05 March 2016

ALEXANDRIA 01-04 MARCH 1990

02 MAR 1990:

We are scheduled to drop the hook in the roads at Al Iskandria- the classical Alexandria- by dawn. I arose early to ensure that the 0700 show for the 0800 departure to the historic el Alamein desert did not leave without me. I wanted to see what is left of the First battle there, where General Claude Auchinleck had stalled Desert Fox Irwin Rommel in July of 1942. Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Montgomery, one of the most irritating Allied figures of the war (after Doug MacArthur, of course) took command of the British 8th Army and pressed forward to the Second Battle in October.

That was about the time of the Operation Torch landings in French North Africa, and can be said to be where the tide of the war first began to wax for the Allies and wane for the Axis powers.

Before the two encounters at el Alamein, Rommel was invincible. After, not so much.

The battles ended the Axis threat to the Suez Canal and access to the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields via North Africa. From a psychological perspective, Second El Alamein revived the morale of the Allies, being the first major offensive against the Axis since the start of the European war in 1939 in which the Western Allies had achieved a decisive victory.

(British 8th Army troopers push forward in 1942 against the Desert Fox. Photo MoD).

Courtesy of our New Doc, the world-famous Ed “Flight Quack from Hell,” we were dispensed a regimen of Miracle Anti-Dysentery pills. Developed to prevent debilitating diarrhea in combat conditions, we are going to use it to fend off Delhi Belly from contaminated ice cubes in our cocktails. We are literally supermen. No tiny organism can get us. We are bulletproof. Doc claims we can eat right off the street.

Instead of getting ashore, we pace like caged tigers. There is one delay after another. The El Alamein tour is cancelled at 1400. They get the 400-man two-day Cairo tour off, but nobody else. Although I’m at the front of the line with the Red Rippers I can’t get off because my tour ticket is the wrong color.

I have to contact my cousins Marshall and Jennifer who have been assigned here by the Oil Concern for whom Marshall works, and I have already been stuck on the ship longer than necessary. Worse, we have the brief for VADM Williams and the Egyptians coming up on the 4th and I can see the whole in-port period evaporating. I am fit to be tied. I help Lutt-man with the re-write of the graphics and get the personnel lined up to support the effort tomorrow, at which time I hope to be in Cairo (either with my cousins or with the one-day tour.)

I can’t miss the Pyramids. That would be unacceptable.

Finally, The Air Wing Commander- CAG- and his Deputy lead a party aft to the ashore for a dining experience in ancient Alexandria.

No dice. We are stuck. They have raised the Accom ladder to bring out the third camel of the day. The camel is what we call the floating platform at which the liberty boats tie up. It is an odd term here- and the Officer of the Deck (OOD) says: “Sorry guys, it will be at least another hour.”

I wander back up to the compartment and lie down. The energy is oozing out of me. I start to get interested in “Young Frankenstein” and suddenly I hear “Liberty Call, Liberty Call” over the IMC. Although I am almost one with my mattress, the pounding on the door from Josh and Doc rouses me to decisive action. In a trice, we were pounding down the ladders and through the Boxing Smoker in Hangar Bay One en route the fantail.

We made it in time to be on the “Officers-and-Chiefs” call for the first boat. Just getting in the OMB was tough enough. The camel they had brought out was five feet above the water and between two and four feet from the bobbing deck of the launch. The ride in was long and rough, but at least featured fresh air away from the claustrophobia of the Mission Planning spaces in the floating fortress of mighty FID.

(The Wonder that was. Image Wiki).

It was about fifteen minutes to the breakwater where the massive 15th-century Citadel of Qaitbay stands on the site of the legendary Lighthouse of Alexandria, a Wonder of the Ancient World. The city skyline is dominated by the spire of the downtown mosque, which is lit in brilliant green neon with all the understated elegance of a Holiday Inn.

‘Club 59’ is the warehouse converted to beer hall on the pier next to Fleet Landing. It is decorated like an Arabian Nights fantasy, and filled with FID crewmen who have already been to the Souk and are attired as Bedouins. Perhaps the strangest sight of my life is hearing The Bangel’s greatest hit “Walk Like an Egyptian” blasting out of the stereo on the bandstand as robed Fid sailors did that Pharoah-walk thing with their hadns as genuine Egyptians looked on from the sides of the hall.

We change greenbacks for Egyptian pounds and are ready to roll.

We try to find the Lord’s Inn bar, highly recommended, but after an hour of fruitless search we strike out. We wind up at the Sheraton, so I can call Marshall’s house from the telephone. It is a weird system. You tell an operator in a booth what number you want, she rings it and then it rings at a phone along the wall. When you are done, you check back and she charges you. My fifteen-minute call to Cairo costs three Egyptian Pounds, which seems extraordinary, but I can’t really tell.

Having got off the ship so late, it is midnight before we know it and 0115 before we are back at Fleet landing. We buy Fid’s CAPT Tim Thomassy and his XO a beer in the strange warehouse, where burnoose-clad sailors are pounding beers. The CAPT invites us to go back-ship in his Gig, which is cool right up to the moment we realize a sudden fog has set in and we might not find our way home.

Our Coxswain finds the breakwater by braille. I am on deck behind the CAPT wearing my Fez. Tensions are starting to rise when he looks back and says: “I’m lost in the goddam fog and I’ve got King Farouk on the Bridge!” Laughter breaks the tension, but it is still like being wrapped in cotton wool.

We steam with a slight sense of desperation until in the distance we hear the fog horn, which is Command Duty Officer Rookie Word’s way of saying “Here were are!” Suddenly, the ship erupts from the fog, her immense steel flanks softened by the cloud and the apprehension dissipates in a profusion of backslapping.

We are now so late that in order to make the 0500 show time for the tour, it is just as easy to stay awake. We watch the film “From Russia With Love” on the ship’s entertainment channel and grab some Midnight Rations- Midrats, or just Rats, for short- and go down to the fantail to meet our tour. Drink service is lousy on this aircraft carrier, I think.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
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