Our primary mission was to fly the lines from the North coast of Libya and Egypt to Crete and to Greece.

 The British used Germans to clear mines from the roads and perimeters of the ground stations on the African side before our teams could move in. There were quite a few rumors about the status of the Germans, one being that they were POWs. There were thousands of unexploded mines and rounds of ammuntion plus wrecked tanks, trucks and materiel that had been abandoned in the desert after WWII - well preserved due to the lack of rain.

 Security for our planes was provided by arab Tripolitanian Police guards, while across the runway a massive security perimeter was maintained by AP's around the 580th ARCW - supposedly leaflet droppers but I found out later they also dropped spies, guerillas, whiskey, dope, money and anything else they were ordered to behind the iron curtain.

 Weather and the new Hiran cooperated and we finished the lines well within our time frame. One of the radar techs took his discharge and went to work immediately for RCA. [A prearranged deal.] He moved from a tent to the BOQ at twice the pay-plus expenses.

Our delayed April Fools joke was new orders to proceed directly from Wheelus to Mildenhall RAFB, UK for additional 90 day TDY.