Army Air Corps in Libya, the Corps having taken over the duties of the Royal Artillery Air OP unit based at Idris Airport. Click on each Soldier Magazine front page to access the articles.
Military Mission to Libya.		Focus on Libya.
These articles remain the Copyright © of Soldier Magazine.
Adobe Reader is required to open these file and can be downloaded from this link if needed.

The Italian Roman Catholic Cathedral in 1957 before it was converted to a mosque.

Barclays Bank, Tripoli.	Riding the dolphin at Sabratha.
The dead straight road across the Azizia Plain.	Silver City car freighter at Idris airport.

We needed a vehicle of our own to get about town, to work and to the beaches. This was found unloved and unwanted (the car that is) tucked away in the back of a garage. Sufficient piastres changed hands and we owned a 1947 Renault 4CV 750cc rear engined nightmare. In the long run I spent more time with my head under the rear engine cover than I did driving it, but give it it’s due, it taught me a lot of practical engineering skills backed up by the theory learnt at Arborfield.

In modern parlance, my ride was pimped, and after a tidy up and a new paint job it began to look a lot smarter. I had a stroke of luck when I got involved with the film Ice Cold in Alex, as reported on elsewhere. I was given an old chassis of a Fiat pick-up truck with the instructions to construct a metal frame on it which would look spectacular when it was blown up, bits to be seen flying everywhere. In theory and in the film, the vehicle which was destroyed was a Humber 1 Ton Recce Car, a bit more expensive than an old Fiat chassis. It was obviously going to be a one take job, no second chance. I noticed that the Fiat had very good tyres on it and just by chance they were the same size as the Renault which was not well shod. After a hectic hour or so the position was reversed and I never did have to buy tyres whilst I had the car.

At the end of my tour of duty I had no difficulty selling the car. Being quite small it was one of the few models which could be driven right into the old city and up the narrow alleys and passageways as I found out when I delivered it to the purchaser for a preview for his family. At times clearance was about an inch either side and to open the door to get out I had to find a spot where two alleyways crossed. I was very relieved when I got back out to the modern city with its wide avenues and boulevards.

Tuareg tribesman in light blue robes.

Published: 15th February 2008.

Latest Update: 4th July 2011

---

Libyan Extras Continued.