While I was awaiting instructions at Skegness, Deirdre managed a 3-day visit - we were still madly in love.

Two days later Todd and I were instructed to go to Liverpool by rail. There we were told to embark on the aircraft carrier Furious which had 40 Hurricanes stowed below its flight deck. We joined a large convoy headed for West Africa. After the convoy had been attacked twice, we diverted to Gibraltar, rejoining the convoy as far as Freetown, Sierra Leone. Then onward under naval escort to Takordi, Ghana, where the Hurricanes flew off in batches of six.

Each batch of six Hurricanes, now with overload petrol tanks, was to be led by a Blenheim across central Africa. We had been allowed brief visits ashore at Gibraltar and Freetown and had been part of colourful naval routines at the former. Then we had a day at Takordi while our aircraft were prepared for our journey across Africa.

		To save this chapter to your hard-drive, right mouse click on the document icon to the left and select 'save target as' . To open the chapter into a browser window, just left click the icon.
		To download the whole book as a WinZip file click the winzip icon to the left - please note the file is 26Megs in size so only do this if you have a Broadband connection.