UNITED NATIONS MIDDLE EAST
92 FLYPAST March 2018
each with gasoline and ignited them.
The patient survived an emergency
operation in El Arish.CIVIL WAR
After Mayer’s first three months at El
Arish, UNEF decided to re-post him
to the little-known United Nations
Observation Mission (UNYOM)
due to tensions in the North Yemen
civil war between royalist partisans
of the Mutawakklite Kingdom
and supporters of the Yemen Arab
Republic. Although he would have
liked to believe the transfer resulted
from dedication and diligence, he
knew pilot replacements occurred
because of a 65% repatriation rate due
to dysentery.
On July 4, 1963 he reported to
headquarters in the ancient walled city
of Sana’a, almost 1,100 miles southeast
of El Arish. Attached to newly formed
134 ATU and its 26-man staff, he
continued flying Otters and Caribous.
No longer a pinkie, the sun-burned
officer never forgot his first impression
as incense fragrance wafted over the
massive walls.
“As we approached one of the largest
gates, I was prompted to look carefully
at the ledge above it and not react
adversely. I saw three human heads,
each with a neat bullet hole in the
forehead and still smiling. We were
greeted by a Yemeni guard wearing a
curved dagger called a jambiya and
moved into a three-story structure
which housed the royal concubine. It
took three beers to stop my knees from
shaking and wash down the road dust.”
The Sana’a-based group supplied
observer outposts in Saudi Arabia as
well as Yemen and in these forlorn
rockpiles, personnel never left
their ‘tranquil anchorage’ without
inspecting shoes for scorpions or
spiders. Within the vast and arid
Rub al-Khali Desert of the southern
Arabian Peninsula, Najran enjoyed a
shaded 51°C and 820ft sand dunesspeckled with bleached camel bones.
Otters flew in pairs for safety reasons
and narrow gravel roads sided by
boulders served as landing areas.
Extreme temperature demanded
unorthodox techniques. Pilots
determined payloads by attempted
take-offs; if not airborne at 90kts, they
offloaded and tried again.
Besides tribesmen anxious to slice
the throats of anyone deemed enemy,
whether peacekeeper or goat herder,
pilots encountered a four-legged
hazard at Najran on the edge of
the Rub al-Khali. An abandoned
camel named Charlie enjoyed
snuffling along the airstrip when
Mayer returned from a 200ft Otter
reconnaissance patrol.
One low pass usually cleared the
cud-chewing collection of stomachs
away, but Mayer’s three runs did not
suffice. Perspiration-soaked and hands
blackened from plastic windings on
his control column, Mayer decided to
solve the stand-off.
“I began another pass with full
power, wheels at camel head height
and lining up with the centre of the
airplane an inch below the propeller
arc. After that one, Charlie headed
out across the Rub al-Kali and likely
setting a world speed record.”ONE MORE TIME
On March 6, 1964 Mayer kicked
the nosewheel of Sana’a Caribou
5322 on his final day and departed
across the Rub al-Khali’s degraded
hills and ancient riverbeds. Eligible
to return to Canada, he refused and
requested a three-month extension
in El Arish. The days passed quickly
and by April his logbook showed
more than 329 accident-free flying
hours. Mayer left Egypt
never expecting to
tread Sinai sand again.
He was wrong.
Although assigned to
boreal bush and Arctictundra with 102 Search and Rescue
Unit at Trenton, Ontario, Mayer’s
commanding officer decided to call
upon his prodigy’s desert talents once
more, albeit briefly.
Evidently, the request for another
UNEF Caribou had been passed to
Canada and Mayer happened to be
highly qualified on type. He climbed
into a replacement for El Arish with
a newly assigned pilot tasked with
Middle East duty. Techies had cut
a hole on the fuselage for a drift
meter and installed three additional
200-gallon fuel tanks to add a 20-hour
endurance. A galvanised tin pail came
along as a toilet.
After a North Atlantic crossing, and
then through Germany, Italy and
Greece, Mayer and Flt Lt Douglas
Scott set Caribou 5303’s parking
brake at El Arish. Before the insect
population realised their mobile
dining room had returned, Mayer
climbed the sloping floor of a Douglas
DC-3 and escaped to Marville,
France, where he boarded a Canadair
Yukon transport for Canada.
Home again, he never returned to El
Arish and retired from the RCAF in
November 1982 to become a federal
aviation inspector and enjoyed life
with Carol Joy, the wife he married
August 19, 1967.
As for 115 ATU staff at El Arish,
replacement pilots and techies carried
on until May 29, 1967, when Colonel
Gamal Abdul Nasser demanded their
withdrawal from Egypt before the
Six Day War erupted. After 11 years
preventing Egyptians and Israelis from
slaughtering each other, Canada’s
reward for services provided and 35
lives lost consisted of a screaming
mob.
The last Canadians on site watched
looters pour into the camp to fight,
burn and destroy every trace of UNEF.
“Like hyenas on a dead camel”,
concluded a Canadian colonel as he
closed the door of a Caribou.Below
Rugged and reliable, the
DHC-4 Caribou proved
to be an asset to the
United Nations forces.
This April 1961 view
shows an RCAF DHC-4
touching down. KEY