March 16th, 1973, 0920Z.  It was raining when we departed from  Brize Norton.  On board the Short Belfast we had a very special cargo; a World War II Spitfire that we were to deliver to the Aeronautical Museum in Sydney, Australia.  Our first stop was Akrotiri in Cyprus, where we landed at 1645Z.

March 17th.  After having picked up a couple of obligatory demi-johns of Cyprus sherry (for medicinal purposes only), we departed Akrotiri at 0700Z, landing in Masirah, an island in the Arabian Sea off the south east coast of Oman, at 1435Z.   The air base here was to serve a vital role in the Gulf War some 18 years later.

March 18th.  At 1100Z, we headed across the Arabian Sea, skirting the southern tip of India  to arrive in Colombo, Ceylon (renamed Sri-Lanka) at 1730Z.  After refuelling, we took off  at 1830Z headed for the Island Nation of Singapore.  There were a total of three RAF bases in Singapore at this time: Seletar (maintenance), Tengah (fighter) and Changi (transport).  For those history buffs, Changi was quite infamous as a Prisoner of War camp during the days of  the Japanese occupation in the Second World War.  More recent times have seen it being used as the new international airport, having assumed that role from the ageing Paya Lebar.  We landed in Tengah at 0100Z on March 19th.

A couple of days in Singapore is always a welcome break  This was the first  stopover on this trip that would see us relaxing in an hotel instead of RAF transit accommodations.  The Hotel Equatorial offered very comfortable beds, room service and a swimming pool.  The dining facilities were superb but nothing could beat a late night saunter through the market places of Singapore where the real flavour of the Orient was all too abundant.  The smells of different foods being cooked over sandalwood fires, the calls of the vendors selling everything from children's toys to silk blouses and gemstones and punters betting on anything and everything  gave these places an atmosphere that not even dear old Walt Disney could reproduce (and he had tried!).

March 21st. We took off from a steamy Singapore at 0200Z, flying south east with Sumatra to our right and Borneo to our left.  We then headed due east skirting north of the Sunda Islands before heading south over the Timor Sea into Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territories of Australia.

Although we landed at 0925Z, it was some 25 minutes later that we were allowed to disembark.  The Australians have the strictest Customs and Immigration department that I have ever encountered.   It was always the same routine (I had visited Australia on numerous occasions) - we landed, taxied to the appointed parking spot, but kept all the doors closed.  There then comes a "knock knock", the door is opened, a cheery chap in a Customs uniform wishes us a hearty "G'day Mates" and tosses  a fumigation bomb into the aircraft, whereupon the door is promptly closed and we are left to suffer the  indignities of being well and truly deloused!

The Aspa City Motel was always a pleasant stay when in Darwin.  The rooms were very simple  but adequate and there was always the makings for tea and coffee right in the room (not so common in those days).  Darwin had all the images of a true frontier town;  what stood out in my mind were red dirt roads, tin roofs, barking dogs, flies and Aborigines.  The town was practically wiped out on Christmas Day just two years later when Cyclone Tracy showed no mercy.

At 2305Z, we were off again, this time to the Australian Air Force base at Richmond, New South Wales.

March 22nd, 0610Z.  We landed at Richmond where our precious cargo was offloaded in front of a very enthusiastic gathering.   We ate in the Sergeants Mess, refuelled, and then headed outbound  at 0830Z.    We arrived at the Australian Air Force Base of  Williamtown after a short hop of some  35 minutes and were driven to the Colonial Terrace Motel in Newcastle where we spent an interesting evening being entertained by some of the Air Movements staff from the base.

March 23rd.  We had an early start this morning, loading the Sabre Jet Flight Simulator that was  to be delivered to the Indonesian Air Force.  At 0125Z, we took off heading north west towards Darwin where we landed at 0805Z.  The Aspa City Motel was visited again and we took the time to go downtown and spend a memorable evening at a bar that was typical of Crocodile Dundee  territory.

2220Z saw us taking off for Eastern Java, our destination was the Indonesian Air Force base at  Iswahjudi, near Maduin.  We arrived at 0320Z on March 24th to a very hot and steamy welcome.  The offloading of the simulator was a relatively easy job with the assistance of a myriad of helping hands.  We were not scheduled to depart for about four hours which gave us the opportunity to wander freely about the aircraft ramp, the only proviso being that no photographs could be taken.

