First photo is main gate in to Mukarious Camp.
Second photo with diagram showing the route we took.
The story I am about to tell is about when we, 14 platoon of D Coy The 1st Northamptonshire Reg, were on a night patrol. Now where do I start, yes ok I will start where we are in our tents getting ready, checking our guns and rifles, filling our magazines with rounds (bullets), filling our water bottles, making sure we have got all our things in order, when we have done all that we will assemble down at the main gate (shown on Picture A). When we are all ready we leave out the main gate, we were ready to go, but the radio operator had not arrived yet, at last he came so off we went, left main gate (marked A on diagram) got to (B) edge of airfield which runs from our right to left, crossed over airfield to (C) now we turn left 90 degrees heading towards (D) the end of airfield. Now this is where it gets a bit interesting, its a cool night, no moon, very dark so you can see the stars, but you can not see much in front of you, I am at the end of the column looking back now and again to make sure no one is following us, we are now about half way between (C) and (D. - the end of the airfield), a light breeze of air came from the right, and I could hear voices in Arabic. What? - I said to myself, and I heard it again so I said to John Layton who was in front of me to pass the information on so he did, so we all stopped. Our officer Lt D. Fearnley came to me and asked what's up I said I heard voices coming from the right, but they could not hear a thing. I said there are, so I said - when I say listen, stop breathing and open your mouth, as a light breeze was coming from the right again I could hear the voices - now I said. Yes one said he could hear the voices after a while many of them could, it was at this time the radio operator said his radio was not working, so what we did now was continue to the end of airfield (D) turned left 90 degrees from this side of airfield to the other side of airfield (E).
Now we are at position (E), talking very very quietly about what to do about the radio not working, then from position (F), which is in a straight line from (D) (E) to (F), was the sound of machine gun and rifle fire directed at Mukarious Camp, then from Mukarious Camp came a sound I will never forget Boom--Boom--Boom, the ground shook. I have never been so frightened in all my life before or after, how other soldiers reacted I do not remember, myself I hit the ground, I felt like an animal, I was digging the ground with my hands, after a few seconds I was fine, my head was clear and I was calm. Now the thing is where are the mortars, or what has been fired, going to land, we have no radio to let the Mukarious Camp know where we are. I think it was Loffty (surname I think Kempster) who said count to 16 and then the mortars will miss us, he worked in a cinema and had seen many war films, some of us were counting fast and some slow, then all of a sudden again Boom--Boom--Boom they landed over the other side of airfield between (C)and (D) - in the hills great Big Balls of Fire, Red Orange Yellow rose high up in the air, I can see it now, it lit the whole airfield up, after a time it became dark again as the colours from the explosion faded away, at the same time the machine gun and rifles were firing at Mukarious Camp again from (F).
We are still at position (E), now we are told we are going to attack the position (F) where the firing is coming from, I remember having a few words with our section Cpl (I am so sorry I do not remember his name I remember him very well), before we started off, we did not get very far because someone said what if Mukarious Camp thinks we are more Arabs firing at the camp, and send some mortars our way. So back to (E), two soldiers volunteered to make it back to Mukarious Camp to let them know our situation, but were refused permission, after a time our officer Lt D. Fearnley said this is what we are going to do - he will fire a flare gun up in the air, then we will get in a single file, and follow him back to Mukarious Camp, he fired the flare gun when the flare died out and it was dark again, we got ready and we followed him, we are now going from (E) to (B), it's quite a long way, when we get to (B) we will turn right 90 degrees to (A) which is the main gate, we are now going towards the main gate. I could see Brenguns, Rifles and other weapons all pointing at us, a loud voice says HALT - we did, we were then told to approach camp one at a time to be recognized which we did and were let in. We were on many day and night patrols but that's the one I remember the most.
Some of the names I remember who were on the night patrol are John Layton, Brian Gruby (Shorty), Percy Parker, Loffty (I think his surname is Kempster) Don Derbyshire, Flash Surname Gyps, Samy Winters, Dave Bently, Jeff Lyn, Chris Kettering, Dug Pratt, Ken I (do not know his surname,) I can see all the faces of others but I can not remember their names.
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