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A few days later I started to improve but then contracted dysentery and so spent another while in hospital. After discharge it was decided to send me away for a couple of weeks convalescence; I hoped it would be to the RAF at Habbaniyah where they had air conditioning but no, I was sent to the YMCA in Baghdad and eventually returned to Shaiba. The train trip back was interesting.
After that she changed her mask and looked ugly. Forty thousand Arabs were mustering at Kuweit. German cruisers were in the Persian Gulf, sinking shipping right and left. The Turks were coming down on Nasireyah in tremendous force. Trouble was brewing at Shaiba. In the last respect she proved correct, though the trouble was not great.
There was nothing for it but to wind my trouser leg right around the sprocket, not an easy task when you're lying on the ground attached to a heavy bike. The trouser leg was not badly damaged, some minor perforations but a lot of black grease. Usually after that I walked. DO STAFF No.1BW, SHAIBA, 1944 Jim Parks Jack Walker Jock Pulsford John Village John Cox And that bike
Compared to Shaiba the air was cool and crisp and my friend who was a bit of an amateur astronomer said that under the right conditions the planet Mercury could be seen with the naked eye and sure enough under a cloudless sky just after sunset we saw it quite close to the sun's edge; I've often looked for it but I've never seen it since.
The hint was taken, regimental training ceased and production returned to normal. MUD-BRICK AND STRAW HUTS, No.1 BASE WORKSHOPS, SHAIBA, 1945 Of the vehicles sent to us for repair some were too far gone to be put back into service though they were still driveable barely, and these were used for internal transport, delivering hot meals for one thing.
At Shaiba, which lies about twenty miles west of Basra across the plain, a remarkable battle was fought in the April of the year before. A Turkish force of twelve thousand regulars and thirty odd guns, with numerous Arabs, was routed at an extreme and critical moment, it is said, owing to a mistake. The mistake, for once, was on the part of the Turks. Fighting had been very severe.
The name Shaiba covered an area in southern Iraq to the west of Basra, of indeterminate boundaries as far as I could tell; in fact although I've tried hard to locate it on several maps it doesn't seem to warrant a mention but it was the address for our tented transit camp, for an RAF station and for No.1 Base Workshops.
We were billeted in an army camp but were left to our own devices day and night. After Shaiba Teheran was a lively bustling city; we did some window shopping looking at the Russian made Leica cameras that were much cheaper than but inferior to those made in Germany.
The DO staff was larger than that at Shaiba and included several Jews one of whom became my friend; his parents had sent him to Palestine before the war when things looked threatening in Austria and by the time I met him all his family had perished in Dachau.
I forget the actual details of our departure, we were split up to some extent and I together with others boarded the train, southward bound, heading for our new home, No.1 Base Workshops, Shaiba. No.1 BASE WORKSHOPS
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