What we found there was an amazing collection of Soviet aircraft.  There were no less than 22  Tu-16 Badgers, 10 Il-28 Beagles, 35 MiG-21 Fishbeds, 40 or so MiG-17 Frescos and MiG-15UTI trainers plus a range of Soviet built troop transports. The sad part about it was that they were, in the main, all unserviceable, there being no spares contract in place with the USSR.  We  must have been  the envy of Western aviation enthusiasts, having been given a free-hand to clamber about  these aircraft, which sadly were starting to rot in the jungle heat and humidity.

March 24th.  At 0730Z we departed,  heading  for Darwin.  Arriving at 1225Z, we were again subjected to the knock-knock, G'day Mate, fumigation-in-your-face hospitality of the Australian Customs Service.  Something that was not mentioned before about the arrival procedures is that all of the food in the galley is normally confiscated and incinerated.  What an irony this was since a few hours earlier, we had restocked the galley with Australian foodstuffs in Darwin, including canned Australian fruit etc., and here it was being taken away to be burned!

We found out that the Aspa City Motel, which was our usual place of abode in Darwin, was booked up solid, and so we had to make alternate arrangements to stay in the Koala Motel.  It was very  pleasant but somehow lacked the ambience of the Aspa City.  What was different is that this particular motel had a bar that would normally be reserved for Aborigines only.  We pleaded ignorance and,  at the invitation of a very enterprising fellow, enjoyed an evening of tales of the outback.

March 26th.  We had a special cargo to be loaded in Darwin before we left.  A Sea Walrus  fuselage that had been sitting in the desert since the end of Word War II was to be returned  to the RAF Museum at Hendon.  Once it had been put on board and safely secured, we left on the first leg of our return flight at 2235Z.  Our route took us over the Gulf of Carpenteria and then across Cape York Peninsula and over the Coral Sea to Nandi in the Fijian Islands.

We were in for a bit of a disappointment as the refuelling services in Fiji had suddenly decided to go on strike.  We had to divert into Noumea, New Caledonia.  We arrived at 0810Z,  it was quite dark, and so the preconceived National Geographic images of South Seas girls wearing nothing but a grass skirt and a grin could not be seen.  Our accommodations were quite modest in the Hotel Noumea, nothing at all as I imagined this corner of paradise would look like.  Early the following morning, we departed the hotel headed for the airport.  So much for that!

March 28.  We took off at 0030Z en route for our next refuelling stop at Pago Pago in the Samoa Islands.  We crossed over Fiji and then the International Date Line.  There was no ceremony to mark the occasion, quite an anticlimax really.  At 0655Z, we touched down at  Pago Pago, time enough for a drink of orange juice in the thatch-roofed- palm-trees- all-around-terminal-bar before heading north to Hawaii.

A couple of hours into the flight, there was a strange looking spider seen to be crawling up the tail fin of the old Sea Walrus.  Someone suggested that was a  "Black Widow" spider and was also of the "jumping" variety.  Well, that was enough for me, I wasn't about to go near it.  We proceeded to empty a spray can of DDT insecticide in the general direction of the spider, but it kept climbing!   Just then, the Flight Engineer came back to see what all the excitement was about.  He took one look at the spider, took off his shoe and *Splat*   the spider was no more.

When we arrived in Honolulu at 1645Z, the aircraft was taxied to an isolated area and U.S. Department of Agriculture Inspectors boarded.  It would appear that the spider had many  relatives hidden in the fuselage and that they were of a type that would not be welcomed.  The aircraft was impounded for fumigation and we were to be stuck in Hawaii for three days.

There seemed to be a lot of commotion at the airport.  There was a military band, what appeared to be a Guard of Honour, lots of people crowding around and a horde of top brass. 

The object of their attention was a C141 that had just landed and was making its way towards the gathering.  The aircraft parked and the red carpet was literally rolled up to the steps. 

The band started playing, probably something by DeSousa, and everyone was cheering as the occupants departed the aircraft one by one. 

It turned out that the VIP's were Prisoners of War that had just been released from the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam.  I don't recall how many there were, since we were all caught up in the moment, but in retrospect I would guess at about 30. 

The looks on their faces when they were greeted by their respective families is something I will never forget, and I feel both honoured and humbled to have seen a bit of history in the making.

