N.Z. Airmen Played Big Part In Gan Air Base

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29154, 15 March 1960, Page 14

N.Z. Airmen Played Big Part In Gan Air Base

■- - J' - Z ‘ [By a special correspondent of “The Times > ’l

SINGAPORE, February 18. At noon on the last day of August, 1957, the Royal New Zealand Air Force Bristol Freighter NZ5904 circled over a heartshaped atoll just south of the equator in the Indian Ocean. In the cockpit the navigator Flight Lieutenant G. Parkinson of Auckland studied his map then quickly looked over the many long narrow islands which made up the atoll. With his eyes fixed on the southern-most island of the group he spoke into the microphone fitted to his facemask. “That is Gan there the one off the port wing.” The pilot Flight Lieutenant M. Preece of Christchurch banked the aircraft for a better look. After flying low over the island twice his only comment as he prepared to land was “Not much of a strip.”

After two hours on the island the Bristol Freighter took off again for its base on Singapore Island. It was the first landbased aircraft to land and take off from the Gan Island airstrip since World War 11.

Last week the same Bristol Freighter again navigated by Lieutenant Parkinson circled over the island. This time the pilot Squadron Leader O. D. Staple of Rotorua said: “What a magnificent strip.” Again the aircraft stayed on the ground only for two hours. When it was unloaded, and refuelled, it took off to return to base. NZ5904 thus became the last aircraft to take off from Gan before it was officially opened as a Royal Air Force base. Tremendous Change

In between these two New Zealand visits Gan Island had undergone a tremendous change and New Zealand airmen of the R.N.Z.A.F.’s No. 41 Transport Squadron, based in Singapore with the Far East Air Force, played a major role in bringing about this change. Apart from being the first and last aircraft to land at Gan during the island’s transformation the New Zealand Bristol Freighters made nearly 100 flights to the island during the intervening period.

The New Zealand airmen first saw Gan as a story-book palmfringed coral island with the Indian Ocean surf crashing on its southern beaches and the placid clear blue waters of the Addu Atoll lagoon lapping its northern shores. Last week Gan Island ceased to become just another of the myriad of peaceful islands in the Indian Ocean. Men had turned it into an air base. Today modern jets like the Comet land and take off from the island’s airstrip. Every known type of military aircraft from Bristol Freighter, Hastings, Beverley, to the Britannias will now be regular visitors to the island for, from last week, it has become a major staging post in the Commonwealth air link between the United Kingdom the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. Withdrawal From Ceylon On February 4, 1948, when Ceylon was granted its independence, Britain agreed to withdraw all its resident military forces and close down its bases there by 1962. Many areas were studied to find an alternative and the Maidive islands Gan in particular which is equidistant from Aden and Singapore was chosen. Gan which is a tiny island only one and three quarters miles long by three quarters of a mile wide, is the southern most island of the 2000 island coral island chain which make up the Maidive islands. The islands, 220 of which are inhabited, are in 19 groups or atolls and none are more than five feet above sea level. The islands are surrounded individually by their own reefs. Collectively, these reef-surroun-ded islands form the perimeter of the 22 square miles deep water lagoon of the most startling blue. Many New Zealand former servicemen who travelled on the Queen Mary will remember stopping in this lagoon during World War Two. The Queen Mary and other fast ships running unescorted between Australia and the Middle East often sheltered in the lagoon when enemy submarine activity was reported in the Northern part of the Indian Ocean.

During the war, Royal Navy detachments were established on the island and an airfield was built on Gan. Operations from this airfield were mainly in the air-sea rescue role and as an alternative airstrip for aircraft flying the (then) Commonwealth air route from Perth through the Cocos Keeling Islands to Ceylon when Singapore was occupied by the Japanese. After the war when aircraft flying along the Commonwealth air route again operated through Singapore, the Cocos Islands and Gan were allowed to revert to their original state. The Cocos Island airstrip has since been developed as a staging post on the Australia -to - South Africa air route, but it was not until 1956 that work began on the transformation of Gan Island as a base. The first R.A.F. men to land on the island arrived later that year, three officers and 30 men paddling ashore from a Sunderland flying-boat which landed on the lagoon. Started From Scratch

Starting from scratch, they made their home on the site of a former Indian military hospital. Local labour was recruited and work on the clearing of the old wartime strip was begun. On August 30, 1957, they stood at the end of the cleared airstrip and watched the first land-based aircraft the R.N.Z.A.F.’s Bristol Freighter NZ5904 touch down. The aircraft unloaded supplies for the ground party and the first consignment of materials needed for the construction of the new airfield and base.

Since that day thousands of tons of supplies, equipment, materials and labour have been transported to the island in a steady flow of ships and aircraft. The Far East Air Force Transport Wing at Singapore had the assignment of air support for the building programme, and because of R.N.Z.A.F.’s No. 41 Transport Squadron, which forms part of this wing was equipped with Bristol Freighters which were ideal for the task, a proportion of the airwork was given to the New Zealanders. From their base at Changi the * W „™l anders flew their Freighters 2000 miles to Katunayake

via Butterworth in Northern Malaya. Using Katunayake as a base they made 100 flights to the island and carried more than 500,0001 b of freight and 250 passengers. New Zealand pilots, like Flight Lieutenant DJt-A. Eden of Auckland who, during' the last two years, has made 20 flights to Gan, have been able to watch the new air-base take shape. Two years ago when work on the new strip was getting underway, Flight Lieutenant Eden flew labourers to the island. Then he flew in foundation equipment Later it was girders, drain pipes and underground fittings. Then followed building equipment needed above the ground. Prefabricated walls and eventually roofs for the many buildings came next. - Towards the end of the air support work, runway fittings for the near-completed airfield, equipment for the completed control tower and furnishings for the built huts were transported. On the last flight by the Bristol Freighter, the load carried consisted maily of trimmings, such as pictures for the walls, for the finished job. The loads carried by the Freighters at the various times during the construction work told their story of how work on the base was progressing. The majority of the labour force needed for the construction work on the island (numbering 1700 of which 500 were Maldivians and 1200 Pakistanis) had to be flown to the island from Ceylon and Pakistan. Population Resettled One of the biggest problems for the British Government was the necessity to resettle Gan’s entire population of 287 families once work on the airstrip began and today the rehousing of these families in prefabricated dwellings on nearby islands is nearing completion and everybody seems happy with the arrangement. Problems were also experienced on a political level but after much local anxiety these were also amicably settled and to-day the R.A.F. ensign flutters from a palm tree yard-arm on the island in a climate of mutual harmony between the R.A.F. servicemen, the local government and the people. The new airstrip has been completed ahead of schedule and Britain has been able to fulfill its treaty agreement with Ceylon with a year to spare. With the official opening of Gan came the closing down of Katunayake as an R.A.F. staging post which has now been handed over to the Royal Ceylonese Air Force. From this month, more than 160 military transport movements will be handled each month by the 400 officers and men who are now stationed on Gan. High speed refuelling equipment servicing and mechanical fault rectification facilities, transit passenger accomodation and everything else needed for a modern staging post are available on the island Its latest navigation and instrument landing aids will equip it to handle all types of modern transport aircraft by night and day. But it is the airfield itself that is a credit and monument to British planning and workmanship. Eight thousand seven hundred feet long and 150 feet wide the concrete strip is as flat as a billiard table.