1 Wing

On February 8, 1954, we took off from Rabat Salé in what was then “French” Morocco, heading for Oran in Algeria, Istres in France, and finally on to 3 (F) Wing at Zweibrücken, Germany. Due to the short range of the Mk II Sabre (we could carry only 100 gal drop tanks), therefore, a stop at Oran prior to transiting the Mediterranean was a necessity.

434 Squadron was the first RCAF squadron to make use of Rabat for air-to-air gunnery and the living conditions were rather primitive. Later on, each squadron helped improved some of the facilities, while on deployment such as: toilet seats over the “holes”, proper pillows and mattresses, etc. In any case, the weather was lousy during our 2-week stay and we only got 4 to 6 gunnery sorties each, some of them not successful due to technical and “finger” problems.

We stayed overnight in Oran and after a weather briefing, launched for Istres in the morning of the 9th. Howie Tetlock was lead, I was No. 2, Gerry King was No. 3 and Bernie McComiskey was No. 4. All was well until we were well past our “point of no return” (PNR) when we were advised that Istres weather was well below limits in snow and not the ceiling and visibility unlimited (CAVU) weather we had been told in the forecast. With no alternates at hand, we were obliged to press on to Istres.

The English language skills of the French Air Force controllers in Istres, were not that good and no one in our section spoke French. However, out of the blue came a thick Scottish brogue, advising us to change to such and such a VHF frequency. Lo and behold, it was an RAF exchange controller at Istres using the Cathode Ray Direction Finding (CRDF) system, new to the French Air Force. That friendly Scottish voice vectored us towards Istres and we commenced letting down to minimums. As the controller advised us that we were approaching the field, Howie called “runway in sight”, visibility being no better than 1/2 mile. We dropped gear and flaps and we were very close to the “runway” when Howie called “It’s not the runway” and overshot.

This caused a particular dilemma for me because my fuel gauge had been on zero for what seemed like an eternity, although it was probably only a minute or less. I quickly eyeballed what was ahead of me, opted to land, flared and touched down.

Now we have all probably heard the expression – “as noisy as two skeletons fornicating on a tin roof” and that is the noise I heard. I had landed on a WWII perforated steel planking “PSP” strip which the FAF used to park their assortment of WWII German aircraft – Ju 52’s, He 111’s, etc. and some of their experimental aircraft such as “ram jet” launched off the top of the Languedoc SE 161 transport similar to the NASA Boeing 747/space shuttle combo.

I got stopped even though it was rather slippery due to snow on top of steel. However, it was similar to water on the polished concrete runway at Zweibrücken. I couldn’t see the tower, and it was even difficult to see the aircraft parked on either side of the runway; however, I was told where the taxiway to the main field was. After some slow maneuvering, I saw the lights of the main runway, got across it and flamed out.

In the meantime, Howie, Gerry and Bernie had been vectored to the main runway. Howie landed. Gerry landed but had his nose wheel fold in the snowbank, which for some inexplicable reason had been plowed into the centre of the runway. Bernie fortunately had enough room to get around him and the snow bank.

So how about the forecast? It turned out that we were briefed on the weather forecast for the previous day. That forecast was right. It had been CAVU at Istres on the 8th!

Web Site Note

We are aware that this article pertains to a 3 Wing Sabre Squadron. It was felt, however, that the detail would be of interest to anyone who had ever made the trip home from Rabat. It has been extremely difficult to find any information pertaining to RCAF activities in Rabat - especially when you consider that this occurred about 50 years ago.