The Ambassador Hotel on Waikiki Beach was our home for the next few days.  Being British servicemen, we were not at all flush in the money department, so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves in this paradise that didn't involve putting our hands in our pockets.  To our  delight, we did find many events that we could enjoy that cost nothing at all.  We were able to  get a "Rent a Wreck" car for just $6 a day which was a real bonus as it meant that we didn't  have to rely on public transport.   We went over to Pearl Harbour where the U.S. Navy has complimentary tours of the harbour which included a visit to the U.S.S. Arizona.  Some 1,500  men perished aboard that vessel when the Japanese attacked in December of 1941.

We drove around the Island and saw, amongst other things, the Giant Pineapple that adorns the roof of one of the pineapple processing factories.  Some would say that the pineapple is the one thing that made Hawaii what it is today.  We also saw Diamond Head, but I honestly could not see what all the fuss was about.  The afternoon and evening was spent lounging about on Waikiki Beach.  We managed to crash a beach party that night which turned out to be a really wonderful time for us.

The following morning, bright and early, we made our way out to the "Kodak Shell"  This outdoor (free) theatre had been running several times a week for the past 35 years.  We were seated around what  appeared to be a circus ring, perhaps 500 seats in all.  Then the drums started beating and the girls,  dressed in traditional grass skirts, danced their way into our hearts. 

The clapping was so loud we  could not hear the drums anymore - but no one was clapping?  Every one in the audience had a camera pressed to their face and what we thought was clapping was actually the sound of 500 or so camera shutters opening and closing - that was quite amazing.  Sales of Kodak film were very brisk!

March 30th., 1925Z.  We left Hawaii enroute to Sacramento, California, taking with us many happy memories.  On board were the personal effects and car of a U.S. Army Colonel who was being repatriated to the mainland (are we running a taxi service here or what?).  When we landed at 0330Z, we offloaded the car and other items belonging to the Colonel and were then taken to the Caravan Inn which was relatively close to McClellan AFB.   I recall, after dinner, just relaxing in front of the television in my room.  It never ceased to amaze me that there were this many channels available, and instead of the national anthem being played at 11pm and everything going all fuzzy on the screen, these channels were on 24 hours a day!

March 31st, 1815Z.  We headed east across the Southern United States, our destination being Charleston in South Carolina.  We were over Panama City, Florida, when we were required to go into a holding pattern.  There was a very bad thunderstorm system in our way that was best just to be avoided.  Looking out of the Belfast window, I could see not only the storm but at least 30 other aircraft performing an aerial ballet, avoiding both the storm and each other.  This particular manoeuvre delayed our arrival for two hours, not that we were in a hurry to go anywhere at this stage!

At 0230Z, we touched down in Charleston and were introduced to the driver that was to take us to our hotel - the Holiday Inn.   Apparently, there are two Holiday Inns in the vicinity of the airport, Airport West and Airport East.  Now our driver, talking with that southern drawl that gives the impression that nothing would ever get him upset, took us to the wrong hotel.  That was ok, everyone makes mistakes - but this chap tried to take his bus under an awning in front of the hotel that was not designed to accommodate buses.  We were well and truly stuck quite snugly under the awning.  Someone suggested letting the air out of the tyres so that the bus could be driven out.  The driver let all of the air out of the tyres, so that the bus was no longer stuck, but could not be driven on the wheel  rims.  It was about an hour later when a replacement bus arrived to take us to the correct hotel.

It would have been nice to stay and explore the Charleston area with the civil war history and huge cotton plantations etc., but wait - we are supposed to be working, this is not a holiday - but I believe we could have been forgiven for thinking so.

April 1st., 1730Z.  We headed north  up the U.S. Eastern Seaboard towards our penultimate destination: Gander, Newfoundland.  Arriving at 2255Z, we found ourselves in the welcoming embrace of the Albatross Motel - if ever a place could be called a home-away-from-home, then the Albatross was it!   When the front desk staff greet you by your first name, you realise you are a regular!

April 2nd., 1400Z.  Our final leg across the Atlantic was a good time for reflection about the last few weeks.  I am just guessing here, but I suppose we might have travelled about 35,000 miles in the last 18 days with an actual flying time of 100 hours.  How many games of  scrabble  were played in the back of the Belfast, and who was the ultimate champion of champions?

At 2110Z, we arrived back where we had started from, Brize Norton in Southern England.   Nothing had changed - it was still raining.
 

[Here follows a history of the Seagull/Walrus airframe that was recovered from Australia - reproduced with the kind permission of  Andrew Simpson, curator of the RAF Museum]