Story 1666
Cairo, November 19, 1942
The C-47 transport circled as the airfield was currently closed for a few more minutes due to landing accident by a British Bombay transport bomber. Fire crews and ambulances were leaving the scene and there was no need to either divert the few transports waiting for permission to land or to endanger lives in the air or on the ground by having the transports land on short runways. Instead the planes burned gasoline to buy time.
Even as the transport plane circled for the second time around the Giza Pyramids, the seven US Navy officers aboard were puzzled. The LT had lost his boat in the fighting near Tunis; he had managed to bring the wooden torpedo and gunboat back to port with a foot of water sloshing in the hull and half his crew wounded. Almost as soon as the last wounded man had been carried into the front seat of a waiting jeep, his boat that he had commanded for less than a week had become the squadron’s meal.
Other crews were cannibalizing her for parts and pieces. Chunks of plywood were cut from her hull to repair shell holes in other, luckier boats. An entire engine was ripped out to replace a finicky engine in a boat that had missed the battle. The radio was now aboard the squadron commander’s craft. And soon the boat, his boat, would be as naked and vulnerable as his mistress had been on their going away night in Providence. He had become the squadron maintenance officer for a few weeks until these new orders had arrived.
The other naval officers on this plane and the dozen enlisted men on the second C-47 that had just completed its first loop around the pyramids, were all PT sailors without a boat at the moment. They were replacements and spares and supplements until orders came from on-high for them to head to the airfield with a single bag for detached duty to parts unknown. The flight across the Libyan desert had only fueled speculation; a commando attack on Athens, a penetration of the Bosporus, a training mission? No one knew.
Finally, the transports landed. Everyone had time to stretch their legs as mechanics checked the engines and laborers dragged fuel hoses to the thirsty tanks. Two hours later, they were in the air again, still heading east.
The C-47 transport circled as the airfield was currently closed for a few more minutes due to landing accident by a British Bombay transport bomber. Fire crews and ambulances were leaving the scene and there was no need to either divert the few transports waiting for permission to land or to endanger lives in the air or on the ground by having the transports land on short runways. Instead the planes burned gasoline to buy time.
Even as the transport plane circled for the second time around the Giza Pyramids, the seven US Navy officers aboard were puzzled. The LT had lost his boat in the fighting near Tunis; he had managed to bring the wooden torpedo and gunboat back to port with a foot of water sloshing in the hull and half his crew wounded. Almost as soon as the last wounded man had been carried into the front seat of a waiting jeep, his boat that he had commanded for less than a week had become the squadron’s meal.
Other crews were cannibalizing her for parts and pieces. Chunks of plywood were cut from her hull to repair shell holes in other, luckier boats. An entire engine was ripped out to replace a finicky engine in a boat that had missed the battle. The radio was now aboard the squadron commander’s craft. And soon the boat, his boat, would be as naked and vulnerable as his mistress had been on their going away night in Providence. He had become the squadron maintenance officer for a few weeks until these new orders had arrived.
The other naval officers on this plane and the dozen enlisted men on the second C-47 that had just completed its first loop around the pyramids, were all PT sailors without a boat at the moment. They were replacements and spares and supplements until orders came from on-high for them to head to the airfield with a single bag for detached duty to parts unknown. The flight across the Libyan desert had only fueled speculation; a commando attack on Athens, a penetration of the Bosporus, a training mission? No one knew.
Finally, the transports landed. Everyone had time to stretch their legs as mechanics checked the engines and laborers dragged fuel hoses to the thirsty tanks. Two hours later, they were in the air again, still heading east.
