The 81st Entry
RAF Halton Aircraft Apprentices
Sept 1955 - July 1958

ISSUE No.9 - NOVEMBER 2006
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

Curly Knowlton, 81st and 84th Entry: His tale by Curly Knowlton

This is the other half of the extended apprenticeship in Martin McArthur/Curly Knowlton's illegal motorcycle saga. (See The Journal #3 May 2005; " Pipes/Bikes" etc)

Graduating from Halton with the 84th entry I was posted to Boscombe Down, to the big white weighbridge hanger that housed Valiant, Vulcan, Victor and a new aircraft the P1 (later to be known as the' Lightning')

The P1 didn't seem to fly very much during the months that I was at ORTF (Operational Reliability Trials Flight) so when I got my 'tapes', and was given a posting to Dishforth, I was hoping for real involvement with established aircraft.

Whilst I had been at Boscombe Down a huge aircraft called a 'Beverley' came in for weighing. At Dishforth there were five of these aircraft, together with Hastings. The more you saw of the Beverley's the smaller they seemed to become.

As I now lived in Portsmouth I used to volunteer to work weekends and save up 'the time in lieu'. This enabled me to see the nurse who helped me through my motorbike crash, who is now my wife of 46 years.

One Friday after everyone had left camp for the weekend, a voice boomed over the Tannoy " All weekend duty crew are to report to Sick Quarters as soon as possible". I emerged a short time later; arms "jabbed" with (what seemed) every known vaccine. Passport in hand we were told of the terrible reason for the emergency, a massive earthquake in Morocco at a place called Agadir. We were told to pack a bag for five days and be ready to leave first thing in the morning.

Our task was to pick up tons of Quicklime in France and transport it, via Gibraltar to Agadir. Not as straight forward as you may think. On our arrival in France we were informed that no Quicklime was available and to fly to Switzerland. Eventually, after a side trip to Berne, and faults with the oil pressure system in the aircraft, we touched down on a small airfield, down wind of Agadir.

To this day I can distinctly remember the sight of the dreadful destruction of the town caused by the earthquake some four days earlier, and the smell which assailed my nostrils from the bodies buried beneath the ruins, baked by the hot African sun.

As soon as we had off-loaded our cargo the Captain was approached by the Joint Air Forces Coordinator, to enquire' if we could help evacuate the children to a place of safety'. The freight bay, now devoid of drums contained no seating. We hastily rigged up netting along the sides of the aircraft and through these 'meshes' we 'threaded' the children.

What a pitiful sight they were! -Kiddies of all ages-some walking others being carried by adults. They had only the clothes they wore-many did not know if their parents, or other relatives, had survived or not. We comforted them, as best we could, during the flight, finally giving them in to the care of other Rescue organizations.

Our mission completed we set off for the UK via Gibraltar. Once again all did not go to plan. An engine failure caused us to do an emergency landing in Majorca, where a new engine replacement was flown out to us (courtesy of Hastings '528',which I understand now resides at RAF Duxford) We, the ground crew, returned to the UK on the Hastings, leaving an engine change crew to complete the engine replacement.

Our mission completed, with many more to come during the rest of my career spent wholly in Transport Command and later Air Support Command.