British Veterans Travel

Countdown to Take Off
06/10/2010 13:50

Very busy morning making final arrangements before take off in 19hours and 30minutes!

I will report back to the office daily with our whereabouts, activities, thoughts and photo's and my lovely team at home will update it all here to keep you informed and up to date.

You can also see our goings on by following us on Twitter where I will also send regular posts or "tweets" for those in the know! To see these tweets simply sign up for a twitter account if you don't already have one (much easier and quicker process than I imagined it to be!) and follow us on @britvetstravel to see live feeds from us while we are out and about and on the roads of Libya.

Looking forward to seeing you all bright and early tomorrow morning!

Regards,

Simon

Rex Willcox laying a cross on the grave of an unknown sailor of
the Merchant Navy in the Benghazi War Cemetary. The sailor
died on 31st May 1943. Rex was himself a Merchant Seaman
serving on a petroleum tanker in the Mediterranean which
docked in Benghazi to resupply the front line in the North Africa
Campaign.

We drove from seeing the classical Greek city of Cyrene (outstanding) to Tobruk in the rain! As we entered Tobruk we stopped at the Knightsbridge Cemetery where it had rained for the first time in 4 years. As a result the place was a quagmire, all clinging red mud and running water. However, we still managed to find a grave of a 1st The Royal Dragoons - 2nd Lt RJ Peek, died 23 June 1942 aged 21. Photo shows Walter Carey placing a cross at his grave. Mr Carey was not put off by the rare conditions caused by the rain and struggled through the mud to lay the cross at the grave of a colleague.

On the way to the Battlefields of Gazala and Sidi Rezegh Richard Scott and Bill Bailey Junior in high spirits exploring a defensive position dug into a rock as part of the Tobruk Defensive Line.

Feragh Mahmoud Schweir, joined the Libyan Arab Force in 1940 and was trained by the British in Cairo. He deployed as part of the 8th Army into Tobruk and was immediately caught in the siege of the town with the Australians who were defending it. Feragh, who's son is the Head of Tourism Security, is 91 years old, still drives and recently remarried! He served alongside the Allies until the defeat of Rommel in 1943 when he retired from the Army to work in Tobruk. He has vivid memories of the war and still remembers his regimental number - in English. He was awarded the Victory Medal, the 39-45 Star and the Africa Star by the British together with a Libyan Arab Force medal.

The photo shows from Left to Right: Walter Carey, Richard Scott, Feragh Mahmoud Schweir, Mr Schweir Junior, Bill Bailey and Rex Willcox.

We visited a Berber underground house 80kms to the south of Tripoli tonight - fascinating place originally dug in 1666 and has been occupied by the same family since then (300+ years). There is a central open air courtyard off which have been dug a series of 'rooms', one for each branch of the extended family - only change is the addition of electricity. We had a meal there which was traditional Berber - a mutton dish with bread and lentils which was very spicy. The musician played a form of bagpipes accompanied by two drummers.

This photo is from Leptis Magna, one of the finest Roman ruins in the world; about 120 kms east of Tripoli, Leptis sits on the coast with its own port. Here we see Rex Willcox on the stage of the Theatre addressing the audience in an appeal for applause! Leptis also has a fantastically preserved Amphitheatre with a capacity of 16,000 people which is so awesome that you can actually imagine the carnage taking place down below you. Behind the Amphitheatre are the remains of the Circus - the chariot racing course - which sits alongside the beach. Wonderful place.