RAF BASES IN EGYPT WW2

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Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 634

Time for a quick confession! I'm a Librarian :eek: & have just had a query from a customer passed to me which has me stumped - Seems his brother?/uncle? was killed during the war whilst flying from "El Russ"? an RAF? base in Egypt - have tried a few Ref books & Google to no avail - the latter does bring up a couple for refs to 138 Squadron being based there, but the link is to a travel site whre it appears to have been used as part of a keyword block :mad:

The chap asking would be grateful for any info - especially the location of this base - I am hoping one of the knowledgable forum members here will have come across this base mentioned somewhere - I will try to find out more about his relative in the meantime

Original post

Member for

19 years 1 month

Posts: 9

" El Russ"

You should try a website called "RAF Commands 1939-1945" which has a forum called General questions. The people there are most knowledgable.
You should be willing to give the name, date of death, and any other details to help with any research the forum members are willing to do.
Cheers, karl Kj.

Member for

19 years 10 months

Posts: 196

You should try a website called "RAF Commands 1939-1945" which has a forum called General questions. The people there are most knowledgable.
You should be willing to give the name, date of death, and any other details to help with any research the forum members are willing to do.
Cheers, karl Kj.

http://www.rafcommands.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi :)

Cheers
Rob...

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 565

Time for a quick confession! I'm a Librarian :eek: & have just had a query from a customer passed to me which has me stumped - Seems his brother?/uncle? was killed during the war whilst flying from "El Russ"? an RAF? base in Egypt - have tried a few Ref books & Google to no avail - the latter does bring up a couple for refs to 138 Squadron being based there, but the link is to a travel site whre it appears to have been used as part of a keyword block :mad:

The chap asking would be grateful for any info - especially the location of this base - I am hoping one of the knowledgable forum members here will have come across this base mentioned somewhere - I will try to find out more about his relative in the meantime

Nick,

I have been through my copy of "RAF Squadrons" which has detailed maps of bases in the Med area and can find no mention of an "El Russ" or anything resembling that. Lots of unnamed LGs though.

Similarly, the brief history of 138 Sqn, also in the same book, makes no mention of it. Seems all of 138's service has been in the UK, except for a short detachment to Luqa around 1941.

Sorry can't be more helpful.

BR

Laurie.

Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 634

Thanks!

Thanks for the quick replies - have posted on the other forum as suggested - Afraid I have no more infor at this stage - I was hoping to try to get some further details when I ring him with any news - He seemed most keen to know where this "base" was & did mumble something about the relative being involved in clandestine flights!

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 6,968

Nick.

It might be helpful if you could obtain the name of the casualty and check it with the CWGC website. That will then give a clear indication of where the casualty is buried or commemorated.

I can find no regerence to 'El Russ' but a regular target for Middle East crews was ELEFSIS in Greece. This was also known as ELEVSIS and ELEUSIS. I know 37 Squadron attacked this target several times. Might that be the subject and cause of some confusion?

Regards,

kev35