Letter No. 3
Aust. No34171
ACI Cooney JF
3 Squadron RAAF
Middle East 12.6.42
Dear Mum,
In this God-forsaken country where you & everybody else said I would not be sent I have at last got used to the routine of things. That is to say I have got used to the main parts but there are things such as wind & sand that I doubt anyone could get used to.
I could give you a rough idea of our daily routine but that would take too many pages so I will skip that & just give you the main essentials.
First & foremost is food. This is much better prepared than everyone T home would have us believe, in fact, it is better than we received at most Australian stations. What it lacks in variety is compensated to a certain extent with quantity & quality. The meat, although mutton, is first class export quality & comes from New Zealand. At the moment we are getting plenty of greens & even though these are mostly tinned they are very good. The tinned vegetables are grown in Aussie.The sweet are very similar every day but of course we don’t expect everything & are very thankful for what we do get. The cooks are about the best I have met since I joined up & they go out of their way to make things tasty.
We also have our own canteen where we can buy real Aussie beer at 6 ackees (1/6) a bottle also Australian cigarettes, tobacco, tinned fruits & chocolates & when the parcels start rolling in from home the ‘hardships’ of the desert will be considerably relieved.
The second most important thing out here is work. Our little bunch, 7 in all, were stationed at base & that means we are several hundred miles from any action. Although we have heard a few bombs & ack-ack fire about 15 miles away. When we were posted to base we were all inclined to be hostile because we wanted to be up ‘in it’, the main attraction I think was souvenirs. A couple of nights after the new lads arrived up the front Jerry made things rather hot, so hot in fact that a couple of the old boys “passed out” in a faint. After that we were glad to stop at base & will be until things quieten down a little.
Out here we naturally have no cement floored, brick hangars to do our work in & as we have to work in the open with the sand & dirt blowing everywhere we have to resort to some very unusual methods. If we did a job at home the way we do it out here the Engineer Officer hair would stand on end.
We are on duty all the time although the work comes in spasms. We often have days when we just sit around & wait for work to come in. Some days we are up at daylight & working on planes before breakfast so they can get up to the front early enough to go out on operations.
Next important thing is recreation. To start with we have a swimming parade at least every two days we leave camp about 2 o’clock & get to the beach about 2.20. Once down there we lay on the beach & sun bake & after a couple of swims we leave for camp. We generally go into the canteen on the way home & have something to eat & a drink of lemon squash, or something a little harder.
We also have pictures in the Airmen’s mess on Saturday nights. These shows are given by the Union Defences Forces Institute, a group of South Africans who travel from one camp to another throughout the desert.
A few weeks ago I was lifting a motor off a truck & strained my stomach muscles & the station medical officer gave me two weeks free of duty so after a few days rest & I packed a few things in a kit bag & caught a truck going to Cairo.
We left camp about lunch-time on Monday 1st June & arrived in Alexandria that afternoon & stayed at the Royal Arms Hotel which was right on the waterfront. After we cleaned up & had a shave, (the first time since I arrived in the desert) we went out & had a look at the town. Things were hard to see because of the blackout but we had a good night.
The next day we spent having a good look around the buildings in Alex are much different to any other foreign city I have been in as much that they are much taller & more modern.
I am inclined to think that the native population is the same in every part of the world. Everywhere we go we are followed by a crowd of howling wigs all of them are trying to sell us some useless article. I must say that very few of them meet with any success.
We left Alexandria on Wednesday morning & headed for Cairo. As we approached the city we passed the Pyramids & the Sphinx. This was the first time I had had a close look at them & their size was astounding. The Great Pyramid was 196 ft high & was really a picture against the clear blue sky.
We were pretty tired after our so we went straight to bed after tea. The next day we were up early & went out on a tour of the outlying districts. We hired a taxi & went out & had a look over the Citadel & then went out through the Dead City.
The Dead City is a marvellous place. All the houses are in a wonderful state of preservation but the floors in all the rooms have been dug up & in them have been buried all the people who used to live in the house. We went for miles down narrow streets & there was no sign of life. It reminded me of the Ghost Cities that I have seen in Western & I must say that my skin seemed to creep as we drove along.
On the way back we drove along the banks of the Nile & saw hundreds of native dhows (sailing craft ) all loaded with various types of crops that had been grown on the irrigated parts of Egypt which extends for several miles on either side of the Nile. On the opposite side of the river were numerous paddle wheel house boats. These boats are about 100ft in length & many of them are done out like Hotels.
We stayed the night in Cairo & the next morning we left again for Alex. The temperature in this part of the world was about 110’ in the shade. The trouble was there was no shade.
As we got near Alex we turned off the main road & went along passed the famous Pink Lakes. These lakes are much bigger than Narrabeen & were so salty that they are bright pink in colour. Right around the edge is salt that has been deposited when the water evaporated.
We stayed the night in Alex & then the next morning we headed back for camp.
That is about all I can write about for the present but I will write again in a few days.
Give my love to Dad & Betty & tell them I will write often.
I am
Lovingly Yours
Frank
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