WW2 Victory Dinner Menu Card 1945 - Prisoners of War POW Ephemera

A scarce menu card from the Sergeants' Mess of 382 P.O.W. Camp, El Daba dated 20th August 1945. The Members of the mess are listed opposite a sumptuous meal menu. Probably members of the corps of Military Police. Circa 15cm x 12cm.

El Daba was an RAF base in Egypt, which suggests it was used by the British as a POW camp for captured German and Italian soldiers and airmen. It is about 180 km West of Alexandria by road. RAF El Daba (otherwise Desert Landing Ground 105) is a former Royal Air Force military airfield located approximately 4.6 kilometres south-southeast of the village. El Daba was a pre–World War II airfield, one of a number created in the Western Desert of Egypt after the Munich Crisis of the late 1930s. During World War II, it was used as a military airfield by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces during the North African Campaign against Axis forces, and by the Luftwaffe.

Royal Air Force Squadrons which used the airfield between 1939 and 1942 were No's 30, 33, 45, 73, 113, 211.

USAAF Ninth Air Force units which used the airfield were:
57th Fighter Group, 5–8 November 1942, P-40 Warhawk

After the war, El Daba appears to have been closed about 1946. Today, the area is heavily used by agriculture. There is no evidence of the airfield's existence.

Code: 61462