|
During the summer of 1945, soon after the war ended in the Far East, RAF Mauripur reached what was arguably the height of its activities. An enormous new apron was built, known as the Trooping Apron, to accommodate the very large numbers of aircraft that were to be used to move hundreds of thousands of service personnel between the Far East and the UK. Many thousands from the 14th Army, who had successfully driven the Japanese out of Burma, were among the first to be included in these numbers. The Trooping Apron held around eighty to a hundred aircraft and it was normal for most of these to stay for no longer than a few hours. The aircraft mainly used for this enormous operation were DC3s (Dakotas) and B24 (Liberators). In the case of the latter the bomb bays were converted to seating accommodation. The pictures below show a poignant moment when the last Liberator to be used for this purpose left Mauripur, duly decorated, for the UK . 'Bods' were not the only items to be carried in these Libs, however. At this time, with the war just over, new carpets were practically unobtainable in Britain, so it was not at all unusual to see a taxi from Karachi, with a large Indian carpet on the roof, draw up alongside an aircraft just prior to take-off. Very quickly the roll would disappear into one of the lesser-known holes of the aircraft, on its unofficial way to the UK! The text on the tailplane of this 53 Squadron aircraft reads: MAURIPUR’S FAREWELL Tho’ all the Libs
have come our way (* For the uninitiated; NSA = No Spares Available)
|
