M/Sgt Bill Hahn

In my search for other perspectives of what happened in the Western Desert, I came across the self published memoir of Master Sergeant Bill Hahn. And by came across I mean it was readily available on the 57th Fighter Group website.

Hahn joined up even before Pearl Harbor and was an original member of the 57th Fighter Group, although he was a member of the 65th Fighter Squadron, a Fighting Cock instead of a Black Scorpion. He has some interesting anecdotes including watching one of the pilots, Eugene Bradley, die in a crash while training at Windsor Locks field in Connecticut. Windsor Locks is currently known as Bradley Airfield in his honor.

Hahn was in for the duration, although I’ve only read about his experiences in the desert in preparation for Alamein and Egypt. He was an enlisted man so he moved in different circles that my grandfather. One of the things that always strikes me as odd is this firm line between enlisted and officer in the military. I know it’s in the regulations they don’t fraternize but in a lot of cases, they seem like they are in two different worlds. My grandfather was always talking about nights in the officers clubs, but he never mentions the enlisted men’s club. 

The thing that really brings this home to me is that in my grandfather’s diaries, he has a list of every officer he ever worked with, complete with military number and home addresses. He doesn’t list a single enlisted man. Which is a real pain in the ass because I would really like to track down Sergeant Jack Sinclair, one of the exceptions to the no enlisted men rule. In the letters my grandfather wrote, he would frequently talk about Sinclair drawing up cartoons to send to my father and my uncle. It was a reoccurring theme, the cartoons. No listing for Sinclair in the address book.

I especially like Hahn’s descriptions of life in the desert. They had no water, given a gallon a day for all their needs. They would save up so they could bathe every four days. Flies were everywhere. Dust was everywhere. Food was execrable, some of it dating to the end of the First World War. The daily ration mostly comprised of Hard Tack, Bully Beef, and the occasional salted fish. Plenty of gasoline and bombs. Not a lot of food.

Tour Leader Richard

I received an email from the leader of the tour to Egypt. He wanted to know if i was still going to be filming on the tour. Well, that’s kind of a foolish question. I think his main aim was to make sure I wasn’t going to disturb the other people on the tour, a valid concern knowing me as well as I do.

I assured him that I was going to be filming but I would not interfere with his group. I also told him about my need to stop in some random spots in the deserts to see if I could find the Landing Grounds my grandfather operated out of. He said he would look into it.

He also agreed to allow me to record him during some of his lectures, which I thought he would never agree to. That is going to be disruptive. But he has his owner social media to appease and wants some audio for that. I said I would help him make some Instagram reels while we are in the desert.

Siwa Oasis

Speaking of the desert, one of the locations we visit on our trip is the Siwa Oasis, home to Cleopatra’s pool. What this has to do with a tour of Egyptian battlefields, I have no idea. It does anchor the southern end of the Qattara depression, but it is a six hour drive from El Alamein to see the oracle Alexander the Great saw. In a trip as quick as this to see a lot of different places, I think our time could be better served closer to the front. I’m putting this complaint out there now so when I get back from Siwa and exclaim about the greatness of the Siwa detour, you can point me to this section. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be displeased about a 12 hour trip to ride 4×4’s in the desert up some sand dunes.

Chanel Number 5

Every time we would visit my Great-Aunt Ida at her San Francisco home, you could see a gift my grandfather sent to his sister from Paris. Sitting on a tray on her bureau with other knickknacks was a small distinctive bottle of Chanel Number 5. Aunt Ida had sealed the top with paraffin years ago to keep the perfume from evaporating. She loved that gift and you could see it right up until the day she died.

When she passed, I decided the bottle was one of the things I wanted from the estate to remember her by. The bottle was s solid connection to her because I could look at the bottle and it’s remaining quarter inch of perfumer and remember the story she told about it and my grandfather. The bottle sat in my medicine chest for decades in my house in Los Angeles. I pondered selling it on one occasion, seventy year old perfume can be valuable, but I opted to keep it. 

I went to look for the bottle upon on reading of my grandfather’s description of the purchase of the bottle and could not find it. I hope the bottle still lives in one of the boxes of junk I have in the garage. Fingers crossed.

My grandfather’s side of the story came from his letters. He was in Paris on leave at the end of the war and bought bottles for my grandmother, my grandfather’s mother, and Ida. The perfume saga lasted a few letters as my grandfather talked about shipping the perfume and then multiple letters asking if the perfume had arrived. There is a full circle from my grandfather purchasing the Chanel to me losing it in the garage.

Ida the Letter Writer

This brings up one last thing the letters showed me. Growing up, my Aunt Ida was always on to me about writing her letters. As in, “Why don’t you write me?” I was terrible at correspondence. She even stopped speaking to me for years because I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles without telling her. Well, guess what? Turns out my Aunt Ida was terrible at correspondence, too. My grandfather frequently complains in his letters about the fact he has not received any letters from his sister. She thought she was getting away without writing him by sending him copies of the Boston Globe instead of a personal letter. My grandfather did love getting the newspaper to get news of home, but I think on occasion he wanted a letter from his sister more.