Hastings Aircraft
The Hastings aircraft which the RAF used in 1956 were fully equipped for medical purposes, that simply meant they had brackets and clamps to accommodate a dozen stretchers. In those days a stretcher was a simple thing, a 6ft x 2ft piece of strong canvas was stitched at the edges to form hollow tunnels. Two long poles were inserted and that was it. The better ones had four angled steel feet, but you couldn't then get the canvas off to wash out the blood! The RAF seating in aircraft always faced backwards as someone had worked out that in a bad landing there were fewer whip-lash injuries. I still travel with my back to the engine on trains if I have a choice.
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When I was in the RAF in 1955-57 we could take a lot of seated patients but there was a restriction of no more than 10% mentally ill people. Inevitably there were always some who were mentally ill, but to keep the service running we brought home alcoholics classified as mentally ill. These were often officers' wives who having spent a long time in the tropical climates and with little to do, often took advantage of the duty free low cost booze available in the officers' mess.
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We only flew in daylight. This again was to exercise the system; there was little point in flying night and day when you'd need to land for fuel and carry a second crew for long haul. It took five days to get to our Far East bases. We would stop at Brindisi in Italy, then Benghazi in Libya, then go on to RAF Habbaniya which is about 55 miles west of Baghdad in modern-day Iraq. This camp was under canvas and I remember it was the only place I couldn't shave as it was 50 volt DC and my multi-voltage Remington shaver couldn't handle that. At each of these stops we'd hand over our patients to the local medics. I was astonished to find Arthur Williams, my school friend from up the road was in charge. He too was an RAF medical orderly but was stationed there for 18 months whereas I flew onward.
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Our next stop was Karachi and then Bombay and Colombo in Ceylon (as it was then called) before finally flying to RAF Changi in Singapore. Many of the Allied prisoners-of-war had been housed in the nearby Changi Prison, and had been forced to build the Burma Railway under the direction of the Japanese occupiers after the fall of Singapore in 1942. But by 1956 it was a bustling town typical of the Far East, where you could buy silks, suits, drugs and cigarettes very cheaply. I only ever stayed a day or two before returning home with a full load of patients.
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It was the same route back, but Benghazi in Libya is worth a mention. That RAF staging post was very primitive and was spread over various sites. I was sent with a coach-load of the mentally ill, where they were to be put up overnight in a Nissen hut. When we arrived the driver felt in his pocket and realised he'd not brought the key. By this time the patients had got out for a smoke and were clustered in groups around the place. He said:
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'You stay. I'll nip back for the key'.
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I need to explain we were on the edge of a desert, nothing to be seen for miles; just me and 10 alcoholics. It was then that I noticed a couple of vultures had glided in and sat serenely on the top of the hut awaiting their opportunity to gnaw at the bones of the first who died of sunstroke.
Fortunately the driver did the decent thing and returned with the key before going to the bar himself to slake his thirst, but I realised that no one would notice our absence until take off time if he forgot us. When we returned to the UK, the patients were immediately moved on to an Army or Naval hospital. The RAF people were assessed with us at Wroughton and sometimes I'd get the opportunity to escort a walking patient back to their camp or another RAF hospital by public transport, wearing uniform, of course.
