I had to retyped this 1954 newspaper article because of it's deteriorated condition.
Where I found it, newspaper or magazine, I do not know.
This is a story about an air base located in the middle of Africa
and I will verify that the aroma of food
caused many a carburetors to become clogged,
because I spent several months there rebuilding airplanes.
By Harvey OLANDER
PITCHING HORSESHOES
By Billy Rose
At Lindy's the other night a fellow who works for the Air Transport Command
told me a little story
about World War II,
and on the off-chance that you're fed up
with big stories about World War II
here it is....
The tiny tale is about an emergency landing field which the ATC set up in 1942
to service planes on the run between the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Cairo.
It was located near Maidugeri in Upper Nigeria, an outpost in the dark core of darkest Africa.
An officer and 18 men were assigned to operate the field, and to keep their morale
from going to pot their colonel promised that their stint in the
steamy jungle would be limited to three months.
"But you'll have to go easy on your K-rations,"
he warned them. "They're in short supply"
When the gloomy detachment landed at Maidugeri , they found no jungle and no steam.
Instead, the area around the airstrip looked like a classy suburb of the Garden of Eden,
and the territory a few miles out was even more exciting .
It was laced with clear trout streams and the woods abounded with game on hoof and on wing.
As if that weren't enough, the British had once tried ranching in the district and the cattle
and horses they had left behind were all over the place.
All a man had to do to round up a beefsteak
was to round up a horse
and go after said beefsteak with a rope.
As for the climate, it was Chamber-of-Commerce perfect,
75 degrees by day and 50 by night.
A week after the men arrived, they had a herd of dairy cows.
A month after, they had a corral of blooded horses and a four-team polo league.
When the colonel dropped in one day, they paraded before him on horseback-
-the only cavalry unit in the history of the American Air Force.
As it turned out, however, Maidugeri was too good for its own good.
News of this African paradise grapevined among the pilots on the Gold Coast-Cairo run,
and soon
plane after plane began to develop "engine trouble"
in the neighborhood of the emergency field.
To hear the airmen explain it, the carburetors of their C-47's were forever getting clogged
by the fumes of antelope filets, broiled avocados and candied yams.
Because of "engine trouble" and the shifting patterns of war,
Maidugeri was closed down some months later
and the 20 soldiers planed back to the Gold Coast,
taking the still-unopened K-rations with them.
According to the officer in charge,
they were the most obedient body of men he had ever commanded.
The colonel had told them to go easy on their K-rations ,
and they had...
(please use Arrows to view additional story)
Contents:
Home Page
Feedback