I served on 208 from January 1955 until August 1957, and this was
a time of tremendous change. We were based at Abu Sueir in the Canal Zone some 50 miles east of Cairo with notice to leave Egypt in the next year, 
but we did not know our destination. We eventually moved in January to RNAS Hal Far in Malta as temporary measure until Akrotiri was ready to receive us.
In 1956 the rebels up country in Aden were very restless (and rebellious) and we had a standing detachment in Aden for recce work for Intelligence on the rebels. At times it was necessary to change aeroplanes and pilots for servicing of both and it was necessary to ferry them from Akrotiri as and when. Since we were not allowed to fly over Saudi Arabia or Syria, the route was Akrotiri to Diyabakir (Turkey) , Habbaniya (Bagdad), Bahrein, round the empty Quarter of Saudi to Masirah. Riyan and finally Aden. The trip could take three days at least and a lot more if things went wrong.
My first trip was in August 1956 and since I was already
in Aden it was the reverse. I was the number two to a more experienced pilot and we set off on August 10 for Masirah some 1200 miles away. This with the shortage of diversions was as far as we wanted to go with the limited range of the Meteor. Ideally we would have liked to go to Riyan or Salalah but there was a fuel shortage at both airfields so we were instructed that they were not open to us.
We tried to raise Masirah on the 
radio and continued calling them until the overhead. Wisely we had not descended, and we could see the island was covered in fog: this was a known phenomenon, so we were forced to turn back to Riyan right at the limit of our endurance. We made straight-in approaches and since the No 1 was very short on fuel, I let him in first. One of his engines flamed out on approach, but I very proudly taxied in on two!!
We found out that the radio frequencies had been changed at Masirah. The remainder of the trip was uneventful until we landed at Akrotiri to find that the Squadron aircraft had disappeared. We shut down and a landrover appeared and the Wingco flying got out and told us to go immediately to Malta where the Squadron was now based due to the Suez crisis. Apparently the French Air Force moved in to our dispersal.
