Arm. This was turned over to the Royal Air Force in 1957 and became “RAF Station Gan,” an airfield that would be used intermittently until 1971. The FAA airfield on Gan in theory could handle all aircraft in the British inventory, but it had short runways and larger bombers often crashed on landing. While troops hacked down the jungle on Gan and prepared the airstrips, Catalina and Sunderland flying boats began operating from the jetties on the north shore of Gan. The airfield's most important facilities were the big oil tanks built on Gan and on Hitaddu Island on the western edge of the atoll. These would by necessity be visible from far out at sea, but the islands’ low elevation made this inevitable, no matter where they were placed. The 1st Royal Marine Coast Defence Regiment provided the garrison troops, manning shore batteries and anti-aircraft guns on all six of the atoll's major islands. To facilitate the defence, the important islands on the western edge of the atoll would eventually be linked by a light railway across causeways built up between the islands, but this was not operational until much later in the war. Except for the Gan Channel, the other openings were permanently closed by anti-submarine nets. A pair of Australian refrigerator ships were requisitioned in Sydney, loaded with canned foods, several tons of American-made cigarettes and 5,200 gallons of rum, and stationed in the lagoon to re-supply British warships. These had Chinese crews and Australian civilian officers, and most of the work was handled by Maldivians hired from the local population. Addu Atoll has since become a major tourist destination, but British personnel assigned there in 1942 despised the post. Morale appears to have been very low among the garrison, and ships’ crews considered it a hardship post. Forty miles south of the equator, the islands are very hot and extremely humid. Gan had no recreational facilities and the local women were strictly off-limits. The Japanese were not aware of the base's existence during the April 1942 carrier raids in the Indian Ocean, and Somerville's fleet used it extensively. Later in the war, submarine reconnaissance established the base's existence, but by this point the Imperial Navy had no designs for a large-scale offensive in the Indian Ocean. The German submarine U-183 did torpedo the tanker British Loyalty in March 1944, making an impressive long-range shot from outside