One of the goals for the upcoming Egypt trip is to find spots where my grandfather spent time. Sadly, he didn’t leave a lot of clues to where he went. In his letters and diaries, he would mention he went to Cairo or Alexandria, usually to the Red Cross Clubs. But he wouldn’t give addresses on where those Clubs are located. He did mention he went to the famous Shepherd Hotel in Cairo but the hotel that stands in Cairo now isn’t the same hotel or the location when my grandfather went there. The original was destroyed in the Cairo fire in1952. I do have a picture of the Sphinx, sandbags covering the neck to protect it from damage, so I can get to that spot.
There were plenty of spaces set aside in Cairo for the military. They even put out a booklet called the Service Guide to Cairo that listed all the places and clubs for the military. The booklet comes with a map and you can buy it on Ebay for $40. That might be a purchase in my future.
If the British 8th Army had a headquarters, I aim to find it. The same goes for the air wing. In the book 8th Army, they talk about moving 8th Army headquarters closer to RAF Headquarters in Alexandria.
Landing Ground
One of my main goals was finding the airbases that the 57th Fighter group operated out of. I wanted to go there so much I tasked my researcher, Heather, with finding them. Her first pass at the morning military reports yielded her nothing. She vowed to keep looking.
I do have a map that shows every stop the 57th Fighter Group and the 64th Fighter Squadron made in their 38 month tour but the map appears to be a copy of a copy. When I enlarge the map, I just get bigger pixels and blobs but no clearer definition. The map shows the vicinity but no GPS accuracy.
I had searched the internet to no avail. I figured the cause was hopeless. Of course while I was searching for something else on Wikipedia, Wikipedia showed a link to a page of all the Landing Grounds. It turns out someone has made a page listing over 250 LGs used in North Africa. At least I think so. On my map I have names of locations for most of the LGs but a few are listed according to their number. I kind of have to work through which number corresponds to most names.
Wikipedia Discovery
Best of all, each Landing Ground entry on the Wikipedia comes with Latitude and Longitude coordinates so I am able to pinpoint the precise location of the Landing Ground on Google Maps. In quite a few cases, the entries list which Fighter Groups used which Landing Ground The first Landing Ground for my grandfather was LG 174, located about 10 miles south and west of El Alamein. Switching to terrain view on Google Maps of the location of LG 174, I can see absolutely nothing remains from 82 years ago. Although looking at my grandfather’s pictures, there wasn’t a lot there to begin with.
It might be hard to break away from tour group to see the three spots where the 64th Fighter Squad flew, but I aim to give it a shot.